What interested Ruyi the most was this small accounting room; she had a gut feeling that the most valuable thing in the storeroom must be hidden here.
So she immediately switched to reconnaissance mode, her first target being the two empty display shelves. Unfortunately, after searching inside and out, she couldn't find any hidden compartments or anything like that.
Finding nothing, Cheng Ruyi immediately rushed to her desk.
This is a very large desk, more than two meters long and over one meter wide. There is an overturned pen holder on the tabletop, with several calligraphy brushes scattered haphazardly. Below it is a row of four drawers, but unfortunately they are all empty.
That shouldn't be the case... Surely they couldn't have left nothing behind in such a hasty evacuation?
Ruyi wasn't discouraged. She sighed, then lay down on the ground, turned around, and crawled under the table, instantly getting covered in dust.
However, after searching all around the table, she still found nothing. Suddenly, an idea struck her. She pulled open the drawer and finally found the hidden compartment between the table and the drawers on both sides.
Goodness! You've hidden it so well, you'd better get your money's worth!
With anticipation, Ruyi deftly pushed with her fingers, and the thin wooden piece came off. In the left compartment were several pieces of metal and a piece of paper, while in the right compartment was a sign.
The moment I received the item, I received another system notification!
"Ding-dong! Congratulations on completing a side quest!"
No wonder it was hidden so well, it turned out to be a side quest!
The light under the desk was too dim, so after carefully putting everything away, she immediately crawled outside and went to the window to check.
Those pieces of metal glittered in the sunlight; they were actually the legendary gold leaves!
Ruyi was overjoyed. After taking out all the gold leaves, she found that the workmanship of these gold leaves was not very exquisite, but they were quite heavy. After carefully weighing them, she estimated that they weighed close to fifty grams, definitely one tael of gold. According to the current price, one gold leaf was worth more than thirty taels, and five gold leaves would be more than one hundred and fifty taels!
Overjoyed, she immediately opened the paper that was in the same compartment as the gold leaf.
The paper felt very familiar, just like the one she had just taken out of Wang Liu's purse. When she opened it, it was indeed a silver note, and a full one hundred taels!
The two items together are worth more than 250 taels of silver. This is the foundation of a large grain shop with a powerful background. Even the things they leave behind are worth hundreds of taels.
Cheng Ruyi never expected that becoming rich would be so easy. But thinking about it carefully, the golden fingers of farming novelists used to have to be thousands or tens of thousands of taels of silver. Compared to that, two hundred taels of silver didn't seem so bad. Keep a low profile!
Ruyi immediately felt satisfied; this adventure was indeed worthwhile.
Immersed in joy, Cheng Ruyi suddenly remembered that there was still a sign she hadn't looked at. Although the sign looked dark and murky, maybe she just didn't know anything about it.
So she immediately put the silver notes and gold leaves into her purse, and then picked up the black plaque to examine it.
The entire plaque was black, without a single texture, and had a cool, icy feel, like a combination of jade and metal. No matter how Cheng Ruyi looked at it, she couldn't discern anything special about it.
She herself couldn't tell, but there was a system!
Task Details:
Main quest: Infiltrate Rongfa Grain Shop to obtain supplies (Incomplete)
Side Quest 1: Resolve Wang Liu's revenge for the original owner and escape successfully (Completion: A)
Side Quest 2: Find the Mysterious Jade Token (Completion Level: A)
Note: The main quest is mandatory; failure to complete it today will result in certain death.
Before Cheng Ruyi could finish reading it carefully, the system gave her another notification.
"Ding-dong, a mysterious jade token containing traces of spiritual energy has been detected. Would you like to redeem it?"
Suddenly, the interface changed, revealing a scale with an ancient design but shining with brilliance. On the left side of the scale was the black plaque, with the words "Mysterious Jade Plaque Containing a Trace of Spiritual Energy" written below it. On the right side of the scale were three very beautiful, colorful pebbles, with the words "Three Points of Spiritual Power" written below them.
At the bottom of the interface, there are two buttons: one is "Redeem" and the other is "Temporarily Abandon".
Cheng Ruyi was startled when she saw it. She looked down and found that the sign was still in her hand. She breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that the sign in the interface was just virtual and not a real object.
She searched the entire interface but couldn't find any explanation of what those three small stones were or what their purpose was.
"System, what is this mysterious jade tablet?"
......
"System, what exactly is this spiritual energy value?"
......
"How am I supposed to know whether or not to redeem it if you don't explain?"
......
As expected, the system still didn't answer her question. Could you please replace it with a more advanced AI system? What's the use of a system that can't answer any questions!
After careful consideration, Ruyi decided to "temporarily give up" since she knew nothing at the moment and would study everything slowly after returning home.
"Ruyi, are you done on your end? Come help me, oh dear, it's so heavy!"
Xu Cui's voice interrupted Cheng Ruyi, who was still thinking. Upon hearing this, Cheng Ruyi immediately turned around and replied, "It's all done, it's all done, I'll be right there!"
As Cheng Ruyi walked over, she heard Xu Cui continuing to grumble, "What fine white rice! And it's new rice! Damn it, I knew they were hiding the new rice because they only sold old rice before!"
"Aunt Cui, why is it still like this here?" Ruyi looked around and found that many places were still messy. It seemed that Xu Cui had been tidying up those few broken boxes and hadn't searched other places yet.
"I don't have time. Come and take a look. Besides white rice, there's also a lot of white flour here. I don't know how it got mixed up. I can only roughly separate them."
Cheng Ruyi walked over to the box and took a look. She then realized that the box was bigger than she had imagined. The lid and one of the four wooden boards on the box were broken. The sack of white flour that was placed on it fell in and spilled out mixed with the white rice.
On the lid with a large hole, the two big red characters "five shi" were still faintly visible, which meant that this box could hold five shi of rice, which is about six hundred or seven hundred jin!
Of course, less than a third of the rice remains in the box, but even that amount is quite astonishing for an ordinary family.
It's likely that the shop assistants were in such a rush when they left that they accidentally mixed the rice and flour together. They didn't have time to sort them, so they only took the clean rice that wasn't mixed up and left the rest behind. Now, it's all benefited Ruyi and the others.
Besides this relatively intact box, there were two other wooden boxes next to it that were so badly damaged that only two or three planks remained to support them. The boxes contained significantly less rice than the one that was in better condition.
However, a rough estimate suggests that there are at least 300 jin of white rice left here. Even if their family eats white rice for every meal of the day, it would be enough to last them for three to five months!
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