A Girl Traveling Through Troubled Times

Chapter 897 Discovering the Secret Room and Treasure

Could this be something Wu Mingqiang had prepared? If so, he should have searched the room. Could he have discovered the secret room?

Gui'er moved the wardrobes with great effort and looked at the wall behind them, but found nothing.

Suddenly, she saw the full-length mirror next to the wardrobe. She had looked everywhere in the room except for the area behind the full-length mirror.

This is a wooden carved standing dressing mirror. The entire frame is made of mahogany and is more than one person tall. There are intricate carvings on the top, and columns with carved textures on both sides of the frame. The base is in the shape of animal feet. It is very stylish, but also very heavy.

Guier wanted to move the mirror away, but she couldn't, and she was afraid of making noise and attracting other people's attention.

There was no other way, so she used all her strength to lift one end of the mirror with both hands, gently moved it a little bit, then stretched her head through the space and looked carefully at the wall behind the mirror.

The interior decoration of this era emphasizes patterned floors and white walls, that is, the floor is paved with tiles of various patterns, but the walls are covered with solid colors.

However, this dressing room is more unique than the other rooms. Its walls are also covered with floral tiles. Guier looked at it carefully and suddenly saw a small hole in a corner. She leaned over and found that the small hole looked a bit like the tiles were not pasted properly, and a bit like a keyhole.

However, Guier only had one key and had just opened the safe. She knocked on the wall with her hand, and the sound was the same heavy as the sound around her.

There was really nothing she could do. Gui'er thought for a moment, took out the key she had just used to open the safe, and tried to insert it in. Unexpectedly, it actually went in. She twisted it gently again, and it also turned.

Could it be that one key can open two places?

Gui'er didn't care about anything else and decided to give it a try first. As the key turned, she could hear the subtle sound of the metal chain turning.

After turning the key all the way, the wall behind the full-length mirror suddenly appeared with an area about the same size as the dressing mirror. It retracted half an inch, then slowly opened to one side, revealing a small door.

This must be the secret room Sha Yanxiao mentioned. Gui'er didn't go in directly. She was a cautious person. She remembered that Sha Yanxiao said the secret room was behind the bookshelf in the study. Why was it in a different location now? If she went in rashly and got locked in or something happened, and she had to call for help, wouldn't the secret of the secret room be exposed? Then, she was not sure whether she could save her property, and she would also be in trouble.

She quickly got up and went to the living room to check. The bedroom door was locked. Then she went back to the cloakroom and locked the door as well.

After doing all this, she came to the dressing mirror and tried to push the wall that served as the door. She found that its bricks were half as thin as those of the other walls next to it. Then it was embedded in a large iron door connected to the axis, so even though the bricks were thinner than those of other walls, they were still so thick and heavy.

She turned the key back, and the door slowly swung back until it was perfectly fitted back to the original wall.

Now she finally understood the principle of the door, so she used her strength to move the mirror a little further so that she could enter.

Gui'er took a deep breath and slipped sideways through the secret door. Behind the door wasn't the cramped chamber she'd imagined, but a staircase barely wide enough for one person. The stone steps were polished smooth, and the delicately carved copper handrails felt slightly cool to the touch. She held onto the handrail as she descended, her footsteps quiet, but still remarkably clear in the silence.

Gui'er walked up a flight of stone steps and looked up. Judging from the height, she should be on the first floor, but she wasn't at the bottom yet. Looking down, there was another floor.

She continued walking down and finally reached the end of the stairs. There was an iron door. When she pushed it open, a scent mixed with camphor wood and dust hit her face - it turned out to be a spacious basement.

It was night time, and even though the light in the cloakroom was on, the light coming in was not enough to illuminate the area below, and it was pitch black.

Guier had no choice but to return to the cloakroom and came out to find something to illuminate.

Finally finding a flashlight in a drawer in the study, she returned to the basement. This time, turning on the flashlight, Guier saw the scene clearly: the entire basement was several hundred square meters, probably the same size as their mansion. The floor was paved with floral tiles, just like the other floors. Along the wall stood rows of black-painted iron racks, filled with all kinds of things, including many small wooden boxes with vermilion seals of "Zuchi" and "Kuping" printed on the corners. She walked forward and gently pried open the lock of the top box. The golden light was so dazzling that it was blinding—there were neatly stacked gold bars inside, each weighing about ten taels. The bottom of the box was padded with moisture-proof oil paper, which felt thick and tough, obviously carefully preserved.

Between the iron frames stood several rows of mahogany cabinets, their doors carved with lotus patterns and their copper locks polished to a shine. Gui'er opened one of the doors, and found inside was not gold or silver, but neatly stacked stacks of silver bills. There were notes from time-honored banks such as "Da De Heng" and "Wei Tai Hou", with the words "payable on sight" printed on the face, and the amounts ranged from one hundred taels to ten thousand taels; there were also banknotes from Shanghai's "Si Ming Bank" and "China Merchants Bank", which were so new that they looked like they had just been withdrawn from the bank, with few creases. In the bottom drawer were several passbooks from Western banks, with English printed on the covers. She recognized the logos of HSBC, Standard Chartered and other foreign banks. When she opened them, she saw a long string of zeros following the deposit amounts, which was dazzling.

In the center of the basement, rows of nanmu shelves held antique paintings and calligraphy. Though Gui'er wasn't an expert, she recognized one: a Dong Qichang landscape painting, its brushwork clear and crisp, its upper right corner stamped with a red seal that read "Treasured for the Emperor Qianlong's Viewing." Next to it hung a copy of "Night Banquet of Han Xizai," its figures' flowing robes and vibrant colors pristine, its scrolls densely adorned with collector's seals. Beneath the shelves, wooden boxes were crammed with bronze artifacts: a three-legged, two-handled cauldron, its belly carved with taotie patterns, so heavy it made wrists ache; a bronze mirror with coiled dragon motifs, its surface lightly dusted but still revealing a reflection after wiping; and several jade Buddhas, their jade so smooth that, through the sunlight filtering through the air vents, one could even see faint traces of blood within—presumably fine Hetian seed material.

Further in, a small, moisture-proof brick wall separated a small area, filled with boxes of silver dollars. There were "Yuan Datou" coins bearing Yuan Shikai's portrait, "founding commemorative coins" bearing Sun Yat-sen's portrait, and even "Guangxu Yuanbao" coins with dragon motifs—all of them hard currency in circulation. Next to the boxes lay several bundles of objects wrapped in red silk. Unwrapping them revealed ingots of silver. The silver ingots glowed softly white, while the gold ingots shone with a heavy, matte sheen. Each one was imposingly heavy, engraved with the name of the silver mint.