“Old Lin, have you found out yet?!”

“Who were the people that targeted our family?!”

“Are we really not going to report this to the police?!”

Jing City, Zhu Family Alley.

For the past three days, Xie Aizhen had been caught in a tangle of resentment, anger, and fear.

As soon as her husband came home, she couldn’t help but urgently grab him and ask the same questions she’d been asking for days.

Lin Kesheng’s face had been gloomy these days, his mood extremely bad.

His thoughts were much the same as his wife’s.

Anyone who wakes up after a night’s sleep to find their home silently looted, with not a single penny left behind, would want to kill someone.

“No, these kinds of cases are the hardest to investigate. There was no forced entry, nothing was broken.”

What baffled Lin Kesheng the most was this: everything in the house was intact.

Except for a small hole poked in the window, everything else was perfectly preserved.

They had locked themselves inside at night, and the locks on the doors were all specially made by him—no one from outside could have picked them.

It was strange.

Really strange.

He didn’t know who the skilled intruder was, nor how many people they had suddenly brought.

Lin Kesheng had even climbed onto the roof to check; the tiles showed no sign of being disturbed, which meant the thieves did not come in from the roof—nor from the door outside.

If it weren’t for the small hole in the window, he might have thought a ghost did it.

Everything was so quiet.

Their family had so many valuables—the gold bars alone weighed hundreds of pounds—and other good things enough to fill two or three large boxes.

How did these people get in and out without alerting anyone?!

One mystery after another. Lin Kesheng couldn’t figure it out.

“We can’t report this. We can’t let anyone know what’s inside the house. If it’s lost, it’s lost.”

Seeing his wife’s unwillingness to give up, Lin Kesheng had no choice but to calm her down.

All the things in the house were plundered goods; they didn’t truly belong to them.

If they reported the theft, it would be equivalent to openly admitting that they had hidden things taken from those who had been ‘sent down’ (exiled or displaced).

How would they be any different from those people?

Who didn’t know these were valuable goods?

How could their family have so much?

“Old Lin, could it be someone from the ‘Settlement Committee’?! After all, they all know you’ve taken a lot.”

Xie Aizhen suspected people from her husband’s workplace—thinking maybe someone there had long disliked him, perhaps even colluding with others.

Actually, without his wife’s reminder, Lin Kesheng also had this suspicion.

In the past few days, he had been secretly observing everyone at the Settlement Committee, not sparing even the inconspicuous old gatekeeper.

But after watching and observing for a long time, he felt every single person was suspicious, and yet no one was suspicious—everyone could have done it.

“Do you have someone you suspect? Could it be someone named Tan?! He knows exactly how much you’ve hidden.”

Xie Aizhen was getting impatient with her husband’s silence, so she quickly voiced her own suspicions.

“Tan Shuwei? Not likely. He doesn’t seem overly interested in these things. No matter how much is given to him, he doesn’t complain, and rarely goes to the site. I think he actually sympathizes a bit with those people, but he wouldn’t risk offending me over these things.”

Lin Kesheng had naturally suspected Tan Shuwei, but he felt it was not him.

He also watched him closely over the past few days with no useful findings.

“Old Lin, if it’s not this person, not that person, then could it be the original owners of those things?!”

Xie Aizhen had been sleepless nights these days.

Whenever she thought about all their things disappearing, her heart ached terribly—far worse than a cat scratching her.

No, she had to find those people and make them pay.

“That’s even less likely. Those people were sent down long ago; they’re like fish on a chopping board, ready to be cut up. If they had that ability, they would have run away long ago. Why would they wait for me to come knocking?!”

Suspecting those people? Lin Kesheng immediately shook his head.

He didn’t care about them at all. Even if those people knew he took the things, so what?

They wouldn’t dare make a sound.

“This isn’t this, it isn’t that, and we can’t report it either. What do you want me to do?! So many things were stolen—it’s like someone’s digging into my heart.”

Xie Aizhen was furious and frustrated; she had no idea how she had endured these days.

Hundreds of yellow croakers, piece by piece of jewelry and collectibles, antiques, jade artifacts, tens of thousands in US dollars, British pounds, Hong Kong dollars, as well as tens of thousands in large-denomination currency, dozens of properties, countless bills…

Her chest ached to death.

“Report it?! That would be like telling all of Jing City that our family has hoarded so many valuables! Do you want our family to be sent down too?!”

Didn’t Lin Kesheng feel heartbroken, upset, unwilling, and angry?

These priceless valuables, the precious antiques, countless properties, money, and bills—all gone.

But none of this could be revealed.

Heartbroken or not, once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Where would he even find it?

Lin Kesheng was angry, scared, and frustrated.

After thinking it over for days, he finally decided to let it go.

“Well… then…”

Xie Aizhen was extremely unwilling but also afraid of being sent down; that would be no different from those people.

“Forget it. Luckily, we don’t just have these things. What’s in other places is enough to support us for life.”

Lin Kesheng was unwilling too, but what could he do?

He could only comfort his wife and himself at the same time so his heart wouldn’t hurt so badly.

Fortunately, the cunning rabbit has three burrows—he had hidden the valuables in three different places.

As long as those things remained, he would never worry for life.

“Luckily, you were smart enough to hide things in multiple places, or we’d be finished. But since there’s no money or bills left at home, I borrowed two hundred yuan from my parents the day before yesterday. When you have time, go get some for me.”

Xie Aizhen was comforted by her husband’s words.

She knew that no matter how unwilling she was, it was useless. Thinking about the things hidden elsewhere made her feel much better.

But those thieves were too despicable; they didn’t even leave a single penny of the household money and bills.

Not only were they left penniless, they nearly didn’t have food to eat. Yes, those hateful thieves even emptied the rice jars, flour, eggs, and cured meat.

“Okay, I’ll secretly go get some in a couple of days.”