Courtyard House: Passing through the Silly Pillar, Activating the Blessed Cave Heaven

36

Before I knew it, the day had arrived for the delivery agreed upon with Dashan at the vegetable market.

In the past few days, there has been no news of a burglary at Police Chief Xu Tieying's house, so it seems that my actions were very discreet and did not arouse anyone's suspicion.

Director Xu never intended to publicize this matter.

Taking advantage of a free afternoon, He Yuzhu rushed to the vegetable market and handed the pickup slip to Dashan.

Dashan told him to wait a moment, then turned around and went for a walk. A few minutes later, he returned carrying a cloth bag.

"Here you go, these are the fresh bamboo roots you requested, each one is over a foot long."

This thing itself isn't worth much, but transporting it all the way from the south took a lot of effort.

He Yuzhu reached out and opened the bag to take a look. The bamboo roots were still covered with damp soil, and it was obvious that they had just been dug up from the ground. He guessed that after they were transported to Beiping, the people at the vegetable market had temporarily buried them to keep them fresh.

"Thank you, Brother Shan. You go ahead with your work. I'll head back now." He Yuzhu picked up the cloth bag and left the market. He walked to a secluded spot where no one was around, and with a slight sway, he entered his paradise.

He carried a cloth bag in his left hand and a shovel on his right shoulder, with a wooden bucket hanging from the shovel head, and walked straight toward the two mountains in the cave.

To make them easier to distinguish, He Yuzhu had already named the nine mountains in the cave, from one mountain to nine.

To save time, He Yuzhu buried a bamboo root every few dozen meters from the foot of the mountain to the top, covering half of the roots on both the north and south sides.

After planting all the bamboo roots, he carried a wooden bucket and watered each bamboo root half a bucketful.

Fortunately, there are mountain springs flowing on every mountain; otherwise, just fetching water for irrigation would have made our legs break.

After watering, He Yuzhu put the wooden bucket back in Wuji Hall and took out the house deed for Zhao Changchuan's house in Qudeng Hutong.

He had spent twenty silver dollars asking around and finally found out the whereabouts of Zhao Changchuan's family: when Beiping was occupied by the Japanese army in 1937, they fled south to avoid the chaos of war. Later, they followed the Nationalist government to Chongqing. But unexpectedly, when the Japanese army bombed Chongqing in 1941, their whole family failed to hide in the air-raid shelter in time and all perished.

He Yuzhu couldn't help but sigh at the Zhao family's plight.

After confirming that no one from the Zhao family could return, he decided to go to a real estate agency to complete the property transfer procedures.

Coincidentally, this day happened to be an auspicious day according to the Chinese almanac for transferring ownership.

He Yuzhu arrived at the brokerage firm as agreed and handed the property deed to the broker.

The broker took him to the registry office to get a new land title, which cost five silver dollars in total—four of which were brokerage fees and one was deed tax.

He Yuzhu clicked his tongue inwardly: No wonder the older generation often said, "Even innocent people should be killed." The intermediaries in the Republic of China era were truly ruthless.

Afterwards, He Yuzhu found the broker again and asked him to help contact some bricklayers to renovate the house.

The broker told him to go back to Qudeng Hutong and wait, and that he would send someone over shortly.

On his way back, He Yuzhu passed a coffin shop and bought some paper money, and then bought ten locks from a nearby general store.

Back at the gate of Zhao Changchuan's house, he used a wire to pry open the old lock on the gate and squatted in the yard to light the paper money.

"Uncle Zhao, those evil spirits who harmed people have long been driven away, and your family's great revenge has been avenged. Now you can go and be reincarnated in peace."