She thought she was losing her mind. The person in front of her had a delicate face, bright eyes, and white teeth, with eyes as soft as spring lotuses and black hair as smooth as a waterfall. It was undeniably the exact face that used to drive her crazy with jealousy.
How could this not be Mu Zhaozhao?
It just felt like the old Mu Zhaozhao only had good looks without such a vivid, spirited soul.
“Mu Yunxing, I think you’ve inherited a mental illness, haven’t you? If I’m not Mu Zhaozhao, who else could I be?” Mu Zhaozhao sneered.
Mu Yunxing was no fool and instantly caught the key point in her words: “What do you mean ‘inherited’? Mu Zhaozhao, where is my mother right now?”
“In a mental hospital! Didn’t Uncle tell you? Auntie kept a secret lover on the side and stole the Mu family’s money with him. Now she’s lost her mind and has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital,” Mu Zhaozhao kindly informed her.
“Ah—!” Mu Yunxing screamed in a frenzy. “Mu Zhaozhao, you framed my mother! I’ll fight you to the death!”
With that, she charged forward recklessly. Her hands weren’t working properly, so she tried to ram Mu Zhaozhao with her head.
Mu Zhaozhao simply lifted her foot slightly and tripped her up, sending her crashing face-first to the floor.
“Mu Yunxing, instead of picking a fight with me, why don’t you go to the mental hospital and visit your mother?” Mu Zhaozhao looked down at her with cold eyes.
Mu Yunxing used her left hand to cover her forehead, shoulders, knees—all aching from the fall, completely unable to soothe all the pain at once. Realizing she was no match for Mu Zhaozhao right now, she shot her a resentful glare and slunk out of the old residence to head to the hospital.
After Mu Yunxing left, Mu Zhaozhao saw that there was no one else around and went down to the basement alone.
Sure enough, a large padlock hung on the door.
Mu Zhaozhao calmly pulled out a thin piece of iron wire from her spatial storage, aligned it with the keyhole, poked around twice, and with a click, the lock opened.
She stepped inside. Aside from a Buddha statue worshipped by Mu Shangyu, there were no other valuable items in the basement.
Mu Zhaozhao snorted softly: The Buddha only protects those with pure and kind hearts. A wicked man like him won’t find inner peace no matter how much he worships.
Looking at the empty sandalwood shelves, Mu Zhaozhao recalled from the original host’s memories that these shelves used to be filled with antiques, ceramics, and famous paintings. It seemed Mu Shangyu had long since moved them out. Leaving a massive lock on the door was just his way of hiding the fact that he had emptied the house.
Mu Zhaozhao didn’t care; sooner or later, she would reclaim all of the Mu family’s lost treasures.
Right now, what mattered more was finding what Mu Yuanqiao had mentioned—could there be even more of the family’s treasure hidden here?
Mu Zhaozhao searched the basement carefully. When she accidentally bumped into a shelf, she heard the sound of a hidden mechanism.
Taken aback, she nudged the shelf again following the momentum. A stone door on the opposite wall slowly slid open.
Mu Zhaozhao’s eyes lit up. She quickly ran inside and walked ten meters down a paved corridor until she encountered a second stone door.
She pushed it with her hand, but it didn’t budge at all.
Remembering the jade pendant Mu Lanchuan had instructed her about, she felt along the stone door with her hands. Sure enough, there was a notch in the bottom right corner—just the right size for the jade pendant.
She hadn’t expected Mu Yuanqiao to build a secret room within a secret room.
Hastily taking the jade pendant from her neck, she fitted it into the notch.
With a heavy clack-clack, the stone door slowly opened.
Greeting Mu Zhaozhao’s eyes was a massive night-glowing pearl and hundreds of chest boxes.
No wonder there had been a white glow in the corridor—it was cast by this very pearl. The genius of the basement’s design was that the light couldn’t be seen from the first hidden room; one could only navigate by the light after opening the first stone door.
Mu Zhaozhao couldn’t wait to step inside and open the boxes.
The twenty boxes nearest the door were filled entirely with gold, packed to the brim with large gold bars and ingots.
Ten boxes further in held golden toads, golden Buddhas, golden Pixiu, and the twelve zodiac animals.
Another thirty boxes further inside contained stacks of brand-new, neatly tied “Big Equality” bank notes.
Adjacent to them were ten boxes of various coupons and vouchers, containing a hundred times more than what was in Mu Yunxing’s bedroom.
Deeper in were fifteen boxes of jewelry—jade bracelets, pearl necklaces, agate rings, and diamond ornaments scattered through the full trunks, leaving Mu Zhaozhao dazzled.
Next were over twenty boxes of men’s wristwatches, gold-and-diamond pocket watches, jade thumb rings, and pendants.
The final few dozen boxes were filled with rare, priceless medicinal herbs: ginseng, deer antler, lingzhi mushroom, saffron, cordyceps, and more. There were even things she had never seen in person, like tiger bone, bear gall, rhinoceros horn, and tortoiseshell flakes… Had they not been labeled with their corresponding names, she wouldn’t have recognized them.
Seeing all this, Mu Zhaozhao smiled. Fortunately, none of these treasures had been discovered by Mu Shangyu.
With a flick of her slender wrist, she swept all the treasures into her spatial storage.
She then entered the space herself. Looking at the neatly arranged treasures, Mu Zhaozhao felt immensely satisfied.
This space even has an automatic sorting feature—how convenient. As someone with OCD who couldn’t stand a messy home, having the space clean up after her saved her the trouble. It was truly thoughtful.
After taking care of everything, Mu Zhaozhao walked out of the basement. She deliberately left the inner secret door slightly ajar, locking only the main padlock on the outside.
Sometimes, letting the villains regret their choices to their very core and turn on each other was far more entertaining.
Arriving at the psychiatric hospital, Mu Yunxing asked frantically, “Excuse me, was a patient named Qi Ruobing admitted today?”
The nurse behind the counter didn’t even lift her head. “No.”
Mu Yunxing gritted her teeth in frustration, pulled a ten-yuan note from her Dacron trousers, and secretly stuffed it into the nurse’s hand. “Please, help me look again.”
People sent to this place were usually abandoned by their families, so the nurses acted without fear. But since money was involved, the nurse instantly flashed a smile: “Ah, you mean the woman who was brought in this morning? Follow me, I’ll take you to her room.”
Mu Yunxing bowed obsequiously. “Thank you, thank you so much.”
She knew these people all too well—to get their help, one needed to offer both money and a good attitude.
The nurse led Mu Yunxing to Qi Ruobing’s room. All the doors here were locked to prevent psychiatric patients from wandering out and hurting people. Having just received a generous tip, the nurse unlocked the door without hesitation.
Inside, Qi Ruobing was weeping toward the window, muttering under her breath, “Heartless creature… I committed so many bad deeds for you in this life, and you lock me up in a mental hospital…”
“Mom! What happened to you?” Mu Yunxing gasped in shock when she saw Qi Ruobing’s battered and bruised face.
The nurse shut the door and thoughtfully stepped away.
Qi Ruobing turned around. Seeing Mu Yunxing, she began to cry even harder out of grievance.
“Yunxing, save your mother! I don’t want to stay in a mental hospital forever!”
Mu Yunxing said urgently, “Mom, I’ll get you out of here! But first, tell me what happened! How did you end up in a mental hospital? And that bitch Mu Zhaozhao said you have a wild man on the side… Is that true?”