Shen Youchu crouched down and brushed the dust off a nearby gold fragment.
Only then did she notice the carved dragon scales.
So the massive pile of gold before her had once been a giant golden dragon that had been smashed to pieces.
The scales were exquisitely detailed, each one lifelike and meticulously crafted. It was clearly the work of a master artisan and likely an antique of considerable age.
Shen Youchu stood up and stopped thinking about it.
With a wave of her hand, she stored the shattered golden dragon in her spatial pocket.
She then moved to the piles of ancient coins.
Scooping up several handfuls, she inspected them one by one.
There were commemorative charms, copper cash coins, and all sorts of varieties.
At a glance, there had to be tens of thousands of them.
The condition was excellent, but in the current era, finding a buyer wealthy enough to absorb such a collection would be difficult.
Otherwise, that old fox Fu Dongshou wouldn’t have left so many coins and chunks of the golden dragon hidden here gathering dust.
Shen Youchu knew nothing about antiques and couldn’t judge their value.
With another wave of her hand, she packed everything away.
Her storage space was enormous.
How to deal with them could be a problem for another day.
The looting expedition had taken much longer than expected.
By the time she climbed out of the well, dawn was already breaking.
Using the wall for leverage, she scaled it in a few swift movements.
After returning the guard dog to its original spot, she leaped down and quickly disappeared into the distance.
By the time she made it back to the city, daylight had fully arrived.
The events of the previous night had caused a huge uproar throughout Yangcheng.
Early that morning, Fu Boda was being paraded through the streets as a warning to others.
Liu Tao carried a loudspeaker and loudly condemned the scandal all along the route.
The spectators shook their heads in disgust.
Whenever the speech reached an especially juicy part, some couldn’t help but spit on the ground and loudly denounce the offenders.
“My goodness! Those three looked like decent people. Who would’ve thought they were like this?”
“Oh heavens. His father keeps making my husband work overtime every day. I’d better tell my old man to be careful. Who knows what his real motives are?”
“Tsk tsk. Hey, do you think Factory Director Fu has the same kind of hobby?”
“Hard to say. Maybe Fu Boda inherited it from his father.”
The crowd buzzed with speculation.
Many of the onlookers were family members of employees from the smelting plant.
Others were parents whose daughters had been victimized by Fu Boda.
At that moment, each insult was nastier than the last.
Wearing a tall dunce cap, Zong Huaiyu kept his head lowered.
No matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t understand what had gone wrong with Fu Boda.
He replayed their entire acquaintance in his mind.
Suddenly, his eyes widened.
Holy crap…
Could it be that this guy had been targeting me from the very beginning?
Was Shen Youchu just a cover?
The thought terrified him so much that he didn’t even dare open his eyes.
He desperately wished everything that had happened yesterday was just a nightmare.
Aunt Yang had a pair of torn shoes hanging around her neck.
Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed uncontrollably.
As for Fu Boda, he had become the prime example of moral corruption.
Liu Tao deliberately kept him at the front of the procession as a living cautionary tale.
The crowd showed no restraint whatsoever.
Rotten vegetables and spoiled eggs flew endlessly toward him.
There was plenty to go around.
Liu Tao had thoroughly shattered his spirit.
At this point, Fu Boda practically wanted to smash his head into a wall and die.
Shen Youchu, meanwhile, was enjoying the spectacle immensely.
Being the “helpful” person she was, she even assisted an auntie beside her with the throwing.
Her aim was far superior to that of ordinary people.
No matter how Fu Boda dodged and swayed, he felt as though there was nowhere to hide.
Hit after hit landed squarely on target.
Finally, he snapped.
“Ow! Damn it! That hurts! You poor bastards finally found your chance, huh? I—”
He would have been better off staying silent.
The moment he opened his mouth, the barrage intensified tenfold.
Vegetables and eggs rained down like a storm.
Liu Tao raised his loudspeaker.
“Hey, hey, hey! Calm down! Calm down!”
He certainly said all the right things.
As for actually stopping anyone?
He did absolutely nothing.
He simply stood there and watched coldly.
Only when things became truly excessive did he finally order people to separate the crowd.
Hidden among the onlookers, sisters Zong Sisi and Zong Xiaxia cried their eyes out.
Sniffling miserably, Zong Xiaxia looked at her sister.
“Sis… maybe we should tell Dad not to come home after this. Maybe he should hide somewhere. I’m scared… sob…”
Zong Sisi’s eyes were red.
She glanced at her younger sister but said nothing.
Having stayed up all night, Shen Youchu quickly lost interest.
She slipped away into the crowd and headed home for some sleep.
Five days passed.
Neither Zong Huaiyu nor Aunt Yang had been released.
The two sisters cried themselves to sleep every day.
Just looking at them annoyed Shen Youchu.
So during the daytime, she simply worked inside her spatial realm, excavating spirit springs and channeling the water toward the Golden Palace to irrigate her spiritual farmland.
Whenever she had free time, she checked on Master Niu Bi’s progress repairing the giant golden dragon.
It seemed such a waste for a treasure of that size to remain shattered.
Master Niu Bi had volunteered for the task himself.
At night, Shen Youchu would disguise herself and head to Antique Street.
The massive quantity of ancient coins in her possession needed to be converted into cash.
Cash was king.
Unlike gold and silver, keeping piles of copper coins around was just a headache.
During the day, Antique Street was nearly deserted.
At night, however, it became packed with people.
Middlemen and traders gathered there to buy and sell goods under the cover of darkness.
Calling it the black market of the antiques world would not be an exaggeration.
Shen Youchu leisurely played with a pouch of copper coins as she wandered through the crowd.
She wasn’t worried about attracting thieves.
Anyone foolish enough to target her would only end up dead.
The local thugs had already been beaten badly enough over the past few days to learn that lesson.
Eventually, she stopped at a fat merchant’s stall.
“Here. Today’s batch. Check the goods.”
Efficiency was her motto.
As she spoke, she casually tossed the coin pouch toward him.
The fat merchant nearly failed to catch it and stumbled backward several steps.
They had already conducted business several times before.
The merchant carefully inspected the coins.
Satisfied, he immediately handed over ten yuan in cash along with several ration coupons.
“Same price as always. Count it yourself.”
Shen Youchu accepted the payment, verified the amount, and turned away.
Neither side wasted words on unnecessary conversation.
She then moved on to the next dealer.
And then the next.
Sell, sell, sell.
Only when dawn approached did she finally leave.
The dealers capable of purchasing dozens of coins from her every day were already among the wealthiest players in this market.
The transactions were tedious, but every little bit added up.
Eventually, it would amount to a substantial sum.
Back at the villa, Shen Youchu sat before her dressing table and counted the night’s earnings.
One hundred and eight yuan in cash.
One sugar coupon.
Four grain coupons.
Two meat coupons.
Three oil coupons.
Three cloth coupons.
And finally, two biscuit coupons and two pastry coupons.
Aside from the biscuit and pastry coupons, she stored everything else inside her spatial realm.
After a long night of work, she took a hot bath.
Then she tucked the pastry coupons into her pocket and headed out.
Walking through the streets, she discovered that Zong Huaiyu and the other two were still undergoing public “re-education.”
Shen Youchu had no interest in them whatsoever.
She turned and entered a nearby state-run supply store.
Though it was early morning, the place was already packed.
The crowd was so dense that moving around was difficult.
The main reason was simple:
This supply store carried almost everything.
As she browsed casually, several unusual gazes caught her attention.
Four men wearing Liberation caps were following her closely.
Shen Youchu’s expression remained unchanged.
She stopped at the pastry counter.
“Comrade, one box of pastries.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at the four suspicious men trailing behind her.
Then she picked up the pastries and headed toward the store’s exit.
To make things easier for her pursuers, she even deliberately chose an empty alleyway to walk through.