Ruling the Historical Romance Novel as the Female Supporting Character-Chapter 153: Iron Barbie Upturning a Giant Tree

Su Yijia cautiously observed the pitfall and prodded the steel spikes with a tree branch to ensure they wouldn’t easily come loose. Her suspicions were confirmed: someone had set this trap to protect something valuable and ensure that they could find it when coming back again.

Her thoughts quickly turned to Qin Kaize’s grandparents, but she realized it couldn’t be them. Their retreat was prepared over twenty years ago, and hiding such a vast number of steel spikes would have been implausible at that time. It would have had to be four or five decades ago, back in the 1920s or the 1930s. Even though after burying the treasures here, the hider fled. He could still find an opportunity to retrieve them. Why didn’t he come back again?

Pondering the possibilities, Su Yijia took out her wristwatch from her warehouse. She checked the time and decided it was 1:00 PM. She couldn’t care more but directly open the system panel and clicked on the making of Great Strength Pills. Within a second, ten dark pills was added in her inventory. She put nine of them into a soy sauce bottle and held the remaining one between her fingertips. Su Yijia considered eating it, but the thought of consuming something made by bugs made her hesitate. Nevertheless, she couldn’t afford to be picky.

After psyching herself up, she threw the pill into her mouth and swallowed it forcefully. The pill got stuck in her throat for a moment, but with a few swallows of saliva, she managed to force it down. She smacked her lips a couple of times but didn’t detect any unusual flavors.

Contrary to the descriptions in novels where eating a pill could lead to heat in the tummy or the surging of energy, Su Yijia felt rather underwhelmed. It was as if she’d eaten nothing.

"666, do I need to wait for any reaction time after taking this Great Strength Pill?" Su Yijia asked with uncertainty.

[No! It works right after you eat it. If you don’t believe it, you can give it a try.]

encouraged her playfully.

However, the response sounded unreliable to her. Su Yijia found a tree and tried to lifted it upwards. That tree, at least five years old, was lifted out of the earth by a section.

This reminded her of the image of Lu Zhishen, a character from traditional Chinese literature, pulling up a willow tree.

Oh no!

She should not look like that.

Su Yijia shook her head to banish the vivid image from her mind.

But what followed was pure exhilaration. She paced back and forth in excitement before managing to calm herself down.

After double-checking the sharpness of the steel spikes, which couldn’t be pulled out directly, Su Yijia selected a thick tree branch, sharpened one end, and began digging vigorously. After digging about half a meter, the steel spikes were loosened.

Su Yijia sped up, winding the spikes with thorns to extract them bit by bit. Once pulled out, she confirmed that the iron spikes were at least three meters long.

Though she was stronger and dug like a groundhog, her skin was not immune to the strain. Two hundred spikes, digging and pulling, caused blisters to form on her hands. She popped the blisters, reapplied Functional Repair Ointment, took a break, and then resumed her laborious task.

After three hours of hard work, she finally managed to excavate all two hundred steel spikes. Su Yijia rested, applied the ointment to her hands, and sipped the last drops of water from her flask.

Then, she took out a shovel from her storage space and began digging from the center. She reached about a meter and a half down with ease, but the soil became as hard as granite below that point.

Impossible! Absolutely impossible! There had to be a treasure buried here!

Su Yijia couldn’t believe it, feeling that all her efforts throughout the afternoon had been in vain. She swiftly dug out all the soil from the pit.

Underneath, she found a solid block of granite, but upon closer examination, she discovered an obvious line at the edge of the pit. She dug out an entrance on the side, allowing her to squeeze inside. She then grasped the granite’s edge and pushed upwards. Despite taking a Great Strength Pill, the granite still felt quite heavy.

Using the stone’s size and thickness as her reference, she estimated that it weighed at least a ton. Beneath the stone, there were five wooden boxes decorated with intricate patterns.

Su Yijia stepped onto one of the boxes, pushed the granite aside, and used a shovel to lift the lid of the wooden box. To her surprise, the box contained not the strange objects she’d expected, but something that emitted dazzling gold light. Even in the dimly lit pit, the gold remained bright.

Su Yijia’s heart raced rapidly, nearly jumping out of her throat. She quickly opened the remaining boxes, which contained a variety of precious items. The second and third boxes were filled with necklaces, earrings, rings, and pearls made of jade, agate, gemstones, and pearls. It was like they had been hastily packed without organization, just like people in the TV drama did.

The fourth box held ancient scrolls, seemingly valuable calligraphy and artwork. The fifth box contained ancient texts, including bamboo slips and regular books. Su Yijia didn’t have a deep understanding of ancient characters, but she could still make out some of the words.

At the top was likely a cookbook, but it probably wasn’t just any ordinary cookbook. It might have been related to imperial cuisine or medicinal recipes.

After carefully examining these treasures, Su Yijia picked up some of the gold pieces and weighed them in her hands.

These should be the big golden fishes commonly seen decades ago, each one weighting 500 grams, and there was a hundred of them on each layer. Judging by the thickness of the boxes, there appeared to be around fifty layers.

She wasn’t entirely sure about the current black market gold prices, but 2.5 million grams of gold was a fortune in any era. When she considered the numerous pieces of jewelry in the boxes, they were probably worth more than the gold. Moreover, there were two more boxes filled with them. Although she initially wanted to teach the ruthless treasure hider a lesson for her near-fatal fall, seeing so much treasure made her feel somewhat uneasy.

Acquiring this much wealth was no easy task. What if it was the accumulated wealth of generations, and she took it all away in one go? It didn’t sit well with her conscience. So, what about taking a smaller portion of the treasure?

Su Yijia began by taking out the ancient books. These priceless items were worth more to her than the monetary wealth. However, after taking everything out of the boxes, she noticed a palm-sized intricate pattern at the bottom of one of the boxes, which seemed rather exquisite.

She felt an eerie familiarity with the design—it was a family emblem from one of the male protagonists of the novel. The novel gave detailed description of his story with Su Xinyue. He tattooed the emblem on her back with herbs mixed with pigeon blood. The pattern would only appear when there was heat. Every time the male protagonist saw the emblem on Su Xinyue’s back gradually appear, he became incredibly excited.

Back when she was reading about this scene, she felt a certain thrill. But now, the awkwardness she felt was something she wished she could dig a hole to hide in.

Su Yijia recalled that the male protagonist’s family wasn’t composed of upstanding individuals. Not only were they engaged in shady business operations in Hu City and the surrounding cities, but the male protagonist himself wasn’t any better. Over several generations, they had operated a significant number of businesses, which had drained many families’ wealth, causing numerous households to go bankrupt or even driving them to ruin. The male lead’s grandfather took some of the family assets abroad, leaving the majority hidden in the country. Therefore, when the male lead went back to China, he didn’t intend only to revive the family business, but also to find the treasures.

According to what he told Su Xinyue later, this treasure was just one of many hidden assets. His grandfather was an only child, but due to the increasingly chaotic environment, he married multiple wives to ensure he had heirs and offspring to carry on the family legacy, which was why he had seven children. With a huge fortune, the grandfather wasn’t biased in distribution. Even his daughters were given a bot before the family moved abroad.

Before leaving, the seven children respectively hid the treasure they couldn’t take with them in different places, which were only known by themselves. Those who helped them hide the treasure were all dealt with. However, before returning to China, the male protagonist had taken a ruthless approach within his family. He managed to get hold of the six other locations where treasures were hidden.

Nevertheless, things took an unexpected turn when he was apprehended by the authorities a few years after he returned. In the face of his impending fate, he cleared all traces of his relationship with Su Xinyue. He left all his wealth to Su Xinyue before his time ran out.

Realizing the male protagonist’s cunning nature, Su Yijia couldn’t help but feel that if she actually saved the treasure for him, she would be holding a candle to the devil.

So sorry to the male lead, all the treasures were in her possession now.

Su Yijia couldn’t help but wonder about where the other six locations were.

However, opportunities were unpredictable and couldn’t be sought out actively, and over thinking did no good to health.

She decided to cherish what she had found and not dwell on what remained to be discovered.

"666, with such a fortune, from now on, maybe I could just sit around and do nothing," said Su Yijia, who was then stroking the gold.

[You can’t! Host, how could you forget our original intention for bringing you into this world? You have to fulfill your purpose and satisfy the readers throughout your life to return to your original world when you reach the end of your life. Otherwise, you’ll be erased along with this failed fiction.]

was quick to respond, hissing like an annoyed cat.

Su Yijia furrowed her brows slightly but didn’t rebut. The system had never steered her wrong on matters like this. In her original world, she had parents, a loving brother, and upcoming awards waiting for her. She couldn’t afford to be erased from this world.

She took a deep breath and decided to follow the system’s instructions. With a heavy heart, she packed the ancient scrolls back into the box and closed all five boxes. As she lifted the lid of the treasure box, a delicate and soothing fragrance wafted through the air, creating a tranquil atmosphere around her.