Everyone was taken aback.

The room fell silent for a moment.

It was Rong Momo who spoke first, "This old servant can't recall who introduced this monk Zhiguang to us."

Madam Gu frowned and racked her brains, but she couldn't remember either.

Qin Yuan said, "The monk Zhiguang's master has passed away a long time ago, and this matter has probably been over for one or two decades. It is normal that he can't remember it."

Master Gu asked in surprise, "Buried so many silver ingots? Where did these silver ingots come from? Are they legitimately obtained? And what does this have to do with the skull?"

Qin Yuan remained silent.

Old Madam Gu also looked nervously at Lord Gu.

Lord Gu said, "Even if he's involved, he won't confess, otherwise he'll be implicated in a murder case. Zhiguang is currently refusing to admit anything, and the Prefectural Magistrate's Office is trying to find a way to torture and interrogate him about the batch of silver ingots. The magistrate said it might be the tax silver that was lost more than ten years ago."

Madam Gu asked in surprise, "Are you talking about the batch of tax silver that was lost at Lugou Bridge?"

Lord Gu nodded.

Madam Gu murmured, "My goodness, what a tragedy! How can this be explained?"

Qin Yuan frowned and asked, "Is it the late Crown Prince..."

Lord Gu nodded emphatically: "It was that time."

Uncle Gu was puzzled and hurriedly asked, "Did you lose tax silver at Lugou Bridge more than ten years ago? I don't remember it at all."

Madam Gu slammed her hand on the table and said, "How old were you back then? You stayed cooped up at home all day and never went out. We don't usually talk about these things in our family. Back then, the late Crown Prince lost the Emperor's favor because of this incident, and later he was implicated in the Jurong paper money counterfeiting case... Alas... what a tragedy. Back then, we dug three feet into the ground but couldn't find where that batch of silver was hidden. So many officials were implicated and dismissed, and some even had their entire families exiled to the frontier. These bandits actually hid it in our family temple. What a sin!"

Lord Gu's eyes were filled with malice as he said hatefully, "That's right, I swear I will capture all of them and offer them as a sacrifice to the late Crown Prince."

Qin Yuan remained silent.

This was indeed an extremely vicious act.

Lord Gu was the study companion of the former crown prince, and the two shared a deep and affectionate bond. However, the bandits deliberately hid the tax silver in the Gu family's ancestral temple.

No one can swallow this insult.

Master Gu asked worriedly, "Will this matter implicate the Marquis's residence?"

Madam Gu slammed her hand on the table again and said, "This matter was discovered and uncovered by our own family. How could it involve the Marquis's mansion? If it is exposed by others in the future, it will be difficult to explain and we will be implicated. I don't think there's something wrong with this matter."

"Something seems off?" asked Sixth Master Gu.

Madam Gu did not answer, but looked at Qin Yuan and asked, "Good daughter-in-law, you have always been clever and intelligent, tell me."

Qin Yuan thought for a moment and said, "It's hard to say. The tax silver back then was not a small amount. How could Zhiguang and his apprentice have managed to steal the tax silver from the soldiers in broad daylight and then transport it to our ancestral temple without anyone noticing?"

Madam Gu nodded repeatedly.

“Yuan’er is quite right. This matter is very strange! Third brother, why does the Prefectural Governor’s Office believe that this silver is the tax silver from back then? What is their basis for this?”

Gu Jinghui said with a solemn expression: "The tax silver sent by the prefecture was transported in silver sheaths for convenience."

Master Gu was even more confused.

What is a silver sheath?

Qin Yuan said, "When the state government escorts the goods to the capital, they have to pass through high mountains and great rivers. To prevent them from being robbed by mountain bandits and river pirates, they split the wood, hollowed it out, melted down the collected silver scraps and poured them inside, and then tightened it with iron hoops. When they arrived at their destination, they split it again to hand over the silver. This is how military pay is delivered."

Lord Gu secretly admired his wife; she even knew this.

My father-in-law really knows how to raise his daughter.

Madam Gu nodded and said, "What Yuan'er said is very true. Back when the old Marquis was alive, he said that the Ministry of War sent tens of thousands of taels of silver to Goryeo without any problems. No one expected that this tax silver would be robbed at Lugou Bridge after traveling through mountains and rivers without any incident."

Master Gu suddenly realized: "That means when the silver ingot was cast, it was stamped with the mark of the prefecture."

Lord Gu said, “Otherwise, the Ministry of Revenue needs a receipt when it counts and registers the silver ingots. Once the ingots are marked, no one can deny the debt unless they are melted down and recast. Some of the silver ingots that the Prefectural Magistrate’s Office found under the Buddhist hall this time had not yet been melted down, so the Magistrate recognized them.”

Qin Yuan laughed and said, "This is too deliberate. If you ask me, all the silver would have been melted down over the years."

Lord Gu glanced at Qin Yuan.

Qin Yuan said seriously, "I'm afraid this was just something displayed there for people to see, but we accidentally uncovered it."

A silence fell over the room.

After a long pause, Madam Gu said with a solemn expression, "Yuan'er, are you saying that this is a trap set up by someone else for the Marquis's mansion?"

Qin Yuan nodded and said, "Mother, I was just speculating."

"Tell me in detail."

Sixth Master Gu was already feeling overwhelmed and stared longingly at his third sister-in-law.

Qin Yuan cleared her throat and said, "It's clear that Monk Zhiguang has a strange background. It's also understandable that they found such a place to hide. The Marquis and the former Crown Prince have a deep friendship. The Marquis of Dingbei is a hereditary ruler and has always supported the orthodoxy. Naturally, no one would think that the thieves and tax silver would be hidden here. This makes sense."

Everyone nodded.

Qin Yuan took a sip of tea and said, "But since they went to such great lengths and made such a commotion, why are they so careful not to use the money they got?"

After looking around at everyone, Qin Yuan continued, "Since the Jurong Baochao case, Baochao has been abolished, and the only currency that is widely used in Daxing is gold, silver, and copper coins. There are quite a few private minting of copper coins and counterfeiting of silver in various places. Although the law is strict, and those caught will be punished with one hundred strokes of the cane, three years of penal servitude, and be displayed in the local government office in cangue for a month, and their whole family will be exiled to the border, the court has repeatedly prohibited the manufacture of private coins, but it has been to no avail."

Lord Gu nodded and added, “There’s a lot of private money in the northern border region. After the court strictly prohibited it, the official money wasn’t enough. Moreover, the officials and craftsmen who made the official money all lined their own pockets. The official money they made was just as underweight as the private money, and they were also filled with lead, tin and other substances. The official money that the Ministry of Revenue sent us would break if it was dropped on the ground. So the private money couldn’t be stopped at all. There’s even more counterfeit silver. They all look like shiny silver ingots, but they can’t withstand the slightest fire.”

Hearing this for the first time, Sixth Master Gu couldn't help but ask, "Third Brother, did we also mint private coins in the northern frontier?"

Lord Gu's cold eyes swept over them, and he said, "What do you think? In the northern frontier, some people even cut aluminum and iron to buy and sell goods."

This statement confused Master Gu.

Glancing at the bewildered Sixth Master Gu, Qin Yuan changed the subject, saying, "These bandits are incredibly audacious, truly desperate criminals. They'd even dare to fish silver out of boiling oil. Money comes easily, so naturally they'll spend it all. Back then, they robbed the silver, hid it for a few years, then transported it out in batches, finding a secluded place to melt down the markings, making it disappear like a stone thrown into the sea—untraceable. Over the years, it should have been melted down and stored in vaults, or at least circulated in the market. Who's ever seen someone melt it down and spend it immediately?"