After sealing the house exactly as it was, they posted two guards at both the front and back gates. They simply waited there, intending to deal with everything in the courtyard once that officer arrived.
Qu Weiwei crept up to the front gate and quietly crouched beside the stone lion, observing the clothes those people were wearing. They were in that familiar gray uniform, but mixed in were details that didn’t quite match the equipment she remembered.
With a bit of thought, she understood why. After all, this was a novel—it couldn’t be exactly the same as reality. The author must have made some adjustments, which was understandable. Still, something about these people felt off.
It was as if the clothes didn’t quite fit them.
She couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, but there was a strong air of hooliganism about them.
Real soldiers who had been on the battlefield and faced life-and-death situations would never carry such a presence.
Circling to the back gate, she saw that the two guards there felt even more out of place than the ones at the front.
At that moment, Qu Weiwei didn’t know exactly what she was thinking. She only knew she wanted to get inside and sweep away everything belonging to the Zhang family.
She understood that during this era, the authorities were poor and in need of these resources—but these people didn’t look like the upright kind trained by them.
Her current plan was simple: take everything first. If she ever got the chance to go to the capital, she could hand everything over to that person and let it be used where it was truly needed.
After carefully studying the surroundings, she found a relatively hidden spot. A tree grew right up against the wall.
Logically, such a tree shouldn’t exist in a residence like this—it was too close. Anyone could climb over the wall with ease.
But she didn’t have much time to think about it. She had to get inside first.
Thinking about the Zhang family, she recalled that in the novel, a few years later the female lead, Qu Qingqing, needed a huge sum of money to support machinery for a textile factory. In the middle of the night, she brought the male lead to dig up gold that her grandfather had secretly buried before leaving.
With that gold, the textile factory was able to develop rapidly.
The novel only vaguely mentioned the location: behind the Zhang family’s old residence was a dried-up well. Beside it, the head of the Zhang family, Zhang Yi’an—Qu Qingqing’s grandfather—had built a large secret chamber. The gold was hidden inside. The exact amount wasn’t specified, but it took them two truckloads to move everything.
Two trucks full of gold and jewels.
Just thinking about it made Qu Weiwei drool. How much gold would that be? Enough to blind her eyes with its shine.
Wait.
That meant the gold hadn’t been discovered during this confiscation.
Which meant—even if she took it now, it wouldn’t matter.
“Oh my… two truckloads of gold, just wait for me! Big sister is coming!”
After sneaking into the Zhang residence, Qu Weiwei pumped her short little legs and headed straight for the dried-up well in the backyard. It didn’t look far, but for a five-year-old’s legs, it might as well have been a marathon.
By the time she reached the well, nearly half an hour had passed. She collapsed onto the ground, panting heavily.
Rubbing her sore legs, she took out a cup of warm water from her space and gulped it down in one go.
After resting a bit, she began looking around, touching here and there, stepping lightly as she searched. Soon, she stepped on a loose blue brick.
Digging it out by hand would take too long, so she used her space to store the brick instead.
Underneath, a metal ring appeared.
She pulled it—and suddenly, the scenery beside her shifted, startling the timid Qu Weiwei.
Patting her rapidly beating heart, she tried to calm herself.
After the well entrance shifted, a staircase appeared. It was fairly wide—understandably so, since it had been designed for two people to carry items in and out.
After opening the secret chamber, she waited about ten minutes, then tossed a fire starter inside. Watching the faint flickering flame, she realized there was airflow inside.
Only after confirming nothing unusual happened did she gather her courage and carefully step into the passage.
At the bottom of the stairs, embedded in the wall, was a pearl about the size of a tangyuan. It emitted a soft glow, illuminating the golden expanse inside.
Looking at the shocking number of wooden chests, she felt dizzy just trying to count them. There were simply too many. No wonder it took two trucks to move everything.
People in this era loved storing things in large wooden chests—gold, silver, grain, rice, flour. But a heavy chest like that, filled with hundreds of pounds of goods… wouldn’t it take four people to carry?
Once again, she inwardly admired Butler Hu and Fourth Concubine. Just the two of them had managed to move hundreds of chests from the Qu family warehouse to another residence.
Maybe they hadn’t done it all in one night after all.
More likely, they had planned it long in advance and moved things gradually.
Otherwise, how could two people possibly move three to four hundred heavy chests overnight?
Only someone as naïve as her would believe such nonsense.
Glancing at her watch, she stopped her wandering thoughts. She quickly began storing everything into her space.
The watch had been taken from her scumbag father’s desk—it was perfect for keeping time.
When she had cleaned out his study earlier, she’d been too nervous to pay much attention. She only remembered the large furniture: a desk, a bookshelf, six sandalwood armchairs, and three matching tea tables.
Now that she looked again inside her space, she noticed the couch behind the desk—it was actually made of golden-thread nanmu wood.
That thing was incredibly rare and expensive. How did her father even get such a large piece—and turn it into a couch?
What a wasteful man. She didn’t even want to admit he was her father.
Inside the desk drawers were more than a dozen watches of different brands and styles, both men’s and women’s.
But the biggest gain from that study had to be the bottom drawer of the desk.
Inside was a safe.
And inside the safe—two guns, two hundred rounds of ammunition, six military knives made of fine steel, and two extremely sharp daggers.
At a glance, the craftsmanship of those knives clearly surpassed domestic capabilities.
Those two daggers would be perfect for her and her mother—easy to conceal and suitable for self-defense. She could even hide them in her sleeves.
Tomorrow, she’d have her mother sew small pockets inside their sleeves to carry them.