Chapter 627: Chapter 610: Championship Battle 4

The door was gently pushed open a crack, emitting only a low, brief creak.

Zhou Lihui knew that opening the door to this extent made the smallest noise, and it was also wide enough for him to slip out sideways.

He tiptoed out the door and headed into the courtyard.

The sound was not enough to wake a sleeping person, but it was enough to alert Mu Ying, who was awake all along, waiting for the fish to bite.

She put down her phone and moved to the window.

She hadn’t planned on sleeping tonight and had set her phone to night mode to pass the time reading novels. As expected, someone couldn’t resist anymore.

She saw her uncle sneakily approach the courtyard wall, where an old vat was placed.

Previously, her grandmother had planted water lilies in this vat and raised fish in it.

But now, only a withered stalk of water lilies remained, the fish were nowhere to be seen, and the water was full of algae.

Mu Ying had also searched the fish tank during the day. Although the water was murky, she could still roughly make out the contents of the tank—just some Little Stones, glass beads, and pebbles, nothing different from before.

Mu Ying saw her uncle take out a lighter and crouch in front of the vat, rustling around for a while before he went back inside, without taking anything.

She didn’t understand what the purpose of all these actions was.

However, since he went to the vat in the middle of the night, making a big fuss, there must definitely be something off with this vat.

It was a large vat still filled with water; her uncle couldn’t possibly have taken it away secretly at night.

She was the creditor and could inspect the vat straightforwardly when daylight came. She wanted to see what was wrong with this vat.

She lay down on the bed, but she didn’t sleep well, dozing off, not knowing how much time had passed when suddenly, she heard a clatter and immediately woke up.

Turning her head to look outside the window, the sky was already dimly lit; the noise had come from the courtyard. She quickly got out of bed and saw from the bedside that there was no one in the yard, only the old vat under the courtyard wall had cracked, spilling water all over the ground.

Mu Ying hurriedly went out to check. Just as she stepped out, not yet close, she heard an exclamation, “Oh no! How did this vat crack?”

Turning around, she saw her uncle also coming out followed by her dad.

Mu Ying thought to herself, her uncle was really a fine actor. The sudden cracking of the vat must be related to his actions last night. She wanted to see what he was up to.

The three of them walked to the side of the water vat.

By now, the large waist-high vat had cracked so that only the bottom up to the knee remained, with a puddle of water left, and the objects at the bottom were more clearly visible.

Zhou Lihui squatted down and picked up a piece of the vat wall, touching the edge, “It turns out that the silicone has rotted. This vat was cracked by Mu Girl several years ago while she was playing with a slingshot. It’s been many years, and the glue is no longer reliable.”

“It’s a shame, but this time it broke too much, I’m afraid it can’t be glued back together,” Mr. Mu said.

“Forget it, I don’t have the leisure to keep flowers and fish anyway. I’ll take it out and dump it right away!” Zhou Lihui said as he began to head out the door. “I’ll go borrow a handcart.”

“Hey, wait a minute!” Mu Ying said.

Zhou Lihui turned around to look at her, “What’s wrong?”

“I just remembered, I didn’t look closely at this vat yesterday. I need to inspect it thoroughly,” Mu Ying also held a piece with silicone remnants.

This vat definitely had some shady secret; it couldn’t have decayed naturally. Maybe her uncle had burnt it with the lighter last night?

“Isn’t it clear at a glance? There are just some stones underneath, where could possibly hide gold bars?” Zhou Lihui seemed puzzled but felt somewhat guilty under Mu Ying’s gaze, “Alright, alright, you check. I’ll go borrow the cart and wait for you before I haul it away.”

Mu Ying made a signal to her dad, and Mr. Mu immediately followed Zhou Lihui out.

The moment they left, Mu Ying pushed over the remaining half of the water vat. Water flowed all over the ground, and some stones and glass beads rolled out, revealing the bottom of the vat.

It looked the same as when she had seen it through the water before, and there was nothing hidden. She carefully sifted through the pile of stones and glass beads with her hands and everything seemed fine.

No, something was off. These beads were from the checkers game she used to play as a child; she found them in the attic after she entered high school. The plastic board was already broken, and when she saw someone use glass beads as decorations in an aquarium on a TV show, she impulsively dumped all the beads into her grandmother’s fish tank.

The beads used for checkers were supposed to have small leaves in the center in various colors, but now the leaves inside these beads were all black.

Mu Ying picked out the beads one by one—sixty in total, the count was right. Weren’t there supposed to be ten of each color for up to six players to play at the same time? How come they were all black now?

Could someone have swapped them out later? She couldn’t think of any other possibility.

However, these glass beads were transparent, unable to conceal any gold, so she was only momentarily perplexed before she dismissed it from her mind.

Her attention shifted to the larger pebbles.

These stones had enough space inside, and although they looked like natural pebbles, Mu Ying didn’t want to miss even the slightest possibility and quickly found a large hammer.

When Zhou Lihui entered the door pushing a cart, he heard the sound of hammering and his heart leapt into his throat.

It’s over, wasn’t it discovered?

He looked carefully, and the breath he had held was released by half, that was a relief.

“Mu Girl, what are you doing? You don’t suspect that I hid gold bars in the stones, do you? The stones are fine as they are; how could I have the capability to hide gold within them?”

Mu Ying didn’t look back, continuing to hammer the stones, not stopping until she had shattered the larger pebbles, which clearly couldn’t hide any gold bars.

“See? How could I deceive you? In your eyes, am I just a conniving, greedy man? Why waste your energy, are you reassured now?” Zhou Lihui said as he grabbed a broom and shovel, scooping up shattered stones to load into the cart.

“Wait!” Mu Ying’s gaze landed on the tiny stones originally laid at the very bottom of the tank: “Since we’re smashing, let’s do it thoroughly!”

She refused to believe that she wouldn’t find anything after smashing the tank and everything inside it.

Though the tiny stones couldn’t hide any gold bars, what if her uncle had melted the gold bars into small golden beans? There were some concrete-colored stones in the pile right before her, their surfaces rough.

She swung her hammer down.

Zhou Lihui: “!!!”

The gray stones shattered into powder under the hammer, while the other stones just broke into smaller pieces; the gray ones were indeed made of concrete, but no trace of gold was seen.

Zhou Lihui breathed a sigh of relief: “You don’t suspect that I hid the gold in these tiny stones, do you? Is that even possible?”

Mu Ying didn’t care what he said; she stated she would stop once she was done hammering, and grabbed another handful of small stones, hammering down once more.

Zhou Lihui was terrified, it’s all over, exposure was imminent.

Soon, a few concrete stones, when smashed, revealed small golden beans.

“Lihui, didn’t you say that the gold bars were all used up? What’s this?” Mr. Mu questioned Zhou Lihui while holding up the flattened small golden bean.

Zhou Lihui knew he couldn’t hide the gold anymore, unable to think of an excuse on the spot, so he continued to pretend: “I don’t know, maybe there is a gold mine inside these stones? I borrowed gold bars, not these!”

“Ha,” Mu Ying scoffed coldly: “What kind of gold mine exists in concrete? Isn’t it that you melted and wrapped it inside? That’s really unexpected!”

“Perhaps someone else hid it? These small stones are just construction waste picked up from the side of the road,” Zhou Lihui still refused to admit it.

Mu Ying didn’t want to argue anymore; finding the items was enough to prove him wrong.

Together with Mr. Mu, they smashed the remaining stones, and indeed, more was hidden inside.

“Since uncle feels these golden beans are unrelated to you, then we should call the police to submit them and find the rightful owner,” Mu Ying said.

At this, Zhou Lihui couldn’t sit still. Calling the police meant losing everything, and realizing he couldn’t cover it up anymore, he gave up: “That’s right, I hid them. What about it when you lend me some money? Over the years, your family has been thriving with the farm stay, building houses, accumulating a lot of money. What about me? I just wanted to run a farm stay to make some money! Who let me borrow directly? You treated me like a beggar, only giving that little, so I could only take the money from mother!”