After reporting to Fei Si, he received Meng Kui’s permission and hurried back to Cloud Market.

Upon seeing Zhu Xuanji and Song Fuli again, he first sent a voice transmission to the former: “Lord Zhu, Fire Persimmon Immortal City and Lava Immortal Palace are currently under siege. We must unite and work together to overcome this difficulty.”

“Currently, we still need the power of Song Fuli’s group to have a better chance of resisting the beast tide and surviving this crisis.”

“I have obtained authorization from Lord Meng Kui and can discuss compensation matters with Song Fuli.”

“I’m just afraid this person will ask for an exorbitant price… Alas, our side is indeed in a passive situation.”

“Thus, I hope Lord Zhu, for the sake of being fellow citizens of Southern Bean Country, will lend a hand!”

Zhu Xuanji nodded and quickly replied with a voice transmission: “I and Meng Kui are officials in the same court, essentially one body. Now that we are in the same boat, we should certainly contribute.”

“Don’t worry, I will also participate in the discussion. I also have the right to make some decisions regarding the royal family’s possessions.”

Whether it was his own position or the secret verbal agreement just now, Zhu Xuanji actively participated in the negotiation.

With Zhu Xuanji’s support, Fei Si secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

He invited Song Fuli to the City Lord’s mansion and also invited Zhu Xuanji to accompany him to start a negotiation.

It was clearly impossible to trace the stolen treasures and return them to Cloud Merchant within two days.

The City Lord’s mansion also wanted to unite with Cloud Merchant to resist the beast tide.

To show sincerity, they simply used the method of negotiating compensation to win over Song Fuli.

The negotiation was difficult, with the three parties entangled, and the situation was quite complex.

On the surface, Zhu Xuanji and Fei Si were together, joining forces to discuss with Song Fuli.

In private, Zhu Xuanji and Song Fuli also had a tacit understanding, both wanting the City Lord’s mansion to bleed more.

Two hours later, this compensation negotiation finally yielded results.

Song Fuli’s hearty laughter came from the reception hall.

Fei Si’s face was extremely unsightly. The City Lord’s mansion paid a huge price, and he almost failed to hold the bottom line that Meng Kui had given him.

Zhu Xuanji wiped the sweat from his forehead. He also represented the Southern Bean Royal Family and paid a lot.

Song Fuli made a huge profit!

He could not only legitimately participate in the competition for Lava Immortal Palace but also, taking advantage of the beast tide, made the City Lord’s mansion and the Southern Bean Royal Family pay high fees in exchange for their assistance.

After calculation, not only was the hole left by the stolen treasures completely filled, but he also made a huge profit!

The three parties finalized the details and quickly signed the contract.

A knock on the door sounded, and a cultivator from the City Lord’s mansion came to report.

Coming to report at this time meant a major event had occurred.

Fei Si thought there was a problem with the city’s defense and quickly let his subordinate in, but then he heard about “warehouse guard corruption and dereliction of duty.”

It turned out that when the beast attacked the city and Fire Persimmon Immortal City passively defended, Fei Si thought of mobilizing fire persimmons to mass-produce explosives as a hidden trump card in times of crisis.

As a result, when his subordinate went to the warehouse to retrieve fire persimmons, they found that a massive amount of fire persimmons had disappeared!

Since the harvest during the Fire Persimmon Festival, the warehouse had been sealed, and only authorized personnel could enter and exit.

Thus, the finger pointed directly at the official managing the warehouse.

If it wasn’t him who embezzled, who else could it be?

This immediately infuriated Fei Si.

“Good, good, good, excellent indeed!”

“At this critical juncture, corruption and embezzlement are truly a credit to my City Lord’s mansion.”

Fei Si’s face turned pale with anger.

He regretted summoning his subordinate and exposing this matter to Zhu Xuanji and Song Fuli.

Especially Song Fuli, who once again cast a distrustful gaze.

“I must have lost my head, to be so foolish as to handle official business in front of outsiders!”

“Alas…”

Fei Si sighed. The negotiation just now had truly racked his brains and exhausted his words, leaving his mind not in a good state.

At this point, he was instead fortunate that they had just finalized the compensation and joint plan and signed the contract. Otherwise, Song Fuli might have even more contempt for the City Lord’s mansion due to this incident and demand an even higher price.

Since things had come to this, in order to salvage his reputation, Fei Si simply ordered: “Bring that corrupt minor official!”

Soon, the minor official was escorted and knelt before Fei Si and the other two Golden Core cultivators.

“Speak! How did you embezzle! What method did you use to falsify the formation records? And who did you sell that batch of fire persimmons to?!” Fei Si roared.

The Foundation Establishment level warehouse manager was so scared that he wet himself and wailed: “My lord, Lord Fei Si, please understand!”

“This humble one is wronged, this humble one has not embezzled at all.”

“Those fire persimmons, since they were harvested during the festival, were directly sent to the warehouse through the teleportation formation.”

“This humble one is only responsible for inspecting, and does not dare to touch them at all.”

Fei Si’s gaze was sharp: “Still trying to argue!”

“Then you checked multiple times, why did you only discover the massive shortage today when the fire persimmons were needed?”

The minor official cried and shed tears: “Although this humble one inspects daily, I only check the surrounding exterior and did not find that the fire persimmon pile had been hollowed out!”

“This humble one is negligent in inspection, extremely negligent, this is indeed my fault!”

“But this humble one truly did not embezzle, I swear to heaven, I really did not touch a single fire persimmon.”

The minor official cried and pleaded, his emotions genuine.

“Good, good, good, you’re good at avoiding the important and dwelling on the trivial. You must have anticipated this and have been studying our country’s laws all day?” Fei Si’s face was gloomy, revealing killing intent.

Zhu Xuanji sighed lightly. He could see that Fei Si wanted to cut through the chaos quickly to kill a chicken to warn the monkeys and salvage the City Lord’s mansion’s reputation.

But this was too hasty.

Zhu Xuanji couldn’t stand by and rose to his feet: “I just used a technique to observe, and this person is not lying.”

“How many fire persimmons were lost?”

Fei Si’s face was gloomy, staring at Zhu Xuanji with an eagle-like gaze.

The two stared at each other for a while. In the end, Fei Si was unwilling to let Song Fuli see the internal strife of the Southern Bean Country, so he had to take a step back and reported a compromise number.

Zhu Xuanji’s eyes flashed with golden light and immediately recognized that Fei Si was not speaking from the heart and had lied.

Clearly, in this situation, Fei Si could only report a lower number.

This immediately caused Zhu Xuanji to frown deeply and his face also darkened: “So many?!”

A vast number of fire persimmons were lost, especially many ten-thousand-year and thousand-year old ones.

Fire persimmons are comparable to fire essence. If so many fire persimmons were used by someone with malicious intentions, it could cause huge damage to the Lava Immortal Palace, especially at a time when the beast tide was constantly attacking.

If the fire persimmons exploded and caused the front line to collapse, allowing the beasts to rush into the city, it would inevitably cause heavy casualties.

“This matter must be investigated thoroughly, it cannot be ignored!”

Zhu Xuanji stared at the minor official, his eyes flashing with golden light.

This was truly terrible news. Compared to the theft of Cloud Merchant’s goods, this was even more important.

Song Fuli spoke: “Could it be the same group of people who could easily steal the City Lord’s mansion’s warehouse and only be discovered now?”

“Void Gate?” Fei Si’s eyes flashed with brilliance. “Very likely!”

If it weren’t for Zhu Xuanji, he would have immediately confirmed it. Regardless, he couldn’t take this blame as it would affect his career.

Zhu Xuanji, however, had a bottom line and said: “We still need to investigate to confirm the real culprit!”

He originally thought that after dealing with the Cloud Merchant matter, he could immediately return to the Lava Immortal Palace, but he didn’t expect the fire persimmon theft case to occur.

He immediately rushed to the warehouse to conduct an on-site investigation without stopping.

Under his Golden Eyes, almost nothing could hide.

Soon, Zhu Xuanji made a startling discovery!

“Shadow Demon Cultivator?!”

By tracing the source, Zhu Xuanji “saw” a scene that had happened here before.

A Shadow Demon Cultivator hid in the fire persimmon warehouse, took away a large number of fire persimmons, and then, covered in black smoke, like a black python, easily slipped out of the warehouse.

There were six layers of formations in the warehouse, but the black python moved freely through the gaps between the formations!

“So, the Shadow Demon Cultivator has been hiding here all along? But is he the original Shadow Demon Cultivator?”

During the Golden Core melee, several Shadow Demon Cultivators had appeared. Zhu Xuanji could not determine the true origin of this Shadow Demon Cultivator based solely on this past image.

“Is it the Meng family monitoring and stealing? Or is the City Lord’s mansion simply a victim?”

In an instant, a mist enveloped Zhu Xuanji’s heart.

Seeing Zhu Xuanji’s changing expression, Fei Si eagerly asked: “Has Lord Zhu discovered any key clues?”

“I have discovered something. The one who stole the fire persimmons is a Shadow Demon Cultivator!” Zhu Xuanji thought for a moment and simply told the truth.

Fei Si widened his eyes: “Shadow Demon Cultivator?!”

He paused for a moment and then reacted: “Wait, doesn’t that mean anyone could be involved?”

After the Golden Core melee, the identity of Shadow Demon Cultivator was widespread, and anyone could play the part.

Zhu Xuanji nodded slowly.

He said: “Fire Persimmon Mountain often vibrates, even with the Lava Immortal Palace suppressing the bottom of the mountain, it is inevitable.”

“The city protection formation has not changed for many years, and it is damaged by the mountain tremors, with repairs being done frequently.”

“When the six layers of formations were first laid out, they were tightly integrated with no space for formation arrangement.”

“But as time passes, gaps will always appear due to the mountain tremors.”

“The Shadow Demon Cultivator used these gaps to enter and exit the warehouse.”

Fei Si widened his eyes again: “Can people get through such small gaps?”

Zhu Xuanji sighed: “It seems some kind of spell or divine ability was used.”

Fei Si was speechless.

After a moment of silence, he fully reacted.

Immediately, Fei Si bowed deeply to Zhu Xuanji, expressing sincerely: The City Lord’s mansion is absolutely the victim, this is definitely not a self-orchestrated event.

Zhu Xuanji’s eyes flashed with golden light, staring at Fei Si.

“I know you’re not lying. However, just because you didn’t do it doesn’t mean the City Lord’s mansion didn’t, right?” Zhu Xuanji transmitted.

Fei Si was speechless.

Zhu Xuanji’s implication was that Meng Kui had arranged it secretly, keeping it from Fei Si.

This was indeed possible.

After all, using demonic figures as pawns is taboo for the righteous path, and the fewer people who know about it, the better.

If such a thing really existed, Fei Si would rather not know about it!

The more he knew about such secrets, the more dangerous he would be.

Fei Si subconsciously glanced at the peak of Fire Persimmon Mountain, then immediately realized this action was inappropriate.

He frowned deeply and immediately promised that he would issue orders to his subordinates to thoroughly investigate the front line and various critical points in the immortal city.

“But for the Lava Immortal Palace, I can do nothing.” Fei Si then sighed, asking Zhu Xuanji in a helpless tone to be sure to follow this clue to the end!

Zhu Xuanji also sighed: “I need to consider everything comprehensively.”