The Yan family compound is in Haishi? How could she forget something so important?
When the Yan family went abroad, the old house was left to their youngest daughter who was alone in China. Due to the Cultural Revolution, all their property was confiscated, including the Yan family's old house.
The state returned these items only after the injustice was redressed.
...
Standing in front of a quaint courtyard that exuded decay, Ruan Xianxian's expression was complex.
The Yan family ancestors were all scholars. The older generation put a lot of effort into building the house. Walking through the courtyard, which is overgrown with weeds, you can still vaguely see the garden-style architecture.
The artificial hill, now devoid of flowing water, stands silently behind the screen wall as a strange rock.
The original upturned eaves and tiles have long since disappeared, leaving only gray tiles that were added later.
The front yard was okay, but the houses in the back yard collapsed to varying degrees.
The only good news is that the Yan family's old house has been rented to the Cultural Relics Protection Association for office use.
A group of old men, half-buried in the ground, really wanted to drive her away; they couldn't beat her.
It's much better than renting to the Shanghai Electric Power Company, the Public Security Bureau, or a large tenement.
It is said that the reason it was rented to the easy-going and persuasive Cultural Relics Protection Association was thanks to Ruan Kangri.
His plan was to one day have Yan Fenghua die so that he could easily seize the Yan family's old house and put it under his own name.
If an old house is rented to a department that is too powerful, and that day comes, even if you have the land deed, you won't be able to get it back.
Ruan Kangri put a lot of effort into this matter back then.
Fully armed, Ruan Xianxian arrived at the dried-up artificial lake with a shovel and, following her grandmother's instructions, found the secret passage hidden under the artificial hill.
After digging through several layers of mud, it took some effort to open the secret passage.
The place reeked of decay and rot; the two iron doors were rusty and could not be opened with a key, so they had to be broken open by force.
The sound of thumping could not be stopped.
He kicked the rusty iron door away, and the searchlight beam shone into the less than 20-square-meter secret room.
The light was so bright it almost blinded people.
Boxes of gold and silver jewelry were stacked up, with the bottom layer of wooden boxes already rotten, and the treasures scattered on the ground.
In the dark, Ruan Xianxian didn't have time to look at it. She put everything into her space and went home to enjoy it slowly. These were all valuables that the Yan family couldn't take with them back then.
Just then, the sound of several old men chattering came from above. Ruan Xianxian's eyes narrowed, and without thinking, she burst through the door into another secret room.
The neatly arranged yellow croakers of various sizes and gold and silver ingots were, as usual, ignored and all stored away.
Once everything was done, she breathed a sigh of relief, and the conversation coming from above became clearer.
Ruan was now caught between knocking out the old man and running away and pretending to be a ghost to scare them to death. He turned off the headlamp and chose to walk up the wooden steps openly.
"They're up, they're up."
"See? I told you, there's no way a family ancestral home passed down from the Qianlong era wouldn't have a secret passage."
"Hindsight is 20/20. Why didn't you find this earlier?"
"Stop arguing. Shouldn't we be studying the mechanisms? I'm curious, was the secret room from the Qing Dynasty or was it excavated later?"
As Ruan Xianxian stepped onto the stairs, she could hear the old men's buzzing conversation overhead.
She climbed the steps one by one, her eyes scanning the surroundings. Three old men dressed in drab gray were peering out from the entrance of the secret passage.
"No need to argue. The secret room has been there since the house was built. It was robbed once, and our ancestors specially invited a master of mechanical devices to rebuild it."
Upon hearing the name of the government agency, the old men's eyes lit up.
"Who? Little girl, tell me quickly."
"I don't know." Ruan Xianxian shook her head. "It is said that he was a descendant of a vice minister in the Ministry of Works whose family had fallen on hard times. No one knows whether it is true or not."
Ruan Xianxian reached out her hand, "Give me a hand."
The secret room is near the artificial lake. The first few wooden steps were rotten. When Ruan Xianxian came down, she didn't see them clearly and missed a step, making a noise.
With people crawling around at the entrance, it would be too embarrassing for her to climb up there without caring about her image.
As soon as she finished speaking, three hands reached down from above her head, and she took them in her hands with satisfaction.
The elderly people of today are in great physical condition, unlike the elderly of later years who could practically have a stroke on the spot if they were just glared at.
The three of them worked together to easily pull her up.
One of the oldest men, who looked to be about 65, kept glancing at the artificial hill and then at the cave entrance.
"Where is the office located? How does it operate? Could you demonstrate it for us?"
"Okay!" Ruan Xianxian moved aside a piece of stone disguised as a composite joint, reached inside, and gave it a hard twist...
With a snap, the gear was twisted off by her force.
She stood there helplessly, holding the rusty iron axle, surrounded by three expressionless old men.
A moment later, someone took the iron lump that he had twisted off, looked at it for a moment, lost interest, and put it back in his palm.
"It's not the complex technology we imagine; it's just based on the gear principle."
Upon hearing this, the remaining two lost interest and turned to Ruan Xianxian, one of them inviting her with a smile.
"Young lady, you must be tired from climbing over walls and picking locks in the middle of the night, would you like to come inside and have a cup of hot water?"
Ruan Xianxian stood still and emphasized, "This is my home."
...
Ten minutes later, she sat in the room filled with the aroma of tea, looking at the repaired calligraphy and paintings behind the glass and asked with a smile:
"Is this an authentic work by the great calligrapher Wang Xizhi? It's a pity it's been damaged."
One person raised an eyebrow. "How do you know?"
Ruan Xianxian: "His calligraphy emphasizes the combination of concealment and revelation."
When concealing the brush tip, the brushstroke is inward; when revealing the brush tip, the brushstroke is outward, conveying sharpness and unrestrained spirit in every stroke.
“Most importantly,” Ruan Xianxian took a sip of tea, “counterfeit goods don’t deserve to be displayed here by you all.”
The group exchanged glances and laughed, thinking he was a shrewd young man, but it turned out he was a clever little fox.
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