Li Ban felt a chill in his heart, but on the surface, he asked in confusion, "Tree-Person A might be here to pick something up, right?"
After all, there were no suspicious items in the storeroom where Li Ban was currently staying.
Even if Tree-Person A came to confirm his suspicion and searched for evidence, he wouldn't find anything.
Qi shook his head. "I didn't see him take anything out."
Li Ban smiled. "It's fine. This is a storeroom, so searching for things is normal. Sometimes you don't find anything."
Hearing this, Qi awkwardly nodded and left the storeroom.
Li Ban waited a while, then placed the rice bowl he was holding on a nearby cabinet and walked to the storeroom door, leaning against it as he observed the entire room.
Why did Tree-Person A suddenly enter the storeroom when he wasn't around?
In the past, whenever he came here, it was to find Li Ban for work, but this time he came in and hurriedly left again.
Li Ban understood that Qi was intentionally warning him to be alert.
Fearing he wouldn’t understand, Qi even acted sneakily as if informing on him.
He entered the storeroom when Li Ban was out but left without bringing anything.
That meant he must have put something else inside.
Li Ban scanned the entire room.
Now that his eyesight had been enhanced, he could see details he couldn’t before.
He had lived in this storeroom for four months and was very familiar with all the items inside, even knowing exactly where everything was placed.
This was because he had deliberately paid attention.
After carefully searching the room, Li Ban finally noticed something different about the wooden box bed he slept on.
Between two boxes, a straw was wedged in.
The boxes were supposed to be assembled first, then the straw placed on top.
So having a straw wedged between them was... rather strange.
Li Ban slowly moved the box bed aside—there was nothing unusual inside or outside the boxes.
He then looked at the floor. Among the stone bricks, some gaps in the soil were darker in color.
This was a sign that the soil had been recently disturbed.
Li Ban pushed the wooden box back and took out an iron hook. He gently tapped the stone bricks next to the suspicious gap.
Under the bricks, he saw a piece of cloth that was not completely covered by soil.
The cloth was from slave clothing.
Li Ban slowly pulled out the cloth. When he unfolded it, he saw charcoal-drawn lines on it.
"Heh!"
He scoffed angrily.
The cloth actually had a map of the first to third layers of the Death Prison drawn on it!
Layers one to three were very clear, and the entrance to the fourth layer was also marked, but it didn’t extend beyond that.
Besides the entrance to the fourth layer, several spots on layers one, two, and three were marked with triangles.
"Have they been trying to probe me all along and now resorted to this method to confirm my identity as their mole?"
Tree-Person A had tried to set traps for Li Ban multiple times, but he never slipped up. Now they were outright framing him.
Li Ban took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
There is only the thief who steals a thousand days;
there is no one who guards against thieves for a thousand days.
The time has come.
He opened his eyes, found his charcoal pencil, and carefully made another mark on the cloth.
Then he folded the cloth and put it back exactly as before.
He covered the bricks and restored the wooden box bed.
Li Ban inspected carefully—it was the same as before.
He picked up the bowl and started eating his meal in big bites.
After finishing, Li Ban returned the bowl to the water room and came back to continue cultivating.
But this cultivation session was not easy.
Although Li Ban had made arrangements, he was not completely confident.
His heart was uneasy, so he tried to relax, but he relaxed too much and suddenly fell asleep.
At the moment he fell asleep, the system's voice suddenly echoed in his mind again.
[Detected all suspicious targets: Zhou Gu, Du An, temporary logout initiated, logout countdown: 600, 599, 598...]
...
Li Ban opened his eyes and immediately saw himself lying inside a huge capsule filled with liquid.
Outside the transparent glass were machines with various circuits and flashing lights.
As he opened his eyes, green lights flashed brightly, illuminating the dark ceiling above him.
"Fsssh..."
"Glug glug glug..."
The sounds of air releasing and water rushing out echoed simultaneously.
Soon, the water level dropped below Li Ban's ears.
The transparent glass in front of him automatically popped open and flipped away.
More sounds came in.
The sound of footsteps quickly approached.
"Number 444 is awake, normal temporary logout."
An excited voice rang out, then a large face appeared before Li Ban.
The man in a white coat smiled at Li Ban, removed several tubes attached to him, and helped him up.
"Li Ban, how do you feel after your first loading into the Witch World?"
Li Ban looked up.
This man actually called him by his real name?
Could it be that the person he transmigrated into is also named Li Ban?
He wore a deliberately maintained confused expression and said the lines he had prepared for a temporary logout beforehand.
"Who... are you?"
The man in the white coat frowned and checked Li Ban’s pupils. "You still haven't recovered your memory after logout?"
Seeing Li Ban purse his lips tightly and look cautious, the man sighed.
"My name is Chen Dong, and I am the experimenter coordinating with you. I need to report your amnesia condition to the director. What do you still remember?"
Li Ban answered honestly, "I remember that I have to enter the Witch World to complete a mission. But I don’t remember the mission details or anything before entering the Witch World."
"Level three memory loss?" Chen Dong exhaled.
"Is it serious? Can I still recover?" Li Ban asked anxiously.
"Not serious. It won’t affect your physical condition." Suddenly, another man in a white coat approached.
He wore gold-rimmed glasses, had fair skin, but deep dark circles under his eyes.
"Director," Chen Dong quickly stepped aside.
The man called Director leaned over the capsule's edge and asked, "Li Ban, rest assured, we will do our best to help you recover your memory. But the temporary logout time is limited. I need to quickly understand your mission progress. What stage of the mission have you completed to gain temporary logout permission?"
Li Ban paused for a moment, then said weakly, "I saw two suspicious targets, Zhou Gu and Du An."
Chen Dong was surprised. "After all this time, you just saw those two?"
The Director flipped through the report in his hand and said, "It’s good to be cautious. Last time, our good situation in Death Prison ended in total defeat. They must have strengthened their screening."
Hearing this, Li Ban immediately tried to probe, "Director, this mission is too difficult. They have not given up testing me so far, and I don’t know if I can complete the mission."
If he were the Li Ban who just transmigrated, he might have already said he wanted to abandon the mission.
But after staying in the Witch World for four months, he was much more cautious than before.
This laboratory was also not his old world. Who knew what kind of people were here?
After Li Ban said he might not be able to complete the mission, the Director shook his head with a light laugh, "Have confidence in yourself. The mission is tough, but don’t forget you have the entire laboratory behind you."
At this moment, Li Ban didn’t have the elemental right eye buff, but from such a close distance, he could see that there was no smile in the Director’s eyes.
He sighed in his heart. Indeed, no world was easy.
Though this wasn’t Death Prison, wasn’t it still a kind of Death Prison?
The laboratory wouldn’t allow him to give up on the mission.
"But Director, I don’t even know the mission content. There’s no description in the mission assistance system either."
Chen Dong, who was supporting Li Ban, smiled. "It’s okay. Your mission actually..."
The Director suddenly raised his hand to stop Chen Dong, "Don’t tell him directly. Reimport the mission content into the system. He’s currently at level three memory loss. If you tell him here, he’ll forget again when he loads into the Witch World."
"Understood!" Chen Dong released Li Ban and helped him sit against the support panel, then went to operate the console behind the experimental capsule.
Li Ban felt weak all over and could only let others do as they pleased.
At this moment, he even somewhat missed life in the Witch World.
Although it was also full of hidden dangers, his strength could grow through cultivation.
But in this laboratory, he was truly like a lamb being constantly watched and slaughtered at will.