Chapter 360: The Salt Bandits from Qingcheng Mountain Have Come Down the Mountain

Sang Zhixia pressed the last sliver of air from the bed curtain tightly. As Xu Yu's gaze gradually fixed on her, she took a deep breath and said, suppressing her panic, "The salt bandits have come down the mountain."

Xu Yu didn't expect that Sang Zhixia was going to say this. He was stunned for a moment and asked in surprise, "What do you mean?"

Salt bandits were wreaking havoc everywhere, and the entire Shu region was shrouded in a state of panic and tension.

Xu Yu had heard a lot about salt bandits these days, but he had never heard of salt bandits appearing in Ancheng.

Sang Zhixia pointed downstairs behind the bed curtains and said, "When you came in, did you see those people waiting in the lobby?"

"See, what's wrong with those people?"

Sang Zhixia briefly recounted the problems she had discovered with the land deed. Xu Yu, his brows gradually raised, said, "Before you came back, I was talking to an old woman. She said she lived in the south of the city, had come alone, and didn't know anyone in the lobby."

"But there was red mud on the soles of her shoes."

It wasn't just that lady's soles that had red mud.

The cup of tea that Sang Zhixia spilled on the ground caused the floor in the lobby to be temporarily washed.

Before the accumulated water dries up, anyone with muddy feet walking by will definitely leave traces.

Sang Zhixia only looked in the lobby for a while and found no less than three similar red mud footprints. These people clearly came from the same place, but after entering the lobby, they pretended not to know each other.

As if worried that Xu Yu wouldn't know the severity of the problem, Sang Zhixia explained, "This kind of red clay isn't available everywhere."

"I asked the shopkeeper, and he said that Qingcheng Mountain is the only place that produces a kind of red clay used for making bricks. It's not found anywhere else."

And Qingcheng Mountain happens to be the gathering place of salt bandits today.

Sang Zhixia couldn't help but take a deep breath as he spoke to himself. He said angrily, "Do you think it's because I bought too much land and exposed my wealth, so I became the target of the salt bandits?"

According to rumors, these salt bandits are capable of committing all sorts of evil.

What if they are really targeted as the next fat sheep because of their wealth? Will the few guards they bring be of any use?

If you spend several days working hard to collect the land, but in the end you don’t get the land and your money is stolen, who can you tell about this?

Sang Zhixia was so worried that she couldn't sit still anymore. She quickly got out of bed and took out the deeds that she had previously sorted out and found to be amiss. "And these too. Can you help me take a look and see if there's anything wrong with them?"

Xu Yu got off the bed immediately after, took the stack of deeds from Sang Zhixia's hand, and rubbed the paper with his fingertips. He then held it up to the light and looked at it with a subtle expression: "Zhizhi, who collected these deeds?"

Sang Zhixia was stunned for a moment: "Lingchu collected them all downstairs, but I've also looked at them, but I can't see anything for the time being."

"Why, is there something wrong with this deed?"

Xu Yu considered his words briefly and said in a complicated tone: "This is fake."

"What?"

Sang Zhixia widened her eyes in disbelief: "Fake?"

"this……"

"Boss."

Ling Chu's low voice was heard outside the door.

Sang Zhixia quickly signaled Xu Yu to shut up, walked around the screen and opened the door: "What's wrong?"

Ling Chuchu had a thin layer of sweat on his forehead. "Boss, the people we sent out to investigate outside the city are back, and the ownership of those lands is wrong."

"Is it an imitation?"

Xu Yu walked around the screen and came out, half-jokingly asking, "Whose land is written on the deeds originally?"

Ling Chu saluted hastily to Xu Yu, not even taking a breath before speaking quickly, "These lands originally belonged to the Ancheng Sun family."

"But the Sun family was wiped out by their enemies thirteen years ago, and the murder remains unsolved. These lands that once belonged to the Sun family have become ownerless and have been left abandoned for the past ten years."

The astonishment on Sang Zhixia's face froze completely. After a pause, he said, "So, someone took advantage of the Sun family's lack of ownership, divided up these unowned farmlands into different sizes, forged land deeds, and sold them to me?"

Ling Chu smiled bitterly and nodded: "That's what it seems to be."

"It's just the land deeds..."

Ling Chu thought about it and felt very upset, so he lowered his head: "It was my fault for not watching carefully. I was not careful during the inspection and someone took advantage of the loophole."

The forged title deed was waved in his face, but he only noticed that the amount and location of the cultivated land seemed wrong, and he had no idea that the title deed might be fake.

Sang Zhixia waved her hands, not knowing whether to laugh or cry: "It's not just your business."

"I stared at it for so long, but in the end I didn't see anything, did I?"

After Sang Zhixia finished speaking, she couldn't help but turn to look at Xu Yu: "How did you figure that out?"

The official seal is truly impeccable, and even the wear and tear of the paper on each deed varies significantly due to the age of the paper.

There are even traces of ink bleeding due to the age, making it look like it has been placed in a box for many years and was suddenly turned out.

What's so fake about this thing?

Xu Yu waved his hand to signal Ling Chu to go down first, closed the door, sat down, and waved to Sang Zhixia: "Zhizhi, come here."

Imitation of antiques is a skill that is rarely seen in public, and Xu Minghui is one of the best at it.

But appraising ancient things is also something that children from noble families must learn.

Xu Yu casually grabbed a land deed and asked Sang Zhixia to hold it. He lit a candle and held her hand up to the candlelight. "Look at the seal on the back."

Sang Zhixia stared intently, her brows slowly furrowing, "This seal was newly placed."

The print on the paper looked old, and there were traces of it on the back of the paper.

But when you look through the light, you can see that the traces of bleeding on the back are at a different distance from the large seal on the paper, and the two cannot be aligned.

The seal was made later, and the bleeding marks are also forged.

This is a deliberate imitation of the ancient style.

Xu Yu nodded at Sang Zhixia's eyebrows with appreciation, spread the deed flat on the table, and after Sang Zhixia sat down, he picked up the teacup and poured the tea directly on her.

The tea seeped through, but the ink on the deed showed no signs of smudging.

"This is lampblack paper, specially made to imitate antiques."

"It looks like one piece, but it's actually made of several pieces glued together, so it looks old and worn, but you can tell if it's real by splashing water on it."

The real deed paper is made of pine soot paper with the official seal on it. The dark pattern of the official seal can be seen when held up to light, and the ink will blur when it comes into contact with water.

The dark pattern on the deed was created by sandwiching a layer of soot paper in the middle, which is water-proof.

A look of understanding flashed in Sang Zhixia's eyes.

Xu Yu continued, "There's still sound."

"Loose cigarette paper is light, and when you fold it and rub it, there's a rustling sound. But oil cigarette paper is made of several sheets glued together, so when you rub it, you hear a rustling sound. Why don't you try it?"

Sang Zhixia moved her fingers and heard a clear rustling sound. The corners of her mouth twitched uncontrollably: "Is this also possible?"

Xu Yu said meaningfully, "This man's craftsmanship is not excellent, but it is passable."

"If it were Xu Minghui, he would be able to make it look real."

His skills are not particularly good, but he is very brave.

Taking advantage of the lack of successors in the Sun family, they openly seized the Sun family's ownerless property, disguised it, used other people's names, and sold it openly.

Sang Zhixia didn't realize that the land deed was fake, and he got the money smoothly.

When Sang Zhixia went to reclaim the land, no serious member of the Sun family would jump out of his coffin and say that it was wrong.

If Sang Zhixia had not been alert and suspected who the owner of this land was, he would have been fooled for a while.

Sang Zhixia was just suspicious at first, suspecting that the salt bandits from Qingcheng Mountain had come down the mountain.

But now, looking at the table full of fake deeds, Sang Zhixia can now say with certainty: "Not only have the salt bandits come down from the mountain, but they also took me for a fool, right?"

Is he afraid that he won't be able to rob enough people when he goes down the mountain, so he tries his best to deceive her first?