"Shh." Lili stopped him, making a pleading gesture with her hands clenched into fists. "Little Qi, Little Qi, could you sneak in and help Lili find out where the Ma family's private treasury is?"
An Qi hesitated for a moment, wavering between secretly aiding and abetting the evildoer and taking the person back. Finally, unable to bear Li Li's watchful eye, he hid Li Li in the alley, told her to hide well, and then used his lightness skill to fly in.
Lili waved silently: "Go, Xiaoqi!"
The little girl was extremely excited. She took out a folded cloth bag from her pocket, shook it, and looked at the size of the bag with satisfaction. It was a full third the size of a burlap sack.
She was excited at the thought of secretly taking over Mark's precious thing.
The bag has limited capacity, so Lili plans to pick out the most expensive items from it.
Hmph, huh? Serves you right for stealing our business!
As Lili thought about it, a wide smile spread across her face.
After a while, Lili's excitement subsided, but Anqi still hadn't returned.
Lili squatted on the ground, bored, and played with the small white ball on the embroidery for a while before Anqi finally arrived.
Lili immediately stood up: "What happened? What happened? Why did you take so long? Is everything alright, Brother Xiaoqi?"
An Qi shook his head and told her about the situation inside: "The Ma family's storeroom is under tight guard, with three locks on the door."
Lili's eyes lit up: "Watching it so closely? Does that mean there are a lot of treasures?"
Anqi shook his head again: "I sneaked in and took a look. It was just ordinary printed money and some ordinary jewelry. It didn't seem like something worth having layers of protection for."
Lili frowned. Why have so many people watching over things when there's nothing there? And why put three locks on it?
Oh, trying to divert attention, huh?
Actually, the truly valuable things are all kept in another place, right?
Anqi: "I was in a hurry to come back and report, so I didn't look closely and didn't have time to find the real place."
"It's nothing." Lili waved her hand, thought about it seriously for a moment, and said, "Let's go to the study. Since we're already here, even if we can't steal any treasures, we can still steal some trade secrets."
Since we're already here, we can't leave empty-handed.
If there's nothing in the study, then go to the storeroom and take some gold as a gift.
After all, she sacrificed her sleep time to come here, so Mr. Ma should at least show some appreciation, right?
╮(￣▽￣)╭
Master Ma: ...Who sent you?
An Qi listened to her. He had just found the location of the study and immediately carried Li Li lightly inside.
The master thief Pear has arrived! Pear even dutifully covered her face with a black gauze, revealing only her smooth, fair forehead and bright, sparkling eyes.
Anqi nimbly darted across the rooftops, and when she caught a glimpse of Lili's movements out of the corner of her eye, a few black lines appeared on her forehead.
...Is this just burying one's head in the sand?
An Qi was extremely skilled in light-footed movement and excellent at concealment. Even though several teams of guards were patrolling the Ma residence late at night, they were completely unaware that their home was about to be robbed.
Upon reaching the study, two night watchmen were seen leaning against the wall, dozing off.
Anqi carefully placed Lili where she was, then silently slipped to the two men and knocked them unconscious with a karate chop. She then returned and, with Lili in tow, climbed through the window on the right.
Lili landed steadily and looked around the room, which was no different from an ordinary study.
Lili put her hands on her hips and glanced at it. The little devil inside her couldn't be controlled anymore, but she still bowed very politely towards the desk: "Sorry, I'm going to start eating now!"
His tone was sincere and extremely polite.
An Qi's lips twitched; he seemed to understand why His Highness treated Miss so specially.
God's father apologizes before doing bad things.
After a formal introduction, Lili was eager to try, and she didn't forget to assign a task to Anqi: "Little Qi, Little Qi, you go and search the inner room, I'll search the outside."
An Qi obediently went to the inner room of the study, where a soft couch was set up for a nap. An Qi glanced around and began to rummage through things with great skill, then put the things back in their original places, leaving no trace of rummaging.
Yes, this bodyguard is a professional.
On the other hand, Lili seemed fearless, not holding back at all, as if she was afraid that people wouldn't notice she'd been robbed.
He flipped through the books here and there, picked up one book to look at, and then picked up the brush to write a couple of characters. He even leisurely ground the ink himself and wrote two lines of characters on the table.
After finishing writing, Lili nonchalantly walked to another place to continue flipping through the pages.
After flipping through the room for a while without finding anything interesting, Lili got a little bored. There was nothing special about it. After walking around, it felt like the study of an ordinary wealthy person.
A stack of account books lay neatly arranged on the table, and several paintings hung behind the mahogany chair, depicting plum blossoms, orchids, bamboo, and chrysanthemums.
Lili leaned against the desk, idly flipping through the stack of account books.
I glanced at them and saw that the top few books were account books of the Ma family's local shops in Yuncheng.
Lili wasn't interested in any of that; she was focused on finding the treasure.
After flipping through a few pages, she decided not to continue. After flipping through a few more pages, just as she was about to put the ledger away, the page she was holding caught Lili's attention.
As luck would have it, this was the very ledger that recorded the Ma family's business dealings with Baise.
The Ma family made their fortune in salt, and also ventured into other industries.
Lili took a closer look at the ledger; everything seemed normal.
However, Baise, as a peripheral city of Xixiang County, was extremely poor.
Not to mention the scene in Xixiang County a few years ago, which almost wiped out the entire county. It was only by the personal assistance of Grand Tutor Zeng that the county was spared.
It took several years to recover, and with the help of the imperial court, the recovery has been extremely slow. What did Lili call it again? Oh, it's called economic recovery.
These past few years have finally brought some progress, but the already underdeveloped area is now even more strained after that famine.
Simply put, there wasn't enough money to buy anything else; it was all spent on rebuilding houses, buying food, and so on.
Although the imperial court would allocate silver from the national treasury, the funds would be distributed to the entire Xixiang Prefecture, which had hundreds of thousands of people. The amount allocated to each household would be just enough, and there would be no extra money.
Therefore, the Qi family hesitated to trade in Xixiang County for a long time. Only this year did they manage to send out a very small batch of cloth to test the waters.
So when the Ma family forcibly took the Qi family's goods, Qi Zheng was only temporarily angry. He felt that the Ma family was dishonest and too domineering, like bandits, but it didn't warrant pursuing the matter further.
In addition, as mentioned earlier, their current strength is not suitable for pursuing the matter further, so they did not choose to retaliate.
Lili looked at the account book in her hand with amusement. She now seemed to understand why she had felt such a strong urge to rob the Ma family and take revenge on them after hearing her second brother's complaints.
It turns out there was an even bigger scandal waiting for her to discover.
Lili switched the ledger to her other hand and continued flipping through the ledgers below with her right hand. She looked through them one by one, and everything else seemed normal.
Just as Shen Jialu had said, the Ma family's business scope extended beyond Yuncheng, encompassing trade across different prefectures.
Yes, they are all from Xixiang County.
Pear can understand things like salt and grain.
These teacups, fabrics, and jewelry... aren't they going too far?
What's excessive isn't the things themselves, but their sheer quantity—it's enormous.
That's weird.
Could there be some hidden tycoon in Seo-gyang County?
Lili was lost in thought when, without noticing, she leaned against the desk and her elbow knocked over the brush holder next to her, which had several calligraphy brushes hanging there.
The pen holder fell over, knocking over a small ceramic Pixiu ornament next to it.
Lili straightened up somewhat awkwardly, her gaze falling on the ceramic Pixiu. Suddenly, she became interested, turned the Pixiu left and right, and bent down to take a closer look.
Hey, Pixiu brings wealth and good fortune. You know what, she'll probably put one in her house too.
Lili smiled and thought to herself that she would ask her second brother to find one for her when she got home.
"Click".
A crisp sound rang out in the quiet environment. Lili was startled, blinked, and turned around to look.
Behind the desk, four paintings slowly parted from the middle to both sides.
After a while, the wall of the study slid open, revealing a stone door in the middle.
Lili: "..."
Wow, what an unexpected bonus!
Could this be the mission guide?
Lili turned around and looked at the ceramic Pixiu on the table; it looked fierce and majestic.
Lili touched the Pixiu: "Thank you."
He then coughed lightly and whispered into the inner room, "Little Seven, Little Seven!"
An Qi immediately flashed out, and after seeing the messy room, he was stunned for a moment, then noticed the stone door, and a look of surprise flashed in his usually calm eyes.
Anqi looked at Lili and asked silently.
The latter gave him an extremely innocent look, and shrugged with his hands outstretched: "This stone door came out by itself."
A storeroom that is unremarkable yet under strict guard, and a study that looks ordinary but actually hides a secret.
Yes, it's obviously something fishy.
Lili briefly explained the strangeness of the ledger to him, and Anqi's intuition immediately made him realize that there might be an answer behind the stone door.
Lili leaned closer to the stone door and looked at it: "This stone wall doesn't have any uneven parts, how do we open it?"
Lili wrinkled her nose and casually patted the stone gate.
"Boom!"
A dull thud was heard, and the stone door slowly opened.
Lili: "Huh?"
Anqi: "...Miss is mighty."
Lili waved her hand in a good mood and said modestly, "I'm just lucky, I'm just so lucky."
Beyond the stone gate lies a long, dark tunnel, its destination unknown.
Lili eagerly stuck out one foot, but was stopped by Anqi: "Miss, please wait here. I will go ahead and scout ahead."
Lili waved her hand, instinctively feeling there was no danger: "It's alright."
After saying that, he stepped directly into the tunnel. An Qi quickly grabbed a candle from a shelf and lit it with his internal energy before following behind.
The faint candlelight illuminated the road. After walking about ten meters, a dark house came into view.
Several torches were stuck diagonally on the wall. An Qi struck out with a palm strike, and the flames leaped up, illuminating the small room.
It is a study.
It's very small, maybe four or five square meters, but it has a lot of stuff.
The shelves on three sides had various books and letters on the upper shelf and a circle of boxes on the bottom shelf.
Lili exclaimed excitedly, "Xiaoqi, let's search!"
"yes."
Anqi started by searching the desk in the center, while Lili began rummaging through the boxes from the southeast corner.
The boxes were all locked, and Lili tugged at them but couldn't open them.
Lili frowned, and after trying several times without success, she had no choice but to resort to the most primitive method.
Lili, clutching the lock, turned around and called out, "Xiao Qi!"
An Qi was reading an opened letter with a solemn expression. Hearing Li Li's call, he put down what he was holding.
An Qi understood that Li Li wanted him to unlock the lock, so he drew the dagger from his waist and decisively dealt with the situation by force.
After finishing the first one, Anqi opened the remaining locks one by one in the same way.
Lili kept praising him for being amazing.
Anqi returned to his desk to read the letters.
Lili opened the box and was immediately blinded by the dazzling light.
The box was filled with gems—red, yellow, blue, and green, you name it.
Lili reached into the box and scooped something out—goodness, the box was full!
He opened another box, inside which were vessels made of pure gold. The gold cups were engraved with delicate patterns, and the style was very different from that of the Southern Jin Dynasty.
Lili looked through each box one by one. They were all filled with glittering gold items that looked very valuable. Most importantly, they didn't seem to be from the Southern Jin Dynasty.
Lili glanced briefly at the seashell jewelry in one of the boxes. It was quite strange to have a box of seashells placed among a pile of gold and silver treasures.
Lili muttered to herself in confusion, but also felt a little excited.
Hehe, she still found the treasure.
I took out the cloth bag I had prepared earlier, ready to randomly pick some lucky treasures to take home, when I suddenly remembered—the only shell ornaments with special meaning are the gold ones!
In Daikin, seashells were once used as currency, symbolizing wealth and value.
So even though gold and silver are still used as currency in the world today, seashells still have special significance, symbolizing tranquility and beauty.
Lili understood.
A large number of strange transactions, Baise bordering the Great Jin, and countless Great Jin treasures in a dark room.
Could it be that...?
Lili immediately ran to Anqi's side with a string of seashell necklaces in her hands: "This is Da Jin's stuff!"
Anqi glanced at the seashell necklace, showed no surprise, and then showed her the letters that were laid out on the table.
Lili glanced at it and was shocked.
The Ma family is actually making a deal with Da Jin!
Those business dealings with Xixiang County were actually just the first step on the surface. After those goods arrived in Xixiang County, they would change hands several times, be distributed to several different groups of people, and finally be returned to another trading company and bought by an anonymous person.
It is evident from the words that this anonymous person is none other than the Golden Man.
Da Jin gave him gold and silver treasures, and under the guise of the transaction, secretly exchanged information with Mark.
To Lili's surprise, Mark not only had dealings with the Golden Man, but also had some connection with Gu Zi'an.
Oh, it's also related to Qi Zheng.
Mark and Qi Zheng's father were childhood playmates. Their families were also in business, but after Mark grew up, his family moved to Xixiang County.
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