Chapter 7: Empty the secret room, collect everything!

Today is Monday, and each leadership team has to hold a routine meeting this morning.

Jiang Si timed it perfectly and made a phone call to Section Chief Zhou's office right on the dot.

Section Chief Zhou had only been sitting down for less than five minutes when he assumed Jiang Si had come to urge him about the onboarding procedures, so he spoke.

"Secretary Wang's meeting hasn't finished yet. I'll have them send the files over after I get to work this afternoon—what? You don't need to send them?"

What's going on?

Section Chief Zhou thought he had misheard.

Jiang Si hummed in agreement. "I'm sorry, Section Chief Zhou, I've caused you trouble today."

"It's hard to explain over the phone in just a few words. Why don't you tell me your exact address, and I'll explain it to you in detail after I get off work this afternoon?"

Section Chief Zhou found it strange at the time, but didn't think much of it. When he went home for lunch, he even mentioned it to his wife.

His wife is such a shrewd person, she immediately said.

"What's so strange about that? She definitely didn't want to take this job, but her family wouldn't allow it and forced her to go!"

"I reckon she didn't go to the countryside voluntarily."

"Haven't there been enough arguments in our residential compound lately about this rural relocation issue?"

At this point, Section Chief Zhou's wife asked another question out of curiosity.

Did she say what her plans were for this job?

"What can we do? We'll just keep going," said Section Chief Zhou.

Their cotton mill is a massive factory with tens of thousands of employees, and its welfare benefits are among the best in Shanghai. Everyone looks up to them when they leave.

"That's not necessarily true!"

Section Chief Zhou's wife felt that things weren't so simple. "Think about it," she said, "if she wanted to come back to work, she could have just said it over the phone. Why would she need to come to our house at night?"

"Besides, her stepmother forced her to go through the transfer procedures. Once something is in her mouth, would her stepmother be willing to spit it out?"

If she doesn't understand women, how could she not understand a stepmother?

No woman in this world would love another man's child, especially one born to her husband and another man!

"So she definitely wanted to sell this job secretly, not wanting it to benefit her stepmother!"

As Section Chief Zhou's wife spoke, she felt more and more certain that she had come to the truth, and at the same time, a faint expectation began to grow in her heart.

The youngest child in their family still doesn't have a job. He graduated in 1968, and I heard that their class isn't as good as the classes of 1966 and 1967. They might get a "one-size-fits-all" job!

Although the allocation policy hasn't been released yet, what if it is?

She wouldn't dare gamble on that possibility!

If the young girl really wants to sell this job, then she will do everything she can to secure this spot!

Upon realizing this, Section Chief Zhou's wife immediately became restless.

"No, we're eating, what are you doing rummaging through drawers and cupboards for?"

Section Chief Zhou's wife rummaged through the box and found a savings book, then took out two meat ration coupons.

He left with the words, "I can't talk to you about this, and you wouldn't understand anyway."

After saying that, she hurriedly left the house.

On the other side, after hanging up the phone, Jiang Si also started to get busy.

When she left home in the morning, she glanced at the calendar, which said that today was an auspicious day for moving.

Oh no, I mean, empty the whole house!

Her first stop was the storage room on the basement floor.

Everyone assumed that the Jiang family's valuable possessions would be hidden in places like the study or bedroom.

Even the original owner of this body thought so.

However, the truth is that there is indeed a small secret room in the scumbag father's bedroom, but the things in it are just used as a shield.

The truly good things are actually hidden in the underground secret room of the storeroom.

I just don't know if everything inside has been transported out yet?

The storage room was cluttered with many things. After searching for more than ten minutes, Jiang Si finally found the switch to the secret room under an inconspicuous blue brick.

To be precise, this secret room is actually the second basement level of this villa, which has water, electricity, and heating.

Jiang Si was quite lucky. Although all the antique furniture, calligraphy and paintings by famous people, porcelain ornaments, and jade artifacts in her home had been moved away, a considerable amount remained in the secret room.

It's likely that Shen Xiuwen was worried about putting all his eggs in one basket, so he deliberately kept a backup plan.

I counted them, and there were a total of twenty-four boxes, big and small.

Thinking that it was still early, and that Jiang Si was quite curious about what was inside, she opened it and began to check everything.

She was surprised to find that the first box almost blinded her when it was opened.

This place is filled entirely with 'large yellow croakers'!

The large yellow croaker was a gold bar weighing ten taels (on an old scale), with each bar weighing 312.5 grams.

Judging by appearance, there are at least several hundred in the box!

Then she opened the second box.

The box has two layers, and it mainly contains the jewelry and ornaments of Jiang Mu and the original owner.

The upper layer includes: 10 pairs of dragon and phoenix gold bracelets, 4 sets of gold filigree inlaid jewelry headdresses, 8 gold necklaces, 12 Ruyi lock pouches, and 30 gold pendants of various styles.

The lower tier contains: 4 green jadeite bead necklaces, 6 jadeite cabochon rings, 2 emerald and diamond brooches, 2 diamond necklaces, and one pink diamond and one blue diamond ring each, each weighing approximately 10 carats.

Jiang Si didn't know if some of the jewelry had been moved away beforehand, but she felt like a lot of things were missing.

The third box also contained gold, but it was mostly ornaments, such as golden toads, golden Buddhas, golden pixiu, and the twelve zodiac animals.

When the fourth box was opened, Jiang Si fell silent.

...Why is it gold again?

She gestured with her hand; the gold ingot was huge, almost the size of her fist!

And there are dozens of these gold ingots inside!

The fifth box was finally not filled with gold; it contained raw jadeite.

Although there isn't much material, judging from its color and translucency, it should be a glassy imperial green.

The six or seven boxes were filled with money: one box of US dollars and the other of Hong Kong dollars.

This will lead to very strict foreign exchange controls in China. Apart from official channels, US dollars and Hong Kong dollars, which circulate only in underground banks or black markets in a few major cities, are priced at least two to three times higher than the official prices.

This place alone cost at least several hundred thousand yuan.

Jiang Si had absorbed all of the original owner's memories, and she knew that the Jiang family was large and wealthy and did not lack money.

But I never expected them to be so rich... This is hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1960s!

It can only be said that the wealth and influence of the Lao Qian family is beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

The eighth box must belong to that scumbag dad.

Inside are two Rolex men's wristwatches, a solid gold and diamond-encrusted pocket watch, four jade thumb rings, and a pair of gold-threaded dragon-patterned jade pendants.

Five strings of agarwood prayer beads, several diamond tie clips and sapphire cufflinks, and a complete set of jade snuff bottles.

The next few boxes contained rare medicinal herbs.

Besides common ingredients like ginseng, deer antler, lingzhi, shark fin, bird's nest, saffron, ambergris, cordyceps, aged donkey-hide gelatin, and wild musk...

Jiang Si also saw many Chinese medicinal herbs that have been explicitly banned or nearly extinct in later generations.

For example, tiger bone, bear bile, dragon's blood, rhinoceros horn, snow leopard bone, natural bezoar, hawksbill turtle shell scales, saiga antelope horn...

If it weren't for the labels on each box indicating the name and effects of the corresponding Chinese medicine, she really wouldn't have been able to tell what was inside.

The last few boxes were filled with finished traditional Chinese medicine.

Like the previous boxes of medicinal herbs, the core ingredients, usage, and effects of these Chinese medicines are clearly listed on the inventory list.

Jiang Si glanced at it and found that there were many medicines that would be familiar to people in later generations.

Products like Angong Niuhuang Wan, Yunnan Baiyao, Pian Zai Huang, Niuhuang Qingxin Wan, Wuji Baifeng Wan, and Huoxiang Zhengqi Wan.

Of course, there were also some that she had never heard of, such as Shaolin Temple's secret medicine Qili San, Kang Gu Tong Wan, Su He Xiang Wan, Dian Kuang Long Hu Wan, Zi Xue Dan, and Ding Kun Dan.

After taking stock of everything, Jiang Si couldn't help but admire her father; it seemed he had made quite a few preparations for her trip to Hong Kong.

I wonder if he'll be so angry he'll go crazy when he comes back and sees all the things I've carefully prepared gone.

However, Jiang Si felt that he might not be able to see that scene.

Because she really had no interest in wasting time with that family; she wanted to get things over with quickly!