"I would never hide anything from you, sir."

Irene nodded repeatedly as she spoke, showing an exceedingly compliant attitude.

Of course, she was a legit City Lord, not some fool. If Gong Qiying were just asking normally, she might have been misguided.

So, he asked within the constraints of the Dungeon's victory rules, which would consume some of the wager he hadn't spent earlier, but also ensured the credibility of the answers.

Of course, even if recognized by the Dungeon as truth, sometimes clever wordplay could lead answers astray.

Although he felt Irene was unlikely to possess such linguistic skills, he needed to maintain judgment when questioning.

"Very well."

Gong Qiying complimented Irene on her positive attitude, and now it was time to see how aware she was.

"Listen to this, the first question."

Irene straightened her back!

"How old are you?"

Irene's straight back slumped.

"Sir, asking a lady's age isn't a good question...." she responded weakly.

"Oh, so you truly were a woman before," Gong Qiying nodded seriously.

"...."

Irene felt like she had to swallow down something stuck in her throat, somehow feeling an unwarranted sense of insult just now.

But seeing Gong Qiying's earnest demeanor, she had no choice but to answer the question.

What kind of person is this, why ask such a question?

She thought for a moment, scratched her head a bit, and honestly couldn't quite remember her age. After becoming City Lord, she hadn't really had a sense of time. She finally said:

"The turtle tree I raised hasn't died yet."

Turtle tree, a local Scameroon critter, with an average lifespan not reaching a hundred years if healthy.

Seems Irene is unexpectedly young, at least not an old lady pretending to be young like an oil curry.

"Not yet a hundred years old?" Gong Qiying squinted, as if having guessed correctly.

Seeing him like this, the City Lord opposite only wanted to critique what exactly he had guessed.

"Then the second question."

He raised a second finger, watching her, and said:

"You're not human, right?"

This time, Irene cheerfully nodded. Of course, she wasn't human. She'd never hidden the fact that before becoming City Lord, she was a noble and elegant member of the Blood Clan. Hard to believe the man opposite didn't even know this.

Looks like Gedwin's questioning wasn't as serious as I'd imagined—I'm scaring myself—

"You're not a pure-blooded member of the Blood Clan, are you?"

Irene nodded instinctively.

"That's right, that's right ... wait, no!"

She suddenly leaped up, lifting a corner of her cloak and glared at Gong Qiying with eyes flashing red, her tone raised an octave: "What are you asking!?"

This was the first time she showed such a big reaction, she hadn't been this tense before.

Gong Qiying wasn't taken aback by her exaggerated response, simply nodding indifferently, he said:

"So, as expected, I didn't guess wrong. Your former self is the Sealed Item of the White Blood Dungeon."

"!"

If this were a game, exclamation marks would be popping up all over Irene's head right now.

Under the cloak, she almost exploded with fury, and hunched her body, glaring at Gong Qiying warily:

"What exactly are you here to investigate?"

Clearly, she's now totally triggered like facing a life-and-death matter requiring immediate response!

Without waiting for the other side to say more, she spoke rapidly:

"Did the Asta Alliance send you!?"

"?" This question left Gong Qiying puzzled.

Irene sped through her sentence:

"I knew you human supremacists would come for me sooner or later, where did I slip up for my identity to be exposed! I've never done harm to humanity, yet you won't even spare someone like me, bent on eradication. Blah blah blah..."

Gong Qiying tossed a Happiness Egg, landing it right into her jabbering mouth.

As the tiger teeth pierced the soft egg white, Irene's gaze turned clear. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"I'm not from the Asta Alliance, nor am I interested in your life. I'm merely investigating something else."

Gong Qiying voluntarily used a magic scroll to enhance the credibility of his words.

"So feel free to tell me, if needed, I can protect you under the Asta Alliance."

Whether it was the effect of the Happiness Egg or she really believed his words, Irene quickly calmed down, becoming much more restrained than before and nodded slightly.

"I, I'm not the Sealed Item of the White Blood, you guessed wrong."

"My father is..."

Gong Qiying showed a knowing expression, so this was the case.

The state of the Sealed Items in the White Blood Dungeon is probably the most peculiar among all dungeons.

Not only did the Sealed Items go berserk, but they ran out of the dungeon, and after running out, they were chased back by people with abundant martial virtue outside.

Some even never returned and were turned into humans by magicians who were enthusiastic about experimenting, like Hunter Van Helsing from Red, who came about this way.

When Gong Qiying learned about these things, he wanted to applaud and praise how lively these guys were.

When thinking about investigating the White Blood Dungeon, he naturally thought of the current situation of those Sealed Items that had been turned into humans.

Warrior Country said many Sealed Items were living peaceful lives, but that was the situation within Warrior Country's borders; what about Scameroon?

"My father is the Sealed Item turned human—'Ancestral Blood Demon', my mother is human, and I was born with different bloodlines," Irene said honestly.

"The bloodline includes more than just human and Blood Demon, right?"

"How do you even know this!?" Irene's eyes widened almost to the point of not closing, looking at Gong Qiying as if he were a Divine Man, and at last, her gaze even carried a trace of fear.

Where did this guy come from, how does he seem to know everything, isn't this too scary?

Gong Qiying casually waved his hand and said, "Don't overthink, I just happened to know a bit of the experiment's inside story back then. When turning Blood Demons into humans, the ritual used Demons as an adhesive, so at least three kinds of bloodlines should be on you, right."

"You call that knowing 'a bit'..."

Irene was excessively shocked; this level of inside information was known to only a tiny fraction even among her peers, and she herself didn't know initially, having spent much time investigating to find out.

"Let me clarify, although I previously had many bloodlines, that was my former self; now I am a pure Dungeon Lord, both physically and mentally human!"

"I'm not from the Asta Alliance, you don't need to assure me of these."

It seems she was also quite scared by the extreme human supremacy advocated by the Asta Alliance.

Regarding what Gong Qiying said about this series of matters, Irene finally nodded, fully admitting that they were true.

She looked at the "kindly" face of the Animated Corpse before her, her gaze already becoming strange, just like other City Lords looked at Gong Qiying.

Is this someone who believes they know everything like an ancient silver coin? The dungeon really can draw anyone to be a City Lord!

After all, when drawing City Lords, the dungeon treats the entire world like a card pool.

It's not surprising if occasionally an SSR or even SP pops up, right?

"You already know so much, why ask me..."

Due to being continuously frightened, Irene temporarily didn't use such titles as "sir," leaving only the resentment after being scared.

"It's precisely because of my unique situation that I'm afraid of the crazy people in the Asta Alliance, they're simply too extreme."

Very normal, if I were an Alien, I wouldn't like Astarte either.

"Just reconfirming," Gong Qiying looked at the micro-model of the White Blood Dungeon, "then, those residing in your dungeon should include many of your own people."

"Yes."

Irene nodded "I remember every one of them clearly. They almost exclusively live in the White Blood Dungeon, even if they go out, they'd come back while sleeping."

Is it because the dungeon has a stronger attraction for escaped Sealed Items, so these Sealed Items, even after becoming humans, still subconsciously return to the White Blood Dungeon.

"This indeed relates to the dungeon's trait of attracting Sealed Items, but that's not all."

With emotions swinging wildly, Irene seemed to switch on a mode and started to become talkative.

If Gong Qiying was really, as she thought, a super old monster, then all her concealments would be in vain, and she would be completely exposed before him.

Better to honestly cooperate a bit, could even earn a good impression from the other party, maybe in the future, he'd be a thigh to cling to, wouldn't he?

"I've put in a lot of effort for every peer, establishing trust in the White Blood Dungeon in their hearts from different aspects, and whether they were the initially transformed batch or their descendants, they know their origins, which is why they trust me here."

Speaking of which, she suddenly clicked her tongue unhappily, covering her forehead with distress and said, "But I don't know why, in the past few days some peers who should have gone out to purchase goods and come back quickly haven't returned, I'm worried about them..."

Gong Qiying kept listening patiently and seized the crux upon hearing this, asking:

"What are you worried about, could they encounter danger outside?"

"I think so."

Irene's tone turned somber, saying:

"Our origin surely stems from an unknown conspiracy, everything's too strange."

"Hiding in the dungeon at least allows for some escape..."

"But now, I always have a bad premonition."