Upon seeing it, Cai Wei’s eyes lit up for a moment before she unceremoniously collected the entire dressing table into her own space.
As for the sandalwood box with four cabinets along the west wall, she certainly wouldn’t miss them. It was likely that all of Lady Yu’s personal savings over the years had been placed inside.
After a round of collection, she had nearly gathered all the valuable belongings, leaving only the carved embroidered couch.
She walked over, pulled back the splendid bed curtains, and saw Lady Yu soundly asleep under a brocade quilt embroidered with a pattern of ’many sons, many blessings’. Cai Wei remembered the ’generous’ gift Lady Yu had given her when she visited Yushu County City. Now seemed like the perfect time for payback.
She sprinkled a handful of sleeping powder, causing Lady Yu to sleep even deeper. She then summoned Chang Mei and handed her a black appearance-altering pill given by Old Turtle, instructing her in hushed tones to grind the pill into water and apply it on Lady Yu’s face.
For a young, beauty-loving woman who was always thinking about vying for favor, nothing in this world could be more cruel than ruining her appearance. Lady Yu, with her heartless tendencies and readiness to kill, deserved such a retribution. It was already quite merciful!
Cai Wei continued to go around Lü Mansion, including the warehouse, the grain storage, and even the side rooms belonging to the concubines. Anything valuable was collected into her own space. Then, she finally arrived at the small miscellaneous room mentioned by Brother Ying.
Lü Zhongzhu appeared reckless, but in reality, he was very cautious. His treasures were not locked deep within his bedroom or study like those of other wealthy families but hidden in a small room in the back garden where miscellaneous items were stored. No thief would ever think that the Lü family would hide their wealth there, which was precisely the brilliance of Lü Junchen.
She unlocked the door with a treasure knife and snuck in with a firelighter. Seeing only broken tables and dilapidated chairs, it would not have crossed anyone’s mind that this cluttered place was hiding much more.
Leaping over stacks of broken items, Cai Wei approached the west wall and pressed the wick of a bronze lamp mounted on the wall, causing the wall to emit a heavy sound.
After the sound, the entire west wall split in half, opening like a door.
Cai Wei walked in. The entire secret room, about fifteen meters long and a bit more than nine meters wide, was constructed from green bricks. Thick velvet carpets lined the floor, and on top of them were hefty camphor wooden boxes. Opening these chests revealed entire boxes of gold and silver, jewels, house deeds, land deeds, various valuable medicinal materials, and extremely rare treasures, leaving Cai Wei with a spinning head and too many riches to take in.
"Yay, keep collecting, keep collecting!"
Cai Wei grinned from ear to ear as she collected the treasures from the secret room into her space, reaping the rewards from Lü Zhongzhu’s many years of accumulation.
Robbing felt exciting and invigorating! It was so much more gratifying than wracking her brain and working hard to do business. If not for the fact that she couldn’t explain to her parents where she got these unaccounted-for treasures, she would give up doing business and live off robbing corrupt officials, dishonest merchants, and tycoons for a living!
By the fourth watch, Cai Wei didn’t dare to linger and took advantage of the last bit of darkness to climb over the high wall of the Lü family and rush home. On the way, she did not forget to sneak through that small miscellaneous room and change into the clothes she had worn before.
After such a fruitful day, Cai Wei was in high spirits and decided to spare Mr. and Mrs. Lü Zhongzhu. As long as they caused no more trouble, she would let bygones be bygones. After all, such a large sum of compensation was more than enough to soothe any ’scars’ in her heart.