Chapter 146: Discovered over four tons of gold in the county magistrate's storeroom!

The flashlight beam swept across, and a few blurry shadows flashed across Ning Jinli's vision.

Her scalp tingled, and she slowly pointed the flashlight toward where the shadows had been.

All she saw were four large wolf dogs staring straight at her.

Their pairs of green eyes flickered with a sinister, ferocious light, and from their bared fangs came a chilling low growl.

The four large wolf dogs were nearly the size of calves, and at that moment their hackles rose, heads lowered, tails drooping—clearly they had assumed an attacking stance.

Had they not mistaken the flashlight's round beam for the eyes of some large beast, they would have attacked already.

Ning Jinli knew that dogs that bark are usually just bluffing and not really biting, while silent dogs are the true biters; and those four wolf dogs a few meters away were clearly the fiercest of the fierce.

"Good… calm down, I'm not a bad person…" Ning Jinli whispered soothingly in a gentle voice while slowly slipping her left hand into her backpack.

Her harmless appearance and gentle voice actually reduced the hostility in the four wolf dogs' eyes a bit.

However, that wariness and ferocity remained unchanged, and they could still lunge and bite at any moment.

Ning Jinli wasn't worried she couldn't handle these four wolf dogs; even just using her Internal Skill with brute force, she could kill them.

But the problem was, she couldn't be sure she could take them all out simultaneously in an instant.

If she made any noise, the people inside the County Magistrate's Residence would discover her, and her tonight's operation would come to nothing.

So, fighting these four vicious dogs would absolutely not be wise.

"Do you want something to eat? I have something tasty here." Ning Jinli said, then pulled out a packet of ready-to-eat braised duck legs from her backpack.

Besides tools, her backpack also held plenty of snacks.

She had originally intended to eat them during tonight's operation to fill her stomach and replenish her strength.

"Whimper…" The four wolf dogs lowered their heads further, bared their teeth and growled, their fierce eyes staring even more warily at Ning Jinli.

Ning Jinli clenched the small flashlight between her teeth, freed her hand, and slowly tore open the plastic packaging.

Sizzle—sizzle—

As the packaging tore open, the rich meat aroma of the braised duck legs instantly wafted out.

A dog's sense of smell is extremely keen, and almost instantly the four wolf dogs' eyes widened noticeably, their gaze shifting to what Ning Jinli held in her hand.

As Ning Jinli took the braised duck leg out of the plastic bag, the four wolf dogs' mouths began to water gradually; although they still held an attacking posture, their large tails behind them lifted somewhat uncontrollably.

"Come, have some." Ning Jinli gently tossed the braised duck leg two or three meters in front of her.

These four wolf dogs were not only large, their fur was sleek and shiny—clearly the County Magistrate fed them well, and their usual diet was surely far better than that of ordinary commoners.

If it were ordinary meat, they probably wouldn't even glance at it.

But this time what she encountered was the food Ning Jinli had brought from modern times; the various seasonings added to it constituted a dimensional strike against both domestic animals and people in this era.

The four wolf dogs hesitated only a few seconds before they couldn't help approaching the duck leg on the ground, drooling more and more.

The largest one was clearly the leader; it growled a few times at its companions, and the other three lowered their bodies and slowed their steps.

The leader wolf dog glanced at Ning Jinli, sniffed the duck leg with its nose, then grabbed it in its mouth and swallowed it in a couple of bites.

After finishing that duck leg, it raised its head again, its eyes becoming much clearer, its tail rising high and swaying slightly twice.

Seeing that this trick worked, Ning Jinli secretly breathed a sigh of relief, then took out some more snacks, opened their packaging, and tossed them over.

Two braised duck legs, two braised pork trotters, several pure-meat sausage links, plus a small cream cake and a packet of beef jerky.

Besides water, she dumped all the snacks she had originally intended for herself out to them.

After the four wolf dogs gulped down their food, they completely lost their earlier wariness and ferocity, instead surrounding Ning Jinli, wagging their tails, grinning, and frolicking; they even let her pat their heads, acting as if she were their owner.

After Ning Jinli dealt with the four wolf dogs, she quickly found the storeroom in the artificial hill, then took out her tools and smoothly picked the lock, the four wolf dogs trailing her the whole way, wagging their tails as they watched.

She opened the door, shone her flashlight inside, and couldn't help but be dumbfounded.

Inside was merely a small room of a few square meters, containing only a large table about three meters long and four long benches, with nothing else.

"This… could I be mistaken?"

Ning Jinli was a bit dazed.

She had clearly seen the County Magistrate rush to the artificial hill right after the fire at his home; logically, the storeroom should indeed be here.

Moreover, she hadn't found any other doors in the artificial hill.

How could opening the door… just be this?

The County Magistrate surely wouldn't be worried about the table and benches having an accident, would he?

Ning Jinli walked into the room full of questions, and absentmindedly ran her hand over the tabletop.

It felt like wood, and looked like ordinary timber.

"Strange… this couldn't be so abnormal."

Ning Jinli muttered to herself, casually tugged at the nearby bench, but it wouldn't budge.

"Huh? Is this wooden bench that heavy?"

She immediately exerted more force, and discovered that without using her Internal Strength, moving it would take considerable effort.

This was hardly the weight a wooden bench should have; it was practically heavier than if made of steel.

"Something's wrong!" Ning Jinli pulled out a utility knife and began scraping the bench's surface.

After scraping off a layer of paint and a layer of wood veneer, a golden luster was revealed underneath.

Ning Jinli's mouth curled up, "So it's made of gold, then coated with wood veneer and painted; that means the other three benches and that table…"

She quickly checked them all.

Sure enough, they were all made of pure gold.

A rough estimate put the weight of this golden table plus the four golden benches at over four tons.

"Hiss…" Ning Jinli sucked in a breath of cold air, "At today's gold price, this gold… is probably worth three billion yuan!"

"Holy cow…"

"A mere county magistrate of He Wan County, with the normal salary of this era, could never amass this much gold even working eight hundred lifetimes—he must have embezzled how much imperial silver and extorted how much of the people's fat and ointment?!"

Ning Jinli sat on a stool, elbows propped on the table, supporting her forehead.

Now she doesn't know how much of this pile of gold belongs to the money the court allocated for local use, and how much is extorted from the people by the county magistrate.

Furthermore, directly distributing the gold to all the people of He Wan County would be difficult to carry out and would cause a major disturbance—obviously unrealistic.

So she could only take it away herself first.

"Whimper… whimper…" At that moment, four large wolf dogs walked to the corner, whining softly while scratching the wall with their paws.

Ning Jinli walked over, picked up a flashlight and shone it carefully, discovering friction marks on the stone slab at that spot, and a crack beside the wall.

"Could this wall also be made of gold?!"

Ning Jinli widened her eyes and quickly scraped it with a knife.

But she soon realized she had overthought it; the wall was just an ordinary blue stone wall.

Yet the four large wolf dogs kept sniffing with their noses, scratching with their paws, then lifting their heads to look at Ning Jinli.

Ning Jinli continued to explore and finally discovered that the crack in the wall resembled the shape of a door.

She tried finding an angle and pushed; accompanied by a dull scraping sound, a rotating stone door was slowly pushed open by her.

The four large wolf dogs bolted inside.

Ning Jinli raised the flashlight and shone it inward, only then seeing that inside was another world.

This was a large storeroom of several hundred square meters, with supplies piled up in categories.

One side held several boxes of silver ingots, jewelry and jade, cloth, salt, spices, and some fine timber.

The other side had sacks of grain, as well as large amounts of cured, wind-dried pork and mutton on wooden racks, plus dozens of jars of aged fine liquor.

The four large wolf dogs scrambled over each other to gnaw at the meat; Ning Jinli ignored them, strolled around on her own, and in a corner saw a large box containing bamboo slips.

The bamboo slips were bound into rolls, densely covered with writing.

The script of this era, Ning Jinli basically couldn't read.

But without thinking, one knows it must be important content to be stored here.

"Alright, take everything as listed!" Ning Jinli's mouth curled into a cold smile; she circulated her Internal Strength, opened a Time-Space Gate on the spot, with the other end linked to the factory warehouse.

Although the consumption of Internal Strength was greater, making her feel a bit dizzy, her spirit was full of vigor.

After the Spacetime Portal opened, she slightly caught her breath, focused her mind, and began transmitting with her thoughts.

In the blink of an eye, except for a small portion of cured, wind-dried meat left for the four large wolf dogs to eat, all supplies in the storeroom—including the gold tables and chairs—were transmitted away by her.

"Eat slowly, I'm leaving, bye-bye." Ning Jinli waved at the dogs, turned, and walked into the Spacetime Portal.

The dogs gazed at the spot where she vanished, tilted their heads in puzzlement for a few glances, then lowered their heads to continue eating.

——

The next morning.

Several drunk constables carried the snoring Zhao on their backs to the County Office.

This bunch, having snatched a top-notch treasure from Xiu Mei's house yesterday, were in high spirits; after hiding the treasure properly, they drank flower wine all night.

Usually the prefect only cares about extorting wealth, ignoring everything else; even cases are tossed to the County Officers to handle themselves, so he pays even less attention to what they do.

"Boss, we're at the County Gate, wake up…" the constable reminded.

Zhao blinked his bleary eyes open, and with the constables' support he plopped onto the steps of the County Gate, let out a yawn reeking of alcohol, and drawled lazily: "Go… go take Xiu Mei out, bring her to the execution grounds… behead her."

One constable said: "Boss, the documents and notice aren't ready yet."

"What the hell, still bothering with that?" Zhao snorted derisively, "Heh, how a case is judged is always up to us."

The constable gave an embarrassed laugh: "We still have to go through the formalities on the surface."

Zhao showed impatience: "If we don't hurry up and behead Xiu Mei, I won't feel at ease—can you? It's just a matter of having the clerk write the documents and notice, then stamp the County Gate seal; you lot take the person to the execution site, I'll later find the clerk to finish the procedure, no delay."

Since the Captain said so, his subordinate constables immediately complied, hurrying into the County Gate and straight to the jail.

Zhao stretched lazily, swayed as he followed, and soon entered the County Gate, where in the study he found the clerk busy tallying the recent tax and penalty silver.

"Yo, clerk, you've been busy all night?" Zhao asked cheerfully.

The clerk glanced up, then continued working while saying: "These days you've done well, the money you've grabbed is more than before, so naturally I'm busier; we have to separate the regular tax silver and put it into the County Gate treasury, the rest must be sent to the prefect."

After saying that, he casually picked up a few bits of broken silver and tossed them to Zhao.

Zhao took the broken silver, but laughing, he slapped it back onto the clerk's table.

"You don't want your reward?" the clerk asked in surprise.

Zhao belched from the drink, his face smug: "I'm in a good mood today; I don't care for this petty change."

The clerk teased: "I'll give you the prefect's share; want it?"

Zhao glanced askance at the two piles of silver separated beside him.

One pile was small, mostly copper coins, with a few bits of silver added—estimated at only a few taels.

The other pile was all silver, at least over a hundred taels.

That small amount is the tax due under normal Daxuan law, whereas the latter is revenue from items the County Office illegally set up to collect.

The former goes into the public treasury, the latter into the prefect's pocket—this has been the case for many years.

Zhao had once envied that, but now his face showed contempt: "Clerk, I'm not going to argue nonsense with you—hurry up and write the documents and notice."

"Sure, go ahead." The clerk, accustomed to this, unfolded the bamboo slips and picked up a brush.

But when he heard this time it was to sentence someone to death, the clerk frowned and warned: "This must be tried and decided by the prefect personally, and the case must be sent to the Prefect for verification; if…"

Zhao interrupted: "Let's not bother the prefect; we'll do it just as we always have."

The clerk shook his head slightly: "But this is after all a death penalty, a matter of life and death—what if…"

"No what-ifs," Zhao interrupted again, pulling a large silver ingot from his pocket and placing it before the clerk, "The one to be beheaded is just an ordinary peasant woman, her life worth less than a dog's—there's no way anything unexpected will happen."

The clerk pondered a moment, took the silver ingot, said nothing more, picked up his brush and began to write.

Just then——

"Boss! Something's wrong!" a Constable came running in panic, "Xiu Mei is missing!"

Zhao froze, "What do you mean missing?"

The Constable stammered, "We... just went to the prison to fetch someone, and... the jailer said... said Xiu Mei had somehow slipped away at some point."

Zhao glared, "Bullshit! How could a living person possibly escape from Death Prison?!"

The Constable wiped cold sweat and said, "But... it's really... missing. And yesterday there was another woman who was also held together with Xiu Mei; they... they're both missing."

Zhao said, "I'll go check!" his face instantly darkened.

When he arrived at the prison, he saw the jailer's face looking worse than having eaten excrement, standing in front of the Death Prison door, staring fixedly at the lock, motionless.

Inside the Death Prison, it was indeed completely empty.

"Where are the people inside?! When did they slip away?!" Zhao flew into a rage, rushed over and grabbed the jailer's collar, "How the hell are you acting as jailer? Are all your guards a bunch of useless sacks?"

The jailer's eyes flickered with a hint of fear, "Zhao... this matter is very strange, I suspect... I suspect it's a haunting."

Zhao shouted, "Shut your dog's stinking ass!" and raised his hand to slap someone's face.

The jailer hurriedly pointed at the Death Prison door, "Don't believe me? Look for yourself! If it's not a haunting, how do you explain this?!"