Liu Mu had likely already promised benefits to Wang Hua in the bedroom earlier, so after coming out, he mainly spoke to Li Ban.
"Li Ban, when a menial worker's identity token becomes available, you can select one slave for promotion."
Li Ban looked up in surprise, "But... isn't that supposed to be decided by the jailers?"
"It's just one menial worker position. Feel free to choose."
When Wang Hua first gathered the four of them for discussion, he had acted completely in control.
Now Liu Mu appeared even more confident than Wang Hua had been earlier.
It was as if he hadn't merely persuaded Wang Hua and Li Ban, but had already become a jailer himself, daring to directly hand over the selection of a menial worker to Li Ban.
Apparently, Liu Mu's influence was greater than what Li Ban normally observed.
"I'll provide some additional monetary compensation to you both. If anything comes up in the future, you can always come to me."
After the meeting dispersed, Li Ban received five taels of silver.
This was the second substantial sum he'd obtained recently.
Combined with the remaining money from purchasing steaming wine materials, he now had nineteen taels.
Just two more months of saving until twenty taels, and he could exchange them with Hai Dakui for a mortal-grade element.
Although he temporarily didn't plan to fuse new elements to quickly fill his spiritual essence, that didn't stop him from searching for suitable elements in advance.
However, Death Prison had probably already learned he'd purchased "an element temporarily unable to be fused."
Thus, his motive for buying another element required further consideration—if nothing suitable appeared, there was no need to rush.
The next day, Liu Mu assumed his new position without any incidents.
He appeared before Li Ban wearing the dark blue uniform of a jailer and handed over the promised menial worker identity token.
Li Ban took the token and returned to the sinkhole.
"Qi, gather the others."
"Yes, Brother Li."
Qi immediately noticed the identity token in Li Ban's hand. As a former aristocratic family member, he certainly recognized what it was.
However, Qi's reaction was calmer than Li Ban expected.
Soon, the other two slaves followed Qi to stand before Li Ban.
They lined up nervously, their faces filled with unease.
Li Ban had no intention of using them to establish authority.
He wanted to keep a low profile now, avoiding further attention.
Besides, these slaves' actual supervisors were the two jailers responsible for the first and second levels.
Currently, Liu Mu was merely doing Li Ban a favor by letting him choose a menial worker to his liking.
"Jailer Tree-Person A met with an accidental death. The original menial worker Liu Mu has been promoted to replace him. You'll probably see him soon enough."
The three slaves were astonished—they never imagined that Tree-Person A, who had been swaggering about just days ago dragging away dead slaves, would inexplicably die like this.
The consecutive deaths made Min, who had just begun settling into a stable life, sway unsteadily, nearly collapsing again.
But apart from Min, the other two slaves focused more on another piece of information.
If the original menial worker got promoted to jailer, didn't that mean a menial worker position had opened up?
The difference between menial workers and slaves was perfectly demonstrated by Li Ban standing before them.
And anyone who hadn't been fished from the river without a past clearly understood this distinction.
After pausing to let them process this, Li Ban continued, "So now there's one menial worker position available."
He raised the menial worker token, waving it briefly before their eyes.
"The new menial worker will be selected within two days. You should all prepare yourselves."
Having said this, Li Ban turned and returned to the second level.
Tree-Person A was dead, but his work still needed continuing.
As for which of the three slaves would become the new menial worker—that depended on their own performance.
Since Li Ban began assisting the tree-person jailers with supervising the slaves, the slave mortality rate had noticeably decreased.
They lived much better than previous batches of slaves.
Consequently, apart from Qi, the other two slaves appeared quite obedient—less scheming and maneuvering.
Li Ban currently couldn't determine whether this life was good or bad for them.
Being alive couldn't be that terrible, right?
On the second level, Li Ban was inspecting each prisoner's condition one by one.
He noticed the prisoner in cell four kept trembling, lips pale and tightly pressed together.
Although the weather was cold now, it wasn't different from recent days.
The cell four prisoner hadn't shown this behavior before.
"Is he sick?"
Just then, heavy footsteps sounded from the first level.
Li Ban turned to see Tree-Person B approaching with a dark expression.
He quickly straightened up, "Jailer B."
Tree-Person B stopped before Li Ban—apparently seeking him out specifically.
"Before Tree-Person A died, did you notice anything unusual?"
Li Ban looked puzzled, "Unusual?"
He appeared to think carefully before answering, "Sir A seemed to visit the third level several times. But after I moved to the third level, I only stayed in Officer Zhou's room when going there. I don't know who he visited or what he did."
Tree-Person B nodded—he'd also noticed Tree-Person A frequently leaving his cultivation sessions to go downstairs recently.
Tree-Person A hadn't explained in detail, and he hadn't bothered asking.
But he never expected the next time he saw Tree-Person A, the latter would be a charred piece of wood.
Tree-people hated fire, but they weren't that vulnerable to it.
An ordinary flame couldn't ignite them.
Whoever did this was definitely extraordinary.
Tree-Person B's murderous aura intensified, the patterns on his body expanding as if to burst through his bark.
He suddenly glared sideways at Li Ban, "Where were you the day before yesterday and yesterday? What were you doing? Can anyone vouch for you?"
Was Tree-Person B suspecting him?
Li Ban hastily shook his head and waved his hands, "Sir, these past two days I've either been cultivating in the menial quarters or patrolling the second level. As for proof... I'm not sure if these prisoners count. There's also Wang Hua—he's often on the third level and might know when I came and went. But I'm not certain—you'd have to ask him."
Li Ban acted thoroughly intimidated, as if fearing Tree-Person B might indiscriminately seek vengeance for Tree-Person A.
He didn't know whether Tree-Person A had told Tree-Person B about their conflict.
But even if he had, so what?
Li Ban hadn't done it.
Tree-Person B didn't press Li Ban further.
He truly didn't believe Li Ban could have killed Tree-Person A.
This kid had only recently become a menial worker—his cultivation time was short, and it was questionable whether he'd even absorbed ten percent of an element.
Moreover, his element was purely auxiliary vision-related—how could that kill Tree-Person A?
He must be losing his mind.
The lack of clues only fueled Tree-Person B's rage.
Most importantly, even their superior Zhang Baishan showed little interest in investigating.
Tree-Person B couldn't understand why—he could only guess Tree-Person A might have offended Zhang Baishan.
He'd even suspected Zhang Baishan himself, but he lacked the ability to investigate him and was no match for him regardless.
"Fine, get back to work." Waving a branch, Tree-Person B left the second level.
His expression remained dark as he walked away from Li Ban.
Currently suspecting everyone due to lacking the real killer, he muttered to himself:
"It doesn't matter. They wouldn't kill A without reason. Whoever benefits in the end must be connected to A's death."
Tree-people weren't human, but sometimes they were more stubborn than humans.
That evening, Li Ban deliberately avoided returning to the third-level menial quarters, instead chatting with the cat-woman on the first level.
He cross-referenced information from Liu Mu and Wang Hua with the cat-woman, confirming everything checked out.
Then someone came looking for him on the first level.
Contrary to Li Ban's expectations, the first to seek him out wasn't Qi—but the ever-diligent farmer Ke.