Chapter 204: Understanding The Obscure
After that silk-like thing disappeared, the three guards had all fainted on the ground. Uncle Bao had still shown mercy, using the back of the blade, not the blade.
“Go to Xie Min’s residence!” Lu Yun gave a low shout and walked straight toward the inner courtyard. Uncle Bao and the others closely followed by his side. Along the way, any guards who came to block them were all knocked unconscious by Uncle Bao.
However, this time the number of guards in the manor was far fewer than what they had seen during the previous nighttime reconnaissance. All the way to outside Xie Min’s room, there were only seven or eight mantis-trying-to-stop-a-chariot types. This was obviously extremely abnormal…
Uncle Bao pushed open Xie Min’s room door ahead of Lu Yun. Inside, the chrysanthemum was still there, the charcoal basin providing warmth, but the master of this place was nowhere to be seen.
Lu Yun did not enter the room immediately but signaled the two dead men to remove the hounds’ headstalls. At the same time, he took a small bottle from his sleeve, poured the colorless liquid from the bottle onto a handkerchief, and held it in front of the two hounds’ noses.
The two hounds sniffed fiercely at the handkerchief and immediately became excited, barking madly toward inside the room on one side while trying to lead their master into the room on the other.
Seeing this, the two dead men followed the hounds into the room and saw the two dogs pouncing straight to the sofa board, barking excitedly nonstop at that carpet.
“Move the carpet!” Lu Yun ordered in a deep voice. Uncle Bao hurriedly pulled the carpet aside. At the same time, Lu Yun pressed the mechanism under the sofa board, and that secret passage opened before everyone with a creaking sound.
As soon as the cave entrance opened, the two hounds jumped in without hesitation, and the two dead men holding them quickly followed by jumping in.
Lu Yun and Uncle Bao exchanged a glance, and the two also followed closely down.
.
The secret room was pitch black, but it was no problem at all for Lu Yun. He saw at a glance that the gold ingots originally piled in the secret room had disappeared. Not only the gold ingots, but even those large and small boxes had also vanished without a trace.
The two hounds pounced to the corner where the gold ingots had originally been piled, both standing on all fours, roaring madly nonstop.
“That place is where the gold was originally piled, right.” Uncle Bao looked toward the direction the two hounds were barking madly and could clearly see the depression on the ground where heavy objects had pressed down. He asked Lu Yun hoarsely.
Lu Yun nodded.
“They actually moved it all away.” Uncle Bao could not help sucking in a cold breath. That was a full three hundred thousand taels!
“Young Master, let’s hurry out and search.” Although they could not figure out why the hounds could suddenly track gold, the two dead men still excitedly reminded Lu Yun: “As long as they haven’t gone far, we can definitely track them!”
Lu Yun nodded and returned to the ground with the three carrying the two hounds. However, something unexpected happened. The two hounds suddenly lost their target. No matter how the two dead men led them around every corner outside the room, they still could not find the tracking direction.
“Looks like it still won’t work…” Uncle Bao looked at Lu Yun with a troubled frown. This time, his young master had stirred up big trouble. If things blew up tomorrow, even his own future would likely be greatly affected.
“This shouldn’t be…” Lu Yun frowned in thought, pacing back and forth at the doorway. From the hounds’ previous reaction, they could obviously track that batch of gold. Why had they lost the target as soon as they left the room?
‘Could it be that Xie Min has already noticed that I tampered with it?’ Lu Yun could not help feeling some dejection, but then he thought, the scent of that potion was imperceptible to humans, and he had struck Xie Min’s sleep acupoint at the time, so she absolutely could not have discovered it.
Thinking of this, Lu Yun gritted his teeth and said in a deep voice: “Let go of the ropes!”
The two dead men obeyed and quickly released their tightly gripping hands from the ropes. With no restraints, the two hounds shot into the room like arrows, leaping once more into that underground secret room, barking with one cry more urgent than the last.
“You two stupid dogs, what are you going back for?!” The two dead men were furious and followed into the secret room, about to drag out the two embarrassing hounds.
“Wait!” Lu Yun’s voice rang out as he also descended into the secret room.
The two dead men hurriedly stopped and stepped aside.
Lu Yun stood in the secret room with arms folded, frowning tightly at the hounds still barking madly in the corner. Moments later, he suddenly said in a deep voice: “Light torches!”
The two dead men hurriedly climbed out to find torches.
Uncle Bao walked to Lu Yun’s side and asked hoarsely: “Could it be that Young Master thinks the gold is still in this secret room?”
Lu Yun nodded, then shook his head, without answering.
At this point, the two dead men returned. Where could they find torches in such a short time? In their haste, they carried the fire basin from the room down into the secret room and grabbed a handful of books from the bookshelf, throwing them one by one into the fire basin. The flames immediately shot up a foot high, illuminating the entire secret room as bright as day.
Lu Yun frowned at the covers of those books; they were all precious rare ancient texts. Probably any one was worth hundreds or thousands of strings of cash, but there was no time to worry about that now. Borrowing the bright firelight, he carefully examined the secret room’s walls and finally discovered an extremely inconspicuous gap at the place where the gold had originally been piled.
He leaned close to that wall and reached along the gap, indeed feeling the trace of a hidden door. During the previous reconnaissance, this hidden door had been blocked by that gold, so Lu Yun had not discovered it.
Lu Yun groped around again but could not find the mechanism. Somewhat anxiously, he pressed the edge of the hidden door and heard a creaking sound as the hidden door cracked open a slit.
Lu Yun suddenly realized that since this hidden door was set in the secret room, there was naturally no need for another mechanism. He hurriedly pushed hard with both hands, opening the hidden door, and a pitch-black cave entrance gusting with cold wind appeared before his eyes.
As soon as that cave entrance appeared, the two hounds darted inside with a whoosh. Seeing this, Lu Yun and the others hurriedly followed closely.
“Who would have thought there was another secret passage in the secret room. Xie Min really went all out for this gold.” Uncle Bao sighed repeatedly as he ran in the cave over a person’s height.
“This secret passage was built before.” Lu Yun examined the four walls of the secret passage and said in a deep voice.
“That makes it interesting. Cuihe Garden isn’t some important place, so what’s the use of building a secret passage.” Uncle Bao said uncomprehendingly.
As they spoke, the two hounds had already stopped, anxiously circling around.
The group went over and saw that the end of the secret passage had arrived. This secret passage was just over a li long, reached in the blink of an eye.
The two dead men hurriedly climbed up, groped around for a long time, and finally opened the mechanism, leaping out.
By the time Lu Yun and Uncle Bao followed up carrying the hounds, they saw they were in a bedroom luxurious to no lesser degree than Xie Min’s room, but it was clearly a man’s bedroom.
“Heh heh…” Uncle Bao chuckled gleefully: “A bedroom connected to a bedroom. Lu Jian looks all stern-faced, but who knew his heart was so flamboyant!” He had already guessed where this was.
“This should be Qing Feng Garden.” Lu Yun nodded and casually pushed open the room door. Just as he expected, the courtyard was empty.
“Indeed, this is exactly Qing Feng Garden.” Uncle Bao had long supervised Lu Feng who lived in Qing Feng Garden and was naturally very familiar with the place.
After Lu Jian’s incident, this side residence had been sealed, of course empty with no one there.
At this moment, the two hounds dashed madly toward the main gate.
Lu Yun and the others hurriedly followed. When they reached the main gate, they saw Qing Feng Garden’s gate ajar, the seal on the door long torn in half.
At this point, without the hounds, Lu Yun and the others could continue tracking. Because they had already seen the deep wheel ruts on the ground leading straight to the official road to the west!
The group followed the wheel ruts in a frenzied run. They had just heard the Luo River’s rushing water when they saw over thirty mule-drawn wagons slowly heading toward the dock by the river.
Lu Yun quickly counted the number of carriages and knew this time it was definitely right. He gave a low shout: “Uncle Bao, don’t make a move!” With that, he leaped forward flying.
