Sha Zhu's Rebirth in the Courtyard: Starting with Hitting Someone in the Head

Chapter 52 Treasure in Beijing

After returning from Donglaishun, He Yuzhu sat in the armchair in the main room, lit a cigarette, and began to recall the treasure legends of Beijing that he had heard since childhood.

He found a piece of paper and wrote down several place names with a pencil: Prince Gong's Mansion, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Prince Chun's Mansion/Prince Li's Mansion, Xisi Yangrou Hutong, Yuanmingyuan Ruins, and Yuan Dadu Ruins.

From mid-January to mid-March, He Yuzhu turned these places upside down.

Prince Gong's Mansion is the most luxurious.

He scaled the wall in the middle of the night, evading the night patrol. Using his spatial sense, he probed inside the wall and found gold bars stacked neatly in a crevice, untouched for over two hundred years.

He also found a cellar ten meters below the artificial hill in the back garden.

The cellar was filled with gold, more than two tons. It looked like it was moved by Heshen before his property was confiscated; even the officials who raided the house couldn't find it.

The cellar was also filled with porcelain, jade and jewelry, cloisonné enamel bottles, white jade ruyi, and jadeite thumb rings, all of which were moved into the space.

We visited the Forbidden City at night, as many areas were closed in 55. He Yuzhu sneaked into the closed areas of the Forbidden City under cover of darkness, where many ancient wells were filled with thick layers of silt.

When the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded, Empress Dowager Cixi fled with Emperor Guangxu, and the palace staff threw the treasures they couldn't take with them into a well.

The Forbidden City is too big; he spent several nights there specifically looking for a well.

He probed the bottom of the well with his spatial perception and saw wooden boxes lying at the bottom of the silt. Inside the boxes were cloisonné porcelain, white jade ruyi scepters, and gold and silver ingots. Some of the boxes in the well had been soaked and ruined by the water, and the gold and silver utensils were scattered in the silt. He collected them one by one.

After you've finished collecting them, leave the box shell where it is. Whoever opens it is incredibly lucky.

I've been to the Summer Palace several times.

During the day, when there were few people, he strolled along the shore of Kunming Lake, his spatial awareness scanning the silt at the bottom of the lake. Beneath the pier of the Seventeen-Arch Bridge lay a gilded jewelry box, its contents overflowing with pearls, jade, and agate.

Beneath the stone boat is a wooden box containing several jade ornaments and crystal vessels that belonged to Empress Dowager Cixi. Deep in the silt of the lake lies a jewelry box made of Phoebe zhennan wood. The box is locked, but the lock has long since rusted. Inside are several bracelets and hairpins made of mutton-fat jade.

The most eerie legend is about the place in Xisi Yangrou Hutong.

During the Daoguang era, a prince buried a large amount of silver underground before leaving Beijing. Later, the warlord Yan Xishan spent a fortune to buy the mansion and dug up the ground, but he couldn't find a single ingot of silver.

He Yuzhu sneaked into the yard at night, and with his spatial awareness, he scanned the ground and found that Yan Laoxi had dug in the wrong place.

The real treasury was in the backyard, near the wall, ten meters underground. It contained boxes and boxes of silver ingots, one hundred ingots per box, dozens of boxes in total, stacked three meters off the ground.

Back then, if Yan Laoxi had dug two more zhang (approximately 3.3 meters) further back, he would have found it, but unfortunately, he only knew how to dig downwards and didn't know how to look to the side.

They accepted it all, and several thousand ingots of silver were stored in their spatial storage.

The ruins of Yuan Dadu are located in the north of the city. Several meters below the foundation of the Ming Dynasty city wall lies a complete cellar of a Yuan Dynasty noble residence.

Inside were boxes of Yuan blue and white porcelain, plum vases with the "Neifu" mark, Cizhou ware flat pots with white ground and black dragon and phoenix patterns, Longquan ware celadon tableware, and official gold and silver utensils with Phagspa script marks.

The porcelain was extremely well preserved, without even a scratch or dent.

He visited the Yuanmingyuan ruins several times. There wasn't much to dig up in the Western-style buildings area, so he probed his senses downwards into the sea.

Several large gilded bronze chests are buried deep in the underwater silt of Pengdao Yaotai, the largest artificial island in Fuhai.

Beside the large chest lay a skeleton. On the skeleton rested a stone, and on top of that, an oilcloth bundle containing a letter and a register. The letter was written with a brush, in neat, small characters, though somewhat blurred; the gist of it was:

"Your servant, Wang Degui, is the eunuch in charge of the Yuanmingyuan Garden. On the 22nd day of the eighth month of the tenth year of Xianfeng's reign, the foreigners attacked from Tongzhou. His Majesty has already gone to Rehe, and most of the people in the garden have fled. Your servant was ordered to guard the Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens and dared not leave without permission. Today, I can clearly hear the sound of the foreigners' guns and cannons. Your servant has divided the imperial treasures that could not be taken from the storeroom into five boxes and sunk them into the depths of Fuhai Lake. In addition, there is a box of palace documents assigned by the Imperial Household Department, which I have also sunk in the lake. Your servant has no face to see His Majesty and can only repay the Emperor's grace with my death. If any descendants see this letter, I hope they will return the items sunk in the lake to the court. Your servant, Wang Degui, writes his last words."

He Yuzhu read the letter twice. Across the lake, across decades of time, the eunuch knelt here, pushing the boxes into the water one by one, and then tied a stone to his body.

He folded the letter back to its original shape and placed it under the stone on top of the bones. He had already taken what was to be sunk in the lake. This letter remained with the eunuch, continuing to sink to the bottom of the lake.

He Yuzhu also found many scattered but valuable items. These were probably treasures that the eunuchs and palace maids had secretly kept, hoping to come back and take them away later, but they never returned.

He sifted through the soft soil beneath the ruins of Haiyantang, Yuanyingguan, and Fangwaiguan and found: pearls, jade, gold and silver ornaments, a jeweled court dagger, a set of gold-plated enamel rouge boxes, and a pure gold pocket watch engraved with a Western nude woman.

On March 15th, He Yuzhu parked his three-wheeled motorcycle in the outer courtyard of the compound and went into the main room to sit down. He brewed a pot of tea, lit a cigarette, and roughly took stock of what he had gained in the space.

The gold and silver ingots from the wells in the Forbidden City weighed several hundred pounds. The gold bars and artifacts collected from the remaining princely mansions and ruins added up to a large pile as well.

Large and small yellow croakers and gold ingots were piled up in the space to form a gold mountain, weighing about four tons, along with tens of thousands of silver ingots of various sizes and five boxes of silver dollars.

Several rows of porcelain, jade, and jewelry were displayed, including cloisonné enamelware, blue and white porcelain, white jade ruyi, jadeite thumb rings, pearl necklaces, crystal vessels, cloisonné incense burners, and gold pagodas. Each piece alone could buy half a courtyard house.

Especially those two boxes of Yuan blue and white porcelain; he will become the world's number one collector of Yuan blue and white porcelain.

He leaned back in his armchair, looked up at the roof beam, and exhaled a long puff of smoke. In terms of gold alone, let alone the Lou family, even a bundle of all the capitalists in the entire East District wouldn't be enough to compare with him.

In the past two months, apart from completing the tasks assigned by the supply and marketing cooperative, he only took a break on the first day of the Lunar New Year.

In the morning, I went to wish my master a Happy New Year. In the afternoon, I visited Uncle Chen, who is currently serving as the Deputy Director of the Dongcheng District Tax Bureau and a member of the Municipal Economic Commission.

In the evening, I went to the Lou family's house to cook and also to pay my respects for the New Year.

The rest of the time was spent treasure hunting. Even when Aunt Li from Uncle Li's family gave birth to a son in February, they only sent some gifts in a hurry and didn't stay long.

It's been over a month since I last visited the Lou family. Yu Shui said that Sister Xiao'e has asked him several times where he's been.

He threw the cigarette butt into the ashtray, thinking that he would go to the Lou mansion on Sunday. He would cook a meal for Xiao'e first, and then have a chat with Lou Bancheng.

He used to think the Lou family was rich, so he didn't feel confident enough to propose marriage. In recent years, he has been working hard to prove himself and showcase his various abilities.

Things are different now. He has plenty of money, so he's naturally more confident. He wants Lou Bancheng to know that He Yuzhu is capable of taking good care of Lou Xiao'e.

He has his own resources, his own plans, and his own path. The marriage proposal will have to wait a few more years; Xiao'e is still young.

I'll give my future father-in-law a few things to impress him first. I'll give him gold and silver utensils with Phagspa script markings. I have several sets, so I won't feel bad about spending the money.

And that solid gold pocket watch engraved with a Western nude woman, I gave it to him to play with, it wasn't appropriate for me to use it myself.