Late at night, when everything was quiet, it was the perfect time to do something bad.
Shen Qingyao knew that Leng Xingchen, who was outside in the carriage, was already asleep.
After locking the carriage from the inside, she willed it, and in an instant, she flashed over to the Li Residence.
She wasn’t someone with a good temper.
Since Li Zhiyuan had dared to flirt with her, he would have to pay for it with his family’s wealth.
She had even dared to steal from the National Treasury.
A mere Li Residence was nothing to her.
Shen Qingyao appeared inside the Li Residence.
The entire residence was silent, which was only natural.
After all, it was the middle of the night. Everyone was asleep.
The only person wandering around instead of sleeping was Shen Qingyao, who had come to rob the Li Residence.
At first, she had planned to empty the entire Li Residence and cripple Li Zhiyuan as well.
However, she later learned that although Li Zhiyuan was lustful, he wasn’t truly vicious.
After abducting women and bringing them home, he didn’t brutally torture them the way Bai Wu of the Duke’s Residence had.
He even gave money and gifts to the women’s families.
After bringing the women back, he never forced himself on them.
Instead, he let them eat the best food, wear the finest clothes, and live in the nicest quarters.
Only after they gradually accepted their new lives would they willingly let him touch them.
Wasn’t this a case of winning people’s hearts first?
Since that was the case, she decided not to cripple Li Zhiyuan after all.
She would consider it a favor to the wives and concubines in his household.
So instead of emptying the entire Li Residence, she simply flashed into the family’s storehouse and cleared out everything inside.
See how kind she was?
After being flirted with by Li Zhiyuan, she merely emptied the Li family’s storehouse.
She didn’t even touch the private treasuries of the master, the madam, or the young masters and young ladies of the Li family.
She truly was such a kind-hearted, wonderful person.
After robbing the Li Residence’s storehouse, she flashed over to the county magistrate’s residence.
Originally, she hadn’t planned on stealing from the county magistrate.
But then she remembered that Li Zhiyuan was only so arrogant because he had the county magistrate as his brother-in-law.
As the county magistrate, if he couldn’t even keep his own family under control and allowed them to bully others so freely, then he should pay a price as well.
Since he was Li Zhiyuan’s biggest supporter, he deserved a little “compensation” too.
It wouldn’t be fair to treat one differently from the other.
After emptying the county magistrate’s storehouse, she generously spared everything else in the residence.
With another thought, she flashed back into the carriage.
Lying on the soft quilt inside, Shen Qingyao quickly fell asleep.
Back in Yunying City, Wealthy Landowner Li normally never visited the family storehouse.
He was completely confident that it could never be robbed.
After all, he had hired several skilled martial artists to guard it in shifts.
Because of that, he had no idea that the entire storehouse had already been emptied.
As for those so-called experts standing guard outside…
None of them had noticed a thing.
Two days later, Shen Qingyao and Leng Xingchen arrived at another small town.
It was even smaller than Yunying City.
The entire town had only two inns.
They checked into the one closest to the city gate—Ruyi Inn.
Just like before, they rented two standard rooms next to each other.
The first thing they did was ask for two buckets of hot water.
Each of them enjoyed a hot bath.
After traveling for two straight days, it was time to wash away the dirt and change into clean clothes.
Leng Xingchen was an extremely hardworking child.
Whenever he was alone, he practiced martial arts.
Perhaps he really was the kind of protagonist found in novels.
When it came to martial arts, he was undoubtedly a genius.
He mastered the basic martial arts manual in just one day.
By now, he had completely understood the first manual and had already begun studying the second one.
The second manual taught swordsmanship.
Like everything else, martial arts had to be learned from the very beginning.
Leng Xingchen was very clever.
He knew the inn wasn’t a suitable place to practice sword techniques, but he didn’t waste his time.
Instead, he carefully memorized everything in the manual, planning to practice whenever he had the opportunity.
Shen Qingyao was also studying the fundamentals of martial arts.
What she really wanted to learn, however, was Qinggong.
Whenever she watched martial arts dramas in her previous life, she had always thought Qinggong was the coolest skill of all.
Although she had her Space and could go wherever she wanted and do whatever she pleased…
She absolutely could not reveal its existence in front of other people.
As for her Taekwondo and Muay Thai skills, they were more than enough against ordinary people or those with only superficial martial arts training.
For example, dealing with the four guards Li Zhiyuan had brought with him had been effortless.
Perhaps Shen Qingyao had a bit of talent for martial arts herself.
Learning came surprisingly easily to her.
Of course, she knew the real reason.
It was all thanks to the Spiritual Spring water.
Ever since she started drinking it, both her physical condition and her memory had become exceptionally good.
To learn Qinggong, she first had to master the fundamentals.
She needed to cultivate internal energy, regulate her breathing, and strengthen her dantian so that her body would become light, agile, and stable.
These were the foundations of everything.
To build a solid foundation, Shen Qingyao tied sandbags around her legs.
Naturally, she couldn’t rush things in the beginning.
Even with talent and ability, progress had to be gradual.
She tied a one-jin sandbag around each ankle.
Except when bathing, she kept the sandbags on at all times.
Naturally, she also prepared a pair for Leng Xingchen.
Shen Qingyao was relatively lenient with herself but especially strict with others.
She didn’t give Leng Xingchen one-jin sandbags.
Instead, she handed him two three-jin sandbags.
After all, he was a grown boy.
He certainly couldn’t be compared to a young woman like her.
Leng Xingchen didn’t refuse.
Just like Shen Qingyao, he kept the sandbags tied around his ankles all the time, only removing them when bathing.
He even slept with them on.
Far from complaining, he was deeply grateful.
He believed Shen Qingyao was pushing him to improve.
Elder Sister was truly too good to him.
In the future, he had to treat Elder Sister even better.
The two of them stayed at the inn for two days. Aside from going out the following afternoon to buy a few things, they spent the rest of the time in their rooms.
Other than eating and sleeping, Leng Xingchen devoted every spare moment to practicing diligently.
Shen Qingyao wasn’t nearly as hardworking as Leng Xingchen. After all, she still had her ability to improve.
During the day, she couldn’t enter the Space to train because she didn’t want Leng Xingchen looking for her and being unable to find her.
That meant she could only enter the Space at night. For two consecutive nights, she went inside to cultivate her ability.
Finally, her ability leveled up again.
This time, the advancement of her lightning ability was a major breakthrough.
She could now release lightning from a distance.
The improvement delighted her. To test her upgraded lightning, she teleported to the livestock farm inside the Space.
The moment the animals saw her appear, whether they were chickens, ducks, geese, cows, sheep, or pigs, they all immediately turned around and ran.
Seeing that, Shen Qingyao rolled her eyes in annoyance and curled her lips.
These little brats have no sense of loyalty.
I only electrocuted a few chickens, a few ducks, and one little sow while testing my lightning.
Did they really have to bolt the moment they saw me?
Forget it.
She couldn’t be bothered to argue with animals.
Using her mind, Shen Qingyao controlled a bolt of lightning.
She aimed it directly at the little pig running at the very back.
The lightning struck.
The little pig stopped running.
It stood there for a moment before collapsing to the ground, the aroma of roasted pork rising from its body.
Shen Qingyao immediately realized it had been roasted completely.
She hadn’t intended to make roast suckling pig in the first place.
She had only wanted to test her lightning a little, but she hadn’t controlled the power properly.
Still, it didn’t matter.
She would get better with practice.
Walking over to the perfectly roasted piglet, Shen Qingyao swallowed as the delicious smell filled the air.
She bent down, picked up the roast pig, and said apologetically,
“Oops… I’m really sorry. I used a little too much force. I’ll be more careful next time.”
The poor dead pig’s final thought:
Thanks a lot. (｡･ˇ_ˇ･｡)
Meanwhile, in Yunying City, Master Li was preparing to choose some gifts from the family storehouse when he discovered that it had been emptied.
“Speak! Did you two steal everything while pretending to guard the place?” Master Li shouted angrily at the two guards he had hired at great expense.
The two guards were equally bewildered.
They couldn’t understand it either. They had been guarding the storehouse the whole time and hadn’t heard a single unusual sound. How could everything inside have disappeared?
They hurriedly defended themselves.
“We’ve been wronged, Master! There were so many valuables inside. Even if we were the thieves, there’s no way we could have stolen everything without anyone noticing. Besides, the storehouse is completely sealed. The only entrance is this door, and only you have the key. We couldn’t even get inside.”
Privately, the two of them grumbled to themselves.
If we really had that kind of ability, would we still be working here as guards?
We’d have become master thieves long ago, stealing from whoever we wanted and living carefree lives.
Master Li’s head was buzzing.
What they said made sense.
The lock on his storehouse had been specially commissioned. Without the key, it couldn’t possibly be opened.
Besides, whether it was day or night, it was impossible for so many valuables to disappear without anyone noticing.
Yet everything inside was indeed gone.
Master Li collapsed onto the ground.
Although the contents of the storehouse weren’t all of his wealth, they accounted for sixty percent of his entire fortune.
Just which damned thief had emptied his storehouse?
“Why are you idiots still standing there? Hurry up and report this to the authorities! Do I have to do it myself?” Master Li roared at the stunned servant beside him.
The servant finally snapped back to his senses and immediately ran off.
Half an hour later, the servant returned with two tall, sturdy constables.
The moment Master Li saw them, his spirits lifted. Looking at them expectantly, he said,
“You’re finally here! Hurry and find out who stole all my property.”
The two constables nodded solemnly.
“Don’t worry, Master Li. We’ll do our best to find out who stole your belongings.”
They said they would do their best, not that they definitely would.
After all, no investigation came with guarantees.
They weren’t about to make promises they couldn’t keep.
“What do you mean, ‘do your best’? You must find that thief! I can’t afford to lose that much property!” Master Li shouted, raising his voice several notches. He was clearly dissatisfied with their answer.
The constables remained expressionless.
“Master Li, we also want to catch the thief, but we can’t guarantee we’ll succeed.”
They knew the man before them was the county magistrate’s father-in-law.
So what?
They were here to investigate a case and had to treat everyone equally.
Master Li took several deep breaths, ready to explode in anger.
But seeing the constables’ calm, unmoved expressions, his temper immediately deflated.
“Fine. Then investigate,” he said weakly.
Deep down, however, he silently held a grudge against the two constables.
He would definitely complain to his daughter and have her whisper a few words into her husband’s ear.
He wanted his son-in-law to teach these two arrogant constables a proper lesson.
After all, he was the county magistrate’s father-in-law.
How could they treat him with so little respect?
The constables had no idea that Master Li had already marked them for retaliation.
They entered the storehouse.
After walking around it twice, they found absolutely no clues.
The only door showed no signs of forced entry.
There weren’t even any footprints or objects left behind on the ground.
They immediately realized that this had to be the work of the same person who had robbed the county government’s storehouse.
Yes, the county government had discovered the theft days earlier.
They had already been investigating for two days without finding a single clue.
Now the entire Yunying City was on high alert.
Everyone entering or leaving through the city gates had to present their Household Registration records.
Every carriage, ox cart, and any other vehicle or container capable of carrying goods was searched thoroughly.
Even so, they found nothing.
It was as if all the stolen goods had simply vanished into thin air.
The two constables walked back out with dejected expressions.
Master Li immediately asked,
“Well? Did you find any clues?”
“No,” one constable replied, shaking his head.
“You two are useless! You couldn’t even find a single clue! If you can’t solve it, then send different constables instead!” Master Li barked arrogantly.
As the county magistrate’s father-in-law, he always believed himself to be above everyone else.
He simply didn’t take the two constables seriously.