Chapter 36: Hidden Compartments Within Hidden Compartments

The Ning Family lives in this courtyard, where the entrance to the cellar is in the southeast corner, in the gap between the inverted room and the east wing.

The area of this cellar is not small, equivalent to the size of a room, and it is over two meters high.

Though called a cellar, it was actually a basement built when the house was first constructed.

It was originally for storing wine, but now it is a cellar shared by the five households in this side courtyard.

Just now, Ning Weidong thought, since Qi Jiazui could hide things in the cellar, why couldn't he? Moreover, Ning Weidong racked his brain and actually dug up some useful information from the original owner's memories.

He arrived at the cellar entrance and pulled open the wooden door, which was nailed with a cotton curtain.

The cotton curtain is quite large and can block the gaps in the door.

The rusty hinges let out a "creak."

A lamp cord hangs down inside the door.

He grabbed it and gave it a tug; with a "click," the electric light turned on.

Inside the door is a "U"-shaped brick staircase; he followed it down.

Below, there is only one ten-watt, dim incandescent bulb.

Inside, there are five shelves in total, one shelf belonging to each family, some divided into three tiers, others into four.

Because spring is almost here, the items stored by each family have been mostly eaten, and the shelves look empty.

Ning Weidong came to their family's shelf, squatted down, and reached out to press on the wall of the bottom tier.

After fumbling for a few moments, with a "click," he actually pressed open a small hidden door.

After opening it, there was a tiny secret compartment inside.

In his memory, this was something the original owner discovered by accident while playing hide-and-seek in the cellar as a child.

But then again, this wasn't much of a secret.

When the adults in the courtyard were tidying up the cellar back then, they had long since turned it over; it must have been where the original owner of the courtyard hid small items.

After the Liberation, the courtyard became a Dazayuan, and there were several such secret compartments for hiding things.

It's just that they were all empty when opened.

Ning Weidong didn't stop after opening this hidden door; instead, he stretched his fingers inside to poke around.

In his memory, the original owner was young when he discovered this compartment, and without caring about the dirt, he shoved half his body inside and found there was a small circular hole within.

Back then, with a poke of his finger, he had actually opened another secret compartment inside the first one! This design was quite ingenious; one would put some Ocean Coins and banknotes on the outside, and if someone discovered them, they would just take them and leave, while the compartment nested inside would hold more valuable treasures.

In such situations, most people would choose to pocket the gains and leave immediately with the money.

Very few would continue to risk searching further.

Even if they did, they would likely look elsewhere and not keep staring at this spot.

Sure enough, Ning Weidong quickly discovered that small hole.

But while the original owner's finger could fit in when he was a child, he couldn't reach in now.

Fortunately, the screwdriver he had brought earlier was still tucked in his waistband; he had been too busy dealing with the Ocean Coins to take it off, and it came in handy just right.

Ning Weidong hurriedly pulled his hand back, took out the screwdriver, and poked it inside.

Perhaps because it had been too many years, the copper mechanism structure inside had rusted and stuck together.

Ning Weidong didn't open it on the first try, but after applying more force, he heard a "click" and the second door of the secret compartment opened.

Unsurprisingly, it was also empty inside, with a space about the size of a standard nightstand drawer.

It was enough to hold those Ocean Coins of Ning Weidong's.

After confirming this, Ning Weidong was very happy and immediately stood up, intending to return to his room to fetch the items. However, his body suddenly paused, he furrowed his brows, thought rapidly, and a thought couldn't help but sprout in his mind.

"Could it be that Qi Jiazui really only left behind this little bit of stuff?" Ning Weidong frowned as he recalled the process of finding the Ocean Coins and cash in that cellar earlier.

At the time, because the board above had fallen down and things inside had spilled all over the floor, and a roll of Ocean Coins had scattered, Ning Weidong had only been focused on picking things up and hadn't carefully examined the condition of the inside.

Could it be... that there was also a secret compartment hidden within that secret compartment? It wasn't that Ning Weidong was imagining things out of thin air; compared to all those things Qi Jiazui had back in the day, these Ocean Coins plus two hundred yuan were truly too perfunctory.

If one insisted that it was a safe house set up by Qi Jiazui and this money was just in case, it was barely plausible, but still a bit far-fetched.

But if it were just a smokescreen to deceive people, it would seem more reasonable.

The more Ning Weidong thought about it, the more he felt it was possible, and he immediately decided he must go take another look.

However, as the old saying goes, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

No matter how urgent he felt, he had to handle the matter at hand first; he couldn't be so careless as to leave those Ocean Coins under the bed.

Ning Weidong returned to the earthquake shelter, pulled the foot basin out from under the bed, found a cloth bag, and "clattered" the Ocean Coins out into it.

He tied a knot in the cloth bag, tucked it into his chest, and pushed the door open to go out again.

Arriving at the cellar, he lay on the ground, reached out to stuff the bag into the second-tier secret compartment, closed the inner partition, and then closed the outer hidden door.

He stood up, patted his knees and pant legs, and grabbed a Chinese cabbage on his way out.

Going back and forth twice, leaving empty-handed, it would be hard not to make people curious about what he was doing in the cellar if they saw him through the window.

Ning Weidong took the cabbage to the Upper Room and placed it on the Eight Immortals table, but he didn't rush out.

That person he "shut down and restarted" would surely go to report to Zhang Jinfa upon waking up; if he saw Ning Weidong crawling out of the cellar, Zhang Jinfa would definitely go to inspect the cellar.

At that time, Ning Weidong had been in a rush and hadn't picked up all the Ocean Coins that fell on the ground; as long as Zhang Jinfa wasn't blind, he wouldn't fail to see them.

Plus the board opened at the top, such a large hole.

Anyone could tell that there had originally been things inside, and they had been taken away by someone.

If he went now, there was a high probability of running into Zhang Jinfa's men.

Ning Weidong thought it over and decided he couldn't be hasty; he would wait until nightfall.

If there really was another secret compartment hidden in there, there was nothing he could do if Zhang Jinfa discovered it.

However, the probability of that happening shouldn't be high.

Qi Jiazui had made a two-layered secret compartment; the first layer was only to deceive people, and the second layer would not be easily discovered.

Besides, this time, counting the Ocean Coins and cash, there is a base of two thousand yuan, which is enough to eat well.

……

And while Ning Weidong was thinking about these things, things had already exploded over at Zhang Jinfa's side.

The young man who had been forcibly "restarted" by Ning Weidong woke up and stumbled his way back with great difficulty.

Seeing his appearance, Zhang Jinfa was greatly shocked: "Xiaowuzi, did you get into a fight with someone?"

Xiaowuzi is named Zhou Wu; he practiced martial arts with his father since he was small and is also an expert at wrestling, having a reputation in all the major wrestling arenas in Beijing, and can be considered the number one fighter under Zhang Jinfa.

Usually when fighting others, as long as knives aren't involved, four or five people aren't enough for him to throw.

Looking like this today, coming back with a face full of bruises, it is obvious he didn't get the better of the situation.

Zhang Jinfa cares quite a bit about his "number one expert," so he hurriedly went over to check on him.

Zhou Wu bared his teeth and said with a bitter smile: "Brother, damn it, I ran into a tough nut this time."

(End of this chapter)