Liu Yumei could only helplessly touch her forehead, and then, her whole body suddenly trembled as she looked at Alii in disbelief.
Li Zhiyuan: "Alii, Grandma wants to make sure you know, please tell Grandma what you know."
Liu Yumei immediately burst into tears, turning to look at the altar table and said with a cry:
"The ancestors have shown their spirits, the ancestors have blessed us!"
After leaving the east room and helping close the door, Liu Yumei was inside with Alii thanking the ancestors at the altar table.
Li Zhiyuan took a deep breath, feeling that he had managed to muddle through this situation.
He quickly went upstairs, took down a bag of money, and handed it to Aunt Liu, who was busy in the kitchen.
"Xiao Yuan, where did you get so much money?"
Just then, Brother Runsheng, who was also in the kitchen, nibbling and waiting for dinner while savoring the aroma from the pot, replied directly:
"I won it in a card game!"
Aunt Liu looked at Runsheng with skepticism, clearly not believing him.
Li Zhiyuan said: "Aunt Liu, here is the list, please help me order more stuff. Also, could you find a couple of tilers to help me build a small workshop behind the house next to the back wall? It doesn’t need to be big, just about the size of the firewood shed."
Runsheng said: "No need to hire anyone, I can do it, I can lay bricks, I built the family’s surrounding wall."
Li Zhiyuan ignored Runsheng’s self-recommendation; Mr. Shan’s house’s surrounding wall was a shambles, which he had witnessed today.
He definitely did not want the workshop to collapse on him while he was busy inside.
"Additionally, Aunt, you need to be careful."
"This money is not clean; don’t get your hands dirty."
"Eh?" Aunt Liu touched the bag and then nodded with understanding. "Don’t worry, I understand."
Runsheng asked puzzled, "Do you really need to worry about whether money is dirty or not?"
"Yes, Brother Runsheng, paper money is handled by many people during circulation, it must have a lot of germs."
With some time until dinner, Li Zhiyuan didn’t return to the second floor, but went to the basement instead.
In "Righteous Demon Extermination Records," whether it’s objects or skills, they all require a lot of time and energy, and cannot be achieved overnight, so Li Zhiyuan decided to choose another set of books to read in the meantime.
The flashlight turned on, and Li Zhiyuan walked towards those boxes.
Suddenly, at the edge of the flashlight’s light circle, there seemed to be a wriggling black shadow.
Li Zhiyuan was startled and instinctively shone the flashlight towards it. The long black shadow seemed startled as well and started to move quickly.
It was a small snake!
Li Zhiyuan pursed his lips, he had feared that something terrifying had entered the basement.
However, the little snake first moved left then right, and then turned to swim towards Li Zhiyuan again.
Li Zhiyuan wasn’t particularly afraid of snakes; he had been to some excavation sites with his mother where there were many snakes.
However, he was not professional or brave enough to ignore a snake, no matter its size, so he kept retreating until his back hit a box, causing the brass lock on the box to make a crisp sound.
This noise seemed to have scared the snake, which quickly changed direction. Li Zhiyuan kept the flashlight on it until it disappeared into a crack in the wall corner, finger-thick.
After the snake left, Li Zhiyuan turned around and looked at the box he had bumped into.
This box, being at the edge of the group of boxes, had never been opened by him.
So this time, it’s your turn.
He put the flashlight on the ground, braced his hands against the lid of the box, positioned his legs, and exerted force.
The lid of the box was opened, flipped to the back.
Li Zhiyuan clapped his hands. He felt that since he had been practicing the horse stance taught by Uncle Qin, his strength had increased a lot, unlike the natural growth of strength from physical development; it was more about the use and control of his own strength.
Picking up the flashlight, he shone it inside the box, noticing a lot of dust, not sealed dust, but dust that was there from the time of packing.
He turned his head and blew several times; the top row of book covers barely became visible.
Based on past experience, the books placed on top inside each box were usually ordinary; the good books were further down.
Li Zhiyuan was planning to do this until he saw the names of the two sets of books placed in the middle of the top row.
"Liu’s Qi Observation Technique," "Qin’s Jiao Observation Method."
Li Zhiyuan couldn’t help but think of the ancestral tablets on the altar table in the east room, filled with the surnames of the Liu and Qin families.
"Could it be such a coincidence?"
Li Zhiyuan took those two sets of books out. They were simple, without covers.
"Liu’s Qi Observation Technique" had three thick volumes; "Qin’s Jiao Observation Method" also had four thick volumes, and they were not divided into volumes.
"Could it be that Grandma Liu placed these here with Grandmaster?"
Li Zhiyuan quickly shook his head. No, the Grandmaster had said the books in the basement had been stored here by someone else for many years, and the Liu Yumei family hadn’t been with the Grandmaster for long.
It’s even less likely that Liu Yumei knew there were books in the Grandmaster’s basement, so she secretly placed her family’s secret techniques here as well.
Firstly, Liu Yumei had no reason to do so; secondly, the dust on the books also silently spoke of their long-sealed age.
Li Zhiyuan opened the first book of "Liu’s Qi Observation Technique," and he frowned at the flipping pages, the handwriting was terribly sloppy and ugly.
It wasn’t the kind of cursive or connected writing, more like the person who wrote the book was rushed, wrote quickly, and also had little calligraphy skill, so it was purely ugly, like scribbles.