“There’s nothing I can do sir. His majesty has been inside the whole time and refuses to come out. I already notified him but he didn’t respond!” The notifying person said in a fl.u.s.tered voice.

“What is he doing, hurry up and open the door, I will go inside and see him!” That person shouted. He thought that the person in front of him was afraid to open the door.

“Sir, you might not know, but this door can only be opened from the inside once closed. His majesty refuses to open the door and there’s nothing we can do!”

In reality, the person was panicking precisely because the king wouldn’t open the door or even respond.

“King Gaofei, what are you doing? Right now we have very important things we need to do, everybody is outside waiting for you!” If the door couldn’t be opened then he could only shout loudly.

“It’s no use sir, shouting is no use. This room is soundproofed, only by pressing the doorbell can the person inside be notified if something is happening, but his majesty has cut off all contact from us. He doesn’t want to talk to us!” The subordinate explained.

“…” The official wrinkled his eyebrows, “All this time he is inside, but you don’t even know what he is doing?”

“That….” The subordinate stuttered, it seemed he couldn’t find a convenient answer.

“What is it, hurry up and say it, right now I don’t have the time to deal with you!” That higher-up seriously said with a strong sense of criticism.

I can’t deal with that abnormal young master Ye, can I not deal with you, my subordinate either?

“This……” The subordinate hesitated, he found it hard to say.

“Hurry up and say it!” The official shouted.

“I don’t know how to best put this, it’s like this: Two days ago, His Majesty brought back a person and has remained inside ever since. He ordered that he not be disturbed under any circ.u.mstances and they have remained inside ever since. He hasn’t even come out to eat!” The subordinate started to narrate everything that had happened.

“They’ve been inside ever since? Aren’t you afraid something happened and that person has already escaped?” The official continued his interrogation.

“No, there’s only one entrance and his Majesty has countermeasures inside, he won’t be taken advantage of by others.” The subordinate explained, “This isn’t the first time his Majesty has done this, in the past he’s stayed inside for seven days and nights before.”

Oh, so this wasn’t the first time, no wonder they’re not worried. If not for important matters, they probably wouldn’t have paid attention to what the king was doing either.

Only, what was the king doing inside?

“What is your king doing inside? This isn’t the first time, doesn’t that mean you should know what he’s doing!” That official wrinkled his eyebrows.

Before this, his subordinates still hadn’t explained the crux of the issue, which was what the king was doing with that person inside. To have caused the king to ignore important matters and the future of the country!

“That…” The subordinate stammered out, “The king…. the king and he are gambling...”

“oh, gambling…. What?! They’re gambling? For the sake of gambling he stopped dealing with important affairs?” The official was shocked and cried out, but he quickly calmed down.

This was because in the Thirteen Kingdoms Alliance, everybody had heard that the king Gaofei was a gambler. Moreover, he was addicted to gambling, but he was also very skilled at gambling so not many people dared to gamble with him.

However, although it was known he was a gambler, they didn’t expect that he would even ignore this matter for the sake of gambling. He would even ignore the rise or fall of the kingdom and lock himself in his room to gamble at this crucial moment.

“Yes! Thus, right now we can’t do anything. We can only guess that his Majesty is hooked on gambling, and once he gets hooked, we have no way of knowing when he’ll come out, it might be very soon or it might take many days!” The subordinate somewhat helplessly said.

The official fell silent and then replied: “Is there any other way to open this door? It’s fine even if you have to destroy it.”

“There is a way, but it’ll take several days. This room is specially reinforced and has alchemy defenses. Even if we find an alchemist to open it, it’ll take several days for him to find a way.” The subordinate said.

“Several days, we can’t even wait for several hours!” His official wrinkled his eyebrows. “Do you know what kind of person is gambling with your king?”

“That, we don’t know either. We only know it’s a youth, a very weird youth, and he met the king on the streets. Afterwards, he was ‘invited’ by the king here to gamble. We don’t know most of the details either.” The subordinate shook his head, and he emphasized “invited” as he was saying.

It was very clear that this odd youth didn’t accept that invitation out of his own volition!

“What should we do now….” That official now had a headache and after a while he gritted his teeth and went out!

He had already decided to place the blame for this failure completely on King Gaofei, at least that way they could evade some responsibility for not completing their task.

Right now he wasn’t hoping for success, but to not be blamed for failure!

“Marshal Ye, terribly sorry, King Gaofei currently is unable to come out. We can only apologize!” That official apologetically said.

“No problem, we’ll take our leave here!” Ye Chengtian cupped his hands and said goodbye. If they didn’t leave, what else would they do? They were people with prestige and they weren’t the ones asking for a favor.

“We’ll take our leave as well!” Seventh brother and everyone else also followed suit and prepared to leave.

And at this time something happened that made everyone stop in their tracks…

“Let him go or I’ll give you a taste of ice!” Ye Lanyu’s voice traveled over. This made everyone very nervously look towards where Ye Lanyu’s voice came from and start a.s.suming a defensive formation.

If Ye Lanyu was shouting for someone’s release then someone among them must have been captured. That might mean that they had entered a trap.

Perhaps the Thirteen Kingdoms Alliance was being brave and making a  move on them!

However Ye Chengtian and company discovered that the representatives of the Thirteen Kingdom Alliance with them looked completely caught off guard by the circ.u.mstances.

Did the other side keep even their own people in the dark or was this unrelated to them?

The answer very quickly became clear…..

Everybody saw a women wearing leather armor kidnapping Zhen Xiaoyan and pulling her over to her side and Ye Lanyu and Princess Qi were closely following behind, with Ye Yi and company behind them as well.

“Warrior?” The women’s leather armor was often worn by warriors and provided a certain amount of protection, yet didn’t obstruct movement.

This armor was mostly worn by mercenaries and the soldiers of ordinary clans, because apart from the above attributes, it had another more important trait, that was that its cost-to-effectiveness ratio was very high!