Clan Rise: Starting as a Grandfather

Chapter 192: Chapter 188: No One Gets Rich Without Windfalls

Two days later, officials from the Capital City left An Yuan City.

All places in An Yuan City that needed to be confiscated had been cleared out, with gold and valuables transported back to the Capital City. Real estate would be left to the Prefectural Government, which would sell them later to replenish the state treasury.

When they left, Yang Zhenshan personally went out of the city to see them off.

Even though they didn’t care about him as a garrison officer, he couldn’t be too impolite. He needed to perform the necessary greetings and farewells; otherwise, he would appear arrogant and rude.

Of course, his main intention was to say farewell to Zheng Xiao.

Next, these officials were headed to Jia City and then to Chongshan Pass—the visit to Jia City was naturally for confiscating properties, while the visit to Chongshan Pass was for the final trial.

However, what happened afterward had nothing to do with Yang Zhenshan.

After they left, the backyard of the Prefectural Government office returned to the administration of the government office. The office would arrange for constables to carry out daily cleaning and guarding, waiting for the arrival of the next Prefect.

At nightfall, Yang Zhenshan changed into a suit of clothes suitable for night-time activities.

”Do you need me to go with you?”

In the room, Qingyi was helping him adjust his night attire as she asked.

Yang Zhenshan chuckled softly, ”Don’t worry, I’m just going to attend to some matters and it’s not dangerous!”

He was not deceiving Qingyi in this matter.

He was going to inspect the underground space beneath the rockery in the backyard of the Prefectural Government office, and now that backyard was under the control of the Prefectural Government, with very weak guarding forces.

There was hardly anyone who could detect him, and even if someone did, the constables of the Prefectural Government would not be able to stop him if he wanted to leave.

Nevertheless, Qingyi was still somewhat worried, ”Just be careful then.”

”Alright!”

Yang Zhenshan pecked her on the lips, ”Wife, wait for my return!”

This flirtatious gesture made Qingyi blush deeply.

Yang Zhenshan laughed softly, then walked out of the room, bypassed the main courtyard, and silently leaped over the courtyard wall, undetected even by the protectors of the Yang family.

This wasn’t because the guards of the Yang family were inefficient, but because Yang Zhenshan knew the layout of the protectors, making it easy to evade them.

The night was quiet, and the streets were deserted. However, the moon was exceptionally bright tonight, casting a silver frosted veil over An Yuan City.

Yang Zhenshan moved swiftly through the streets and alleys, keeping himself in the shadows of walls and buildings as much as possible.

As for moving around on rooftops - that was nonsense.

Although it was not as bright as daytime, moving on rooftops under such bright moonlight was easily detectable.

And compared to the solid ground, there were many unknown factors on rooftops.

Therefore, under normal circumstances, martial artists preferred running through streets and alleys during nighttime operations, unless they were very confident in their Light Body Skill, otherwise most martial artists disliked running on rooftops.

People confident in their Light Body Skill existed, like Wei Cen.

Originally, Wei Cen was discovered by Yang Zhenshan precisely because he was on a rooftop; if he had been on the ground, Yang might not have been able to detect him.

Soon Yang Zhenshan arrived outside the courtyard wall of the backyard of the Prefectural Government office. He leaned against the wall to listen for a while, and after confirming there was no movement nearby, he jumped directly over the wall.

His Light Body Skill was not that great, but climbing a wall was still quite easy for him.

After entering the yard, Yang Zhenshan did not rush towards the rockery but slowly strolled around the courtyard.

The night was deep and quiet, with almost no sound except for the chirping of insects.

In such an environment, Yang Zhenshan’s hearing was almost terrifyingly acute; within thirty feet, he could not be deceived by any noise, even slight breaths.

There were still guards in the yard, but the careless constable had already fallen into a deep sleep.

After confirming there were no abnormalities, Yang Zhenshan quietly approached the rockery. He observed the rockery in the moonlight.

This rockery was rather large, the highest point reaching about twenty feet, extending from the east side of the garden by the pond to the west side of the garden in an undulating and intricate layout.

However, there was only one abnormal spot, which was where Yang Zhenshan had discovered it last time.

After observing for a while, Yang Zhenshan confirmed that there had been no recent activities around the rockery, which somewhat eased his mind.

No recent activities meant that those responsible for confiscating had not discovered the anomaly here.

Yang Zhenshan pushed aside a boulder about one man tall to one side, revealing a pitch-black entrance.

”Hope there’s something good down there!”

He was somewhat hopeful.

The underground space behind the garrison office was very spacious, clearly used previously to store something, but it had been emptied before his arrival.

But this place would be different if it belonged to Lin Xuan, as there definitely would be something inside.

Since Lin Xuan, Liang Rong, Yi Shan, and others were arrested almost simultaneously, they had no time to move the items inside.

Unless they had other accomplices that the Secret Martial Guards had not discovered.

Yang Zhenshan carefully entered the entrance. After going in, he did not forget to drag the rockery back to its original place, though it was somewhat inconvenient to move the rockery inside, resulting in minor changes in its position.

He cautiously walked along the long passageway.

In this pitch-dark area, Yang Zhenshan could only grope forward.

He did not light the Fire Stick in his hand, moving as if he were blind.

Because he was unsure if there were people below, what if there were?

As for traps, Yang didn’t consider this aspect, as the underground space of the Yang family had no such mechanisms.

Yang Zhenshan successfully reached the bottom of the space without hearing any sound, then he lit the Fire Stick.

The dim firelight flickered, illuminating a little in front of Yang Zhenshan.

The surroundings were pitch black, with nothing but wall columns in front of him.

The situation here seemed similar to the underground space at his home.

Yang Zhenshan held the Fire Stick slowly searching around, suddenly he spotted a dark shadow, hmm, under the firelight, the shadow showed a square shape, seemingly a box.

Yang Zhenshan felt a surge of joy and quickly stepped forward.

Indeed it was wooden boxes, all of them two feet tall, a total of more than a dozen boxes!

”There really is something!”

”What is it?”

Yang Zhenshan eagerly opened one of the boxes.

Whosh~~

A bright white glow appeared before Yang Zhenshan’s eyes.

Snowflake silver, a whole box of snowflake silver, each ten taels silver ingots neatly arranged inside the wooden box.

Yang Zhenshan’s eyes widened, it took him a while to shift his gaze away from the silver ingots, but then he saw the other boxes in front of him.

There must be over a dozen boxes!

”I’m rich!”

Yang Zhenshan couldn’t wait to open the boxes one by one.

Silver ingots, all were bright white silver ingots!

This wasn’t official silver, but rather re-cast silver ingots.

Not just silver ingots, when Yang Zhenshan opened the seventh box, he was completely stunned.

A dazzling golden light reflected in his eyes.

Damn, there’s also gold!

Yang Zhenshan felt his heart almost leaping out.

He then quickly opened the next box.

However, the next one wasn’t gold, but various gold and silver jewelry, jade jewelry, and many jades.

”Damn!”

Yang Zhenshan couldn’t help but inhale sharply.

Jade, this was even more valuable than gold and silver.

Finally, after opening all twelve boxes, there were eight boxes of silver ingots, two boxes of gold ingots, and two boxes of jade jewelry.

That’s two thousand taels of gold, eight thousand taels of silver, and two boxes of valuable jade jewelry.

The value of these jade stones was hard to estimate for now, but the value of this gold and silver was instantly recognizable.

Because the wooden boxes containing the gold and silver were uniform from the court, one thousand taels per box.

Yang Zhenshan looked at the vast array of gold, silver, and jewels, standing silently in place for quite a while before calming the excitement in his heart.

Later, he picked up a gold ingot and a silver ingot, examining them closely.

”All are privately minted, not official silver!”

Yang Zhenshan felt slightly relieved.

The official silver always bore the court’s mark at the bottom, which could bring trouble if spent out in the open.

Privately minted was much simpler, it wouldn’t expose the origins of this gold and silver.

However, these jade and jewels were a problem.

Directly selling them was definitely not an option, it might reveal the origins of these items.

Sha Pingchuan, Yi Shan, and others had already been captured, but now nobody knew if there were others behind them, like Lv Hua speculated about Prince Qing Mansion.

Thinking of Prince Qing Mansion, and looking at the gold and silver before him, Yang Zhenshan’s brow furrowed slightly.

Yi Shan and others had all been captured, the Secret Martial Guards should have already interrogated them, didn’t the Secret Martial Guards find out about this gold and silver?

If the Secret Martial Guards knew, this gold and silver would not have been left here.

What does this imply?

It implies not all had been disclosed by Sha Pingchuan and his group.

It implies they still harbored some hope, or rather, they were hopeful.

So, the question arises, what was their hope?

Could it really be Prince Qing Mansion?

Yang Zhenshan thought about it, then shook his head, ”Who cares if there’s a problem behind it or not, anyway, these things are mine now!”

Without windfall, a horse won’t get fat; without a fortune, a man won’t get rich.

With this batch of gold and silver, Yang Zhenshan wouldn’t have to worry about household expenses for a long time.

But with the Yang family’s foundation, taking out too much gold and silver at once was somewhat conspicuous, Yang Zhenshan had already thought it through, he would take out a few hundred taels of silver every month or two to supplement household expenses.

Having planned all this, Yang Zhenshan couldn’t wait to stow the boxes into the Spiritual Spring Space.

Luckily he had the Spiritual Spring Space, otherwise dealing with so much gold, silver, and jewels would be troublesome.

But this underground space didn’t only contain this amount of gold and silver, these appeared to be a lot, but in reality, just placing them in boxes in a room would suffice, there was no need to create such a large underground space.

After stowing all the gold, silver, and jewels into the Spiritual Spring Space, Yang Zhenshan resumed searching the underground space.

Just as he expected, there were many more valuable items.

Furs, herbs, silk, brocades, and even Yang Zhenshan found many iron ingots and armaments.

So it looked like this should be Yi Shan and their storage room?

Placing the storage room under the Prefectural Government, that was indeed a good idea.

Not just the Prefectural Government office, but also the garrison office! Except the items in the underground space of the garrison office had already been moved away.