The garden next door had a pavilion on all four sides to shield it from outsiders' peeping. Ye Yunniang leaned against the pavilion pillar to spy on everything that was happening inside the dilapidated temple.
Seeing Bai Yurong's expression of impending death, one can't help but sigh, "Aunt Bai truly loved the old man deeply."
"You're insulting the phrase 'deeply devoted.' Bai Yurong is putting on an act. She actually wants the three treasures the old man secretly keeps. She's already gotten one of them with her performance just now."
But there are still two places she hasn't gotten, and Bai Yurong has to play her part perfectly. Her son will come to the old man to get the second place after he's born. And when her son turns seven, she'll get the third." Jiang Mingzhe whispered in Ye Yunniang's ear.
The hot air made Ye Yunniang uncomfortable, so she turned her head away, revealing her long, fair neck, which was tempting to be admired.
Jiang Mingzhe sampled it without hesitation.
"Master, please stop." Ye Yunniang reached out and covered Jiang Mingzhe's mouth. It was fine inside the room, but the pavilion, which was drafty and could be discovered at any time, was unacceptable.
To distract Jiang Mingzhe, Ye Yunniang asked, "Master, how do you know the old man has three treasures? Weren't they confiscated by the authorities?"
Jiang Mingzhe saw through Ye Yunniang's little trick at a glance. "You want it?"
Ye Yunniang shook her head slightly; she shouldn't take what wasn't hers.
“It’s right not to. What the old man hid isn’t anything special.” Jiang Mingzhe’s words were full of disdain as he grasped Ye Yunniang’s right hand and raised her index finger.
"The first treasure is on a small hill behind the Jing Si Manor. There is a hidden hill with 10 chests of silver inside, totaling 100,000 taels."
He then raised Ye Yunniang's middle finger and bit it. "The second place is Baiyun Temple. The old man has a guest house where he lives year-round. For meditation, he has placed many Buddha statues and Arhats in the courtyard. They are all made of pure gold and cost ten thousand taels of gold."
Finally, Ye Yunniang raised her ring finger, "The third place is in this dilapidated temple. Do you see that broken stone platform?"
Following Jiang Mingzhe's gaze, Ye Yunniang saw a stone platform in the main hall of the dilapidated temple where a Buddha statue was placed.
"There is a gap under the fifth brick directly behind the stone platform. If you stick your finger in, you will feel a protrusion. If you press it hard, the back wall will move and a stone door will appear."
Pushing open the stone door leads to a secret room.
The secret room contained the old man's decades-long collection of antiques, jewelry, jade, and gold and silver ingots. Including the box of century-old ginseng he had previously put in, the total value was estimated at a million taels of silver.
Ye Yunniang looked up at Jiang Mingzhe, "Why are you telling me all this?" Aren't you afraid she'll tell on you or steal it? Money can be a powerful motivator.
"Can you?" Jiang Mingzhe didn't answer, but asked instead.
Ye Yunniang's expression darkened slightly. "Are you testing me? My mother said that if someone uses money to test me, then they are a bad person. I can't associate with that person."
Ye Yunniang pushed Jiang Mingzhe and got up to leave.
“I wasn’t testing you.” Jiang Mingzhe grabbed Ye Yunniang’s hand and pulled her back into his arms.
"Let go." Ye Yunniang struggled; she didn't want to talk to Jiang Mingzhe. She felt she shouldn't have come here today, bringing silver notes only to be humiliated.
"I'm telling you this to tell you that the Jiang family won't starve even after their property was confiscated." Jiang Mingzhe hugged Ye Yunniang tightly.
He sensed that if he let go of the young woman in front of him now, they would never have any further involvement. This was not what Jiang Mingzhe wanted.
"Silly woman, you should think more about yourself."
"I'm not stupid," Ye Yunniang retorted. She believed that one should know how to be grateful. She didn't want the little master she had been nursing for over a year to suffer.
“Ms. Kim won’t suffer. Look at her hair and nails.”
Ye Yunniang looked at Jiang Mingzhe in confusion, wondering why he was looking at the lady's fingernails and hair.
"You take a look first," Jiang Mingzhe urged Ye Yunniang without answering.
Ye Yunniang parted the curtain to examine Jin Huifang's head and hands closely.
In the past, Jin Huifang loved gold jewelry the most, and her hair was always adorned with various gold hairpins. Her nails were also long and beautiful, and she often dyed them different colors, making them look gorgeous.
Today, Jin Huifang looked the most simply dressed Ye Yunniang had ever seen; her hair was only wrapped in a handkerchief. Her red nail polish looked quite pretty.
"Ms. Jin doesn't have much hair, so she secretly buys other people's hair to make hairpins and wears them on her head. Her hairpins are filled with gold. And look at her hands, her fingernails are covered with a layer of gold."
"Cover it with a layer?" Ye Yunniang didn't understand.
"Ms. Kim disliked dyeing her nails but wanted to have beautiful nails. She spent a lot of effort finding a skilled craftsman."
They used gold, silver, pearls, tortoiseshell, and other materials to create incredibly thin nail tips, as thin as cicada wings, which were then worn on the hands. Each nail tip cost at least 100 taels of silver.
Ye Yunniang looked at Jin Huifang's long and beautiful nails, and realized they were fake?
"Don't worry, that brat Jiang Tingjun won't go hungry. He's got enough from his mother's body to eat for a while. If that's not enough, his father will support him. The fourth brother may seem naive, but he's got his own little schemes."
The fourth son had secretly acquired numerous properties outside his own name, all registered under his wet nurse's name. His wet nurse, who had no children of her own, genuinely treated him like her own son. She devoted herself to managing his three shops, two houses, and 100 mu of prime paddy fields.
Hearing this, Ye Yunniang felt less worried about her young master. Not wanting to hear any more of the Jiang family's secrets, she wanted to leave.
Jiang Mingzhe didn't let go of Ye Yunniang, but lowered his head and nibbled on her earlobe, "Spend more time with me."
"It's getting late." Looking at the setting sun, Ye Yunniang didn't want to stay any longer. Her mother and Pan'er were waiting for her at home.
"Wait a little longer, and I'll tell you another secret." With that, Jiang Mingzhe gestured for Ye Yunniang to go see Old Madam Jiang.
"Guess what she's hiding?"
Ye Yunniang then looked at Old Madam Jiang. Her hair was sparse, she wasn't wearing a wig, and there was no hidden gold or silver. Her clothes were thin and offered no concealment. Her nails were clean and unpainted…
"I can't tell." Ye Yunniang really couldn't tell.
"When the old lady was young, she went out to do business with the old man. Not only were their silver and goods robbed, but even their cotton-padded coat was taken from them. In the dead of winter, they returned begging in only a thin coat. Two fingers on their left hand were frostbitten off."
Later, after making money, he felt uncomfortable looking at his incomplete hand, so he had someone make him a prosthetic finger.
At first, they used wood or similar materials, which they wrapped around their hands.
Later, when the family became wealthy, they made a box full of fingers using materials such as gold, jade, and emerald. To make them look more realistic, they even spent money to buy human skin to stick on them. "Jiang Mingzhe revealed the secret that Old Madam Jiang had kept hidden.
"Human...human...human skin?" Ye Yunniang's voice trembled. Was this still the kind Jiang family she knew?
"At first, she would pick out women from among the death row inmates in the prison and buy one of their fingers after they died for 20 taels of silver. After buying it, she would peel off the skin, process it, and put it on the finger."
Over time, she grew to dislike the idea of dead people's skin, finding it unlucky and smelly.
They would send trusted old women secretly to poor families in the countryside to select pretty, young women with beautiful fingers. They would offer 50 or 100 taels of silver for a single finger. Some poor families were willing to have the old women chop off their fingers.
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