Second Master Bai was worried that Shen Qingwan might face difficulties on her journey, so he repeatedly gave her advice and instructions.

He even suggested hiring bodyguards from an escort agency to protect her along the way.

However, Shen Qingwan refused, saying she had her own way to transport the grain safely and that he need not worry.

Second Master Bai knew this girl was capable, so when she insisted, he did not press the matter further.

As for the Xu family, Second Master Bai did not let Shen Qingwan intervene, as the situation involved the authorities.

He assured her that as long as she left with the grain, he would handle things on his end, and at most, it would take a few days to settle.

But Shen Qingwan had no intention of letting the Xu family off the hook.

Initially, she thought the family’s problems were limited to Xu Pingwei, but she soon realized that the rot went deep.

The younger generation of the Xu family was oppressive and lawless, while the elders were ruthless and greedy, always scheming to take what wasn’t theirs.

A family like this did not deserve to prosper indefinitely. This time, she was determined to bring them down and see if they could ever rise again.

Shen Qingwan inquired about the Xu family’s shops and properties.

She couldn’t touch their land and estates, but she had no intention of letting the goods in their shops go untouched.

Although Second Master Bai didn’t know why she was asking, he still told her.

The Xu family’s shops were all marked with their family crest—a character “Xu” on the signboards.

Shen Qingwan nodded repeatedly upon hearing this and then asked whether they had stockpiled grain. Upon learning that the Xu family had three granaries filled with supplies, a smirk appeared on her lips that she couldn’t suppress.

After dinner, Second Master Bai took Shen Qingwan to an estate where the grain was stored and handed her the keys.

However, she did not allow his men to stay and instead asked him to take them away.

Once Second Master Bai’s people had left, Shen Qingwan immediately stored all the grain in her spatial storage.

A million bushels of grain were stacked like a small mountain.

Thankfully, the estate was large enough to accommodate it all.

Otherwise, it would have been impossible to fit so much grain in one place.

Luckily, the unloading had been handled by Second Master Bai’s hired laborers; otherwise, if word had spread about such a massive grain transport, the news would have leaked long ago.

While Shen Qingwan had successfully completed her task, chaos erupted in the Xu family early the next morning—their warehouse had been robbed.

Decades of accumulated wealth had vanished overnight.

Even the valuables in their secret chamber had been looted.

When Master Xu saw the empty warehouse, he was so shocked that he fainted on the spot.

Meanwhile, the old madam of the Xu family suffered a relapse of her chronic illness and fell gravely ill.

However, it was as if the stolen goods had disappeared into thin air—there was no trace left behind.

The only clue was that the third young master of the Xu family had been beaten black and blue.

When Xu Pingwei heard about the robbery, he immediately suspected that woman.

However, considering the sheer scale of the theft, he dismissed the idea.

After all, she was just one person—how could she possibly empty an entire warehouse full of gold, silver, and treasures?

Even if they used horse-drawn carts, it would take twenty to thirty trips to transport everything.

Let alone the manpower needed to pull off such a feat.

Since he was already anxious about being poisoned, and now the family had suffered such a major loss, Xu Pingwei was too scared to implicate himself.

He lied, claiming that he had been attacked last night but had already dealt with the assailant.

Master Xu knew his son’s personality well and had no interest in his excuses.

After confirming that the injuries had nothing to do with the theft, he hurried to the magistrate’s office to report the crime.

After all, this month’s tribute to the Third Prince was due, and now he had no money to send.

Master Xu spent a long time at the magistrate’s office.

In response to the crime, the authorities launched a massive city-wide search, using the hunt for fugitives as a cover.

Such a huge amount of wealth couldn’t have been transported out of the city unnoticed, and since it had only just happened, the stolen goods were likely still within the city.

The officials searched every corner, determined to find the missing treasures, but even after an entire day, they found no clues—not even a single suspect.

That night, the city was placed under martial law, yet Shen Qingwan was still moving freely, hopping from one place to another as she raided the Xu family’s shops.

It had to be said—the Xu family was truly wealthy. Nearly half the shops in the city bore their crest, and every single one was highly profitable.

They owned businesses ranging from jewelry stores, antique shops, and banks, to fabric shops, tailor shops, restaurants, inns, wine shops, grain stores, general stores, pharmacies, and pawnshops. In total, they had twenty to thirty establishments spread throughout the city.

Shen Qingwan worked all night, emptying every valuable item from the Xu family’s stores.

She ignored the inns and restaurants, as they didn’t contain much of value.

With such devastating losses, the Xu family wouldn’t have the energy to cause trouble for Bai Er Ye anytime soon.

With the Xu family destroyed, Shen Qingwan was finally ready to leave Yongzhou.

She had been away long enough and it was time to return home.

After getting a good rest at the inn, she woke up around noon.

She had lunch with her mother and then prepared to depart. She didn’t say goodbye to Second Master Bai in person.

Instead, she left behind a letter and the keys at the estate before quietly leaving with Rong Yunfei, who drove the carriage.

Since she was traveling with her mother and had two extra people, she had to use a carriage instead of riding on horseback.

Rong Yunfei and Rong Yunshuang drove the carriage, while Shen Qingwan and her mother sat inside.

Traveling by carriage was slower than horseback riding. Along the way, they saw many refugees fleeing famine, and the number of graves by the roadside seemed to have increased.

Rong Yunfei and his sister had been working in the slave trade, so they weren’t aware of how dire the situation had become.

When they saw the massive number of starving refugees, they were shocked.

They had heard about the famine, but they didn’t expect it to be this severe. Watching the emaciated people struggling forward with hunched backs, the siblings couldn’t bear to look and turned their heads away.

The imperial court was doing nothing, letting people starve to death.

In the beginning, some refugees tried to revolt, but as more and more people ran out of strength, the uprisings died down.

After all, if they couldn’t even feed themselves, how could they fight?

Some desperate men turned to banditry, but most people had no choice but to keep heading north, hoping for survival.

The nobility dismissed these people as insignificant rabble, knowing that without money or food, they posed no real threat.

The journey took six or seven days, during which they were attacked multiple times by desperate refugees.

But before Shen Qingwan had to act, Rong Yunfei and his sister handled the threats with ease.

When they finally reached Suzhou, Shen Qingwan did not take her mother back to Dahe Village. Instead, she arranged for Rong Yunshuang to settle her in a safe house in the city.

Since Lu Youfu and the others were busy, she didn’t introduce her mother to them.

Besides, her mother was still easily frightened, so Shen Qingwan avoided crowded places for now.