Chapter 29 Treasure Hunt
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At noon, She Hongmei returned from town and brought everyone the latest news.
This case has had a serious impact and involves a huge amount of money. All the people involved were handed over to the Provincial Public Security Bureau early this morning, and their hideout for cultural relics was thoroughly searched.
A large number of unremoved cultural relics were found at the town's waste recycling station. According to onlookers, there were probably dozens of large wooden crates, and it took several military trucks to load them all.
After the case in Xiahe Town was cracked, the authorities paid great attention to the process of receiving and leaving recycling stations. Other places also conducted self-inspections of their local recycling stations. They didn't know until they checked, and they found a lot of violations and illegal activities.
To this end, the authorities have issued a number of detailed rules on the management of waste recycling, including requiring designated personnel to enter and sell data, and these two personnel must not be the same person. Relevant personnel are required to regularly check accounts and inventory. At the same time, the recycling of illegally obtained items is prohibited, and it is required that any prohibited items be immediately reported to the public security authorities. Those who fail to report will be held legally responsible.
After the management rules were introduced, the business of scrap recycling stations visibly declined, but obviously, there were also fewer illegal activities. For example, the theft of bicycle bell covers for sale has not happened again.
The social atmosphere has also improved considerably.
With the smuggling case concluded, She Ning turned her attention back to the math Olympiad and the mystery of Ludong Mountain. Clearly, the existence of treasure in Ludong Mountain was real. On the system interface, #System Task: Explore the Mystery of Ludong Mountain Treasure# was still hanging in the upper right corner, with the task progress clearly showing 0%.
She had initially guessed that the system had issued the mission because She Yaozu had gone up the mountain to search for treasure, but now it seemed that the two had just happened by chance.
The next day, She Ning went to Ludong Mountain with She Hongmei.
She Hongmei doesn't plan to give up her braised food business. She needs to renegotiate the purchase of goods with Guan Lihua. Some parts of the contract need to be changed. She Ning sits to the side, listening to their conversation.
She doesn't interfere in business matters; all decisions are made by She Hongmei.
She Hongmei and Guan Lihua usually get along well, but when it comes to business, they don't back down when there are disagreements about the terms. Watching the two of them argue about the contract terms, She Ning silently turned her gaze to the window.
Outside the window, the mountains and forests are lush and green, the ground is covered with bushes, and chickens are foraging for food. It's hard to imagine where they could be hidden if there were treasures in the mountains.
"Mom, Aunt Guan, I'm going out for a walk." After finishing the water in her cup, She Ning stood up and said.
Thinking she was getting bored, She Hongmei turned her attention away from the contract, nodded to her, and then instructed, "Be careful of the branches, don't get scratched."
She and Guan Xiuhua had just finalized the terms of Article 3 of the contract, but it seemed like it wouldn't be finished so easily. She Ning wasn't a stranger to this place; she often went out for walks before. Moreover, there were security personnel patrolling the railway line down the mountain regularly, and there were people working at the farm during the day.
Safety is guaranteed.
She Hongmei gave She Ning a light long-sleeved jacket and told her to wear it outside.
She Ning obediently put on her clothes, and Guan Xiuhua, standing beside her, also handed her a straw hat. "Put on the hat too, because at this time of year, small insects often fall from the trees."
The moment she said that, She Ning got goosebumps.
Those tiny, brightly colored worms that, if they fall on your skin, will cause a lot of red welts. Just thinking about that scene makes She Ning, the professional drumming pro, step in again. Finding the treasure isn't always the only thing that matters.
The next second, she saw the task content flashing white in the upper right corner of the system interface, and the progress was zero. She gritted her teeth, tied the straw hat rope tightly, making sure it was welded to her head and wouldn't fall off, and buttoned the top button of her long coat, making sure she was completely covered up.
It wasn't that she was greedy for treasure hunts or blind box opportunities; it was mainly the daily tasks. If she didn't complete the previous one, the next one wouldn't refresh, and unfinished tasks would keep flashing a white light as a reminder.
She has OCD and can't stand seeing things left on the screen without being removed.
As she walked up the mountain, She Ning carried a wooden stick. She tapped the surrounding grass as she went. There were three theories about where the treasure was, and she was now going to one of them: the Taoist temple at the top of the mountain.
After walking uphill along the stone path covered with vegetation for more than twenty minutes, an ancient building appeared in front of us. The Taoist temple was neglected and presented a desolate and decaying scene.
For safety's sake, She Ning donned a magic cloak, pushed open the dilapidated wooden door, and entered a courtyard overgrown with weeds. In the courtyard stood a pine tree that looked like it had been growing for ages. No one had trimmed it, and its branches grew haphazardly, with many drooping branches blocking the passageway in the courtyard.
When She Ning entered, she scared away many small animals in the grass. A fat rabbit even waited for her to run into it, but luckily she was wearing a magic cloak. The rabbit was repelled by the defense function when it got close to her, and after being stunned for a few seconds, it ran away.
After this little incident, She Ning pushed open the door and entered the main hall.
According to legend, the Taoist temple has an underground passage. Inside the main hall, scattered incense burners, worn-out prayer cushions, tattered banners, and mottled statues of gods and Buddhas still gaze upon the world with benevolence and holiness.
She Ning knelt down in devout worship before Him and began searching for the secret passage within the Taoist temple.
There was no main hall, no side rooms, no kitchen, and no backyard. There was a dried-up well in the backyard, and She Ning even floated down to look, but there was nothing there.
They searched the place with a "bang" sound, but found nothing.
Her face was flushed red, and fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. She Ning wiped the stone steps in front of the main hall with her hand, sat down directly, waved her hand to clear the air, and wiped the sweat with her sleeve.
Not far in front of where she was sitting were some haphazardly growing pine and cypress trees, which were said to be several decades old.
She Ning estimated that the trunk was over 40 centimeters in diameter, and there were many small animals nesting on it. She Ning even saw a chestnut-brown squirrel peeking around from a tree hole, occasionally sticking its little head out.
After resting for a while, She Ning stood up.
By this time, the sun was high in the sky. Seeing that it was getting late and worried that She Hongmei would have to wait too long after finishing her business, She Ning decided to retreat first and come back to investigate later.
With little time left in the magic cloak, She Ning removed the equipment. Instantly, a magical transformation appeared in front of the hall, and a little squirrel that had just poked its head out of the tree hole was so frightened by the sight that it jumped out of the hole.
A small yellow creature was pulled out of the hole by its movement and fell to the ground. She Ning was putting the magic cloak back into the system and did not notice this scene.
The courtyard was largely occupied by the drooping branches of pine and cypress trees. She Ning dodged the branches as she walked out. Without the levitation function of her magic cloak, she stumbled on the ground, her steps uneven. Most of the stone slabs in the courtyard were overturned and bulged by the roots of the pine and cypress trees.
With no one living in the Taoist temple, it became a playground for animals. There were many rabbits on the mountain, and quite a few rabbit burrows here as well. The courtyard was overgrown with weeds, with withered and newly grown grass all tangled together.
She Ning carefully probed the path with a stick, making sure each step was firm before taking another. After finally making it a short distance, a green caterpillar with fine hairs fell from the sky and landed on the back of She Ning's hand holding the stick.
She Ning's eyes widened, and goosebumps instantly rose on her skin.
Oh my God!
She jumped up and down, waving her hands wildly. Tears welled up in her eyes from fright. Her mind was blank, and she had no concept of a hole in the ground.
Then, the accident happened. She stepped into the rabbit hole with her right foot, her body tilted, and she fell to the ground. During the fall, she grabbed a pine branch with both hands to cushion the impact.
Above her, a chestnut-brown squirrel stood on a branch, watching her curiously.
She Ning sat on the ground and used both hands to pull her sunken foot out of the rabbit hole. Her shoe got caught on some weeds that had been pulled down, so She Ning reached out and pulled it out.
She moved her ankle, and thankfully, it wasn't injured; only the skin on her ankle was slightly scratched by the sharp leaves of the weeds.
After emptying the grass clippings from her shoes and putting them on, She Ning's heart, which had been pounding in her chest from the insects and falling into the pit, slowly calmed down. Only then did she realize that her bottom seemed to have sat on something hard and uncomfortable.
She Ning stood up, brushed the grass clippings off her clothes, and then turned around and squatted down. In the collapsed grass, there was a small yellow thing. She Ning picked it up and saw that it was rectangular, small, with unreadable words carved on the bottom.
It looked like a jade seal. She Ning held it up.
Under the sunlight, the yellow jade was clean and translucent. Even though She Ning didn't know much about jade, she knew it was of very high quality.
On the pine tree, the chestnut-brown squirrel was quietly observing the two-legged creature in the courtyard. Seeing her make a fuss over a small insect and clumsily fall into a pit, the squirrel saw its precious item appear in her hand the next second.
The little squirrel panicked instantly, jumping around on the pine branches, but dared not go down to confront her directly.
"Squeak squeak squeak..." There was a constant noise coming from above. She Ning looked up and "thump" a large pine cone was thrown in front of her. She looked in the direction the pine cone was thrown.
On a pine branch half a meter away, the little squirrel we saw earlier was waving its two little paws, gesturing as it tried to express its meaning.
"I'll trade you this, but give me that back."
She Ning watched it gesture for a while, then pointed to the pine cone on the ground and the jade seal in her hand, and tentatively asked, "You want to trade this pine cone for this?"
"Squeak squeak squeak!!" Seeing that she understood what he meant, the little squirrel excitedly jumped around in the same spot on the pine branch.
#Yes, that's right.#
She Ning could tell that it cared a lot about the jade, and was about to hand it to it when the system's mechanical voice sounded.
"System task: Explore the mystery of the treasure in Ludong Mountain, progress 0.0001/100."
She Ning's outstretched hand froze.
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A message from the author: Happy Lunar New Year's Eve, everyone! Happy Chinese New Year!
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