After dealing with all five people, the whole morning was basically wasted.
The situation mentioned by the man in the yellow shirt is becoming a reality little by little - in order to compete for the opportunity to stay in Qingshan Town, candidates are beginning to attack each other. This situation even appears in front of hotels and teahouses.
If it weren't for one of the rules that "no interference in the daily life of villagers", Xia Fan suspected that this group of people would regard the store as a place of fighting.
"Fortunately, they won't cause trouble in the teahouse," Wei Wushuang said with lingering fear, "It seems that the examiner will be merciful."
"That may not be the case." Xia Fan shook his head.
"Brother Xia, why did you say this?" He asked in surprise, "The exam rules clearly state that candidates are not allowed to-"
"You are not allowed to interfere with the lives of villagers, but there is no rule against destroying hotels and teahouses."
"This..." Wei Wushuang found it difficult to turn around.
"Think about it," Xia Fan lowered his voice, "If you make trouble in a hotel outside and smash one or two tables and chairs, what will the store do?"
"As long as you lose money, unless the money is not enough-" He himself was stunned at this point.
"That's right." Xia Fan slightly raised the corner of his mouth, "If you can compensate enough, the store owner will probably want you to smash all the old tables, and the government will not deal with such a trivial matter. In Qingshan Town, it would be equivalent to making trouble. It’s not a violation, it’s only a violation if you don’t have money to compensate.”
Wei Wushuang was speechless for a long time.
Xia Fan did not continue speaking. He knew that with the other person's knowledge, he would be able to imagine what this meant.
There are only two reasons why no one is taking action now.
First, everyone is not aware of this yet, and second, the money in hand is not enough.
If you don't realize it now, it doesn't mean that no one will realize it in the next few days; similarly, just because there isn't enough money now, doesn't mean that it will be the same in the next few days. As candidates continue to be eliminated, the money will gradually concentrate until a "giant" is formed. This trend is almost inevitable.
By the last day or two, I am afraid that the remaining candidates will have a lot of money, and even if they smash a few tables or the bed in the hotel room, they can still afford compensation.
Faced with the inevitable lack of spiritual fire, obtaining it from other candidates became their only choice. Xia Fan can imagine what will happen when he closes his eyes - no matter day or night, whether in a teahouse or a hotel room, the entire Qingshan Town will become a hunting ground. It can be said that whoever can gather more money can completely take the initiative.
Wei Wushuang's expression changed.
This development of the situation is obviously the worst one for him.
In other words, it is the worst kind for every candidate.
Trust and cooperation will no longer exist, and even those improvised gangs must always be wary of attacks from within - after all, the examiner wants a jar full of spiritual fire, and does not care where the jar comes from.
After handing over to Xia Fan, the fellow villager left with a look of despair.
He found a table on the second floor of the teahouse and sat down, ordered something to eat, and watched the situation at the other end of the hotel while eating.
At this moment, the core content of Shikao seems to have surfaced.
But Xia Fan still has many doubts in his heart.
No matter which way you look at it, this rule is too beneficial to the disciples of the aristocratic family. Compared to a temporary gang, they are undoubtedly much more stable internally. What's more, the quota allocation may have been determined before the exam. Only a small number of people need to concentrate on accompanying the exam to achieve overall success. maximum profit.
Although connections and family background are also part of strength, in this case, the selected alchemists will also have family backgrounds. The Qiwang royal family should not expect to see such a result.
Of course, Shikao's political purpose is not what he needs to think about now - no matter what the above considerations are, it has nothing to do with him. His current top priority is to get a bottle of spiritual fire as soon as possible to ensure his qualifications.
…
At midnight, it was dark outside.
Xia Fan stopped practicing Qi Entrainment and sighed slightly. It's already this time, but the fox demon still hasn't appeared, which most likely confirms his guess - she won't come again.
With a trace of regret, he began to prepare for tonight's business. Shikao is allowed to bring two sets of clothes, one is a common burqa, and the other is a night uniform made by himself. Different from the loose clothing popular in this era, the latter completely followed the principle of simplicity and ease of use. It had no buttons, the sleeves, body and hat were integrated, and a layer of cowhide was sewn on the wrists, elbows and chest to improve durability.
The clothes are not pure black, but navy blue fabric - in theory, the color that is most suitable for blending into the night is dark purple, but due to the dye level, he can only settle for the second best and choose the less rare dark blue. As for black... it looks most like the night, but once it is in a light place, a moving "shadow" can easily attract attention, and the hiding effect is not even as good as gray.
Taking a deep breath, Xia Fan climbed out of the window and climbed toward the second floor against the wall.
Unlike the smooth concrete walls, the outer edge of the wooden house has many protruding wedges, which are naturally suitable for climbing. Even a dabbler like him can easily climb several floors.
He had spent the whole afternoon observing the residences and movements of the disciples of the aristocratic family, and finally selected a house closest to his residence as the target of the operation.
Nowadays, the spiritual fire collection area is occupied by the Fei family, Luo family, and Wei family in turns. The only ones who can definitely obtain the spiritual fire are these three families.
And Xia Fan's plan was to steal a bottle of the source of spiritual fire from them!
Although it is unclear who lives inside, people wearing blue robes from the Luo family have been in and out of this house many times, and they are all highly vigilant and will look around before entering the door. Considering that the disciples of the aristocratic family might also be attacked, Xia Fan speculated that the other party's response should be to collect the spiritual fire and keep it under centralized care, rather than handing it over to individuals to carry.
At the same time, he also noticed that the corridor outside this house connected a total of six rooms, four of which were rented by the Luo family. If someone wants to break through head-on, with just a greeting, the Luo family can quickly occupy the corridor and form an insurmountable line of defense.
The family may not even know the content of the exam, let alone know the layout of Qingshan Town in advance. This is undoubtedly something they came up with based on the on-site situation.
Occupying a high corner of the hotel, taking care of each other, making it easy to defend but difficult to attack. It must be said that the disciples of the aristocratic family are indeed more sophisticated in their thinking than most of their peers.
But Xia Fan had no intention of confronting him head-on from the beginning.
He moved little by little to the edge of the window of the house, untied the cloth belt around his waist with one hand, wrapped it around the protruding eaves beam, and fixed himself in the air. At the same time, he took out a hairpin and pierced the window paper from the corner. He gently reached into the house.
This special hairpin is thin at the front and thick at the back, and is hollow inside. Through it, you can barely see what's going on in the house. Xia Fan glanced around and found that the Luo family had specially arranged for two people to keep vigil, which further confirmed his suspicion.
Without further ado, he took out the medical bag, filled a hairpin with a mixture of herbs, lit it with a fire, and carefully blew air into it.
This herbal medicine, made from Datura flowers, Astragalus, night peonies, magic mushrooms and winter ferns, is his master's proud work. It is said to be hard to buy and must not be spread easily. When they are lit, the smoke that emerges is soft and elegant, colorless and odorless. Those who smell it will only feel extremely peaceful and have an analgesic and tranquilizing effect. If you smell it for a long time, you will unconsciously fall into a drowsiness and will not wake up until dawn. Its hypnotic effect is far better than those sweat-inducing medicines and Baibuduo on the black market.
Xia Fan has also tested it several times himself, and it turns out that this is probably one of the few things that his master did not brag about - even an alchemist would find it difficult to detect its existence, and even the master did not do it before being knocked unconscious by his medicine. No reaction at all, and both of them slept soundly afterwards.
This is also his biggest reliance on this plan. Without this, he would never have dared to spend so much money on the first day.
In fact, there were only a handful of medicinal materials in Xia Fan's medicine bag related to alchemy, and most of them were medicines for wounds, poisons, and antidotes. After following the master for more than ten years, he didn't learn much about alchemy. He has achieved some success in his skills.
It can be seen from this that Shaogang faces the front, and only when he is alive can he have output, which is the truth no matter where he is.
After blowing for about half an hour, there was no sound in the house.
Although the Luo family has arranged for someone to keep vigil, after all, they are still teenagers, and it is unrealistic to ask them to stay at the door with high concentration for several hours. The two of them were already dozing off before Xia Fan lit the incense, and Mi Xiang just gave them a little push.
Xia Fan opened the window pin with ease, covered his mouth and nose with a piece of wet cloth, turned over and entered the house.
This wing was much larger than the one he rented, and a gauze curtain was used to separate the inner and outer rooms. The outside one was the living room, and the one in the back was the bedroom.
He opened the gauze curtain and searched around gently, and soon found the target of his trip.
As he expected, the Luo family collected all the collected spiritual fires here and hid them under the bed in a very uncreative manner. By the dim candlelight in the outer room, he could see at least twenty porcelain bottles stuffed under the bed, with a string tied to the mouth of each bottle.
This is probably the Luo family's last defense method, right
Although it is not clear where the ropes are connected, in all likelihood, as long as the bottle is moved, the mechanism connected to the ropes will be triggered. Xia Fan guessed that the end was probably a bell or something like that, which could immediately alert the Luo family that their bedroom had been invaded.
Of course, this does not trouble him at all. After all, he has studied mathematics, physics and chemistry, and he is not afraid of traveling all over the world. Cut two strips of cloth from a corner of the bed sheet, roll them into a rope shape using local materials, and then tie the two strips of cloth separately between the string and the bed frame according to the parallelogram law of force so that the direction of the resultant force is consistent with the rope. After completing these preparations, Xia Fan cut off the string.
The rope that lost its restraint shrank back slightly, but was quickly pulled by the taut cloth and maintained in its original position.
At this point, there is no obstacle to taking out the porcelain bottle.
After confirming that the bottle contained indeed the source of spiritual fire, Xia Fan tied it behind his back, walked back to the window, and returned to his cabin along the wall again.
It wasn't until his feet landed that he breathed a sigh of relief.
The whole process went surprisingly smoothly, from departure to completion in just over an hour.
"Should I say it's unexpected that alchemists are good at sneaking around, or is it natural?"
However, the next moment, a voice came unexpectedly from behind, shocking him into a cold sweat!