A proposal – it sounded all grand and all, but in the end, it boiled down to an inventory inspection.

  At first, Yu Zhiye honestly thought someone possessed some interesting skill that can detect what he carried somehow, but it turns out…

  It was simply a game of self-reporting.

  That’s right. As the suspect voted on by the masses, he must self-report what’s in his own inventory.

  A sample of what he reported must be shown.

  Right after, he will receive various supplies that won’t stack and must show they can fit in his inventory to prove he had nothing to hide.

  Obviously, there were lots of loopholes to work around here.

  Earlier, Yu Zhiye already made a trip to unload most of stuff to open space for his sand gathering and now, he was only carrying his dinner mode loadout…

  There wasn’t much to hide except the sandfish.

  Once he passed that slot off as his fishing rod that everybody knows he has, everything else fit into his inventory snugly.

  Sweet Stars above, the ugly face of the four-eyes was really a sight to admire, and that face got even more ugly when he shamelessly refused to return the supplies that got handed over!

  “Since you slandered me with your baseless accusations, it’s only fair that you compensate me!”

  “Otherwise, the world will become hell if you can just forcefully invade the privacy of everybody here with no consequences!”

  There was no way for the four-eyes to argue back, especially since there was no way to force others to take back out the given supplies!

  Even the power of the masses won’t work because Yu Zhiye wasn’t a pushover.

  Not only did he own their exploration safety line, there’s even a party backing him up!

  Untouchable! For now, at least.

  So, Kwan Minhwoo could only eat this loss and return to the leadership circle with a dark face.

  “Boss… I noticed that yellow-faced monkey goes to the stalls out back a lot. Should I…”

  His lackey’s reminder awakened a sneer on Kwan Minhwoo’s face.

  “Check it when he’s not around. If you find anything, you know what to do.”

  “Jiejiejie, leave it to me, boss.”

  Back to the other side, Yu Zhiye had no clue about what the villains were planning, but even if he did, he wouldn’t care.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Want to find his private stash in the restroom? What a joke!

  He’ll present to them the god of detectives award if they can find anything! Haha.

  “Steve, you really one-upped them this time. Bwahahaha!”

  “Umu. Umu.”

  Yu Zhiye looked at the uncle-niece duo who were all smiles besides him and humbly thanked them. “I couldn’t have done it without you two.”

  Jack waved off his thanks. “Hey, we didn’t do much. I just can’t stand their attitude towards you. Besides, we’re grasshoppers on the same rope now, ain’t that right?”

  “Umu. Umu!” Xiao Shuling agrees.jpg!

  Yu Zhiye smiled. Well, these two were really easy to get along with. But kindness must not be taken for granted.

  A can of beer appeared in his hand and he handed it over.

  “Jack, I don’t drink. You?”

  Jack wasn’t polite and accepted the can. “Nice. I’ll have a couple sips before my nap then.”

  Miss Highschooler quickly jumped out. “Uncle! Drinking is bad for your health!”

  “Little missy, what do you know. Bwahahaha!”

  Xiao Shuling pouted in disapproval and glared at the culprit.

  Yu Zhiye shrugged and gave her a pat on the head. “I’ll try to get you some apples tomorrow.”

  The young lady immediately forgot all about her uncle’s health.

  “Ehehe Remember what you promise, big brother”

  Xiao Shuling didn’t get bribed at all.jpg.

  “Aight, little missy. Go. Off to bed you go. Staying up late isn’t good for your health.”

  “Eih! Then little Ling’er will see uncle and big brother tomorrow nighty night”

  The little girl skippidy-skipped away to the lady’s room, leaving the two men on night patrol duty.

  Shhk. Jack popped open the beer can and casually asked, “First watch again, Steve?”

  “Yep.” Yu Zhiye watched the man chug more than just a sip and warned, “Take it slowly. I’m gonna go drop off the water and chips I just earned in my private stash.”

  “Aight. Don’t worry, Steve. My tolerance is quite high. I won’t drop so easily. Bwahaha...”

  “Mm. Be right back.”

  Yu Zhiye went through the familiar routine and was soon back in his hideout.

  It didn’t take long to drop off his little bit of gain. It honestly wasn’t anything to worth celebrating.

  What was worthy of celebration was the fact that his wood generator was done cooking!

  “Time sure does fly when you’re socializing…”

  There was no need for more words. Yu Zhiye simply packed the wood and transferred it to the shed.

  But this time, he kept a log on hand and went over to his new cooking pit.

  “Anyways, I still won’t have enough cobblestone for the observatory tomorrow. So I might as well try this out to see how magical it is.”

  The log got tossed in...

  For a breath, nothing happened. But suddenly, cinders sparked out from below the log and not even a breath later, the entire log was on fire!

  “Cool. Cool. It takes a bit for the fire to start, but once it gets going, it’s pretty strong. Now, I guess I just have to lay what I need to cook on this grill?”

  A palm-sized sandfish soon got laid atop the grill.

  Sizzle. Sizzle… Yu Zhiye could literally hear that fish getting roasted.

  Now, he should worry if it’ll get burnt! But more importantly…

  “How long does it take for the ingredient purification effect to kick in? Instantly? Or is there any other signs?”

  Yu Zhiye wasn’t quite sure, but this was just a simple experiment anyways. If the fish goes to waste, so be it.

  “I’ll come check on it every now and then during the night patrol. See how it goes. Now, just go restart the wood generator first.”

  Do as he says.

  Yu Zhiye headed over to the core control and re-entered base management mode.

  Another point of core energy quickly got invested into the fish barrel, but just when Yu Zhiye was about to exit god-mode, he noticed something odd.

  His consciousness homed in on the fish grilling on the rack and was shocked by what he saw!

  “There’s... black mist seeping out from the fish?!”

  The fish still looked raw as sashimi. So whatever that was, it was definitely not smoke from getting burnt.

  “It can’t be that the fish here is polluted by who knows what, right?”

  Uwah… that was quite terrifying to think about.

  Fortunately, his cheat comes with plot-armor purification.

  As for how well it worked? Who knows.

  At least, there shouldn’t be any problem selling the fish to guinea pigs once shit hits the fan, right?

  Yu Zhiye is a very conscientious businessman.jpg. Mwahahaha!