That evening, after greeting his family, Chu Chen returned to his room with several local gazetteers, preparing to find the location of the treasure.
For convenience, Chu Chen first searched on the computer. However, the internet in 2002 was nowhere near as developed as it was now, and there was far less information. Some obscure details could not be found at all. In the end, Chu Chen could only search through the local gazetteers.
Next, Chu Chen flipped through two local gazetteers from the Qing dynasty through the Republic of China period, but found no relevant records. It was not until he checked a local gazetteer from the Ming dynasty that he found the address written in the code. This made him somewhat worried. Several hundred years had passed since the Ming dynasty, and anything could have happened during that time. Could the treasure still exist?
But after thinking about it, Chu Chen laughed at himself for being foolish. The paper recording the treasure had been taken from a brocade box dating to the late Qing period. How could the problem he was worried about possibly arise?
With a quiet laugh, Chu Chen opened the latest map of the capital and began searching. Before long, he found the place in the southern part of the city. He vaguely remembered that it was an old hutong, and that he had once followed Uncle Wu there to purchase goods. In other words, the treasure was very likely still hidden in its original location.
Only then did Chu Chen finally relax completely. But immediately afterward, his brows furrowed again, because the treasure was hidden in a well inside a courtyard house. Unless he bought the courtyard house, he would have no way to retrieve the treasure. But what if the owner had no