Ji Gaoyang and his mother were still arguing at the gate of the courtyard. Ji Nanfeng took Ruan Tang around and went out the back door of the Zhan family.
Just now, while Ji Gaoyang was not paying attention, Ji Nanfeng opened the back door.
The two of them entered the Zhan family in a dignified manner.
In order to avoid Zhan Tingbai and her son, the Zhan family fled the city, which was convenient for Ji Nanfeng and the others.
Near the back door is a row of three back rooms.
The first room was filled with firewood and coal, and the second room was filled with a lot of useless old things.
"Look one row ahead."
Ruan Tang sniffed, "Wait a minute, why do I smell the scent of candles?"
Beijing is different from the countryside. Electricity is basically available in every city. Unless people cannot afford the electricity bill, few people use candles.
Although the Zhan family was in decline, they still had Zhan Tingbai around, so they were still able to pay the electricity bill.
Ruan Tang smelled the scent and walked towards the small room in the corner.
Looking from the outside, it was pitch black inside, and the door was locked with a large iron lock.
The candle smell is even stronger.
"It's right here."
These days, every household has some secrets that they don't want to reveal to others.
It's like there are several housekeeping guides hidden at the bottom of their boxes. It's normal for the Zhan family to have some secrets.
Before Ruan Tang could speak, Ji Nanfeng had already opened the big iron lock.
Well, this big thing is just to comfort the person who locked the door.
"Do you teach lock picking in the army?"
"I learned it on my own because of work. I was young when I first joined the army, and I'd get hungry after training for a while every day. I decided to eat the leftovers in the cafeteria. Fortunately, the kitchen staff turned a blind eye, otherwise I would have been sent home long ago."
Ji Nanfeng pushed the door open a crack, and only took a step inside after making sure there was no danger.
Ji Nanfeng protected Ruan Tang behind him.
The two men squeezed into the room through the crack in the door. The room was pitch black and empty.
There's nothing in the room, but a big iron lock is used, which makes it even more obvious.
"Is there a dark room?"
Old houses often had tunnels or secret rooms, but the two couldn't find anything strange in the house no matter how hard they looked.
Ruan Tang stood in the center of the room, turning left and right until she almost got dizzy.
After walking out of the door in a daze, he held on to the door frame and walked around the woodshed next door.
"I know what's wrong!"
Ruan Tang walked a few steps along the wall. "This room is over four meters deep and less than four meters wide. The woodshed next door is a full six meters deep. So I boldly infer that this room must be divided into two parts. One part is what we are looking at, and the other part must be a darkroom."
Ji Nanfeng went next door to verify what Ruan Tang said and confirmed that her inference was correct.
"But we searched everywhere and couldn't find the entrance to the dark room."
Ruan Tang used up almost all the knowledge he had about secret room mechanisms from TV dramas and novels in his previous life, but he still couldn't find the mechanism.
Ji Nanfeng: "I have a way."
Later, Ruan Tang saw Ji Nanfeng climb up to the roof very casually and lift up the tiles on the roof of the innermost dark room.
A man jumped into the cave from the opened hole.
Okay, this is one way.
Presumably, the person who built this dark room never imagined that someone would directly lift the tiles and dig a hole.
Fortunately, the Zhan family had all gone out to avoid Ji Gaoyang and his mother, otherwise they would have been attracted by the noise here.
Zhan Tingbai's boudoir is in the east wing of the front yard, a little distance from here.
After waiting for nearly ten minutes, Ji Nanfeng finally came.
Ji Nanfeng's face was a little serious. "The entrance to the dark room is in the west wing next to the main house."
"What's inside? Are all the Zhan family's treasures hidden in here?"
Ji Nanfeng shook his head. "I was afraid that the Zhan family would show up suddenly, so I rushed over to look for you and didn't see it clearly."
"Shall we take another look?"
Ji Nanfeng nodded, "Let's take another look. Wait until I restore the roof first."
Ji Nanfeng restored the tiles on the roof, and Ruan Tang also hung the big iron lock back up.
"By now, the Zhan family should be at work or school, and they should be around for lunch. We have to hurry."
The two followed the entrance that Ji Nanfeng had pushed out and entered the dark room from the side room on the west side of the main house.
In the dark room.
Ji Nanfeng followed his memory and fumbled for the matches on the table and lit the white candle.
A portrait of the deceased is enshrined in the middle of the dark room.
There is also a tablet with the words "the spirit tablet of the late father Zhan Chengji" written on it.
"Zhan Chengji? Is that the name of Zhan Tingbai's father?"
Ji Nanfeng nodded, "Most likely, Zhan Tingbai has some heroic features, he should be similar to his father."
"If it was Master Zhan, why would he place the tablet in a dark room? Zhan Ting just mentioned that Master Zhan is quite prestigious in Beijing..."
This is also what Ji Nanfeng cannot understand. If the Zhan family is cautious and does not want outsiders to find out that they are offering tablets, then they cannot just place the tablet for Mr. Zhan alone. They must also offer tablets for Zhan's mother and ancestors.
Apart from the memorial tablet, there were only a few cushions and incense sticks in the dark room, nothing unusual.
Considering that it was almost noon, the two did not dare to delay any longer and retreated from the dark room to the ear room.
Then I heard voices in the main courtyard.
The Zhan family started making a fuss in the hospital.
When Zhan Tingbai saw the sister-in-law of the Zhan family coming, he took the IOU and asked her for money. The sister-in-law of the Zhan family didn't expect that Zhan Tingbai was so scheming that she had hidden the IOU for so long.
They are blood siblings, is there any need to use IOUs to ask for payment?
The eldest brother of the Zhan family was also angry, blaming Zhan Tingbai for coming to collect the debt with the IOU even though he knew they had no money. Wasn't this a slap in his face?
The Zhan family's sister-in-law was extremely angry. With a command, the whole family snatched the IOU from Zhan Tingbai's hand and tore it up.
He also took out Zhan Tingbai's bag and threw it in the yard, and rummaged through two passbooks and took them away as well.
Zhan Ting fell in the yard with her hair disheveled, cursing the Zhan family for being inhumane and saying that it was a waste of her kindness to them in her youth.
She fell to the ground and picked up the torn pieces of IOU bit by bit.
The IOU and passbook are gone. How can she explain this to Gao Yang?
The Zhan family's sister-in-law looked down at Zhan Tingbai and sneered, "If you were still the minister's wife, I would be willing to worship and respect you. It's your own fault that you didn't live up to your expectations. Your father played a good hand for you so badly."
Zhan Mengchao also echoed: "Aunt, why can't you figure it out? When my uncle got into trouble, you can only save him?
If you just stand up and say that you were raped and pregnant one day when you went out, wouldn't Brother Gao Yang's life story be over? As long as you didn't cheat, your uncle won't divorce you for the sake of gaining a good reputation.
As for the matter of your uncle being investigated, you could have just said that he had lost his memory and you saw that he was pitiful and had no one to take care of him, so you took the initiative to pay for him. The circumstances were special, so I'm sure the higher-ups wouldn't pursue it too much."
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