Marrying My Bestie's Ferocious Brother - He Calls Me His Baby!-Chapter 118: This Is the True Dowry Left by Mother!
The next day, before dawn.
A Jeep bounced along the dirt roads on the outskirts of Beijing.
After driving through the morning mist for over an hour, the vehicle finally stopped at the entrance of a desolate land.
A crooked wooden sign was slanted into the ground, the words "Ping’an Farm" on it were so faded from the wind and sun that they were barely visible.
Lin Wan Yi got off the car, holding Gu Ning, and the cold wind made her a bit more alert.
Gu Lan, holding Gu An, followed her down. The little girl looked at the scene before them, and her excited expression froze on her face.
"Sister-in-law, this... can people actually live here?"
The sight was a hundred times more desolate than expected.
The endless fields were overgrown with waist-high weeds. When the wind blew, they rustled like a forgotten graveyard.
In the distance, a few solitary mud houses stood with cracked walls and sparse thatched roofs, as if they might collapse at any moment.
Gu Yanshen’s brows knitted into a tight knot.
He remained silent, his tall figure blocking the cold wind from his wife and children.
Not far off, farmers who had risen early to work were already on the ridge.
They quickly noticed the abrupt arrival of the military vehicle and the cleanly dressed city people.
The chatter buzzed over like flies.
"Look, it’s them! I heard yesterday they were coming!"
"City folks, they say they’re the new owners of this farm, quite the presence, arriving in a car."
"A woman, holding two kids, what farm work could they possibly do?"
A dark-skinned man carrying a hoe spat on the ground.
"Isn’t she the former capitalist’s daughter? Heard it’s her, coming here to farm? What a joke!"
Idle gossip was as piercing as needles, making Gu Lan’s face flush with anger and wanting to argue.
Lin Wan Yi gently pressed her arm and shook her head.
At that moment, an old man with grizzled hair and deep wrinkles burrowing his face, holding a long tobacco pipe, led a few people over.
His cloudy eyes scrutinized Lin Wan Yi, with unconcealed contempt and scrutiny in his gaze.
"You’re here to take over the farm?" His voice was hoarse, carrying a tarry scent from years of smoking.
Gu Yanshen stepped forward, his tall frame like a wall.
"We are."
The old man spat a gob of yellow phlegm onto the ground, his attitude extremely arrogant.
"My name is Tian Laosan, I’ve been watching the place for the Zhou Family for over a decade."
"Let me make it clear to you, this place has long been deserted, there’s nothing here, don’t expect to gain any benefits."
Behind him, a woman in her forties with slanted eyebrows joined in with a shrill voice, she was his daughter-in-law.
"Exactly! The houses are about to collapse, a gust of wind will blow them down! If you dare to live in there, don’t blame us if you get crushed!"
With her hands on her hips, she looked thoroughly malicious.
"I think you should hurry back, city folks are precious, don’t suffer in our poor countryside."
Gu Yanshen’s gaze grew cold, about to speak.
Lin Wan Yi, however, stepped past him, calmly facing Tian Laosan.
"Uncle Tian, the things my mother left with you for safekeeping when she left, they should still be here, right?"
Tian Laosan’s eyelids twitched violently, almost dropping the tobacco pipe from his mouth.
He quickly steadied himself, shouting coarsely.
"What things? I said there’s nothing here! Your mother, a capitalist, left nothing worthwhile!"
"The cellar?" Lin Wan Yi ignored his insults and pressed on.
This question seemed to hit Tian Laosan’s daughter-in-law’s sore spot.
She immediately shrieked, her voice as grating as a squeal.
"What cellar? Collapsed long ago! Haven’t you seen those houses about to fall down? Could the cellar still be intact?"
She pointed at the dilapidated houses, her face full of exaggerated horror.
"It’s full of rats and snakes, no one can go down there! You better not trespass, we won’t be responsible if something happens!"
Gu Yanshen looked at her dramatic performance, not saying a word.
He took long strides straight to the most decrepit mud house.
"Hey! What are you doing! That house is dangerous!" Tian Laosan’s daughter-in-law screamed from behind.
Gu Yanshen ignored her.
He raised his booted foot and kicked fiercely at the cracked mud wall.
"Bang!"
A dull noise.
Everyone thought the wall would collapse on impact.
But it only swayed, a few clods falling off, still standing firmly.
Not a hint of movement.
Tian Laosan and his daughter-in-law’s expressions turned extremely unpleasant.
The onlookers muttered softly among themselves.
Lin Wan Yi smiled slightly.
She took out the second item from the iron box in her pocket.
A large, old, rust-covered iron key.
"Really?"
She dangled the key in her hand.
"I remember the cellar is below this house, and it is opened with this key."
Tian Laosan’s face completely changed.
He stared at the key as if he had seen a ghost.
"How... how did you get that?"
This key, Zhou Wenxiu searched for over a decade without finding it!
Lin Wan Yi didn’t answer him, simply walked into the house Gu Yanshen had "tested."
Inside, it was empty, with only a strong smell of mold and dust.
The floor was solid earth, appearing completely ordinary.
Lin Wan Yi walked to the corner on the west side and kicked the ground with her toe.
The sound was off.
She crouched down and used her hands to clear away a thick layer of dirt and weeds.
A rusty iron ring suddenly appeared in front of everyone. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎
She grasped the iron ring, took a deep breath, and pulled it up hard.
"Creak——"
A very heavy wooden board was slowly pulled open by her.
A pitch-black hole, like the open mouth of a giant beast, exuded a cold, damp, and decaying air, emerging from the ground.
It hadn’t collapsed at all.
The faces of Tian Laosan and his daughter-in-law instantly turned ashen as paper.
"You... you..."
"I said it’s dangerous inside! There’s methane gas! Going down there will get people killed!" Tian Laosan’s daughter-in-law was still unwilling and rushed up, trying to cover the board.
Gu Yanshen grabbed her wrist and tossed her aside like a little chicken.
He didn’t even look at her, just took a flashlight from the jeep and turned it on.
He shouted into the hole.
"Anyone breathing down there?"
There was only an echo from inside the hole.
He threw down a lit lighter, and the flame burned normally.
Then, he turned back and said to Lin Wan Yi.
"Wait up here."
After saying that, he jumped down without hesitation.
A moment later, his voice came from below, calm and strong.
"Nothing’s wrong down here, it’s very safe."
He stood at the bottom of the cellar, reaching out to Lin Wan Yi.
Lin Wan Yi handed Gu Ning to Gu Lan.
"Wait here for me, don’t wander off."
She instructed briefly and jumped down neatly as well.
The cellar was larger than expected, and emptier than imagined.
The flashlight’s beam scanned across, revealing nothing but some rotten wood and torn burlap sacks piled in the corners.
"Sister-in-law, it really seems like there’s nothing here." Gu Lan said disappointedly, peeking from above.
Tian Laosan on the ground finally breathed a sigh of relief, put the tobacco pipe back in his mouth, and snorted coldly.
"I told you there’s nothing here! Waste of effort! Who do you think you are, able to dig out gold?"
Lin Wan Yi ignored his sarcastic remark.
She didn’t believe her mother would leave behind an empty cellar.
With the flashlight, she carefully inspected every corner of the walls and floor, not missing a single trace.
Gu Yanshen also silently helped her, turning over those moldy debris.
Just then, Gu Lan’s excited shout came from above.
"Brother, sister-in-law, there’s a box here!"
In the most inconspicuous corner, beneath a pile of rotting burlap sacks, a black iron box was half-buried in the damp soil, with only a corner exposed.
If it weren’t for Gu Lan’s sharp eyes, it wouldn’t have been noticed at all.
Gu Yanshen walked over, quickly cleared away the debris, and dragged out the heavy box.
The box was locked, with the lock hole stuffed full of dirt.
Lin Wan Yi stepped forward, taking out the small, exquisite brass key from her pocket again.
It was the key to her mother’s legacy iron box.
She used her fingernail to scrape away the mud from the lock hole and inserted the key.
A perfect fit.
"Click."
A crisp sound echoed distinctly in the silent cellar.
The lock opened.
Lin Wan Yi’s heart skipped a beat.
She slowly opened the lid of the box.
Inside, there were no imagined gold and jewels, nor any valuable antiques.
There were only neatly packed oil paper packets, square and neat.
On each packet, there were names written in delicate, strong handwriting.
"Northeast soybeans."
"Shandong sweet potato."
"High-yield rice seeds."
...
All were meticulously selected crop seeds.
Tian Laosan’s daughter-in-law on the ground curled her lip disdainfully.
"Huh, I thought it was some treasure, turns out it’s just a bunch of seeds, what’s so great about that."
Lin Wan Yi didn’t stop.
Her hand continued to dig further down.
At the bottom of the box, she retrieved a paper packet, wrapped in three layers of oil paper, unusually thick.
This packet was heavier than any of the others.
Her fingertips trembled slightly, carefully unfolding layer by layer.
The oil paper was already yellowed and brittle.
When the last layer of oil paper was peeled off.
A white slip of paper lay quietly among a pile of black seeds.
On it, there were only a few words, yet the strokes carried a sharpness and gravity that pierced through the back of the paper.
"Changbai Mountain, century-old wild ginseng seeds."
