Most of the banknotes in Daxia are issued by the imperial court, with the largest denomination currently being one thousand taels.

However, the circulation of such large banknotes is limited, mostly controlled by the powerful and wealthy.

Even for the Bai family, the number of banknotes they can access is finite, especially the high-denomination ones.

Shen Qingwan didn’t care what Bai Yong’an thought.

She quickly took the key and headed straight for the treasury Bai Yong’an had mentioned.

With the key in hand, things were much easier.

As soon as Shen Qingwan entered, she saw that the hundred-square-meter storeroom was filled with neatly stacked boxes of gold and silver.

On the shelves, there were trays of silver ingots and gold bars, all arranged in perfect order.

There was no time for her to examine them closely. With a swift motion, she gathered everything into her spatial storage.

Then, she hurried to the adjacent grain warehouse.

It was pitch black inside, making it difficult to see how much grain was stored, but she was sure it was no less than what she had purchased in Ping’an County.

Shen Qingwan quickly stored all the grain into her space and then took out a bundle from within it, filling it with some gold bars before rushing out of the storeroom toward the back door.

She had just stepped out when a loud bang came from the front courtyard.

The front gate was violently kicked open, and a large group of mountain bandits stormed into Wantong Money Exchange.

“Boss, there’s no one inside!”

The leader of the group was a man in his early thirties, with a long scar running across half his face, resembling a terrifying centipede.

His fierce and ruthless appearance made him look frightening.

This man was none other than the bandit leader, Lei Kun.

“Search the place!”

At his command, his subordinates immediately scattered, rushing into the exchange house.

Meanwhile, Shen Qingwan had already met up with Bai Yong’an at the back door, and the two quickly fled.

She led him toward an inn in the west of the city, carefully avoiding numerous bandits along the way.

At the inn, after Shen Qingwan had killed a group of bandits earlier, another group arrived.

Upon seeing so many of their fallen comrades at the entrance, they immediately launched an attack on the inn.

Inside, the innkeeper and the guests held the doors and windows shut, desperately resisting.

But the attackers were determined to break in.

When they found the door impossible to breach, they turned to the windows.

The windows were merely blocked by a table, and no matter how much was piled behind them, it was only a matter of time before they gave way.

The moment the window shattered, the people inside screamed and scattered in panic.

“You damn bastards! How dare you block our way? Speak up—who killed our brothers?!”

The innkeeper trembled with fear, but in order to survive, he stammered, “Please, sirs, spare us! We are willing to offer all our money if you would just calm your anger and let us live. As for the people outside, we really don’t know who killed them! We’ve been inside the whole time and never stepped out.”

As he pleaded, the bandit with a face full of scars grew impatient and sinister.

“It must have been that woman from earlier! She was here before, but then she disappeared. Right after she left, we heard fighting outside—it had to be her!”

The speaker was the scholar who had opposed fighting back earlier. His words immediately reminded everyone that the woman who had organized them to block the doors and windows had vanished.

Lu Wenguang furiously shouted, “Nonsense! My sister-in-law is just a woman. How could she have killed so many people? We’re all refugees—how could we possibly have the strength to fight?!”

“Yeah, we can all vouch for her! There’s no way she could have killed them!”

Lu Dachuan, Lu Dajiang, and the others stepped forward in agreement.

“Enough talking! Hand over that woman, or you all die!” the scar-faced bandit snapped impatiently.

When no one responded, the bandit swung his knife and instantly killed the nearest guest.

Blood splattered, and terrified screams filled the air.

“Ahhh!”

Annoyed by the noise, the bandit leader grew even more frustrated and, in a fit of rage, ordered, “Kill them all—leave no one alive!”

Chaos erupted as the people fled in terror.

At that moment, Shen Qingwan came down from the second floor, carrying more than a dozen large knives.

She saw that the massacre had already begun.

“Don’t be afraid!” she called out. “There are only a dozen of them, but we have twenty or thirty people! If you run, you’re dead for sure. If we fight, we might have a chance to live!”

As she spoke, she handed weapons to Lu Wenguang and Lu Dachuan.

Seeing that even a woman like Shen Qingwan was willing to take up arms and fight, Lu Wenguang and the others naturally refused to back down.

“Let’s fight!”

With a weapon in hand, Lu Wenguang felt a surge of courage and charged forward with Shen Qingwan.

The other guests were shocked by their bravery but hesitated to join.

The innkeeper, however, picked up a knife and rushed at the bandits.

“I’ll fight you bastards!”

“Boss!”

His young assistant called out and quickly grabbed a weapon to help.

Lu Dachuan, Lu Dajiang, Lu Dahe, and Lu Wenguang followed closely behind Shen Qingwan, engaging in battle. Meanwhile, Hunter Zhang and his son fetched their bows and shot arrows from the second floor, taking down three bandits in no time.

Seeing their comrades falling, the remaining bandits began to waver.

They intended to retreat and call for reinforcements.

But Shen Qingwan wouldn’t give them the chance.

She swiftly moved to block their escape at the window.

As the other guests hid upstairs, too scared to come down, Hunter Zhang and his son ran out of arrows and joined the fight on the ground. Within moments, the bandits were all eliminated.

Shen Qingwan exchanged a look with Lu Wenguang, who immediately understood.

He went to collect the loot from the fallen bandits.

Hunter Zhang and his son also began stripping the bodies of valuables, as did Lu Dachuan, Lu Dajiang, and Lu Dahe.

Even the innkeeper and his assistant took the bag from the bandit they had killed.

The guests upstairs witnessed everything.

The scholar from earlier, who had tried to shift the blame onto Shen Qingwan, now spoke up in discontent.

“Those riches were stolen by the bandits from innocent people. If you take them, how are you any different from the bandits?”

Shen Qingwan hadn’t paid much attention to him before, but now she remembered what she had overheard earlier—this coward had tried to frame her.

And now, he dared to criticize them? He was just a spineless weakling pretending to have moral high ground.

She wondered where he got the audacity to judge them.