บท 8: Clearing Out the Wilson Family Vault
Rita sat cross-legged, meditating against the bedroom door, waiting until 3 a.m. before hearing movement outside. She immediately connected to the thrush's vision.
After a few moments, she saw Samuel appear at the entrance of the study. He first rotated a specific spot on one of the desk legs, then stood on a chair to fumble around the top of the bookshelf. Finally, he removed all the books from the third shelf and tinkered with something in the corner.
With that, the bookshelf split open, revealing a hidden passage just wide enough for one person to pass through.
A short while later, Samuel emerged carrying a valuable painting.
After reversing the process, Samuel carefully returned the books to their original positions.
Once Samuel had returned to his room, Rita immediately got up. The Wilson home had no security cameras in most places, but she wasn't sure if there were any in the vault. To be safe, she changed her clothes, put on gloves, and used her disguise skill to transform into Rick before stealthily entering the study.
Now that she knew the locations and the order of the mechanisms, it didn't take long to open the secret door.
Rita swiftly entered the passage, leaving the thrush at the door to keep watch and alert her if anyone approached.
After walking a few meters, she arrived in another room, which was likely the converted storage room from the adjacent apartment. This room had no door and seemed deliberately sealed off, with only the passage to the study remaining. The room was roughly the same size as the study, filled with wooden crates.
Rita had seen these crates in her previous life. At the time, she was a fugitive, having been on the run for months, eating and sleeping in the wild. But Samuel and Scarlett had been busy moving their lifetime's collection of treasures into the living room, preparing to transport them to the new villa Rick had bought them. Their faces had been filled with joy and pride.
Rita pulled out the large cardboard boxes she had prepared, transferring the contents of the wooden crates into them. Then, with a thought, she stacked the boxes in her inventory, leaving behind only the empty wooden crates.
After completing the task, she closed the vault, satisfied, and returned to her room. After changing out of her disguise, she finally allowed herself to sleep, feeling at ease for the first time.
On the 26th, Rita woke up early and went out for a run to stay in shape.
She had to be present when Zoey arrived today.
Zoey was also a beta player, and as the male protagonist's main wife, she certainly wouldn't be weak.
Although it was baffling why a wealthy heiress would download an obscure game in the middle of the night without any promotion...
Rita could only guess that Rick was playing it, and Zoey downloaded it to play with her boyfriend. Or perhaps being the female lead meant she had some special fate?
During her run, Rita received a call from the company informing her that her role, which she had barely started filming, had been given to someone else. Rita didn't mind. She had more important things to focus on than the entertainment industry.
At 11 a.m., Rick arrived with Zoey.
Rita had already buried her hatred deep within and even managed to smile when she saw Zoey. She was impressed by her own self-control.
But beyond that, there was little more. Rita couldn't bring herself to flatter Zoey, even though Rick had always complained about how hard life was at the Lopez house. She just couldn't bring herself to curry favor with Zoey, the main wife of the male lead—especially since Rick was the one who would marry into the Lopez family, not her!
In her previous life, Zoey had visited while Rita was still reeling from the incident with Robinson. Zoey probably saw her distress as something entirely different. That emotional turmoil, combined with Rick's manipulation, likely led Zoey to believe that Rita had an unhealthy obsession with her brother.
Today, Rita maintained a smile full of well-wishes throughout, even sneaking in a use of her Thief God skill on Zoey during a toast.
Good. She didn't manage to steal anything, but the skill had indeed activated. Rita could tell the difference between an unsuccessful attempt and being unable to use the skill at all.
It seemed Zoey was already a player.
Rita attempted the skill three more times, draining her health to 40% before she stopped, successfully stealing once.
When the theft succeeded, Rita took a moment to check what she had stolen while pretending to focus on her food.
**1 point of Luck!!**
Zoey had been a healer in her previous life, so Rita had expected to steal Intelligence. But she hadn't anticipated that Zoey's highest stat would be the rare and unalterable Luck. And that Luck could even be stolen?!
Initially, Rita had used the skill simply to spite her enemies, willing to risk her health. But now she was determined—she would keep stealing from Zoey until she could no longer take her Luck!
Luck was an extremely rare attribute, and this might be her only chance to steal it.
After all, once everyone started leveling up and gaining attribute points—five per level—people would naturally boost their strongest attributes. Opportunities like this would become impossible.
But she couldn't afford to be reckless. The Lopez family's influence far outweighed hers. Even though Thief God's passive effect meant Zoey wouldn't realize she had been stolen from until a day later, the Lopez family's power was vast. Rita would be stealing from Zoey, Rick, and his brothers in the future. If items kept going missing the day after Rita had spent significant time with them, and she kept disappearing for short periods (to drink healing potions), it would be too easy to suspect her.
And such caution had to start from the very first theft. Rita never believed in luck alone.
For the next hour, Rita played the part of a good-luck charm, offering well-wishes here and there. When the meal was over, and they sat down to chat, she had the thrush call her phone, using her backup device, and then excused herself, pretending she had to go to work.
She took the elevator downstairs and, in full view of the security cameras, drove out of the neighborhood.
Half an hour later, with her health restored to full by chewing on dried meat, Rita used her disguise skill to transform into a burly middle-aged man and returned to the neighborhood, taking the stairs back to the Wilson family's floor.
Through the thrush she had left behind, she saw that the first floor was empty, with everyone gathered in the study discussing something. Through the thrush, she could only vaguely hear words like "Wilson family," "Lopez family," and "marriage."
There were no security cameras in the stairwell, but modern security doors had built-in surveillance.
Rita retrieved a **[Basic Invisibility Potion]** from her backpack and drank it. This potion granted five minutes of invisibility with a seven-minute cooldown. She had to be mindful of the time.
After drinking the potion, not only did her body become invisible, but everything she was carrying also vanished. She walked over, pulled out an invisible key, and unlocked the Wilson family's front door.
The door opened slightly as if blown by the wind, then quietly closed behind her.
Keeping track of time, Rita headed to the study, leaving the door open behind her.
Samuel was sitting behind the desk, while Scarlett and the others were seated on the sofas, all wearing relaxed smiles.
Moving silently, Rita approached Zoey's side. The moment Rick reached out to put his arm around Zoey's shoulders, she began stealing relentlessly!
She stole four times in a row until her face turned pale, her health dropping to 20%. She downed a **[Basic Healing Potion]**, bringing her health back to 80%, and continued!
Three more consecutive steals!
Success! Rita checked and felt a surge of joy—another point of Luck!
Could this be what they meant by "the more you steal, the luckier you get"?
Rita kept counting the seconds in her head. With two minutes left before the invisibility wore off, she quietly exited the room and made her way to Rick's bedroom. She pulled down the bedspread and hid under the bed.
Her personal attribute panel now showed a Luck stat of 10, with the words "Max Value" next to it.
Shortly after she lay down, the invisibility wore off. She munched on some dried meat to quickly restore her health while waiting for the **[Basic Healing Potion]** cooldown to end. The meat allowed her to regenerate 5 health points per minute.
Five minutes later, when the potion cooldown ended, her health had already recovered to 45%.
Rita didn't rush to drink the potion, continuing to eat the dried meat instead. She could afford to steal recklessly at low levels, but as she leveled up and her health reached several thousand, each additional theft would cost her a percentage of her health. **[Basic Healing Potions]** only restored 60 health points; in the future, she would need to use mid-level, high-level, or even super potions, making the cost of each additional theft extremely high.
Just as her health reached 96%, the bedroom door opened, and voices followed.
It was Zoey and Rick.
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