“Hmph, it better be so. After all, all your property is in my hands. If you wrong me, I’ll make sure you don’t get a single coin. Let’s see if any other woman would even want you then,” Bai Nianqing said coldly.
She wasn’t bluffing—she truly meant it. As a modern soul, she knew how easily people divorced in her world when things went wrong.
“Don’t worry, my lady. I’m devoted to you. How could I ever betray you? I even worry that you’d dislike me for having no family or connections,” Shen Wenhe said, a bit aggrieved.
“You won’t, as long as you don’t do anything to hurt me, I won’t leave you,” Bai Nianqing promised.
“I won’t give you the chance to leave me,” Shen Wenhe replied seriously, his eyes full of sincerity.
“I know. Now that the grain is stored, let’s go out,” Bai Nianqing said.
“Wait, it’s not done yet,” Shen Wenhe said, heading back to the storage area.
Bai Nianqing didn’t know how he did it, but the wall of the cellar slid aside by about a meter, revealing a secret room behind it.
Shen Wenhe waved to her. “Come here, my lady. The truly valuable things are in here.”
Bai Nianqing walked over. The secret room was neatly stacked with twenty chests, two chests on top of each other.
Shen Wenhe opened the front chest, and a dazzling golden light spilled out—it was full of gold ingots.
Bai Nianqing stepped forward and bit one of the gold ingots.
Shen Wenhe barely had time to react. “Hey, what are you doing?”
Bai Nianqing ignored him, laughing at the stamp on the gold ingot. Shen Wenhe couldn’t help but laugh at her greed—it was both funny and exasperating.
“You really are… this happy over gold?” Shen Wenhe said helplessly.
“Yes, very much! I’ve never seen so much gold in my life!” Bai Nianqing admitted. In both her past and present lives, she had never seen this much gold, even counting her past life—it was unimaginable.
After playing with the ingots for a while, she carefully put them back.
“Husband, how much does one ingot weigh? How much is in this chest?” Bai Nianqing asked, unfamiliar with ancient measurements.
“One gold ingot weighs two taels. This chest has twenty of them, totaling forty taels. This top layer is specially arranged for convenience, containing not only gold but silver ingots, each weighing two taels,” Shen Wenhe explained.
These were all details his father had told him.
Bai Nianqing couldn’t help but admire the foresight of Shen family ancestors. They had prepared well in case of disasters, storing silver and gold in a hidden room. Silver ingots and gold ingots were more practical than gold bars for emergency use.
Shen Wenhe opened the chests one by one: eight chests of gold ingots and two of silver ingots.
“My lady, put away this top layer first,” Shen Wenhe said after checking, having a clear idea of the inventory.
Bai Nianqing waved her hand, and the entire top layer of chests disappeared into her space.
Next were the bottom chests, containing gold bars—ten chests in total. Bai Nianqing was already overwhelmed. One chest weighed forty taels… how much would ten chests be? Her mind couldn’t calculate.
It was… a huge amount of gold.
“Darling, shall we put it all away?” Shen Wenhe patted her head gently, amused at her stunned expression.
Bai Nianqing, feeling a bit dazed, stuck out her tongue and waved her hand—ten large bottom chests vanished into her space as well.
Shen Wenhe restored the secret room to its original state and finally led Bai Nianqing out of the cellar.
“My lady, let’s stay here tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to the city. I’ll figure out how to convert the silver notes into actual silver or gold. You said you weren’t sure what the future holds, and having just notes isn’t reassuring,” Shen Wenhe said.
“Fine. I’ll go to the cloth shop to stock up. We don’t know what the world will be like in the future, so it’s better to prepare. Also, we need salt—people can manage without other things, but without salt, they’ll feel weak. Anything else we can buy more of if necessary. We have several people in the household; we need plenty of supplies,” Bai Nianqing said.
“Alright, I understand. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the general store and buy everything we need. My lady, should we get some pork as well? We’re not short of money. If a disaster comes, we shouldn’t have to scrimp,” Shen Wenhe said. He had never endured hardship, so he wanted everyone to eat well if disaster struck.
“Sure, if we can, let’s get plenty—including pork offal,” Bai Nianqing said. She wasn’t someone who had suffered, so of course she wanted to eat well now that she could.
“Darling, pork offal is smelly and not tasty. We have money, I’ll buy proper pork for you,” Shen Wenhe said. He had never eaten pork offal before. Usually, only poor people or those who couldn’t afford meat would eat it.
“Oh, that’s because they don’t know how to cook it. Tomorrow, buy a set of pork offal, have it cleaned, and I’ll cook it for you properly—you’ll see,” Bai Nianqing said. She knew the recipe for braised pork offal, but didn’t want to deal with the messy cleaning. The butcher could handle it.
“Alright, I’ll go tomorrow,” Shen Wenhe said. He didn’t think offal was tasty, but since his lady wanted it, he would buy it. Even if it was cheap and unappetizing, what mattered was that she was happy.
Unknowingly, Shen Wenhe had begun to understand the essence of spoiling one’s wife—and he would continue to go further down this path.
They chatted as they returned to the house.
By then, the bedding and curtains were already set up by Changle and Xiao Chun.
“Miss, Fourth Young Master is asleep. Should I start cooking now?” Xiao Chun asked as she washed the kitchen utensils.
Even though the utensils were new, they needed to be scalded with boiling water before use.
“Alright. Everyone’s tired from moving today, so just cook some noodles for now,” Bai Nianqing said.
Since there were only a few of them in the house, Bai Nianqing didn’t treat Xiao Chun like a servant to be overworked. Coming from a modern perspective, she couldn’t get used to treating her helper like ancient times’ slaves. She treated Xiao Chun more like a nanny.