Chapter 596

Before, Peng Tianhua told Lv Yizhi: 'If there were no clues at all, we wouldn't have brought you here.' That wasn't a joke.

Before the operation, the Anti-Corruption Bureau indeed conducted a large amount of investigative work.

For example, it is known that Lv Yizhi is a wildly ambitious mega-corrupt official, and he is extremely superstitious about feng shui and the occult, once calling a feng shui master surnamed Wang from the jianghu his sworn brother.

The only uncertain thing is not knowing where Lv Yizhi's illicit money is hidden.

Just now, Lin Dongfan used psychological tactics to frighten Lü Shuyong into confessing. Lü Shuyong said that all of Lü Yizhi's secrets are hidden in the tree hollow!

This tree hollow refers to the thousand-year-old arhat pine in the backyard.

The trunk diameter of this thousand-year-old arhat pine is over two meters, requiring four people holding hands to encircle it. The trunk reaches a height of nineteen meters, and the carefully pruned crown's lateral branches are truly vigorous and ancient.

Arhat pines of this caliber usually exist only in landscape paintings; they are extremely rare in reality.

The harsh sound of the electric saw continued nonstop, sending wood chips flying. To be honest, Lin Dongfan felt a pang of pity seeing this. But there was no choice—if the methods aren't tough, you can't subdue the fierce tiger of the forest.

Soon, a square small window was sawn into the thick trunk.

Lin Dongfan, Peng Tianhua, Yu ChengHai and others approached and looked, all secretly shocked and dismayed. Especially Yu ChengHai, who had never seen such a large anti-corruption scene, stared wide-eyed, unable to imagine how this could be done.

The trunk was hollow, inside stood a thick gold pillar.

Because the sawn opening was small, the full interior of the tree hollow could not be seen.

Lin Dongfan again ordered his subordinates to keep sawing, enlarging the opening, to 'open a door' at the base of the trunk.

The prosecutorial officers under him hadn't been sawing long before they discovered:

At the base of the trunk there originally was a door leading into the tree's heart, but after careful artificial repair and maintenance, the trunk's cut seam had healed, making this door also invisible.

At a glance, the exterior of the entire trunk showed not the slightest flaw.

After opening this 'door,' Lin Dongfan crawled into the tree's heart, shone a flashlight upward, and his worldview nearly shattered.

The reality before his eyes confirmed part of the earlier investigation—Lü Yizhi is indeed a wildly ambitious person! He even dreamed of reaching the pinnacle of power.

Within the deep tree cavity stood a thick gilded coiling dragon pillar.

After testing, this pillar is made of pure gold, standing 9.5 meters tall, neither more nor less, symbolizing the supreme 'nine-five' in traditional culture.

The coiling dragon on the pillar is carved lifelike.

The pillar is 9.5 meters high, 0.4 meters in diameter, made of thousand-fine gold; using gold's density, its total weight calculates to as much as 23.04 tons!

What does 23 tons mean?

Taking the Palace Museum's artifacts as reference, the gold hair tower commissioned by Qianlong weighs only 110 kilograms. Lü Yizhi's coiling dragon pillar could cast 209 such Qianlong gold towers!

"Lü Yizhi."

Lin Dongfan emerged from the tree hollow, gave Lü Yizhi a thumbs-up, and had nothing to say.

Lü Yizhi, slumped on the stone bench, was drenched in cold sweat that soaked his shirt; at this moment he was silent as snow, his whole face pallid, devoid of any color.

Soon, a staff member handed over a feng shui analysis report of the Lü Mansion.

Lin Dongfan examined it carefully.

His brows furrowed deeply.

Whether folk feng shui and the occult actually work, Lin Dongfan was puzzled. One thing is certain: Lü Yizhi's superstition about feng shui and the occult has reached a maniacal degree.

The Lü Mansion's Suzhou-style garden was built according to the top-tier feng shui layout recorded in the 'Classic of Dwellings'.

This garden villa backs onto green mountains, draws living water into the residence, encircling it like a 'jade belt,' then feeds it into the landscape pond! It hopes to gather qi and generate wealth, and also wishes for the water to remain uncorrupted and the hinges undecayed.

On the left side of the garden, a flowing-water rockery serves as the Azure Dragon; on the right, a Xuanwu pavilion serves as the White Tiger; the front courtyard is open and spacious.

Moreover, the fact that the arhat pine hides a coiling dragon gold pillar within its belly is downright horrifying!

The coiling dragon pillar takes the nine-five yang number, cast in thousand-fine gold as a dragon, placed in the tree's heart! Since gold overcomes wood, the occult considers this a 'subdue the noble to gain power' technique, using gold qi to aid official fortune.

The 'Xue Xin Fu' once mentioned: 'Metal qi is stern and killing, it governs authority.'

If this had happened in ancient times, Lü Yizhi would surely have been executed to the ninth degree of kinship. He is not only greedy for wealth, but even more greedy for power; his yearning for the pinnacle of power has already reached a maniacal level.

Lin Dongfan slowly walked into the pavilion.

He sat down and chatted with Lü Yizhi: 'Your emperor's residence-securing feng shui arrangement—did you have that Master Wang set it up?'

Lü Yizhi lowered his head and remained silent.

Lin Dongfan added: 'I heard that when you were the top official in a prefecture-level city, for some large municipal projects, during bidding you always examined the bidders' birth characters. Anyone whose characters clashed with yours would not win the bid. That so-called Master Wang must have given you plenty of advice, right?'

Lü Yizhi still kept his head down and remained silent.

Whether or not, Master Wang indeed played an important role in his life—not only participating in the design of the Lü Mansion, but also guiding the feng shui layout of many municipal projects.

Lin Dongfan gazed at the silent Lü Yizhi, frowned, and asked: 'If feng shui could help you seize the pinnacle of power, why have you fallen from grace now?'

This soul-striking question left Lü Yizhi filled with resentment.

He pondered for a moment.

Lü Yizhi finally said: 'Before you appeared, my career path had indeed been smooth sailing. If it weren't for you bursting onto the scene midway, this year I would have hoped to be promoted to a regular position.'

"You mean that Master Wang calculated everything but missed this variable of mine?' Lin Dongfan eyed Lü Yizhi doubtfully: 'Having fallen to this point, do you still firmly believe in feng shui and the occult?'

"……!!!"

This time, Lü Yizhi reflected for Along time before speaking.

He put on a repentant appearance: 'My faith has gone astray; now it's too late to regret.' But in his heart he didn't really think so; he was very obstinate.

He glanced at the dried-up landscape pond.

He felt that the reason his official fortunes were cut off by Lin Dongfan was mainly because the feng shui arrangement of the Lü Mansion had been destroyed, the water dried up, fish died, wealth gone, inviting calamity.

Lin Dongfan saw Lü Yizhi staring blankly at the dried-up landscape pond and also guessed his true thoughts.

Unable to complain.

Lin Dongfan set aside the feng shui topic and returned to the main point: 'That coiling dragon gold pillar—I just calculated its total weight as up to 23.04 tons, that is, kilograms. At today's gold price of 260 yuan per gram, the value of that coiling dragon gold pillar is already close to 6 billion yuan. So much money—where did this money come from?'

"……!!!"

Lü Yizhi sank into thought for a moment, then suddenly felt somewhat vexed.

His words were laced with barbs; he responded on the spot with a hint of a sarcastic smile: "That coiled‑dragon gold pillar is 6 billion, that arhat pine is 10 million, plus the 500 million construction cost of this Suzhou‑style garden—altogether it's only a little over 6.5 billion. Compared with your several hundred billions of wealth, I'm just a petty witch seeing a great witch—you don't need to humiliate me here."

"Every penny in my pocket is earned legally by myself—what right do you have to say 'each to his own' to me?" Lin Dongfan laughed angrily: "Even with death at your doorstep you're still arguing with me."

"Now that Lin Zhenhua is in power, you can certainly say your wealth is legal. Once he steps down and loses the protection of authority, your fate will very likely be the same as mine."

Lv Yizhi smiled faintly, as if he had already foreseen Lin Dongfan's future.