Chapter 52: Overnight Fortune (Part 1)

On a secluded path, two young girls squatted dumbfounded in the weeds. Neither of them spoke as they stared unblinkingly at the contents of the box.

For a moment, the surrounding air fell silent. Only the occasional chirping of birds could be heard.

Their expressions of shock and excitement were practically identical, as if copied and pasted. Their mouths hung open, their eyes widened like bronze bells, looking as if they had never seen the world before.

It wasn’t until a small flying insect almost flew into her mouth that Mu Mian snapped back to reality. With a swift slap, she crushed the bug.

She didn’t spare a thought for the insect’s tragic fate. Instead, she was so overwhelmed with excitement that she stammered, “M-my god! It’s real gold! Shi Xiaolian, we’re rich!”

As she spoke, she grabbed Shi Xiaolian’s shoulders and shook her vigorously.

She was so strong that Shi Xiaolian nearly threw up her breakfast.

Luckily, Mu Mian stopped in time, narrowly avoiding a disastrous case of food regurgitation.

Finding gold was just like digging up that ginseng before. She had suspected it might be there, but actually seeing it with her own eyes was a completely different feeling from just guessing.

Mu Mian picked up two pieces and knocked them together, grinning like the foolish daughter of a wealthy landlord.

Gold! Gold! It was really gold!

Large yellow croakers! So many large yellow croakers!

Oh, heavens! How much would this be worth?!

Her house! A big house! She could afford it now!

Compared to this, the little gold nugget she had before was like a tiny piece of caramel candy.

That was just the granddaughter of gold, but this—this was gold’s ancestor!

There was no comparison at all.

Mu Mian’s eyes sparkled like never before, as if golden symbols had been imprinted in her pupils.

The box had been buried for who knew how long, and a lot of dirt had seeped inside. The large yellow croakers were a bit dirty.

But Mu Mian didn’t mind at all. She reached in without hesitation.

Are you kidding?

This was gold!

A little dirt was nothing. Even if it was something worse, she wouldn’t mind. It was just a matter of washing it off!

Mu Mian counted them one by one, examining each piece carefully.

The two boxes weren’t very big, just slightly larger than a grown man’s palm, just as Shi Xiaolian had said.

Though the boxes were small, they were packed tightly. The large yellow croakers were arranged neatly, fitting together perfectly.

No wonder, when she shook the box earlier, she only felt the weight but no movement at all. It was as if the box had been custom-made to hold large yellow croakers.

Two pieces per row, three rows in total.

Six large yellow croakers!

Hahaha! Six of them! A full six!

Mu Mian was so happy that her eyes turned into slits. She nudged Shi Xiaolian with her elbow. The girl was still holding two pieces, feeling them over and over like she had never seen gold before.

Mu Mian urged, “Count yours! Do you have six too?”

Shi Xiaolian, who had been so shocked she hadn’t spoken for a while, finally snapped out of it. She put down the two pieces in her hands and continued rummaging through the box.

As expected, she dug out four more.

The two boxes were identical!

Mu Mian gathered her six pieces together and declared, “Half for each of us! One box each! You get six, I get six!”

Six-six, what a lucky number!

This was great, truly great!

Teaming up with Shi Xiaolian always led to fortune!

Who would have thought there would be gold buried on such a difficult path? If Shi Xiaolian hadn’t mentioned it, she never would have walked this way.

Shi Xiaolian hadn’t closed her mouth since they found the box. She nodded quickly, “Okay!”

Normally, she had a calm and composed demeanor, but now she was speaking with exclamation marks. That showed just how excited she was.

Her heart was pounding wildly.

She knew it!

It was always the right choice to stick with Mu Mian!

This girl had the kind of luck that made it seem like she was heaven’s favorite child.

Shi Xiaolian carefully gathered her six pieces, handling them as if she were cradling newborn babies—afraid to drop them, afraid to bump them.

She gently ran her fingers over them and asked, “How much do you think this is worth?”

Mu Mian shook her head. “I don’t know, but it must be worth a fortune. It should be enough for two houses in the capital, right?”

Hehehe, she had just struck it rich!

Good thing she took another look inside, or she would have lost out on a whole house!

Who would have thought there was another box inside?!

Hahaha, she really had sharp eyes!

Shi Xiaolian didn’t quite understand and repeated, “Houses in the capital?”

Over the years, Mu Mian had pieced together clues and figured out that in her past life, Shi Xiaolian had probably only lived to her early twenties, somewhere in the early 1980s.

It made sense that she didn’t understand. At that time, people didn’t have the concept of hoarding property.

Mu Mian didn’t explain too much. She simply said, “Houses in the capital are valuable. Don’t be foolish in the next few years and trade all this for cash. That would be a terrible deal.”

Gold prices weren’t high right now. Exchanging it for money wouldn’t be worth it. She would have to wait at least another twelve or thirteen years.

Shi Xiaolian had long noticed that Mu Mian was different from others. She often said things that were hard to understand.

But that didn’t matter.

Whatever Mu Mian did always seemed to work out. Listening to her couldn’t be wrong.

Mu Mian had no idea that Shi Xiaolian had already made up her mind—she would follow Mu Mian’s lead from now on, no matter what.

Standing up, Mu Mian looked around. There was no one in sight.

Shi Xiaolian had said that, from what she remembered, besides Educated Youth Qian, no one had passed through this path recently.

Mu Mian’s memory should only be valid for the time before she returned home.

After she left, who knows if anyone else passed through this path?

They had already delayed quite a bit. What if someone actually came by later?

Making a fortune should be done quietly. It wouldn’t be good if others saw them.

Mu Mian reached out and pulled Shi Xiaolian up. “Come on, let’s pack up and head home quickly.”

As she spoke, she patted the dust off her backside.

She hadn’t noticed earlier, but now that she had calmed down, she realized her clothes and pants were covered in dirt.

Shi Xiaolian wasn’t any better. In fact, she was even dirtier than Mu Mian.

Mu Mian helpfully patted Shi Xiaolian down, but since she was still caught up in excitement, she didn’t control her strength very well.

After being smacked twice, Shi Xiaolian gently protested, “I can do it myself.”

That really hurt!

If Mu Mian patted her a couple more times, she suspected the flesh underneath would turn red.

Mu Mian withdrew her hand. “Don’t forget the back of your thighs. It’s a bit damp, so pat it well.”

Both of them had brought backpacks when they left home.

A moment ago, they had been worried about their dirty clothes, but now, they didn’t mind the dirt on the gold bars. They simply brushed off some of the dust and stuffed them into their bags.

After packing everything up, Mu Mian bent down to take another look inside the hole.

Shi Xiaolian asked, “What are you doing?”

Mu Mian replied, “Checking if there’s anything left.”

Shi Xiaolian immediately squatted beside her and craned her neck. “Is there?”

Mu Mian sighed regretfully. “Seems like that’s all.”

Then she grinned and said, “Finding an extra one was already a surprise. We shouldn’t be too greedy! No greed!”

Shi Xiaolian casually nudged the tattered, empty boxes. “What do we do with these?”

Mu Mian pulled out her small shovel again. “Bury them.”

The key was to leave no traces and make a silent fortune.

Just like how her father had dug up ginseng in the past, after taking it, he made sure to fill the hole back in.

To this day, apart from her family and Shi Xiaolian, no one knew that ginseng had been found on the mountainside.

Shi Xiaolian had no objections. She even gathered the broken lock and scattered debris, placing them inside the boxes before burying them.

By the time they finished, another five minutes had passed.

Mu Mian found a puddle nearby, washed the dirt off her shovel, then wiped it clean in a patch of weeds before putting it back into her bag.

—

The path from the commune to the village wasn’t easy to walk, but it was the shortest route.

Even though they had delayed for a while and had been so excited that they kept skipping along the way, the short distance meant they didn’t take too long to get back.

By the time they returned to the village, it was just in time for lunch. Smoke curled up from chimneys as every household started cooking.

Thinking about how she had gone out and brought back enough gold to buy two houses, Mu Mian couldn’t stop herself from smiling.

But she was always cheerful anyway. She was like a little sun, always beaming with joy. The villagers were used to seeing her bright smile.

Instead, they were more surprised by Shi Xiaolian’s happy demeanor.

An older woman passing by asked, “Lian girl, didn’t you go with your sister for her exam? Why are you back alone? Is it over already? Did she pass?”

The woman had a lot of questions, but Shi Xiaolian was unexpectedly patient, keeping a smile on her face the whole time.

“I just went to see her off. If I waited outside the whole time, she might get nervous and not do well on the test.”

“There were a lot of them taking the exam. They’ll come back together when it’s done, so I didn’t need to wait.”

“The test should be over by now. They’re probably on their way back. I don’t know when the results will be out, maybe in a couple of days.”

The woman nodded blankly.

She couldn’t help but think that Shi Xiaolian seemed much more talkative today.

Usually, you’d have to ask her three questions to get half an answer.

But today, she asked one question and got three answers.

She figured that the older Shi girl must have done well in the exam and had a good chance of passing. Their family was about to gain another worker, which explained why Shi Xiaolian seemed so lively.

And Mu Mian looked just as happy. Her fourth uncle’s family had three people taking the exam. If all of them passed…

Oh my! That would be amazing—three workers in one household!

As expected, studying was the best way to change one’s future.

The woman didn’t linger to chat and left after making her own assumptions.

—

Mu Mian and Shi Xiaolian’s homes were in different directions.

When they reached the fork in the road where they had to part ways, Shi Xiaolian hesitated for a moment, then leaned in close and whispered, “Are you really going to tell your family the truth?”

Mu Mian replied as if it was obvious, “Of course! I’ll just say we were lucky and stumbled upon it by accident.”

Other than the fact that she had traveled across several decades, which she couldn’t tell her family, there wasn’t much else she couldn’t say.

Besides, when the country eventually opened up, she would definitely use the money to buy property in a big city.

Whether she told them now or later made no difference.

They already knew about the small gold nugget she had found earlier.

The only thing they didn’t know about was the bronze bowl, because she had no way to explain how she recognized it as an antique.

Her parents just thought she had an odd taste and liked collecting broken bowls.

She had already come up with a plan—one day, she would go to the recycling station, pick up a few random broken bowls and vases, and mix them together.

That way, finding an antique among a pile of junk would seem totally normal, right?

Perfectly normal!

The more she thought about it, the more she admired her own cleverness.

But back to the gold croakers—the reason she wanted to tell her parents was simple: she planned to hide them in their room.

There weren’t many places in her room where she could hide things, and children often came in and out. If someone accidentally saw them, it wouldn’t be good.

Their brigade had experienced such incidents before—when people went out to watch the excitement, leaving their homes empty, they ended up being robbed.

The hidden compartment in her small box couldn’t fit these large gold croakers either.

This overwhelming wealth was bound to spill out!

Her parents’ room was different.

More than two years ago, inspired by the hidden compartment in her box, Comrade Mu Fugui carved out a small hole in the thick wall of their room. The stone could be removed to store things inside, and there was no need to worry about rats.

Once the stone was put back, it remained a perfectly intact wall. Moreover, its location was particularly well-hidden—behind the wardrobe where her parents stored their clothes, completely concealed.

Her stash of over a thousand yuan was hidden inside.

Of course,

There was no need to tell Shi Xiaolian about this.