Pushing the door open revealed the main reception room, which had been partitioned off from Qiao Weiguo’s bedroom.
The room looked rather bare. There wasn’t much on display, so Qiao Nian didn’t bother with it and headed straight into the inner room.
Qiao Weiguo, Chen Hongmei, and Qiao Qiming were sprawled on the bed, sleeping like dead pigs.
Qiao Nian quietly walked over. There wasn’t much furniture in the room: a desk, a chest at the foot of the bed, and a wardrobe.
She searched the desk drawers and found more than 180 yuan in cash, along with some ration coupons and other tickets.
Then she found another 300 yuan in cash hidden inside the pockets of her mother’s clothes in the wardrobe.
As for the chest, there was a savings passbook containing 800 yuan, along with one gold bracelet and two silver bracelets.
And they were always crying poor.
How poor could two people with jobs possibly be?
Looking at the three people sleeping like dead pigs, Qiao Nian couldn’t resist. She dragged all three of them off the bed and searched every inch of it, but unfortunately, there was nothing else.
Qiao Nian left the room and entered the bedroom of her third uncle and aunt.
Even though they lived in the same house, she had hardly ever entered their room.
But the moment she stepped inside, she couldn’t help noticing that it was considerably larger and more elaborately furnished than the room next door.
The so-called “seventy-two-legged furniture” was all there, without a single piece missing.
Qiao Nian marveled inwardly as she began searching.
There was more than 300 yuan in cash in the desk drawer. The drawers of the dressing table were locked, but Qiao Nian applied a little force.
“Crack!”
The lock snapped open.
When she pulled the drawer open, Qiao Nian couldn’t help gasping.
They really were loaded!
Inside were two exquisite jade bracelets, their entire surfaces the warm, lustrous white of mutton-fat jade. There was also an elaborate set of gold jewelry.
It included gold earrings, a gold necklace, a gold crown, a gold comb, gold hairpins, gold ornaments, a gold hair clasp, and a dangling hair ornament.
Qiao Nian recognized them.
These were the very pieces Qiao Wei had later shown off to her, proudly telling her that Grandpa Qiao had given them to her when she got married.
Whatever. They belonged to her now.
Qiao Nian’s eyes sparkled.
She had known it. Grandpa Qiao definitely had more valuable things hidden away.
Delighted, Qiao Nian stored everything in her space and continued searching.
There was another bright-red savings passbook hidden in a compartment of the wardrobe. It contained 4,000 yuan.
Qiao Nian was stunned.
She knew Li Dachuan was greedy, so she hadn’t been surprised when 6,000 yuan was found in the Li family home.
But she never expected her third uncle to have secretly saved 4,000 yuan as well.
Li Dachuan’s current salary was 102 yuan a month, while her third uncle earned only a little over 40 yuan.
Qiao Nian was practically grinning to herself.
It was probably ill-gotten money again.
All the better.
If she took it, they wouldn’t dare openly investigate where it had gone.
After searching every corner of the room, she didn’t even spare the various ration coupons. As before, Qiao Nian dragged the three sleeping people off the bed and carefully felt around every inch of the mattress.
Suddenly, Qiao Nian’s heart leaped.
Something felt wrong near the part of the bed frame closest to the wall.
She peeled back the layers of bedding one by one and discovered that a small section of the bed support had been sawed open. Inside was a flat wooden box, roughly the same size as the section of the bed frame that had been cut away.
Qiao Nian carefully took it out.
The moment she opened it, she was almost blinded by what she saw.
Inside were ten small gold bars, neatly stacked in rows.
For some reason, Qiao Nian suddenly felt a surge of anger.
With parents this wealthy, did they really have to sell her off just to secure a job for Qiao Wei?
The anger surged through her, and Qiao Nian immediately stored the gold bars in her space.
She didn’t spare anything else in the room either.
The furniture, the bed—everything vanished in an instant.
All that remained were the three people lying stiffly on the floor, dressed in nothing but their underclothes.
Qiao Nian bared her teeth in a grin.
She wasn’t leaving them so much as a fart.
Next stop: Grandpa Qiao’s room.
The moment she entered, the system’s voice rang out.
“Ding! A source of wealth has been detected.”
Qiao Nian’s searching hand froze.
Following the direction indicated in her mind, she silently looked toward the window.
A service that had cost her 100 yuan per use was naturally worth trusting.
She immediately swallowed an Invisibility Pill, found a hoe in the Qiao family’s house, and headed outside.
Following the system’s instructions, Qiao Nian dug for more than ten minutes, reaching a depth of nearly 1.2 meters, yet she still hadn’t found anything.
She couldn’t help becoming suspicious.
“Are you sure it’s here?”
“Host, I am certain.”
The system’s electronic voice paused before continuing.
“Why don’t you try upgrading? Purchase the automatic treasure-searching service, and we’ll split whatever treasure we find fifty-fifty.”
Qiao Nian turned her head away and ignored it, continuing to dig with all her strength.
She couldn’t help grumbling inwardly.
As expected of this shamelessly greedy system. She had already paid for the treasure-detection service, and now it wanted her to upgrade again.
“Hey, hey! If fifty-fifty doesn’t work, how about thirty-seventy? Twenty-eighty would work too!”
The system continued trying to bargain as Qiao Nian swung the hoe even faster.
Suddenly, Qiao Nian felt that something was off about the hoe as it struck the ground. Unlike the softness of soil, there was a distinct hardness beneath it.
“See, Host? The item has been found.”
Qiao Nian crouched down and looked into the hole by the light of the moon. She saw a brown wooden box, with a faintly damp smell lingering around it.
The box was made of wood. She couldn’t tell what kind of wood it was, but beneath the damp, musty odor was another indescribable fragrance.
Qiao Nian became excited.
The system hadn’t said a word when she found the ten small gold bars in Qiao Weimin’s room. If the system had specifically alerted her to something, then it had to be much more valuable.
Qiao Nian slowly dug around the wooden box, clearing away the soil.
Once she uncovered one box, she saw the corner of another box emerging beside it.
Qiao Nian continued digging laboriously until she had uncovered three boxes—two large ones and one small one.
Only then did the system speak.
“That’s enough, Host. There’s nothing else.”
Qiao Nian’s eyes lit up.
She immediately grabbed the boxes and vanished into her space.
Inside the space, there was a soft, gentle light regardless of whether it was day or night.
Since the space was safe, Qiao Nian was also curious about what was inside the boxes.
The moment she opened them, she was nearly blinded by the dazzling golden light.
The two large boxes were packed to the brim with large gold bars, while the smaller box was likewise filled with small gold bars.
If not for the musty, damp smell filling her nose, Qiao Nian would have been tempted to pick one up and bite it to see if it was real.
Instead of biting them, she simply poured everything out and counted them.
Each box contained exactly fifty gold bars.
Qiao Nian grinned from ear to ear.
With this much gold, she had really struck it rich!
That old man Qiao clearly had no shortage of valuable things hidden away.
Qiao Nian didn’t stay in the space for long. Once she had finished inspecting the treasure, she came back out.
She hadn’t forgotten that there were still two rooms she hadn’t searched.
As soon as she emerged, she saw the mess outside the window.
The system spoke at just the right moment.
“Host, why not purchase a post-operation cleanup service? It will erase all traces. Satisfaction guaranteed.”
Qiao Nian was speechless for a moment.
Between the treasure-detection service and now this cleanup service, she was once again beginning to suspect that this wasn’t exactly a legitimate system.
Then she thought about it.
Well, in this life, she didn’t plan on being a particularly legitimate person either.
They were a perfect match.
A hundred yuan wasn’t expensive, so Qiao Nian placed the order without hesitation.
She was rather curious to see what the Qiao family home would look like tomorrow.
She left the mess outside to the system and returned to Grandpa Qiao’s room.
The two people inside were still sleeping soundly on the bed.
Qiao Nian searched the room and found more than 500 yuan in cash, along with a savings passbook containing 5,000 yuan.
There was also a box of small gold bars hidden beneath the bed.
Qiao Nian counted them.
There were thirty-five.
She carefully examined the gold bars found in the room, those outside, and the ones from Qiao Yuemin’s room.
They were all from the same batch. The identification codes stamped on them all began with the same sequence.