Inside the room, Shen Qingwan beat Xu Pingwei from under the bed to on top of it.

With nowhere left to escape, he finally knelt on the ground in pain, begging for mercy.

“I advise you to keep your mouth shut, or else…”

Shen Qingwan raised the dagger in her hand and made a slicing motion toward Xu Pingwei’s crotch. Terrified, he immediately covered his mouth with one hand and his groin with the other.

She grabbed his chin and reset his dislocated jaw before stuffing a pill into his mouth.

Xu Pingwei instinctively knew it wasn’t anything good and hurriedly tried to spit it out, but before he could, Shen Qingwan landed a punch on his chest.

The pill was forced down his throat as he coughed violently.

“You… what did you just make me eat?”

His face was so swollen from the beating that his words were barely intelligible.

Shen Qingwan curled her lips into a sinister smile, making him instinctively shrink back.

“Naturally, it’s poison. If you want to live, you’d better behave from now on. Otherwise… your intestines will rot, and you’ll bleed from all seven orifices before dying a painful death.”

Her slow, deliberate tone sent chills down Xu Pingwei’s spine.

Though he was the third young master of the Xu family, he had grown up spoiled and had no backbone.

He was also terribly afraid of death, which made him even more convinced that Shen Qingwan was telling the truth.

“I’ll behave! I swear I’ll behave! Please, spare my life!”

Terrified, he knelt at her feet, but she didn’t spare him another glance.

Only when someone knocked on the door and asked if something was wrong inside did she shoot him a sharp look.

Xu Pingwei trembled and hurriedly shouted, “Get lost! No one is allowed to come in!”

Once the servants had been dismissed, Shen Qingwan strolled around Xu Pingwei’s bedroom while he remained kneeling, not daring to move.

Then, for the sake of her plan, she knocked him unconscious and threw him onto the bed. Meanwhile, she pulled out some food from her personal storage and ate leisurely.

When the moon reached its highest point and the Xu household fell into complete silence, Shen Qingwan slipped out of the room and headed straight for the Xu family’s storeroom.

The Xu family, being a century-old aristocratic clan, naturally had deep financial reserves.

Even though Shen Qingwan had prepared herself mentally, she was still stunned when she saw the storeroom packed with gold, silver, and priceless artifacts.

There were at least a dozen full chests of gold, and the nearly 100-square-meter storeroom was completely filled.

She wasted no time and waved her hand, transferring everything into her spatial storage, including the shelves and decorations.

In an instant, the once-glittering room was emptied, leaving only four bare walls and a few luminous night pearls embedded in them.

Just as she was about to take the pearls as well, she noticed a small bronze furnace still fixed to a built-in wooden shelf.

Items that couldn’t be stored away were usually immovable or embedded into something—like the wooden shelf, which was part of the wall, and the night pearls, which were set into the stone.

Previously, with dozens of valuable treasures on the shelf, the bronze furnace had been inconspicuous. But now, with everything else gone, it stood out.

Xu Yuanwai, the head of the Xu family, likely never expected his storeroom to be cleaned out like this, so he wouldn’t have considered the possibility that something was hidden here.

Shen Qingwan’s first thought was that there might be a secret chamber.

Excited, she walked over and tried to move the bronze furnace. It was fixed in place.

Then, she tried twisting it. As the furnace rotated, the wooden shelf embedded in the wall slowly shifted about a meter, revealing a hidden passage leading downward.

The passage was lit by embedded night pearls, making it bright enough to see.

Following the dim glow, Shen Qingwan entered a secret underground chamber.

When she saw the massive room—at least 50 or 60 square meters—filled with even more gold, silver, and rare artifacts, she paused in shock.

So this was their true wealth.

The Xu family’s fortune was far greater than she had expected.

As she scanned the room, she noticed a small box filled with ledgers. Curious, she flipped one open, and the names inside made her eyes widen.

Year 83 of Jinghe, July: 100,000 taels of silver offered to the Third Prince.
Year 83 of Jinghe, August: 10,000 taels of silver gifted to Prefect Wang Donghai.
Year 83 of Jinghe, October: 50,000 taels of silver offered to the Third Prince.
Year 84 of Jinghe, January: 80,000 taels of silver offered to the Third Prince.
Year 84 of Jinghe, January: 30,000 taels of silver offered to the Third Prince.

The entire ledger was filled with records of the Xu family bribing the Third Prince and government officials over the years.

She picked up another ledger—this one was even more damning. It contained records of the Xu family’s illegal salt smuggling operations.

After going through the books, Shen Qingwan finally understood how the Xu family had accumulated such a vast fortune.

As the saying goes, “No horse gets fat without night grazing, and no man grows rich without ill-gotten gains.” If one truly wanted to amass wealth, engaging in illegal dealings was the fastest way.

Illegal salt trading was strictly forbidden by the imperial court.

If caught, it was a crime punishable by extermination of the entire family. Yet the massive profits were enough to tempt even the boldest men.

And this scheme was directly tied to the Third Prince.

Although Shen Qingwan had no desire to get involved in court affairs, keeping these ledgers might come in handy someday.

She waved her hand, transferring everything in the secret chamber into her storage space.

Now, only four bare walls remained. Finally, she pried out the night pearls from the walls before leaving the chamber.

After removing the ones outside as well, she silently slipped away from the Xu estate.

When she returned to the inn, Rong Yunfei was still standing guard outside, worried about her safety. As soon as he saw her, he stepped forward.

Shen Qingwan gestured for silence, indicating that they should speak inside.

Once they entered, Rong Yunfei let out a sigh of relief upon seeing she was unharmed.

“Master, are you alright?”

Shen Qingwan shook her head. “I’m fine. Everything is settled. Did my mother cause any trouble?”

Her mother’s emotions were unstable, and she often tried to run outside to find her. Shen Qingwan was worried that she might have wandered off.

“Madam is fine,” Rong Yunfei replied. “She was pacing back and forth in her room after waking up, looking anxious and muttering that she needed to find you. Yunshuang comforted her, and she eventually fell asleep.”

Rong Yunfei suspected that the ‘Wanwan’ Madam had been calling for was none other than Shen Qingwan.

She nodded, dismissing him to rest.

Since she had returned, there was no need for anyone to keep watch.

After a long night, Shen Qingwan was exhausted.

Finally, she lay down and drifted into a deep sleep.