Siheyuan (traditional courtyard house): Don't touch my parents!

The room was occupied by eight Japanese samurai—because he immediately noticed the Japanese katana on the ground and the typical ronin attire.

The rest of the people were the shop's employees.

After packing everything away, he found no entrance to the secret room in the room.

It seems that the thief had already obtained what he wanted and left.

So he searched the woodshed and side rooms again carefully, and finally found something unusual in a small side room near the outhouse.

After removing all the items from the small side room, he shone his flashlight around and found a single padlock on the ground—a large leaf lock.

The ground where the lock is located has significantly less dust than the surrounding area, forming a square shape, approximately four square meters in size.

He tapped the ground lightly with his fingers a few times, and a dull metallic sound came from the ground.

He Yuzhu thought to himself, "No wonder the system gave me the lock-picking skill and even provided me with special tools."

He removed the cloth covering the flashlight, squatted down, and carefully examined the lock, especially the keyhole—it had several fine scratches, clearly not marks left by a normal key.

He Yuzhu couldn't help but sigh to himself, "The thieves of this era are truly skilled; they have to learn every kind of craft."

He took out the lock-picking tools he carried with him, and all sorts of lock-picking techniques instantly flashed through his mind.

Choosing the most suitable tool, he pried open the large lock in about thirty seconds.

He casually tossed the lock into the system space and slowly lifted the heavy metal cover.

Shining a flashlight down, you can clearly see a staircase sloping downwards.

He first took out his Browning 1911 pistol, gently loaded the bullet, held the flashlight in one hand and gripped the gun tightly in the other, and carefully descended the steps.

Halfway down the steps, he shone his flashlight ahead and discovered that the space below was unusually spacious, at least three or four hundred square meters, and more than four meters high—it was as if the entire underground of the courtyard had been hollowed out.

Various boxes of different shapes and sizes, long and square, were neatly stacked on the ground.

He Yuzhu casually opened one of them and was immediately stunned—the box was neatly stacked with heavy silver dollars.

He opened another box, which was also full of silver dollars.

He changed direction and opened another box, almost blinding himself with a dazzling golden light—it was full of gold bars.

Next, what comes into view are porcelain, jade, jewelry, and valuable calligraphy and paintings.

What shocked him most were several ancient-looking bronze artifacts, including a tripod, a set of chime bells, and some other objects he couldn't name.

He thought to himself, "These Japanese are really ruthless. This is just one shipment; who knows how many more they've secretly smuggled away before."

He also discovered a large number of weapons deep inside the warehouse: boxes and boxes of rifles—no, they should be submachine guns, judging from their style they seemed to be MP series produced in Prussia, though he couldn't identify the specific models at the moment.

He had everything from melon grenades and Type 38 rifles to even several mortars and boxes of matching shells.

After circling the underground space, He Yuzhu felt that the fighting above was not enough to vent his anger, so he began to clear out the underground area.

After leaving the basement, he didn't stop at all and rushed straight towards the shop in front of him.

Inside the shop, four Japanese men lay unconscious. He Yuzhu struck as usual, snapping their necks cleanly and stripping them down to just their loincloths.

He Yuzhu peered cautiously through the crack in the shop door for a moment, and only felt relieved when he saw no patrolling enemies approaching.

Immediately afterwards, he put all the supplies in the outer counter and the inner small warehouse—whether it was rice, flour, cooking oil, cloth, cotton, or even needles, thread, tobacco, alcohol, sugar, and tea—into his space.

Looking at the empty and chaotic "Mitsui & Co.", He Yuzhu nodded with satisfaction.

He Yuzhu quietly left "Mitsui & Co." following the same route he had taken.

He looked around to make sure no one was nearby, then immediately mounted his bicycle, pedaled hard, and sped away from Wangfujing Street like an arrow.

During the journey, he deliberately avoided several areas heavily patrolled by the Japanese army and returned to the courtyard house without any major incidents.

Upon arriving at the central courtyard's hanging flower gate, he first listened intently to the sounds inside the courtyard. Only after confirming that there was nothing amiss did he quietly slip back to his side room.

He warmed himself by the stove for a while to dispel the chill, then undressed and lay down on the bed.

He Yuzhu's mind stirred slightly, and he immediately summoned the system panel to check the mission information. He was surprised to find that the rewards for this mission were far more generous than he had imagined.

[Mission: Please retrieve the large quantity of national treasures, antiques, and gold that will be transferred from the "Mitsui & Co." building at No. 1 Wangfujing Street in three days! Completed!]

[Reward: Because the seized items include the priceless treasures "Peking Man Skull" and "Tiger Eats Man Wine Vessel", the host's space capacity will be increased fourfold, and the space will be upgraded accordingly, divided into a static space and an ecological space, each occupying half.]

Items within the space will not be affected during the upgrade process. Does the host wish to upgrade immediately? Upgrade duration: 30 days. Yes/No

He Yuzhu suddenly rolled over and sat up directly on the bed.

Why these two rare treasures of all?

With a thought, he quickly probed into the space and roughly scanned it. Then, he picked out the separately stored items from the mountain of boxes and put them aside.

Upon opening the outer box, several exquisitely crafted small wooden boxes were found inside; he opened each box one by one, revealing the Peking Man skull and the tiger-eating-human-shaped wine vessel prominently displayed within.

There were also several bronze artifacts of different shapes on the side, but He Yuzhu couldn't identify their origins or names for the time being.

The space is about to be upgraded and will be unusable for up to a month, which makes He Yuzhu feel somewhat troubled.

He raised his eyes and carefully looked around the side room where he was staying. The room was empty, with only a bed, a large wooden box and two stools.

He Yuzhu casually put on the thick cotton-padded coat, walked to the large wooden box, and reached out to lift the lid to take a look.

Inside, there were only some old clothes and a thin quilt used for summer, barely enough to cover the bottom of the box.

He lowered his head and thought for a moment, then immediately moved a small box out of his space and carefully hid a hundred silver dollars at the very bottom of the large wooden box.

Next, he took out all the milk powder stored in the space, placed a small jar in the coldest corner of the room, put the pig's trotters and eggs into the jar, and then put soybeans into a cloth bag and put them into the jar for later use.

There were also three live crucian carp in the space. He remembered that he had found a copper basin on the shelf of the Mitsui & Co. before. He put the crucian carp into the basin and placed the basin and fish together in the small jar.

While searching through the copper basin, he inadvertently noticed some canned goods piled up next to it. Upon closer inspection, he realized they were imported goods from the United States, the Bald Eagle, across the ocean.

He didn't make many choices, just grabbed two cans of each and threw them all into the large wooden box.

Then he took out the Browning 1911 pistol and spare magazine, and prepared fifty rounds of ammunition. He put them in a small box and hid them deep inside the large wooden box.

His gaze fell on the bicycle, and He Yuzhu couldn't help but feel troubled—there was nowhere to hide it, so he could only keep it in his spatial storage for the time being.

At this moment, he desperately wanted to dig a cellar under the side room to hide things, otherwise, if someone suddenly broke in and saw the large vat and all kinds of food piled up inside, he would have no way to explain himself.

After much deliberation, He Yuzhu took out a bag of flour from his spatial storage and used a small cloth bag he found on the shelves of the foreign company to divide it into five-pound portions, making a total of five bags, which he then neatly stacked into a large wooden box.

After thinking it over, he still felt uneasy, so he took out some silver coins and loose copper coins from his storage space, totaling about twenty silver coins.

After making all these preparations, he silently recited "upgrade" in his mind, and instantly felt that his connection with the space became blurred, leaving only a faint and chaotic perception.

He Yuzhu lay back down on the bed, wrapped himself tightly in the quilt, and was overwhelmed by the intense fatigue brought on by the tension and strenuous activities of the past few days. He quickly fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, He Yuzhu was woken up by He Daqing's knocking on the door again.

He quickly dressed and went out the door, only to find Xu Damao already waiting in the yard, eating a cornbread.

"Brother Zhu, you've finally woken up?"

"Why are you here so early?"

"Hehe, I'm here to learn kung fu."

"Did your mother wake you up so early?"

"yes."

"Alright, you two stop dawdling here. Zhu Zi, hurry up and wash up and eat. Come find me in the backyard after you're done. I have to rush to work in a bit."

"Okay, Dad."

He Yuzhu quickly finished washing up, ate two cornbread buns with boiled water, and then turned and walked towards the backyard.

Xu Damao had already taken his stance in the courtyard, assuming the starting posture of Tongbei Quan.

When He Daqing saw his son approaching, he said, "I'm going to demonstrate this set of boxing moves again, so you have to watch carefully."

"After I leave, you can practice on your own. I'll correct your movements when I get back tonight."

"Understood, Father."

He Daqing slowly assumed a stance, hunching his shoulders and leaning back, his movements as agile as a monkey.

His punches were as swift as lightning, and his movements as fast as fire. He could complete a set of punches with steady breathing and an unchanged expression.

"Zhu Zi, how much of that punching routine did you remember?"

"I can probably remember about 50% or 60% of it."

"Then type it out once, and let me see."

"it is good."