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Chapter 391: Revised - 360 Account Book

Chapter 391: Revised: Chapter 360 Account Book

The Tu Family has been engaged in commerce in the Southern Sea for more than a hundred years. Unlike other prominent families, who obsessively pursue land annexation and the inheritance of farming and reading, the Tu Family only bought a few parcels of land and properties on the outskirts of Huangjiang Prefecture.

The enormous wealth accumulated, aside from necessary expenses like bribing officials, socializing with various figures, buying shops, and building ships, was all stored in the warehouse.

Therefore, the warehouse located on the east side of the mansion was managed meticulously. The brick walls had no windows, with the only door guarded by six warehouse guards. Additionally, there were two groups of four people each, carrying lanterns and leading hunting dogs, patrolling in turns.

From their physiques, breathing patterns, and walking postures, it was evident that all these warehouse guards were martial artists, each carrying the most advanced flintlock gun of the era.

Ruffians practicing martial arts, no one can stop them. Experts wielding a gun, leaving no enemy alive.

Martial artists combined with firearms can produce a greater effect than 1+1＞2. Moreover, this is the magically modified version of the Wuxia Great Ming, where martial artists might attach their inner strength to the bullets, enhancing the gun’s power.

Li Cheng calculated briefly, crawled on the roof, and made a mark on the balloon-like Gray Rain.

When she first arrived on the island, she used a small portion of liquid metal to forge an invitation copper plate.

Now, the copper plate on the shelf received the signal, silently melted, transformed into a small Gray Rain, and crawled up the shelf, listening carefully to confirm that the warehouse was unoccupied.

Gray Rain then jumped off the shelf, transmitted the message to the roof through the sensing connection with its main body.

After confirming that no one was below, Li Cheng took out the electronic pet egg, placed Gray Rain inside, and activated the Demon Exchange, swapping places with the small Gray Rain to directly appear inside the warehouse.

Landing completed.

Li Cheng slowly stood up from the ground, released Gray Rain, activated the Assembly Puppet special effect, and equipped both herself and Gray Rain with single-eyed night vision goggles.

"Hiss..."

Gray Rain adjusted the single-eyed night vision goggles, glanced around the expansive warehouse, and couldn’t help but gasp, "Isn’t this a bit exaggerated?"

After operating in the Southern Sea for a hundred years, the shelves in the Tu Family’s treasure warehouse were brimming with various pearls, corals, tortoise shells, valuable wood materials, paintings, tools salvaged from ancient shipwrecks, and a large stack of silver elliptic balls in the corner.

These items were called "No Choice," essentially silver ingots.

Due to their heavy weight and awkward shape, they were difficult to transport. Common thieves couldn’t steal them and could only exclaim "No Choice."

Gray Rain was well-traveled, knowing that Li Cheng spent over forty thousand game coins to buy the Star-casting Anvil, enough cash to fill a small room.

However...game coins were intangible and invisible. Sitting daily in a shop worth forty thousand game coins and browsing the phone felt entirely different from standing amidst a treasure warehouse surrounded by shelves packed with gold and silver jewels.

"Huff, puff."

Gray Rain’s breathing subconsciously grew heavier, her hand involuntarily reached for an orange conch bead larger than a ping-pong ball.

"Your hand is not very clean."

Li Cheng slapped Gray Rain’s hand away, helplessly saying: "Business first, help me find the warehouse ledger. It should be several thick stacks of books together, not hard to find."

"I didn’t steal, I picked it up."

Gray Rain reluctantly bit her lip but still started flipping through boxes and cabinets with Li Cheng, searching for the warehouse inventory.

They soon found the ledger in a large box in the corner.

"Let me see..."

Li Cheng took out a high-power battery, handheld scanner, and workstation computer, connecting these devices to herself and quickly browsing through the inventory of the past two or three decades.

The Tu Family, now passing down to nearly its seventh generation, had hereditary diseases in each generation under Lady Tu.

Through the monthly procurement and distribution of herbs, they could identify the names of specific family members and their respective illnesses;

Through the money sent out from the mansion, they could identify the Tu Family’s commercial network and their social connections with various figures on the mainland;

"Suspicious,"

Li Cheng frowned and slowly put down the scanner, "very suspicious, even nine out of ten times suspicious."

"What’s wrong?" Gray Rain asked in confusion, playing with top-grade pearls of different colors in her hands — if she couldn’t pick them up, she could at least touch them.

"Too many suspicious points throughout the Tu Family. Just looking at marriages, all women married into the family and all recruited husbands receive a monthly lifelong placement fee.

Every few years, they send ships to bring the wives’ and husbands’ families from the mainland to the island, invite them to stay for a few days, and then send them back to alleviate homesickness."

Li Cheng said: "It’s equivalent to saying that every generation of the Tu Family’s wives and recruited husbands are all confined on the island until they die."

"Confined?" Gray Rain showed a confused expression, "Once in the palace, the depth of the ocean is compared to the imperial walls cutting off the world. Is the Tu Family playing at being royalty? Uh, although their courtyard walls are indeed very high."

In the drone’s aerial view, the residential area for the core members of the Tu Family was indeed large enough, and the courtyard walls were particularly high.

"Not only that, this kind of closed attribute also extends to the Tu Family’s servants. All servants are lifelong employees, intermarrying within, rarely recruiting from outside. The children’s education is also solved in private schools."

Li Cheng pointed to the monthly interest item on the list, "And after the Tu Family members die from hereditary diseases, their spouses also die within a few months to a year for various reasons."

"The Tu Family is hiding a secret; all these arrangements are covering up an unspeakable secret."

Gray Rain reacted, "Could the Dragon Palace story be true? Do they really have Dragon Balls?"

"Hard to say."

Li Cheng shook her head, "Judging from the herb procurement project, the Tu Family’s main branch members who haven’t shown up might have severe skin diseases.

The second branch, which includes Tu Qiaohua and Tu Qiouru who appeared at tonight’s dinner, might suffer from delirium and mania.

The third branch, Tu Dongcong, might have reproductive disorders.

The fourth branch, Tu Wangmo and Tu Wangjuan, father and daughter who cosplay Yan Shuangying wearing sunglasses, might have ophthalmic diseases.

The fifth branch has no clarified diseases but tends to have shorter lifespans, often not living past thirty.

Strangely, they seem to have accepted this fate early on, and don’t even use ordinary health conditioning medicines."

"..."

Gray Rain scratched her head, feeling puzzled by the suddenly risen, isolated seafaring family, the scandal-concealing high walls, and strange genetic diseases.

Combining all these factors, it was really hard to see through.

Beep beep!

Li Cheng’s wristwatch vibrated, the drone in high altitude clearly saw a figure dressed in night-walking attire moving silently along the roof ridge, approaching the warehouse.

’Indeed, these worldly society figures also plan to act tonight.’

Already expecting this, Li Cheng remained unflustered, quickly packed up all equipment, took only a few breaths to return the ledger, the box, and the conch bead picked up by Gray Rain, to their original places.

As for himself, he hid with Gray Rain in a corner of the warehouse, concealed behind the shelves.

The newly arrived black-clothed person obviously came prepared, untying a grill tong-like metal tool from his waist to clamp onto heavy tiles, steadily lifting and placing them aside.

After repeating several times, he took out a coarse metal wire from his pocket.

Attached with inner strength, the metal wire worked like a saw, using the wind to cover the noise, quickly creating a small skylight.

The black-clothed person moved his body intensely, executed the Bone Shrinking Technique, and smoothly squeezed through the child-sized skylight, landing lightly on the ground.

His first sight was the orange conch bead, larger than a ping-pong ball, flawlessly round.

"I didn’t steal it, I picked it up."

The black-clothed person muttered, putting the conch bead directly into his pocket.