Courtyard House: I Rely on Time-Space Trade to Build a Nation

Zhao Pingan could picture that scene:

Simply dressed young students, holding banners and shouting slogans, burst through the school gates and surged into the streets like a torrent that had been gathering strength for too long. Anger, despair, and the yearning for light transformed into a deafening roar, crashing against the banks of this decaying city.

He looked at his teammates, and each of their eyes shone brightly in the dim light.

"On the ground, 'Spring Thunder' has sounded," Zhao Ping'an whispered.

Almost simultaneously, a very faint but undeniably present muffled tremor, penetrating the thick layers of soil and building foundations, faintly reached the ground. It was the sound of thousands of feet pounding the earth, the low-frequency sound waves formed by the convergence of slogans.

"Final stage, get ready." Zhao Ping'an stood up, stretched his stiff fingers, and checked once again the "big yellow croakers" made of lead blocks plated with gold in the system space.

Wang Dashan and Liu Dazhu immediately took up their guns and stood guard on the side of the tunnel leading to the warehouse and on either side of the concrete "door".

The two engineers skillfully started the hydraulic diamond chainsaw cutting machine and aimed it at the pre-cut square outline on the concrete "door".

The cutting machine emitted a deep, steady hum as the sharp diamond chain began to rub against the hard concrete. Fine stone dust and sparks flew at the point of contact, but the sound was well contained in the relatively enclosed space of the tunnel. More importantly, the roaring sound of the rushing water on the ground perfectly covered the subtle "rustling" sound underground.

The cutting process is slow and requires patience and precision.

Time ticked by, and the chaos on the ground inside the headphones continued, even escalating:

"They're almost at the Bund!"

A large crowd has gathered in front of the bank building! The police cordon has been breached!

"Military Police! Send a squad of military police to reinforce security at the bank's main entrance!"

It worked! Zhao Ping'an's heart tightened. The parade had indeed attracted enough attention that even some of the bank's own security forces had been mobilized to deal with any potential impact on the main entrance.

"Commander, it's working!" the engineer whispered, turning off the cutting machine.

On the concrete wall, a square block with sides of about 70 centimeters had been completely cut off, and it was only connected to the surrounding wall at the bottom.

Wang Dashan and Liu Dazhu stepped forward and used a specially made suction cup to firmly hold the heavy concrete. The two of them worked together, and with a tooth-grinding slight friction sound, the nearly half-meter-thick "skylight" was slowly lowered, revealing the dark space above and deeper inside... a faint metallic reflection.

A stream of air, mixed with dust, engine oil, and a unique metallic coolness, poured out of the hole.

The vault! They really dug right beneath the central bank's vault! It appeared to be a narrow maintenance gap between the vault floor and the foundation, less than a meter high, filled with thick pipes and steel frames.

Without hesitation, Zhao Ping'an lay down and first sent the miniature reconnaissance robot into the hole.

Through the monitor in his hand, he watched the robot deftly traverse the pipes and climb into the space above—a vast, domed, and sealed chamber. The constant, cold white light illuminated the suffocating scene at the center of the chamber:

Rows of heavy steel shelves, like a silent steel forest, and on each "branch," neatly stacked are rectangular blocks of varying sizes, gleaming yellow under the light—gold bricks and gold bars!

They piled up like mountains, quietly occupying the center of this vast space, exuding a silent yet immense aura of wealth.

The robot's rotating camera did not detect any moving humanoid heat source; the vault's heavy steel doors remained tightly shut.

"Safe." Zhao Pingan uttered two words, handing the monitor to Wang Dashan, "Keep a close eye on the doorway. If there's any movement, alert immediately."

"yes!"

Zhao Ping'an took a deep breath and crawled into the hole. Wang Dashan handed him a flashlight with a strong magnet.

After entering the maintenance gap at the bottom of the vault, Zhao Ping'an quickly found the maintenance ladder leading upwards.

Like a nimble raccoon, he silently climbed up, pushed open a lightweight metal cover on top, and truly stepped into the core area of ​​the national treasury.

He walked quickly to the nearest row of steel frames and placed his hand on a cold, solid gold brick.

[Save items to system space?]

"Yes." A thought flashed through my mind.

Instantly, the stack of gold bricks that his palm had touched disappeared, and a pile of glittering gold data markers appeared in the corner of the system space.

He didn't stop; his hands moved swiftly across the shelves on both sides as if caressing ears of wheat. Wherever he went, piles of gold bricks vanished into thin air, at an astonishing speed.

Then, one after another, incredibly realistic gold bricks with lead cores appeared out of thin air, reappearing where the gold bricks had disappeared, returning them to their original place.

At the same time, Zhao Ping'an was multitasking, simultaneously storing the gold bricks into the system and throwing some of them into the hole he had crawled into.

This was a decision Zhao Ping'an made after several days of deliberation; he planned to hand over a small portion of the gold bricks, amounting to approximately one million taels of silver.

Let the leaders freely choose what to "buy" from him.

But Zhao Ping'an believed that, given the high quality and low price of this industrial Cthulhu product, the gold was only temporarily stored there.

The total gold amounted to 2.77 million taels, approximately 86.5 tons, or less than 5 cubic meters.

Zhao Ping'an, like a highly efficient harvester, carried out a silent replacement in the quiet vault.

About five minutes had passed. Jin Zhaoping had already replaced one-third of the gold. He had also thrown about 10 taels of large yellow croakers down into the cave.

Just then, Zhao Ping'an's heart suddenly clenched without warning, and a strong palpitation and chill shot up his spine to the top of his head!

Danger perception!

Almost at the same instant the warning appeared, he heard an extremely faint "click" sound coming from the direction of the huge steel door of the vault!

It wasn't the sound of a door opening; it sounded more like the sound of some kind of mechanical structure being touched. Perhaps it was the guard outside leaning against it unintentionally, or perhaps it was the handover action during a change of shifts!

Zhao Ping'an froze instantly, as if he had merged into the shadow of the steel frame beside him, holding his breath.

The movements in his hands had already stopped.

The headset crackled with Wang Dashan's low, anxious voice: "Brigadier! The footage shows two stationary heat sources outside the vault door! They're very close to the door!"

Sure enough! The guard was right outside the door! Perhaps it would be a routine check in the next second, or perhaps it would just be a brief stop. But either way, at this moment, he felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff.

Time passed second by second, each second feeling like an eternity.

Zhao Ping'an could hear his heart pounding in his chest. He stared intently at the heavy steel door, his mind racing as he calculated retreat routes and contingency plans in case of emergency.

About a minute later—but it felt like an hour—Wang Dashan's voice came through the earpiece again: "The heat source has moved... They left the doorway and went to the other side of the corridor."

gone!