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Chapter 117 The Astonishing Wealth Left by Our Ancestors
Inside the hall.

Lin Qingsong put down his chopsticks and said, "Grandma, Mom, Dad and I are going out for a smoke to help us digest our food?"

"Go ahead, your mom and I can take care of things here." Grandma Lin nodded happily.

Shen Yuehe didn't stop her, but simply asked what she wanted to eat for dinner before clearing the table.

Got outside.

Lin Qingsong took out a pack of Zhonghua cigarettes from his pocket, lit one, and handed it to Lin Hanhai, saying, "Dad, don't smoke yet, wait for me."

"What's wrong?" Lin Hanhai asked, puffing on his cigarette and looking at Lin Qingsong with curiosity.

Lin Qingsong opened the car door, leaned inside, and took out a box of cigars and a lighter from the glove box.

"Here's something good for you." Holding the Goodyway kerosene lighter, made in Germany in the 1950s, Lin Qingsong popped up the cover, and with a "ding," a fierce flame immediately shot out.

Looking at the small, flat lighter in front of him, Lin Hanhai took a puff of his cigarette and said with a curious expression, "Qingsong, what kind of lighter is this? It's quite nice-looking."

"German-made Good Luck lighters, used exclusively by the German army during World War II. It's said that the Gestapo liked to use these back then," Lin Qingsong said, closing the lid again.

Hearing the resounding "clang" of the hood closing, Lin Hanhai felt a sudden surge of excitement.

He touched his plastic lighter in his pocket, and inexplicably felt that some cigarettes lit by this lighter tasted even better.

"Great job, Qingsong! Where did you get this?" Lin Hanhai held the small but mechanically beautiful lighter, his face beaming with smiles.

Lin Qingsong said with a smile, "I got it by chance!"

He was absolutely right.

He found these items at an antique market stall some time ago, based on information provided by the system. There were three of them, and he bought them for a total of a little over a hundred yuan.

of course.

If he were to sell them, each one would fetch at least a thousand yuan.

He kept one for himself and gave one to Vivian.

The last one was intended for his father.

"It's worth a lot of money, isn't it?" Lin Hanhai put it into his pocket as if it were a treasure, and then said with concern, "Why don't you keep it for yourself? Your dad is old, he doesn't care about any kind of lighter."

"Oh?" Lin Qingsong glanced at him. "Then give it back to me?"

"You little rascal, you never take back what you've given away!" Lin Hanhai said, taking a plastic lighter out of his pocket and placing it in front of Lin Qingsong. "Here, if you really need it, use this for now."

"Never mind." Lin Qingsong waved his hand speechlessly. "I have more here. Also, take this box of cigars. I'm not used to smoking the ones my friend gave me."

This box of cigars is the Havana cigar he found earlier. He tried it once and found that cigarettes still suited his taste better.

The flavor is indeed good, but he just doesn't like smoking it.

"A cigar?" Upon hearing this, Lin Hanhai curiously picked one up, then held it between his cigarette and his mouth, biting down on it. He then struck a pose like one of those Hong Kong gangsters, smiling broadly as he said, "How's it, son? Do you get that feeling?"

Lin Qingsong looked at his father, who was all muscle, bald, and had a cigar in his mouth with an arrogant expression, and said with a smile, "He has the kind of vibe that can get three auxiliary police officers promoted to full-fledged positions."

Lin Hanhai, who has amassed several thousand followers on Douyin, is certainly familiar with this meme.

He spat out his cigar and looked at Lin Qingsong speechlessly: "You even promoted three auxiliary police officers to full-fledged positions! Your old man calls this domineering, do you understand what domineering means?"

"Good, good, good, awesome!"

Lin Qingsong waved his hand, wondering why his father's muscles kept getting bigger as he got older.

When he was little, his dad was quite normal, in a state where he looked thin when dressed but muscular when undressed.

Now I reckon if he sleeps on his side, his head might not even be able to rest on the pillow.

After giving out the items, Lin Qingsong didn't wander around the village. Instead, he went back to the courtyard with a cigarette in his mouth.

He pretended to look at the flower bed for a while, then picked up the silver ingot with feigned surprise and asked Lin Hanhai, who had just put the things away, "Dad, where did this come from???"

"What?!" Lin Hanhai asked, a cigarette dangling from his lips, looking at Lin Qingsong's things with a puzzled expression.

"This!" After looking at it for a while, he scratched his bald head and said speechlessly, "Isn't this the stone I found when I was cleaning a while ago? How did you manage to dig it out of the flower bed?"

"A stone?" Lin Qingsong held the dark silver ingot in his hand and said speechlessly, "This is a silver ingot!"

"Huh?" Lin Hanhai blinked, leaned closer to Lin Qingsong, looked at it for a while, and said in confusion, "This dark thing is a silver ingot? Qingsong, are you sure?"

He's seen silver before; those shiny coins are so beautiful. This thing doesn't look like silver at all.

Lin Qingsong took out his phone, turned on the flashlight, and carefully searched the silver ingot. He finally found the four characters "Guangxu Yuanbao" faintly engraved on the bottom.

Upon seeing these four words, Lin Hanhai held the silver ingot, which he thought was a stone, in disbelief. "This thing is actually a silver ingot?"

The two were talking quite loudly, startling the old lady inside. "Qingsong, what are you and your dad talking about?"

"Mom! We have silver in the house!" Lin Hanhai excitedly presented the dark silver ingot in his hand to his grandmother, saying with a hint of excitement, "I thought it was a stone when I was cleaning the house a while ago and threw it in the flower bed, but I didn't expect Qingsong to recognize it as a silver ingot at a glance!!"

"Silver ingots?" Lin Nai, a young lady from a wealthy family, glanced at it and nodded at the design, saying, "This is indeed the design of a silver ingot!"

"Dad, where did you find this stone?" Lin Qingsong was genuinely curious; could there really be hidden silver in the house?

"It's in the east wing where you sleep." Lin Hanhai said, then looked at his mother and said, "Mom, why don't we go to the east wing and take a look? Maybe there's some silver hidden in the house."

"So what if it's there?" The old lady was quite calm, examining the silver ingot for a while. "Silver isn't worth much these days. Even if this is Qing Dynasty silver, I estimate it's only worth a few thousand or tens of thousands. Are you really planning to sell it?"

"Let's take a look!" Lin Hanhai said excitedly to Lin Qingsong, "Qingsong, wait here for me, I'll go get the ladder! I reckon if you really have something hidden in your room, the only place you can hide it is on the roof beam!"

"Mom, what's wrong?"

inside the house.

Hearing the commotion outside, Shen Yuehe wiped her hands and curiously peeked at Grandma Lin.

"Yuehe, don't wash the dishes yet, let's go explore our son's room together!" Lin Hanhai said as he walked towards the storage room in the yard.

"Treasure hunting???" Shen Yuehe walked out with a completely bewildered look on her face.

After Lin Qingsong explained for a few minutes, she looked at Lin Hanhai, who was carrying the ladder, and said, "You too, why are you throwing things around in the house like that? Next time you find something, show it to Mom first!"

"That's true." Lin Qingsong nodded in agreement, while flattering the old lady, "Grandma is a woman who has seen it all."

"Alright, alright, I got it." Lin Hanhai said speechlessly as he carried the ladder to the door of the east wing, then turned to Lin Qingsong and said, "Qingsong, you climb, I'll climb?"

"Let me do it!" Lin Qingsong looked at the beams inside the room, then glanced at the ladder. "This ladder is of utmost importance, so you'll have to hold it for me, Dad."

"No problem, Dad will hold you from below, so don't worry!" Lin Hanhai said as he set up the ladder.

Climb the ladder.

Lin Qingsong used his phone to illuminate the beams, examining them one by one, even though they were very close.

Below, Lin Nai and Shen Yuehe both reminded him to be careful.

After exploring for a while, his eyes suddenly lit up.

A piece of wood, different in color from its surroundings, and likely damaged by insects, almost completely decayed.

One corner is even completely missing.

Through the missing corner, Lin Qingsong could see that it was filled to the brim with no less than twenty silver ingots.

"There really is something! Dad handed me a basket!" After shouting down, Shen Yuehe quickly went outside to get a basket and had Lin Hanhai hand it to Lin Qingsong.

After taking out the silver ingots, Lin Qingsong discovered that there was also a letter inside.

After taking the items downstairs, he finally had time to look through the yellowed letter.

The characters above are written in small regular script with a brush.

Lin Qingsong was overwhelmed by the various classical Chinese texts he read. Helplessly, he handed the book to his grandmother, saying, "Grandma, why don't you read it yourself?"

Grandma Lin had studied in a private school before, so reading this kind of classical Chinese was no problem for her. After reading it for a while, she sighed and said, "This is a letter left by your Lin family ancestors."

"Huh?" Lin Qingsong asked curiously, "Grandma, what does it say up there?"

Not only him, but Lin Hanhai and Shen Yuehe beside him also showed curious looks.

"The higher-ups said that your Lin family are not the officials of the Reed Camp as rumored, but wealthy merchants who migrated from the north and spent some money to be able to use the Reed Camp's name."

"At the same time, he said there were several 100,000-tael silver notes in the family's collection of books. In addition, if they had spent all the money in the books and still had nothing to eat, they could chisel bricks from the west wall of the east wing to cook porridge. The bricks there were all radish bricks."

After Grandma Lin finished speaking, Lin Hanhai couldn't wait to ask, "Mom, where are our family letters?"

“There was a fire once, and everything was burned.” After saying that, Grandma Lin probably added, perhaps afraid that everyone wouldn’t be able to accept it, “Actually, even if it were, it wouldn’t be of much use, since we can’t redeem Qing Dynasty silver notes!”

"Alright." Lin Hanhai wasn't really too concerned about that. The main thing about treasure hunting was finding this word. He then curiously walked towards the west wall, touched the rough brick surface, and asked in confusion, "Can this thing be eaten?"

"Radish bricks, also known as 'guardian grains,' are made by pounding radishes and glutinous rice together into a paste, then shaping them into bricks, stacking them up, and letting them air dry naturally. Of course, they are edible."

Hearing his son's words, Lin Hanhai's face was full of confusion: "No, son, how do you know about this???"

"Me?" Lin Qingsong waved his phone and said with a smile, "I looked it up on my phone!"

Although he only found about twenty silver ingots, he was still moved by his ancestors' good intentions.

Our ancestors went to great lengths to ensure the survival of their descendants, even storing provisions and grains hidden within the walls of their old house.

(End of this chapter)