Chapter 97 A Troublesome Guy

After Lu Qingzhu went in, he directed his younger sister to follow him in. The two siblings carefully stepped on the rubble.

Only the path in the middle of the courtyard was cleaned up, and there were only two rooms that looked like they had been cleaned before. The rest were still dilapidated, and some even had their roofs completely collapsed due to the heat and rain.

It's obvious that with conditions like these, how could the Hong family's daughter possibly live here?

Lu Qingzhu led her younger sister carefully to the stable, which was the owner of this courtyard house and the place where horses used to be kept. It was also the most spacious room in this small courtyard.

Half of the roof tiles had fallen off, but the room actually contained a kang bed? Lu Qingzhu cautiously approached the kang bed. Just as she squatted down and tried to pry open the kang hole, a huge rat scurried out of it, startling He Caiwei. Fortunately, she covered her mouth and didn't scream, otherwise it might have attracted everyone in the backyard.

Lu Qingzhu noticed that her younger sister was frightened, so she quickly reached out and took her hand. She carefully rummaged through the hole in the kang (heated brick bed) and searched for a long time in the pile of black ash before finally finding a set of keys.

"Hehe, found it. Come on, little sister, I'll take you to raid Old Man Hong's private vault. There's a lot of stuff in there." Lu Qingzhu stood there with the bunch of keys, grinning foolishly. Today's haul was definitely going to be substantial.

Of course, he wouldn't go to his unscrupulous brother for such a quiet way to make a fortune, otherwise he would be swindled out of everything by his brother. You know, his brother has always been ruthless and cruel when it comes to him. Many times, he was swindled out of all his pocket money, and even his New Year's money was taken away, making him live a miserable year. From then on, he was wary of his brother.

Lu Qingzhu didn't let go of his sister's hand once he took it. After all, there were quite a few rats in this kind of place, and his sister, being a girl, was most afraid of those things. He had to hold her hand to avoid being frightened by them.

Lu Qingzhu led He Caiwei to a firewood storage room next to the back toilet. Perhaps because of the kang (heated brick bed), the room was quite large. Although they hadn't lived there for several years, there was still some firewood inside, which seemed rather unusual, considering how scarce everything was these days; even something as simple as raising your hand sometimes required buying it.

"Little sister, don't you think it's a bit strange that there's firewood in this room?" Lu Qingzhu asked He Caiwei, trying not to laugh.

"This is definitely not normal. Aren't firewoods all bought with money these days? Why are there still some lying here unwanted? And this doesn't look like old firewood at all; it must have been replaced a few days ago. If this doesn't arouse suspicion, then what will?" He Caiwei was also a little puzzled. Was this person not quite right in the head? Anyone with eyes could see that there was something wrong here; did they really need to ask?

"But that guy thinks he's so smart. Anyway, no one can get in here, so no one will suspect that there's something hidden here. He keeps coming here to check and change the woodpile." Lu Qingzhu was really worried about Old Man Hong's intelligence. What was even more worrying was that the rest of the Hong family hadn't noticed anything unusual about this place so far.

"Alright, let's see what this old man is hiding." He Caiwei really didn't know how to complain.

The two of them worked together to turn over the woodpile. Underneath the woodpile was a small cellar entrance, paved with a stone slab the same color as the ground. They had to search carefully to find the mechanism to open it.

After opening the cellar entrance, Lu Qingzhu threw in a small match, but it didn't illuminate anything, and she couldn't see what was inside.

Helpless, He Caiwei took out a flashlight from her space, turned it on, and the small cellar was immediately brightly lit.

It wasn't very big, about five square meters. Inside, there were four stacked boxes and two low baskets covered with two layers of waterproof cloth and lids. Standing on top of them, you couldn't see what was inside at all.

Lu Qingzhu took a longer fire poker from the pile of stones next to her and poked open the lid of a short paper frame.

The contents of the two low frames surprised them both. There were six vases in the frames, and one of the vases contained several pieces of jade, which had not yet been carved but had already been cut out.

Those boxes were locked and couldn't be opened, which is why Lu Qingzhu went to pry open the kang hole.

"Weiwei, a ladder or a rope will do, do you have one?" Lu Qingzhu turned to ask her younger sister.

“There’s a ladder, but are you sure you can move those things?” Although He Caiwei didn’t know what was inside the boxes, even without anything inside, these wooden boxes weighed at least twenty pounds.

The opening is rather narrow, making it difficult to carry things up the ladder. It would be better for her to go down and store these things in her spatial storage, and then check them up here later.

"Okay, you stay here and keep watch. Be careful, I'll be there soon." He Caiwei handed him the flashlight, then took a ladder from her space and lowered it down. She then climbed down the ladder herself.

Even though he already knew that his sister had a place to hide things, seeing her take things out and put them back in just as quickly as she did in front of him still shocked him quite a bit.

However, he wouldn't ask such questions; it's better for him not to know, as it would be safer for him.

Because of her appearance, He Caiwei didn't mind revealing a little bit of her private space in front of him. So many times, he never asked about it, but just stared at her curiously.

After packing up their belongings, Caiwei and he immediately came out of the cellar. They cleaned up the traces they had left behind and then left.

Although it's broad daylight, the Hong family won't be coming over anytime soon, and the two of them won't be staying here for long either.

The two of them walked around in circles for a long time, and only after they reached what seemed to be a courtyard did they finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Lu Qingzhu rode his bicycle with He Caiwei on the back. He Caiwei immersed her consciousness into the space and began to look through the four boxes that she had taken out of the cellar.

The first box was filled with a jumble of silver coins, Yuan Shikai silver dollars, and other small copper coins. The second box was full of small yellow croakers. The third box was full of silver ingots. The last box contained jewelry, headdresses, gold, silver, and jade belonging to the wealthy.

“These things are too valuable, they probably don’t belong to the Hong family. After all, that courtyard house used to be the residence of a prince. These things may have originally been in this courtyard, but were later discovered and hidden by that old man Hong.” Looking at the jewelry, He Caiwei knew that these things should have originally been in this house, but were hidden somewhere and found by the old man Hong.