Lin Shutang led Duan Yanzhou onto the elevator and arrived at the seventh floor, where she saw the door there already open.
She slowly pushed the door open and walked inside, immediately greeted by a gust of cold air.
Like the sixth floor, this was a vast, open level that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Suddenly, a row of fluorescent text appeared ahead: “This is the Lengcang Kongjian, capable of storing all types of food with a permanent shelf life.”
A permanent shelf life—meaning even a roasted chicken placed here would never spoil. Lin Shutang was awestruck. This space was truly thoughtful.
In the freezing cold, food was the most scarce resource. Now with this Lengcang Kongjian, they could stockpile raw and cooked foods alike, and even if they couldn’t start a fire in time, they could still enjoy a full meal.
Duan Yanzhou stood behind her, looking at the unfamiliar script before him. Surprisingly, he could decipher most of it. Before she could speak, he said, “We haven’t yet visited the main branch’s kitchen and granary.”
Lin Shutang’s eyes lit up. “Excellent. Let’s go now.”
Just then, a beeping sound came from upstairs: “The eighth level will complete its upgrade in three days.”
Lin Shutang looked up toward the upper floor, joy welling in her heart again. In three days, she’d get to open another blind box.
After the two emerged from the space, they went directly to the main branch’s kitchen. Compared to the second branch, they were truly extravagant.
Bird’s nest soup had been simmering in a pot since the night before.
Lin Shutang took the entire pot. Besides the bird’s nest, there was also the ginseng and deer antler that Madam Zhou, the main branch matriarch, loved most. Then came all sorts of fruits and vegetables, along with flocks of skinned chickens and ducks, as well as cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, and fish raised in the backyard.
Plus over a dozen baskets of chicken eggs and two large baskets of pigeon eggs.
This family not only had black hearts, but they also knew how to eat well.
She focused her mind, and everything was stored into the space—live animals went into Chucun, and dead ones went into Lengcang.
Soon, the entire backyard and kitchen were swept clean. Of course, that also included charcoal and firewood, things indispensable in the snowy wilderness.
“All stored up?” Duan Yanzhou kept watch at the door. His already fair face had grown even paler from the cold wind.
“All done. Let’s head back.” Lin Shutang pulled him back into the space.
When the two emerged again, they were at the Duke’s Residence granary.
The Duke’s Residence owned a thousand qing of prime farmland, yielding a substantial harvest of grain every year.
The moment she stepped into the granary, she was met with the rich, heavy scent of rice.
With no candlelight in the darkness, the grain piles looked like invisible mountains looming all around.
Duan Yanzhou said, “Our second branch originally had five hundred qing of land too, but they were all seized by the eldest uncle’s family. Here, there’s not just rice, but also wheat, soybeans, millet…”
“Exactly how much there is, I don’t know either.”
Lin Shutang focused her mind. “No matter how much there is, we’ll take it all in. Consider it taking back what’s rightfully yours.”
One by one, the mountain-like piles were all moved into the space.
By the time they returned to the second branch’s residence, it was already the hour of Chen, and half the night had passed.
Lin Shutang looked toward the now-empty Duke’s Residence next door and asked Duan Yanzhou with a smile, “If the emperor comes to confiscate the property tomorrow morning and finds nothing to seize, what would happen?”
Duan Yanzhou gazed in the direction of the main branch and said with a serious expression, “Naturally, they’d first be subjected to torture and interrogation, and then each person would receive thirty strokes of the board.”
Lin Shutang could see the satisfaction in his eyes.
She also knew a bit from the original owner’s memories.
The second and main branches had long been at odds. Years ago, when the main branch gave birth to their second daughter, the second branch had their second son, Duan Yanzhou.
The still-living old madam had scolded Madam Zhou, the wife of the eldest branch, a few times.
Who would have thought Madam Zhou would take it to heart? When Madam Jiang was pregnant with the fourth child, she secretly administered a miscarriage-inducing drug.
The six-month-old child was lost, and Madam Jiang was left with a body full of ailments.
The physician even declared that Madam Jiang could live at most ten more years.
Now she had barely managed to hold on for thirteen years.
Compared to all this, what Duan Yanzhou had done was not excessive at all.
The eldest branch having their property confiscated was their own doing—they had been extorting the people’s hard-earned wealth for years and deserved to have fallen long ago.
The heavy snow outside was still falling, and Lin Shutang, who had been busy for quite a while, finally felt the cold and blew on her frozen fingers.
Seeing this, Duan Yanzhou took her hand and said, “I’ll go get you a hand warmer.”
Lin Shutang stopped him. “No need. I still have plenty of good things in my Qiankun Dai.”
With that said, she focused her mind and took out a stack of warming patches from her Kongjian.
Duan Yanzhou looked at the thin sheets, his deep eyes studying them for a moment before he asked in confusion, “These?”
Lin Shutang took one out, tore it open, and handed it to him. “Stick this on your body, and it’ll warm up quickly.”
Duan Yanzhou took it in his hand, half doubtful, and pressed it against his chest inside his robes. Before long, it really did warm up, and a faint smile slowly spread across his cold, handsome face.
But soon, he peeled it off and handed it back to her. “You use it first. I’m not cold.”
Lin Shutang looked at his ears, which had turned red from the cold, and took out another stack of warming patches. “I have plenty more. Use it without worry.”
Little things like this—there was a whole pile of them in the boutique store at the mall.
She promptly stuck several on herself, and her body warmed up quickly.
Lin Shutang glanced at the pitch-black night outside and said to Duan Yanzhou, “It’s still early. Where do we go next? The imperial palace? Or the national treasury?”
Duan Yanzhou replied, “No need to go to the treasury—it’s empty anyway. First to the Lin residence, then to the palace.”
“If you don’t go, you’d be letting that concubine of yours off easy.”
He hit the nail on the head.
Speaking of the Lin residence, Lin Shutang suddenly remembered that the original owner had brought a dowry of over thirty large chests when she married.
Lin Wanwan, on the other hand, had brought not a single piece of dowry when she married. She had schemed to swap the marriages and claim Lin Shutang’s dowry as her own, and it was still stored in a side room of the eldest branch.
She had nearly forgotten about all that. Her brows curved as she smiled and said, “Before we go to the Lin residence, I need to get my dowry back first.”