The skinny man in the lead, his arms twisted behind his back by Gu Xichen, grimaced in pain but still swore, "Ouch! You fucking easy on me! Do you know who I am? We're... we're from the cultural relics protection team, here for a routine inspection!"
Upon hearing this, Jiang Jinhua almost laughed out of anger. She stepped forward, ready to kick him: "Hey, I've got a short temper! You look like a tomb robber, and you dare to call yourself part of the protection team? Look at your accomplices, each one of them has shifty eyes. Are you part of the rat protection team? Protecting rice, huh?"
Gu Xichen tightened his grip, and the man immediately let out a scream, cold sweat pouring down his forehead.
"to be honest."
Gu Xichen's voice was devoid of warmth, yet it sent a chill down one's spine.
"Hero, spare my life! Hero, spare my life!"
The other fat man, who had been easily knocked down by Jiang Junrong with a wooden stick, quickly begged for mercy: "We...we just heard that there is treasure here, and we wanted to make a small fortune. We really didn't mean anything by it!"
"Who told you that?"
Jiang Junrong's voice turned somber.
This is the Zhao family's ancestral home. It's his first time here, and he hasn't had a chance to take a closer look. But now they've made a complete mess of it.
An unprecedented surge of anger rose from the depths of his heart.
The skinny monkey's eyes darted around, clearly not intending to tell the truth: "It's just some... buddy of a gangster, he was drunk and bragging, I don't even know who he is!"
Jiang Jinxiu stood to the side, remaining silent.
She simply watched the skinny monkey quietly. Since merging with the Zhao family's inherited space, her perception of people's emotions had become exceptionally keen.
She could tell that the man wasn't telling the truth.
A thought flashed through her mind, and a barely perceptible chill crept along the skinny monkey's neck.
Just as the man was about to continue his argument, he suddenly felt a chill on the back of his neck, as if someone had stuffed a block of ice into his collar in the dead of winter, and a chill ran straight to the top of his head.
He shuddered violently, and when he met Gu Xichen's emotionless eyes again, his defenses crumbled instantly.
"I'll talk! I'll talk!"
He practically cried out, "It was an old man! An old man surnamed Feng told me!"
"Surname Feng?"
Grandma Luo frowned, trying hard to recall the surname.
Among the Zhao family's old friends, servants, and other associates, there were a few surnamed Feng, but decades had passed, and they could hardly recognize them anymore.
"What did he tell you?" Gu Xichen pressed, but his grip on her hand didn't loosen.
"He said... he said there's a Zhao family estate in this valley. Decades ago, they were a prominent family in the capital, with mountains of treasures. During the war, the Zhao family hid everything, saying it was in their ancestral home..."
Skinny Monkey spilled everything he knew like beans from a bamboo tube: "He even gave us a map, marking the location of this well! He said the mechanism was in the pavilion next to it! Brother, we were blinded by greed, please have mercy on us this time!"
Jiang Jinxiu felt a chill run down her spine.
This person not only knew the location of the cellar, but also the exact location of the mechanism.
This is not hearsay, but someone who knows the Zhao family inside and out.
"What does that old man surnamed Feng look like? Where is he?" Jiang Junrong asked sternly.
"He...he was probably in his sixties, very thin, with a scar on his left eyebrow. He said he used to be the gardener for the Zhao family, and his name was Feng Jingui."
The skinny man, panting, said, "He said he had received favors from the Zhao family in the past, but had also suffered great injustices. He wanted to see what the Zhao family's treasure looked like. He gave us a map and said that after the deal was done, he would get 30% of what was inside. We met him in a teahouse in Panjiayuan. He said he lived nearby, but we really didn't know exactly where!"
"Feng Jingui?" Upon hearing this name, Old Lady Luo shuddered, her face turning deathly pale, and she swayed, almost losing her balance.
"grandmother!"
"mother!"
Jiang Jinxiu and Zhou Ying quickly helped her up.
Grandma Luo stared intently at the skinny monkey, her lips trembling, her eyes swirling with shock, anger, and a deep pain and disbelief.
"Say it again, what's his name?"
“Feng Jingui…he said his name is Feng Jingui…”
The skinny monkey's voice trembled with fear at the old woman's gaze.
"Impossible...impossible..."
Grandma Luo murmured to herself, tears streaming down her face without warning: "He died a long time ago... In that fire back then, he was already... how could he..."
The courtyard fell silent instantly, with only Grandma Luo's muttering voice and an incredulous look on her face.
Gu Xichen and Jiang Junrong exchanged a glance, their brows furrowing involuntarily.
"Tie them all up." Gu Xichen winked at Jiang Jinhua.
Jiang Jinhua realized what was happening and immediately found a rope, quickly tying the people up tightly.
He even showed off his skills, tying the skinny monkey up with a knot he'd learned in the army to bind prisoners, chanting as he did so: "Serves you right for stealing, for scaring my grandma! I'll teach you to untie this! I'll teach you to untie this! This is called the 'Divine Knot,' even a god couldn't untie it!"
The thieves had never seen anything like this before. They were so frightened that their faces turned ashen, and they begged for mercy repeatedly.
Ignoring the farce, Gu Xichen walked to Jiang Jinxiu's side, took Luo's other arm, and whispered, "Grandma, come inside and sit down. There's something fishy about this."
Grandma Luo was being supported, her steps were unsteady, and she seemed to have lost all her energy.
She kept muttering, "It's impossible, Jin Gui is a good boy, he wouldn't do that..."
After settling Grandma Luo in, Gu Xichen turned and walked over to the skinny man, squatted down, and stared at them, asking, "One last question. When will you contact that Feng Jingui again?"
Skinny Monkey swallowed hard and answered tremblingly, "He said... after we succeed, we should go to the 'Peace Hotel' in the west of the city to find him. The time... is tonight."
He looked at Jiang Junrong, his gaze calm and composed: "Father, we need to meet this Feng Jingui tonight."
At this moment, the skinny monkey, who had been tied up like a dumpling by Jiang Jinhua, perhaps feeling that he was going to die anyway, suddenly shouted hysterically: "Don't be so smug! Old Feng said that your Zhao family owes him more than just this! He also said that Zhao Mingcheng's death back then was not an accident at all!"
Zhao Mingcheng is the name of Jiang Junrong's father, who is also the husband of Old Lady Luo.
With a "bang," it was as if Old Lady Luo suddenly realized something, and the last string in her mind snapped.
Her vision went black, and she fell straight backward.
"Grandma!" A chorus of exclamations rang out in the courtyard.
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