New Home and Secret Room (Seeking Recommendation Tickets)

Over the next few days, Fang Xiu followed the lawyers around and finally succeeded in inheriting this astronomical fortune. But after paying the taxes, he discovered that aside from acquiring two pieces of real estate with terrifyingly high valuations, he had gained nothing else.

The cash Wang Hao had left behind was completely gone after taxes, as if it had all been calculated in advance.

The residence on Xinhe Road in Harbor District was even listed as a protected cultural relic site. Inheriting it had been relatively simple, but selling it would be extraordinarily difficult. After looking into it, Fang Xiu realized that he still only had his original savings of a little over a hundred thousand yuan. Not a cent more.

The only consolation was that the entire seventeenth floor of Hongxuan Building brought in over nine hundred thousand yuan in rent every month. Fang Xiu would begin receiving it next month. In one leap, he had gone from a miserable office worker to someone who could do nothing and still earn a million a month.

But that would not happen until next month, at the earliest. For now, Fang Xiu was still riding that beat-up electric scooter and wearing T-shirts that cost a few dozen yuan each.

Once the procedures had been completed, Fang Xiu decided not to keep renting this place. He would move directly into the residence that was now under his name.

Fang Xiu hired a moving company. There was not actually much worth moving, and he threw away most of it. Even so, his clothes, odds and ends, daily necessities, appliances, and the books that filled two bookshelves still added up to quite a lot. The house had been unoccupied for a year, and many things there could no longer be used.

Fang Xiu's landlord was a skinny, sharp-tongued woman in her forties. When Fang Xiu had first come here to work, this local landlord had often chased him down for rent. Every time she collected it, she loved showing off how wealthy her family was and how capable her husband was.

"Why aren't you renting anymore? Don't tell me your boss fired you!" The landlord stood in slippers with her arms folded across her chest, her thin lips pursed as she sized Fang Xiu up.

"Made a fortune. I'm moving to Harbor District." Fang Xiu watched the movers gradually load his belongings into the truck, chatting idly with the landlord despite disliking talking to her.

"Oh? What kind of fortune did you make?" The landlord sneered as she looked him up and down.

"I inherited an estate. A billion yuan."

Fang Xiu said it casually, then took out a freshly printed business card. He had had them printed when he went to Hongxuan Building to renew the lease contracts. At first, Fang Xiu had not known how to handle such matters, but Tiancheng Law Firm had thankfully taken care of everything for him, including the string of troublesome affairs involving the property management company and the agency. Naturally, their fees had not been cheap.

"Feel free to keep in touch."

Fang Xiu placed the business card in the landlord's hand, then got into the car and left.

"Yeah, right. As if I'd believe that!"

Fang Xiu's boast had been outrageous, and the landlord did not believe him at all. Yet seeing his manner and the way he handed over the card, she could not help feeling doubtful. After reading it, disbelief appeared on her face again. "No way. Did that poor office worker really turn his life around?"

As its name suggested, Harbor District was a port district near the sea in Wei Port City. Close to the ocean, it had excellent air and surroundings, and it was also one of the most prosperous areas of Wei Port City.

The history of Xinhe Road was said to date back more than a century, to the era of the feudal dynasties. Passing through it, one could see huge maple trees by the roadside shedding leaves in profusion. A broad road stretched straight into the distance. The terrain here was relatively high, and one could actually see the sea from afar.

Many of the buildings on both sides of the road looked quite old. Aside from parks, there were vast residential areas, as well as youth centers, libraries, primary schools, and middle schools. The surroundings were quiet and beautiful, and the residence Fang Xiu had inherited stood at a bend in the road.

It was a three-story house that seemed to blend Chinese and Western styles, full of the character of the last century and carrying an air of old-world charm. However, it had been well maintained and renovated, seemingly having undergone multiple restorations.

A large tree stood in the courtyard with its canopy spread like an umbrella, but weeds had grown everywhere—at the base of the walls, between the cracks in the stone path, beneath the steps, everywhere.

When Fang Xiu arrived, it was already evening. For some reason, it looked different from when he had viewed it in the morning. It resembled a haunted house.

"This place doesn't have ghosts, does it?" As the two young movers went in and out of the house, one of them suddenly said this to the other.

Fang Xiu stood in the courtyard, looking at the small building. The red sun was setting, the evening wind bleak. The massive shadow of the house stretched into the yard and swayed like layers of ghostly silhouettes, making the place feel exceptionally eerie.

By the time the movers had finished carrying everything inside, it was already dark. The two immediately got into their truck and drove off, as if they truly considered Fang Xiu's new home a haunted residence.

Fang Xiu snorted dismissively, not believing their nonsense in the slightest. Or rather, after the Monster Killer and Unlicensed Transmigrator incidents, his ability to accept strange events had reached an extremely high level.

"Tch. If there really are ghosts, if it's a male ghost, I'll XXX him. If it's a female ghost, I'll X her first, then X her!"

Fang Xiu locked the courtyard gate, crossed the pebble path, and entered his new home. He had already hired a cleaning company to clean it. All the lights were on, and the enormous Glazed Tile chandelier overhead shone with beautiful light.

Unlike the aged atmosphere outside, the interior was completely modern. The hall was enormous, with the first and second floors opened up and connected together.

A corridor ran from the left side to the right. The windows were large floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows, and the flooring was wood. For some reason, Fang Xiu immediately thought of a church.

A mahogany staircase spiraled upward, extending far overhead. The rooms on the second floor could be seen directly from the hall. Fang Xiu's bedroom was the master bedroom on the second floor. Many paintings hung on the walls of both the first and second floors, supposedly the works of famous artists. There were even more in the second-floor study. The display cabinets built into the walls held valuable porcelain, Buddhist statues, incense burners, rare ancient books, and similar items. However, Fang Xiu did not know much about art, nor did he know their exact value.

In all his life, Fang Xiu had never lived in a house like this. It could absolutely be called a luxury residence.

Fang Xiu turned on the television and lay on the sofa, simply taking it all in. He did not want to do anything, because his dream had always been to make money—more money. Not an excessive amount, and not so that he could squander it freely. Fang Xiu did not have a habit of indulging in extravagance.

He merely wanted enough money that he would never have to worry about spending it, so he could do whatever he wanted. If he wanted to travel around the world, he could travel around the world. If he wanted to buy something, he could buy it.

Fang Xiu had once imagined that if he could achieve this goal in his thirties, his luck would already be heaven-defying. Yet now, in only a few days, he had achieved it. It felt like a dream, leaving Fang Xiu with an unreal feeling.

What confused Fang Xiu even more was that he no longer knew what he should do. He did not know what his next step should be, as though his life had lost its goal.

"I should set a new goal for myself. A goal so lofty it's unimaginable, a life goal worthy of spending my entire life pursuing."

Fang Xiu stood up and decided to sort through the belongings he had moved over. Most importantly, he needed to find a place to hide those extraordinary items. They were his trump cards, but they were also extremely dangerous objects.

Fang Xiu searched out all the hidden rooms in the house: the empty room and concealed little attic on the third floor, the walk-in closet and study on the second floor, and the garage and storage room on the first floor. He tried to find the most concealed room and location.

While cleaning out the storage room in a corner of the first floor, Fang Xiu took out several brooms, dustpans, and other items. Looking around, he saw that the storage room appeared to have some age to it. The ceiling and walls had been redecorated, but the hardwood floor beneath his feet seemed to be of a different style.

Fang Xiu usually paid close attention to details, just as he liked remembering things. He noticed that when he stepped near the edge, it made a hollow thumping sound.

"There's space underneath?" Curiosity appeared on Fang Xiu's face, and he immediately thought of a secret chamber.

Fang Xiu promptly took out the Physics Holy Sword he had seen earlier from the empty garage and pried open the floorboard. Beneath it, he saw stone slabs. One of the slabs had been pushed partly aside, perhaps because someone had gone in before.

There was also an iron bolt on the stone slab—not the kind used to lock something. Fang Xiu found it strange. Something like this surely was not meant to stop people from opening it from the outside. Instead, it seemed more like it was meant to prevent whatever was inside from escaping.

Fang Xiu pushed aside the stone slab and saw a passage beneath it. It was a dark passage leading underground, seemingly very deep. It was entirely built from bluish-gray stone bricks, ancient-looking and filled with the smell of mildew. It had probably existed for a very long time.

"What era is this secret chamber from? It looks way too old!"

Fang Xiu felt a little creeped out. He went upstairs and took Giant Force Hand from a box. After merging it into his hands, he held a crowbar and slowly walked down, using his other hand to shine a flashlight on the path ahead.

Gray bricks covered the ground beneath his feet and the walls on both sides. The air was thick with a rotting, moldy stench. At the bottom, Fang Xiu saw a wooden door. After pushing it open, he found another secret chamber built from gray bricks.

There were two more rooms deeper inside the chamber. Their entrances were sealed with iron doors, each with a small open window. The windows were too small for a person to pass through and were barred with iron rods, allowing him to see the scene inside directly.

Fang Xiu shone his flashlight through the small window and saw a cold bed built from bricks inside.

The sight made Fang Xiu feel as though this place were a prison. Everything here gave off an eerie, sinister air.

"What exactly was this place used for? And when was it built?"

Fang Xiu raised his flashlight and swept it across the ceiling of the secret chamber's main hall. He saw rotten electrical wires, old lightbulbs, and lamp fixtures, though the wiring clearly could no longer be used. On one side of the chamber stood a yellow wooden table and an old-fashioned wooden chair.

A layer of newspaper covered the table. The paper had yellowed and darkened with age, and the text upon it was written in traditional Chinese characters with a brush, all arranged vertically from right to left.

Fang Xiu looked at the upper-right corner of one of the newspapers. Written there, from right to left, was the date—Year 25 of the Republic of China.