I bought a secret manual of the Hehuan Sect for ten yuan.

"It really is a hidden gem! I knew it!"

Qin Ge watched the last person enter before slipping out, patting the wooden box beside him. "Let me see what treasures are inside!"

With a little force, he tore off the wooden planks of the box, lifted the shock-absorbing foam board, and found that the whole box was full of antiques!

"A small bronze ding (tripod cauldron) with taotie design, a Tang Dynasty tri-colored horse figurine, a Han Dynasty jade bi (disc)..."

"The glaze is bright and the workmanship is exquisite, but unfortunately, they are all fakes."

Qin Ge became more and more confused. Why did these people go to all this trouble to bring back these fakes?

Puzzled, he opened several more boxes in succession.

"Good heavens, ivory, rhinoceros horn, hawksbill turtle shell, tiger bone..."

"These are all genuine!"

Qin Ge kept flipping through the pages, "Wait a minute, where's the gold?"

"Could it be that this isn't the Moyi Hall's treasury at all, but merely a transit point for the Li family's smuggling operations?"

"Did Sikong Xian make a mistake, or was he deliberately trying to fool me?"

He muttered to himself, his gaze sweeping over one of the boxes, "This height, this depth..."

Qin Ge seemed to be deep in thought. He rummaged through the contents of the box and, with a "snap," tore open the interlayer.

A mesmerizing golden light suddenly emanated from the bottom of the box, revealing a neatly stacked layer of gold bars!

"So that's how it is!" Qin Ge examined the other wooden boxes and found that only some of them had gold hidden in secret compartments.

From a single perspective, this amount is reasonable.

He glanced around the cave, but something still felt off.

The wooden crates piled up in this cave resembled small mountains, but the quantity still seemed insufficient to justify the accumulation of Moyitang over the years.

Moreover, the marks on the cave walls show that it was carved out by man. Given that such a large project was undertaken, why not build a few separate stone chambers to store the valuable items instead of leaving them there like this?

Are they really that confident they won't be exposed?

Qin Ge glanced at the door through which those people had just left, resealed the box, and went over to press the button.

"Click—"

With a soft creak, the stone wall shifted inward, and the door reappeared, as dark as an abyss in the night.

Qin Ge deliberately waited until those people were far away before starting his investigation, so as not to alert them.

The passageway behind the door is more than two meters wide and the ground is flat.

Qin Ge focused his mind and continued forward. After walking for about ten minutes, the road ended!

"So many fancy tricks!"

Qin Ge mentally complained, "I don't even need to think to know that there must be a hidden door here, otherwise those people could have just disappeared out of thin air."

He explored the stone wall inch by inch with both hands, and after a long time, he finally discovered that a dark-colored section of the stone wall seemed to be loose.

With a firm press, a "click" sound appeared, and the hidden door appeared.

Behind the door was also pitch black, but Qin Ge could sense that the space inside was spacious, though a chilling wind rushed towards him.

After listening for a moment, Qin Ge passed through the hidden door.

After walking for a few minutes, he stopped and frowned as he looked at a corner.

There stood a skeletal skeleton in that corner!

Is this godforsaken place not only a treasure trove, but also a place where murders and corpses are hidden?

Something doesn't seem right. If we just dump the body in the passageway, the stench will be unbearable. How long will it take for it to dissipate?

He leaned closer for a closer look, and when he touched the skull with his fingertip, it made a dull, plastic sound.

Fake?!

Qin Ge was filled with questions. What did this mean? Was this thing meant to scare children?

Continuing on, he saw many similar things: disheveled mannequins with faces smeared with red paint, half-dead corpses, bloody handprints, dilapidated coffins, guillotines...

"I should have brought Su Li with me."

Qin Ge was a little disappointed; he had already roughly guessed what kind of place this was.

About half an hour later, he walked out of the passage and was greeted by a sea breeze.

There was a sign next to the exit that read "Haunted House".

Qin Ge's thoughts became clear: smuggled goods were transported to the northern beach and unloaded directly on the sand, so the people transporting the goods didn't need to know what they were carrying.

Then another group of people moved the goods into the cave for storage, without needing to know what they were carrying.

Finally, the Li family arranged for someone else to use the haunted house as cover to secretly transport the goods away from there and resell them in the inland areas in batches.

So although the amount of stock in the cave looks alarming, it is only the recent stock!

Does that mean the gold will be transported along with it?

Isn't this supposed to be the Moyi Hall's vault? What kind of vault is it if it doesn't store gold and silver jewelry?

After pondering for a long time without success, Qin Ge returned to the cave.

He circled the cave again and again, touching the stone walls repeatedly, but still found nothing.

"That damn Sikong Xian is a complete fraud! He made me work so hard for so long, and all I got was this?"

Qin Ge grumbled as he walked towards the cave exit. The things inside the cave were quite valuable, but they were far from what he expected, and he really didn't care for them.

After walking a dozen steps, he suddenly stopped, his expression becoming wary.

After examining the situation carefully for a moment, he breathed a slight sigh of relief, and the wariness on his face turned into doubt.

If he wasn't mistaken, those wooden crates had clearly been moved!

But where are the people?

Qin Ge quickly opened a wooden box he had examined, and the gold in the hidden compartment was gone!

To avoid the possibility that his memory was wrong, he disassembled another box.

The situation is the same; everything else in the box is still there, except the gold is gone!

Qin Ge lowered his head and pondered. The gold couldn't have disappeared without a trace, so there was only one explanation: there were other people in this cave!

The question has come full circle: Where is he/she?

We've looked at all the stone walls, but found nothing.

He looked up and saw that the path led to the mountaintop. Surely he couldn't go up to the sky?

Then it has to be underground!

After figuring it out, Qin Ge began pacing inside the cave, each step he took was extremely heavy.

He wandered back and forth like turning over rice stalks, and after a long time, he finally discovered a problem with a piece of floorboard in a corner.

Judging from the sound, the space underneath is hollow; it must be a secret passage!

But after searching for a long time without finding the mechanism, Qin Ge's patience was almost exhausted.

"Screw that government office!"

"Boom—"

He stomped hard on the floor, crushing it and creating a hole with steps leading downwards.

"Who goes there?!"

Just as Qin Ge cleared away the rubble to widen the opening, a man's loud shout came from below.

He immediately chuckled, "There really is someone here! Could they live in here?"

He raised his voice, "I'm here to go beachcombing and dig for crabs. Is that a crab or a mouse talking in there?"

"Bang bang—"

Qin Ge was met with two bullets coming straight at him.

"ah--!"

Qin Ge easily dodged, feigning a scream, and quickly moved to the side.

"Serves him right for asking for it!"

"These people are getting more and more unruly, actually trying to pry into the secrets of this place!"

A fair-skinned man emerged with a gun, and was instantly stunned when he saw Qin Ge standing to the side, leisurely watching him.

How come he's alright? Didn't he just get hit?