Chapter 603: A Waste Not to Take
Chapter 603: Chapter 603: A Waste Not to Take
"Yes." The curly-haired man nodded mechanically, answering honestly.
"He holds an important position?"
"Yes." The curly-haired man nodded again, answering honestly. "My brother-in-law has always served the Qiutian Family’s second young master. The third young master had an accident a while back, so now the Qiutian Family has started focusing on grooming the second young master. Because of that, my brother-in-law is highly regarded in the Qiutian Clan now. Many important tasks are entrusted to him."
"Tell me about the antique museum." For Su Qing, the most important things were, of course, the cultural relics from Hua Country. "And besides the artifacts from Hua Country that are officially accounted for, do you know where the others are being kept?"
Su Qing learned from the curly-haired man that the museum the Qiutian Family planned to build was meant to house the artifacts with official documentation. Those artifacts were currently stored in the basement of the Qiutian Family’s ancestral home. However, only the head of the Qiutian Family had the key. To open the basement, one had to get the key from the family head. As for the other batch of undocumented artifacts, the curly-haired man didn’t know anything. After all, he didn’t work for the Qiutian Family; everything he knew, he had just heard from his brother-in-law.
Su Qing pursed her lips. ’Actually, what I’ve learned from this guy is pretty much the same as what I overheard in the restaurant. The only new piece of information is that little bit about the head of the Qiutian Family.’ This curly-haired man was a real blabbermouth. He’d spill everything he knew without even being asked.
Su Qing couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. ’I wonder how this guy’s brother-in-law would feel if he knew his wife’s younger brother was such a blabbermouth.’
’Well, there is one more thing,’ Su Qing thought. ’This guy knows the location of the Qiutian Clan’s ancestral home, so at least I don’t have to go looking for it myself.’
After the interrogation, Su Qing showed no mercy. ’Dealing with a scumbag like him is like I’m doing the people of Japan a favor by taking out the trash.’ Besides, he had seen her use her vine powers. She absolutely could not let him live.
After dealing with the curly-haired man, Su Qing buried his body deep in the earth. She then left the abandoned construction site and made her way to the Qiutian Clan’s ancestral home under the cover of darkness.
The Qiutian Clan’s ancestral home was large and built in a typical Japanese style. Finding the room of the Qiutian Family’s head was quite easy. Su Qing had no trouble getting the location of the undocumented artifacts out of him. They weren’t in Ban City, as it turned out, but in a separate villa about ten miles south of the city. Ostensibly, the villa was just a farmstead, but underneath it lay a massive secret chamber, as secure as a bank vault. The antiques were hidden there, protected by five top-of-the-line security doors—the security level was maxed out.
Su Qing’s mouth fell slightly agape at this news. ’Damn, with security this tight, there must be more than just antiques in there.’ Her curiosity was instantly piqued. ’I’ll have to take a good look around that secret chamber when I get there.’
The security doors to the secret chamber at the villa used a combination of a password, a key, and a fingerprint. There was no iris scan, which made Su Qing breathe a sigh of relief. Otherwise, she would have had to figure out how to transport the head of the Qiutian Family to the villa without anyone noticing.
After all, she couldn’t harm the family head, at least not yet. Doing so would likely cause trouble for her great-uncle and his people.
Su Qing carefully questioned him about the unlocking sequence and password for the villa’s secret chamber. She then used hardened tree branches to fashion a set of corresponding keys and lifted his fingerprints with adhesive tape.
To take the antiques from the basement, Su Qing obviously wasn’t going to leave behind their so-called "official" documents. Fortunately, the family head kept them in the safe in his own room. After stowing all the documents in her personal dimension, she headed for the ancestral home’s basement.
Upon opening the basement, Su Qing’s eyes immediately fell upon hundreds of wooden crates stacked inside. She pried a few of them open and, sure enough, they were filled with antiques from Hua Country. She casually picked up a gall-bladder-shaped vase decorated with a pattern of flowers and birds. On the bottom, the character for "Official" was clearly stamped.
Su Qing ground her teeth at the sight. ’These damn thieves... just how many treasures did they steal from our Hua Country?!’
Without further inspection, Su Qing gave the rest a quick glance before sweeping all the wooden crates containing the artifacts from Hua Country into her personal dimension.
After stowing the artifacts, Su Qing was about to leave when she suddenly noticed rows of wooden boxes in another corner of the basement. Their patterns and sizes were all uniform, clearly mass-produced. Curious, she went over and opened them.
Holy cow, the boxes were filled with gold bars! Su Qing’s eyes lit up. ’Who complains about having too much money, right? Especially when it belongs to your enemies. It’d be a crime not to take it! If I left it here, it would be an injustice against the heavens. My ancestors would roll over in their graves, jump right out, and give me a beating!’
’Even if I can’t use all these gold bars myself,’ she thought, ’giving them to Great-Uncle and Uncle Gu for national development would be way better than letting them gather dust in this basement.’
A brilliant smile she couldn’t suppress spread across Su Qing’s face. With a wave of her hand, the hundreds of wooden crates vanished into her personal dimension.
WAHAHA, what a massive haul today!
She took one last look around the basement but didn’t touch anything else—just some fabrics, Japanese-style jewelry and utensils, and some wood materials. She wasn’t interested in any of it. After a quick glance, she left the basement. Of course, before she left, she meticulously erased any traces that could give her away, like footprints and fingerprints.
Su Qing knew that taking so much from the Qiutian Family would cause a huge uproar, but she didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. The very next morning, while she was having breakfast downstairs at her hotel, she overheard rumors about a theft at the Qiutian Family’s estate.
"Hey, have you guys heard? The Qiutian Family was robbed last night. They lost a ton of stuff."
"What? The Qiutian Family was robbed? What did they lose?"
Early in the morning, everyone in the breakfast diner was whispering about the theft at the Qiutian Family’s estate. Su Qing, sitting alone in a corner and listening closely, was a little surprised. ’Damn, they found out that fast? I figured it would take them a day or two to discover the basement had been robbed.’
Su Qing had originally planned to leave Ban City today and head to that Qiutian Family villa.