Courtyard House: Wudang Disciple Sweeps Through the Compound

Next, Chen Wenqi turned his perception to the Jia family and carefully investigated their situation:

The Jia family's wealth was hidden in several places. Under the bricks of the kang (a heated brick bed) was a wooden box containing more than a thousand yuan in cash, a shiny gold ring, and more than a dozen silver dollars. It is estimated that this was all the private stash that Jia Zhangshi had secretly saved.

Behind Lao Jia's portrait, someone secretly slipped more than 100 yuan in change into his pocket;

Hidden in a wooden box high on the roof beam were more than two thousand yuan in cash and a pair of exquisite gold earrings. This must have been Qin Huairu's secret stash of money.

In addition, the Jia family had two other places where they hid money, with cash of a dozen yuan and more than three hundred yuan respectively.

In total, the Jia family's assets exceeded four thousand yuan. Interestingly, the richest person in the Jia family was Qin Huairu, followed by Jia Zhangshi, while the short-lived Jia Dongxu had the least amount of money.

Qin Huairu was just an ordinary housewife with no source of income. Where did she get so much money? Chen Wenqi thought to himself, this money was probably related to Yi Zhonghai.

Finally, it was time to investigate Yan Bugui's home—and what we found was astonishing: this family, who always complained about being poor, had five places where they hid money, totaling more than 10,000 yuan. Old Yan always cried and complained that his monthly salary was only 27.5 yuan, but who would have thought that his family was so wealthy?

No wonder that after the reform and opening up, he was still able to lend money to his son Yan Jiecheng to do usury, and he even became the first family in the whole courtyard to buy a television.

Chen Wenqi did not intend to touch these people's money for the time being—if he robbed all those who had offended him, it would inevitably attract the attention of the police and make them suspicious of him.

Since these valuables are not going anywhere, they should stay firmly in place, so there's no need to rush into action.

He then channeled his spiritual power to carefully scan the homes of several other neighbors in the courtyard, discovering that several families also had thousands of yuan hidden away. It seemed that the residents of this courtyard were all extraordinary individuals.

"Huh? What's this?"

When Chen Wenqi's spiritual power probed the cellar of the central courtyard, he unexpectedly discovered a hidden passage at the bottom of the cellar. This passage meandered and led all the way to the outside of the courtyard.

Although the full extent of the passage has not yet been determined, it is certain that this secret passage ultimately leads to the long-abandoned ruins next door.

The area next door was originally the side courtyard of a traditional courtyard house, but it was destroyed by artillery fire during the War of Resistance against Japan. Now, only ruins and overgrown weeds remain, and no one has rebuilt or maintained it for many years.

The courtyard at No. 95 where Chen Wenqi lives is advertised as having a three-courtyard layout, but it is actually a four-courtyard layout. This is because the partition wall between the first and second courtyards was demolished, which makes the front courtyard appear exceptionally spacious, and the main gate is located on the central axis. Otherwise, in a typical three-courtyard courtyard, the main gate should be located on the side.

Since the courtyard was destroyed in the war, the moon gate connecting the two courtyards was completely sealed with blue bricks and cement, and no one has set foot in it since.

As Chen Wenqi gazed at the unexpectedly discovered secret passage, a surge of intense curiosity welled up within him.

When the night was deep and quiet, he quietly pushed open the door and went out. With a light flip, he jumped over the courtyard wall and landed steadily in the ruins next door.

He once again activated his spiritual power and carefully explored along the direction of the secret passage, discovering that it extended all the way to the side of a dry well.

Chen Wenqi walked quickly to the edge of the dry well. His spiritual power immediately detected that there was a spacious secret room hidden five or six meters deep at the bottom of the well. Inside the secret room, more than a dozen heavy boxes were neatly stacked.

Given the great distance, even if someone were to rebuild the courtyard in the future, it would be very difficult to dig out this extremely hidden secret room.

Fortunately, Chen Wenqi's mental power could cover a range of ten meters, which was enough to explore the entire secret room clearly.

Without the slightest hesitation, Chen Wenqi directly put all the dozen or so boxes in the secret room into his Xuanwu Secret Realm, then flashed into the secret realm and instantly returned to his room through the secret realm's exclusive passage.

The feeling of returning home laden with treasure after a treasure hunt is incredibly exhilarating.

He couldn't wait to re-enter the Xuanwu Secret Realm and reached out to open the dozen or so boxes—the scene inside almost blinded him.

Four of the boxes were filled with heavy gold ingots. Each box was divided into six layers, and each layer had twenty-five gold ingots neatly arranged. Each gold ingot weighed fifty taels, and the words "Made in the ninth year of Qianlong" and "Great Qing Treasury" were clearly engraved on the ingots.

So, a single box contains 7,500 taels of gold, and the four boxes together contain 30,000 taels, which is equivalent to 937.5 kilograms. An ordinary person couldn't even move it.

It seems that these priceless treasures were left behind by the former owner of this courtyard house.

The other eight boxes were filled with pure white silver, exactly the same size as the boxes containing gold ingots, totaling 60,000 taels. Due to their age, the surface of the silver had oxidized and turned black, losing its original bright luster. These were all official silver minted during the Qianlong era.

Of the remaining four boxes, one contained a stack of old calligraphy and paintings carefully wrapped in waterproof tarpaulin. After carefully unfolding and counting, there were a total of sixteen pieces.

Chen Wenqi casually unfolded a painting and found Tang Bohu's "Spring Trees and Autumn Frost," "Lady," and "Travelers Among Streams and Mountains." In addition, there were many calligraphy and painting albums by famous artists from various dynasties, each of which was priceless.

Among the other three boxes, one box was filled with various kinds of shimmering jadeite, including three rough stones with windows cut into them, all of which were rare glass-type jadeite—one was an incomparably pure imperial green, one was a delicate and vibrant violet, and the other was a clear and colorless glass-type jadeite. Each rough stone was quite large.

The last two boxes contained a variety of dazzling jewelry in one box and a pair of imperial green jadeite bracelets, three pieces of warm and delicate Tianhuang stone, and five pieces of Hetian jade pebbles of excellent quality in the other box.

If these rare treasures were to be displayed decades from now, each one would fetch an astonishingly high price, making them truly priceless.

It must be said that the results of this treasure hunt were truly astonishing.

However, for the time being, these treasures can only be stored in the warehouse of the Xuanwu Secret Realm and cannot be of any practical use yet.

Chen Wenqi now possesses 32,400 taels of gold and 60,000 taels of silver. Even if he were to suddenly travel to ancient times, he would be considered incredibly wealthy.

If one could one day obtain the treasures of Prince Gong's Mansion, then one could truly be considered a top-tier tycoon at the very top.

He had heard that the treasure in Prince Gong's Mansion was secretly hidden by the corrupt official Heshen, and was not discovered by later generations until 2008. Although the exact amount of rare treasures and gold and silver treasures hidden there is unknown, it must be an astonishing amount.

The next day arrived in the blink of an eye, and the results of the handling of Yi Zhonghai, Liu Haizhong, Yan Bugui, and Sha Zhu were finally announced.

This result was exactly as Chen Wenqi had predicted. None of the individuals were sentenced to heavy penalties by the court. Yi Zhonghai was given 15 days of administrative detention, while Yan Bugui, Liu Haizhong, and Shazhu were each detained for seven days.

Chen Wenqi never expected that this one incident alone would be enough to get these beasts sentenced to prison. Even just seven days in jail would be enough to teach them a lesson they would never forget.

He later heard that this relatively lenient outcome was only achieved because the deaf old lady had specially sought help from others. If she hadn't used her family's hidden gold bars to smooth things over, Yi Zhonghai would have become a typical example during the crackdown and received even harsher punishment.

Even with this outcome, the steel mill and Hongxing Primary School still received a notice from the police station regarding the handling of the matter.

Upon learning of this news, Director Yang of the steel rolling mill was so angry that he immediately berated Yi Zhonghai and Liu Haizhong to his subordinates, believing that the two were simply tarnishing the reputation of the steel rolling mill. During the crackdown period, they dared to bully the family of martyrs, which was tantamount to courting death.

Even if Director Yang was reluctant to part with Yi Zhonghai, a highly skilled level eight fitter, he had no choice but to make a serious disciplinary decision in accordance with regulations.

The next morning, when the neighbors in the courtyard looked at Chen Wenqi's family again, their eyes had completely changed. Everyone knew that this was a ruthless character who even dared to send Yi Zhonghai to the police station. Originally, some people thought that since the Chen family had no male heirs to support them, they might be able to take advantage of the situation and get a share of the spoils. But now they were all terrified and knew in their hearts that the Chen family was not a pushover.

After finishing breakfast, Chen Wenqi and his family went out one after another.

As usual, Zhou Shuqin, the mother, went to work at the factory on time.

Chen Wenqi, riding a slightly worn bicycle with his younger brother and sister on the back, also left the courtyard house filled with disputes.

After teaching his younger siblings kung fu for a while, Chen Wenqi began to ride his bicycle with them, leisurely strolling through the streets and alleys of Beijing.

It has to be said that owning a bicycle in this day and age makes getting around much more convenient.

Especially in the inner city area of ​​Beijing, it is very quick to go wherever you want.

There were hardly any cars on the road, and people traveling by bicycle were a unique and eye-catching sight on the streets in that era.

The three siblings strolled from the quaint and quiet Nanluoguxiang all the way to the bustling Wangfujing Street.

They then went to the solemn and majestic Tiananmen Square, feeling the profound atmosphere unique to the capital city.