Afterward, Li Zhi drove his Grand Cherokee away.
Once the vehicle left the parking lot, it did not head toward the residential complex where he lived.
Instead, it drove toward his old home outside the city.
By evening, Li Zhi finally drove back to Da Li Village, two hundred kilometers away.
He had not lived at home for years, and dust covered everything.
But Li Zhi had no intention of cleaning. He went straight to Li Daqiang's bedroom and took a strangely shaped Bronze Key from the cabinet.
The key was more than half a foot long.
Holding the key, Li Zhi went to the backyard.
After determining a spot beneath the Pomegranate Tree, he picked up a shovel and began digging downward.
Fortunately, the soil beneath the Pomegranate Tree was relatively loose. In just two hours, he had dug a Great Pit one meter deep.
At the bottom of the pit, he struck something hard.
The experience from his previous life told Li Zhi that he had probably dug up a stone slab.
Sure enough, after clearing away the dirt at the bottom, Li Zhi saw a stone slab covered with plastic sheeting.
His experience told him that this was the entrance to a specially designed tunnel.
There were also three small holes filled with motor oil in the stone slab laid across the bottom of the pit. They seemed to be keyholes.
Seeing these things, Li Zhi seemed to understand something.
No wonder Li Daqiang, a simple and honest farmer, had accumulated such a considerable fortune.
It turned out that he had also made his living robbing the dead.
Although Li Zhi had not inherited Li Daqiang's trade, the memories he had brought back from his previous life had indirectly passed that skill down to him.
So this really is the Cellar that couldn't be opened unless one was completely desperate. Li Zhi sighed inwardly.
Robbing the dead of their wealth harmed the fortune of the living.
No wonder Li Daqiang had died so young.
He must have unearthed something extraordinary while he was alive.
Li Zhi was eager to see what enormous surprise opening the stone slab would bring him.
However, after looking at the sky, he did not lift the stone slab right away.
Instead, he returned to the front yard.
He planned to get a good night's rest and open the "treasure chest" the next day.
His mind had been on a roller coaster all day and truly needed to recover through a good night's sleep.
"Xiao Zhi, when did you get back?"
When the first rays of morning sunlight spread across the earth, Li Zhi carried a large bag of garbage and opened the courtyard gate. He happened to run into his neighbor, Li Zhong, who had come out to dump the trash.
"Uncle Zhong, good morning. I got back last night." Li Zhi greeted Li Zhong warmly. Li Zhong was from the same generation as his father, Li Daqiang, and had considerable prestige in Da Li Village.
"It's better to come home and stay from time to time. Otherwise, the house will easily fall into disrepair," Li Zhong said.
"Uncle Zhong, I got back late last night, so I didn't come over to see you. How about I come to your place for breakfast in a little while?" Li Zhi asked Li Zhong without the slightest hesitation.
Li Zhong seemed to appreciate Li Zhi's unreserved attitude and smiled. "Your aunt will be delighted to hear that you're back. I'll have her cook a few extra dishes."
"Is Brother Peng not home?" After throwing away the garbage, Li Zhi asked again on the way back.
"Don't even mention your Brother Peng. Ever since he married your sister-in-law, he hardly ever comes home. Even when he does, he leaves after barely finishing a meal. I really have no idea what he's so busy with all day. Xiao Zhi, if you get married, you must find a girl willing to stay with you in your hometown." Li Zhong seemed quite dissatisfied with his son.
When they passed Li Zhi's house, Li Zhi said, "Uncle Zhong, please wait a moment. I brought quite a few things back last night, and I can't carry them all by myself. Take some of them over for me first."
"Coming over for a meal is enough. It's not as if our family is short of food. Why did you bring us gifts?" Li Zhong said.
Although he said that, when Li Zhi brought out a large bag of cigarettes, liquor, and snacks, Li Zhong accepted every last item.
Li Zhi then smiled. "Uncle Zhong, I'll clean up the house first. I'll come over shortly with nothing but my appetite and have a ready-made meal at your place."
Uncle Zhong glanced at the two bottles of fine liquor in the large plastic bag and said with a bright smile, "Then I'll go back and have your aunt fry a couple of dishes to go with the drinks. We haven't seen each other for more than half a year. We'll have a good chat, just like family."
Li Zhi smiled. "Then I'll eat plenty."
After seeing Li Zhong off, Li Zhi began cleaning the house.
It took him more than two hours to clean every inch of it, inside and out.
Then he took a hot shower and changed clothes before going to Li Zhong's home next door. Although it was next door, the two houses did not adjoin each other; several dozen meters of open ground lay between them.
When Li Zhi arrived, Aunt Zhong had already prepared six dishes and a soup for them.
It was an exceptionally sumptuous breakfast.
At the dining table, Li Zhi first drank a little under half a jin with Li Zhong, then asked, "Uncle Zhong, could you tell me about what you and my father were like when you were young?"
Li Zhong, nearly sixty, was asked by a junior about the glory of his youth. With the help of the liquor, he launched into a long-winded account. He first talked about his own exploits, only bringing up Li Daqiang at the end.
Li Zhong said, "Your father was an honest man who loved reading. When we were young, we went out to make our fortunes together. Everyone liked drinking and playing drinking games, but your father was always clutching ancient books he had bought from old bookstalls. The stuff was strange and mysterious. We'd get sleepy after reading a few pages, but your father could keep reading with great interest. Later, your father married your mother and had you. With the household expenses increasing, he went out to work alone. He stayed away for three or four years before returning. That was when your father made his money. Not only did he rebuild your family's old house, he also bought a storefront in the city. Unfortunately, your mother was unlucky. She passed away after enjoying only a few days of good life. After your mother died, your father never went out to work again. Even when he did leave, he would only work for two or three months before coming back."
In Li Zhi's memories, he had begun boarding at school after entering middle school. Sometimes he stayed there for an entire semester. Thus, he had no idea what Li Daqiang had been busy with at home during those years.
Li Daqiang had never told Li Zhi what his work was, but he had never failed to provide his living expenses.
The allowance had not been much at the time, merely on par with what most of his classmates received.
After hearing Li Zhong's account, Li Zhi finally pieced together Li Daqiang's life perfectly in his mind. On the surface, he had been an honest villager, but in secret, he had been a refined man engaged in a criminal trade.
No wonder the villagers had not known he had so much money. He had hidden his talents and wealth for his entire life.
Over the course of the meal, Li Zhong drank a jin and a half, while Li Zhi only drank half a jin.
In the end, Li Zhong became so drunk that he staggered off to sleep.
Li Zhi, meanwhile, returned home and resumed what he had left unfinished the previous night.
After locking the courtyard gate from the inside, he stood beneath the blazing sun and went to the backyard.
By then, the midday sunlight was already painfully bright, but Li Zhi seemed not to feel the slightest bit of its heat.
Holding the half-foot-long key, he climbed down into the pit.
After feeling around for a while, a click came from inside the stone slab as the mechanism sprang open.
He then took the iron hook used for tending the fire and hooked up the stone slab like a sewer manhole cover.
A pitch-black square entrance, eighty centimeters across, appeared before Li Zhi's eyes.
He blew fresh air into the tunnel with a hair dryer for ten minutes before gripping the grooves in the tunnel wall and climbing down into it.
He descended five meters before reaching the bottom.
Beyond that lay a passage more than ten meters long.
At the end of the passage stood a combination security door.
Li Zhi knew the password. It was the same as the password for the bank card Li Daqiang had used while alive.
Li Daqiang had once told him that every password used anywhere in the house was the same.
After placing the miner's lamp in a niche beside him, Li Zhi went to the security door.
His heart pounded incessantly.
Even his hands were trembling slightly.
Anything Li Daqiang had stored with such solemnity had to be either priceless or astonishingly effective.
Perhaps because he was unsettled and his hands were shaking, he entered the wrong password the first time.
After taking a deep breath, Li Zhi entered the correct password.
When he opened the security door, there was no treasure vault like the one he had imagined.
There was only a room less than ten square meters in size.
Calling it a room was somewhat inaccurate. It looked more like a cellar used for storing sweet potatoes.
There was no impressive safe in the room, nor any indestructible concrete walls.
The surrounding walls had clearly been built from red bricks, and the bricks were held together with yellow earth as mortar.
It really seemed to be a place converted from a sweet-potato cellar.
A lone, old wooden table stood in the room.
On it lay a set of things Li Zhi knew very well.
An entire set of archaeological tools, including a Luoyang Shovel, Brush, Oil Lamp, Small Flat Shovel, Feng Shui Compass, and other items.
Seeing these things made Li Zhi feel like vomiting blood. Was this the Cellar that Li Daqiang had repeatedly warned him not to open except as an absolute last resort?
So that was what he had meant: when Li Zhi was completely desperate, he could inherit the family trade.
Disappointed as he was, Li Zhi still put all the items into a Snakeskin Bag hanging from the table leg.
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