Chapter 146 More than four tons of gold were discovered in the magistrate's storeroom!
The flashlight beam flashed, and several blurry shadows flashed through Ning Jinli's vision.
A chill ran down her spine, and she slowly shone the flashlight toward the spot where the shadow had been.
Four large wolfhounds were staring intently at her.
Those pairs of green eyes gleamed with a sinister and ferocious light, and their bared fangs emitted chilling growls.
The four large wolfhounds were almost as big as calves, and at this moment, all of them had their backs bristling, heads down, and tails drooping, clearly adopting an attack posture.
If they hadn't mistaken the round flashlight for the eyes of some large, ferocious beast, they would have already launched an attack.
Ning Jinli knew that barking dogs were usually just bluffing and didn't actually bite much, while silent dogs were the real rabid ones that would bite. And those four large wolfhounds a few meters away were clearly the worst of the worst.
"Calm down, I'm not a bad person..." Ning Jinli gently soothed him in a very gentle voice as she slowly put her left hand into her backpack.
Her harmless appearance and gentle voice actually lessened the hostility in the eyes of the four large wolfhounds.
However, its vigilance and ferocity remain unchanged, and it can still pounce at any moment.
Ning Jinli was not worried that she could not deal with these four large wolfhounds. Even if she only used her internal energy and brute force, she could kill them.
The problem is, she wasn't entirely confident she could kill them both at once.
If she makes a commotion, the people inside the magistrate's office will find out, and her plan for tonight will be ruined.
Therefore, fighting these four vicious dogs is definitely not a wise move.
"Do you want something to eat? I have some good food here." Ning Jinli said, taking out a bag of ready-to-eat braised duck legs from her backpack.
Besides tools, her bag also contained a lot of snacks.
This was originally intended to be used to fill her stomach and replenish her energy during tonight's operation.
"Woof..." The four large wolfhounds lowered their heads even further, baring their teeth and growling, their fierce eyes staring at Ning Jinli with even greater vigilance.
Ning Jinli put the small flashlight in her mouth and used her free hand to slowly tear open the plastic packaging bag.
Sizzle—Sizzle—
As the packaging bag was torn open, the rich aroma of braised duck legs instantly wafted out.
Dogs have an extremely keen sense of smell, and almost instantly, the eyes of the four large wolfhounds widened considerably, and their gazes turned to the thing in Ning Jinli's hand.
As Ning Jinli took the braised duck leg out of the plastic bag, the four large wolfhounds began to drool. Although they maintained their attack posture, their large tails behind their rear ends lifted up uncontrollably.
"Here, have some." Ning Jinli gently tossed the braised duck leg two or three meters away from her.
These four large wolfhounds were not only big, but also had glossy fur, which showed that they were well fed by the county magistrate and their daily diet must have far exceeded that of ordinary people.
They probably wouldn't even look at ordinary meat.
But this time, what they encountered was food that Ning Jinli brought from the modern world. The various seasonings added to it were a game-changer for both domestic animals and humans in this era.
The four large wolfhounds hesitated for only a few seconds before they couldn't resist walking closer to the duck leg on the ground, their saliva dripping more and more.
The largest of the three was clearly the leader. It growled at its companions, and the other three lowered their bodies and slowed their pace.
The lead wolfhound glanced at Ning Jinli, brought its nose close to the duck leg to sniff, then put the duck leg in its mouth and swallowed it in a few bites.
After finishing the duck leg, it raised its head again, its eyes becoming much clearer, and its tail was raised high and swayed slightly.
Seeing that her trick worked, Ning Jinli secretly breathed a sigh of relief, then took out some snacks, unwrapped them, and threw them over.
Two braised duck legs, two braised pig trotters, a few pure meat sausages, a small cream cake, and a bag of beef jerky.
Aside from water, she fed all the snacks she had originally intended for herself to the baby.
After the four large wolfhounds finished eating, they completely lost their previous wary and fierce demeanor. They immediately surrounded Ning Jinli, wagging their tails and grinning, letting her pet their heads as if she were their master.
After dealing with the four large wolfhounds, Ning Jinli quickly found the storeroom inside the artificial hill. She then took out her tools and successfully broke the lock, with the four wolfhounds wagging their tails and watching the whole process.
She opened the door, shone her flashlight inside, and was immediately stunned.
Inside, it was just a small room of a few square meters, with nothing else besides a large table about three meters long and four long benches.
"This...you're not kidding, are you?"
Ning Jinli was somewhat dazed.
She clearly saw that after the magistrate's house caught fire, he rushed to the artificial hill immediately. Logically, the storeroom should have been there.
Moreover, she couldn't find any other doors inside the artificial hill.
What happened after I opened the door...?
Surely the magistrate isn't worried about the tables and chairs causing accidents?
Ning Jinli walked into the room with a head full of questions and casually touched the table.
It feels like wood, and it looks like just ordinary wood.
"Strange...it can't be this abnormal."
Ning Jinli muttered to herself and casually tugged at the stool next to her, but couldn't budge it.
"Huh? This wooden stool is so heavy?"
She immediately tried harder and found that without the aid of internal energy, it would be very difficult for her to move.
This is not the weight a wooden stool should have; it's much heavier than one made of steel.
“There’s a problem!” Ning Jinli took out a utility knife and started scraping the surface of the stool.
After scraping off a layer of paint and a layer of wood veneer, a golden luster was revealed underneath.
Ning Jinli's lips curled up, "So it was made of gold, then covered with a layer of wood veneer and painted. Then what about the other three stools and that table..."
She checked them all right away.
That's right, it's made entirely of pure gold.
A rough estimate suggests that this large gold table, along with the four long gold benches, should weigh over four tons.
"Hiss..." Ning Jinli gasped, "At the current price of gold, this gold... is probably worth 3 billion yuan!"
"Holy crap..."
"A mere magistrate of Hewan County, even with the normal salary of this era, couldn't accumulate this much gold in eight hundred lifetimes. How much silver from the imperial court must he have embezzled, and how much of the people's wealth must he have squeezed out?!"
Ning Jinli sat on the stool, her elbows resting on the table and her forehead.
She doesn't know how much of this pile of gold is money allocated by the imperial court for local use, and how much was obtained by the county magistrate from the people's blood.
Moreover, directly distributing the gold to all the people of Hewan County would not only be difficult to implement, but would also cause great chaos, which is obviously unrealistic.
Then I'll just have to take it with me for now.
"Woof...woof..." At this moment, the four large wolfhounds walked to the corner, barking softly while scratching at the wall with their paws.
Ning Jinli walked over and shone a flashlight on the area carefully. She found that there were friction marks on the stone slab on the ground in that spot, and there was also a crack along the wall.
"Could it be that these walls are made of gold too?!"
Ning Jinli's eyes widened, and she quickly scraped it with a knife.
But she soon realized that she had been overthinking it; the walls were just ordinary bluestone slabs.
But the four large wolfhounds kept sniffing at her with their noses and pawing at her with their paws, then looked up at Ning Jinli.
Ning Jinli continued to explore and finally discovered that the gap in the wall seemed to be the shape of a door.
She tried to find the right angle to push it, and with a dull groan, a rotating stone door was slowly pushed open.
The four large wolfhounds took off and rushed inside.
Ning Jinli raised her flashlight and shone it over, only to discover that there was a hidden world inside.
This is a large warehouse of several hundred square meters, where a large amount of supplies are piled up in different categories.
On one side were several boxes of silver ingots, jewels and jade, cloth, salt, spices, and some fine timber.
On the other side were large sacks of grain, a large quantity of cured and dried pork and mutton on wooden shelves, and a dozen jars of aged wine.
Four large wolfhounds scrambled to devour the meat, but Ning Jinli ignored them and wandered around on her own. In a corner, she spotted a large box containing bamboo slips.
The bamboo slips were bundled into rolls, covered with dense writing.
Ning Jinli could barely understand the written language of this era.
But it's obvious that important content must be stored here.
"Fine, I'll take them all!" Ning Jinli sneered, channeling her inner energy to open a portal in spacetime, connecting to the factory warehouse on the other end.
Although the increased consumption of internal energy made her feel dizzy, she was full of energy.
After the space-time portal opened, she took a short breath and focused her attention to begin teleporting using her mind.
In the blink of an eye, apart from a small portion of cured and dried meat left for the four large wolfhounds, all the supplies in the warehouse, including the golden tables and chairs, were teleported away by her.
"You guys eat slowly, I'm leaving, bye-bye." Ning Jinli waved to the dogs, turned around and walked into the time-space tunnel.
The dog looked in the direction she disappeared, tilted its head and stared at her in confusion for a few moments, then lowered its head and continued eating.
——
The next morning.
Several drunken constables carried the fast-sleeping Constable Zhao to the county government office.
These people were in high spirits because they had snatched a rare treasure from Xiumei's house yesterday. After hiding the treasure in a safe place, they spent the whole night drinking and carousing.
Normally, the county magistrate only cares about accumulating wealth and doesn't care about anything else. He even leaves cases to the yamen runners to handle themselves, so he doesn't care about their actions.
"Boss, we've arrived at the yamen. Wake up..." the constable reminded him.
Officer Zhao groggily opened his eyes, and with the help of the constables, he plopped down on the steps of the yamen entrance, yawned with the smell of alcohol, and said lazily, "Go...go and bring Xiumei out, take her to the execution ground...and behead her."
One of the constables said, "Boss, the approval documents and notices haven't been prepared yet."
"What's the point of all this?" Officer Zhao sneered. "Heh, how the case is judged is entirely up to us."
The constable chuckled, "We still have to go through the formalities, don't we?"
Officer Zhao looked impatient. "I won't feel at ease until Xiu Mei is killed as soon as possible. Do you think you can feel at ease? It's just a matter of having the clerk write an approval and a notice and stamp it with the yamen seal. You take your men to carry out the execution, and I'll go through the procedures with the clerk later. It won't delay anything."
Since the head constable had said so, his constables immediately complied, quickly entered the yamen, and headed straight for the prison.
Zhao, the head constable, stretched and swayed as he entered the yamen. Soon after, he found the clerk in the study, who was counting the taxes and fines collected in the past few days.
"Oh, sir, you've been busy all night?" Constable Zhao asked cheerfully.
The clerk glanced up and continued working, saying, "You've done a good job these days, making more money than before. Of course, I'm even busier. I have to sort out the tax revenue from the normal projects and put it into the yamen's treasury, and send the rest to the county magistrate."
After saying that, he casually picked up a few pieces of silver and tossed them to Constable Zhao.
Officer Zhao took the loose silver, but with a smile, he slapped it back onto the table in front of the clerk.
"You don't want any of the rewards you're given?" the advisor asked in surprise.
Officer Zhao let out a burp, a smug look on his face, "I'm in a good mood today, I don't care about this little bit of money."
The advisor joked, "How about I give you the magistrate's share?"
Officer Zhao glanced sideways at the two piles of silver beside him.
There was very little, mostly copper coins, with some loose silver, probably only a few taels.
The other pile contained silver, at least a hundred taels.
The small amount was the tax that should have been collected according to the normal laws of Da Xuan, but the latter was collected from a project set up privately by the county government.
The former goes into the public treasury, while the latter ends up in the county magistrate's pocket; this has been the case for many years.
Officer Zhao had once been envious, but now he looked disdainful. "Master, I'm not going to argue with you anymore. Hurry up and write me an approval document and a notice."
"Alright, go ahead." The clerk casually unfolded the bamboo slips and picked up the brush.
But when he heard that this time it involved the death penalty, the clerk frowned and reminded him, "This case must be tried and decided by the county magistrate himself, and the case must also be sent to the prefect for verification. If..."
Officer Zhao interrupted, "Let's not trouble the magistrate. Just do it the same way we always have."
The clerk shook his head slightly, "But this is, after all, a death sentence, a matter of life and death, what if..."
“There’s no chance of anything going wrong,” Officer Zhao interrupted again, taking out a large silver ingot from his pocket and placing it in front of the clerk. “The one to be beheaded is just an ordinary peasant woman, the kind whose life is worth less than a dog’s. There’s no way anything could go wrong.”
The clerk pondered for a moment, put away the silver ingot, said nothing more, and began to write.
Just then—
"Boss! Something terrible has happened!" A constable rushed in, flustered. "Xiumei is missing!"
Officer Zhao was taken aback. "What do you mean, 'disappeared'?"
The constable stammered, "We...we just went to the jail to get her, but the jailer said...that Xiumei has slipped away sometime ago."
"Bullshit!" Officer Zhao glared and said, "How could a living person locked in a death row cell possibly escape?!"
The constable wiped away his cold sweat and said, "But...it really is...gone. And yesterday there was another woman who was locked up with Xiumei, they've all...gone."
"I'll go take a look!" Officer Zhao's face instantly darkened.
When he arrived at the cell, he saw the jailer, whose face looked worse than if he had eaten excrement, standing in front of the death row cell door, staring at the lock without moving.
The death row cell was indeed empty.
"Where are the people inside! When did they slip away?!" Constable Zhao roared in fury, rushing over and grabbing the jailer by the collar. "What kind of jailer are you? Are all your guards incompetent?!"
A hint of fear flickered in the jailer's eyes. "Officer Zhao... this is very strange. I suspect... I suspect it's haunted."
"Bullshit!" Officer Zhao was so angry that he raised his hand to slap the man across the face.
The jailer hurriedly pointed to the death row door, "Don't believe me? Look for yourself! If it's not haunted, how do you explain this?!"
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