Traveling to ancient times with a sign-in system

Chapter 124: Plundering the Family Assets
With Wei's greedy nature, she would dare to steal Feng's money as long as she found the opportunity!
If Wei doesn't take advantage of the opportunity to get a piece of the pie from Zhang, she will chop off her head and let Wei kick it like a ball!

I went forward to check the lock on the cabinet and found that it was a small iron lock, which did not match the large floor-standing cabinet.

This kind of lock is generally used to lock dressing boxes. It is small and delicate, perfect for dressing boxes, and inexpensive.

Wei probably bought it just for the cheap price.

Gu Tang went out and found a thin stick, inserted it between the lock rings, and pried it hard. The thin iron lock was deformed by her.

After prying twice more, the iron lock was quickly pried open, and it fell from the cabinet with a "ding-dong" sound and landed on the ground.

Gu Tang picked up the lock and put it into the system backpack, then opened the cabinet and began to search for the silver.

The top layer of the cabinet was filled with Wei's clothes, and the bottom layer was filled with Gu Liansheng's. They were all long gowns worn by scholars, about 50% new, spotlessly clean without a single patch, and made of fine cloth and hemp cloth.

Below that are some fabrics in four colors: blue, cyan, brown, and gray. These are all common materials that can be used by both men and women.

Below the fabric is the bottom of the cabinet, that's all. The entire cabinet only has these things.

Gu Tang piled all the clothes and fabrics on the bed and shook them one by one to see if there was anything hidden inside them.

After checking everything, Gu Tang found nothing.

Looking at the messy clothes and fabrics on the bed, Gu Tang felt a little strange. This was the only locked cabinet in the room. According to common sense, a locked cabinet must contain valuable things.

But there were only clothes and cloth in there, not a single silver or copper coin to be seen.

Of course, this does not rule out the possibility that Wei did this on purpose to cover up where she actually hid the silver.

But Gu Tang felt that Wei was not smart enough.

Coming to the cabinet again, Gu Tang looked at the bottom of the cabinet carefully, and suddenly picked up a thin stick and knocked on the bottom of the cabinet.

This cabinet was Wei's dowry. Some families would make some secret compartments in the dowry cabinet so that after their daughters got married, they could hide the gold and silver gifts from their parents' home in it for self-defense in the future.

Before Wei married into the Gu family, although she had a bad reputation, she had a mother who favored her.

When her mother was young, she worked as a maid in an official's family for more than ten years. Later, she redeemed herself and said that she brought the reward from her master and her own savings of many years. She probably had more than a hundred taels of silver in her hands.

In order to ensure Wei's marriage, Wei's mother announced early on that she would give her daughter a dowry of five taels of silver.

Feng was also blinded by the five taels of silver at the beginning, so she hired Wei back.

The Wei family did give a dowry of five taels of silver. In addition to these, Wei's mother also secretly gave a small amount.

Wei was stupid and was tricked by Feng's words.

Later, the news reached the ears of the Wei family, which naturally caused dissatisfaction among the Wei family.

As soon as Wei's mother passed away, Wei's brothers and sisters became estranged from Wei. They didn't interact very closely and their relationship became increasingly cold.

The dowry given by the Wei family, the subsidies secretly given by Wei's mother, plus the silver that Wei asked for from Zhang, and also Feng, she would give silver to the eldest wife every year, either openly or secretly, at most two or three taels, at least one or two taels.

The expenses of the first wife's family all came from the public treasury, so they wouldn't be able to use the money Feng gave them. Gu Tang counted on his fingers and figured that if Wei had just been a little more frugal, the first wife's family would have at least 20 or 30 taels of silver over the years!
So, where's the silver?
After knocking on the cabinet once, Gu Tang heard a sound at the very edge that seemed off.

She couldn't quite put her finger on what was wrong, but when she tapped, there were subtle differences from the sounds beside her.

Adhering to the principle of preferring to kill someone innocently rather than let the guilty go, Gu Tang went to the backyard to get an axe and violently smashed the bottom of the cabinet, revealing a hint of red.

Gu Tang was delighted. As expected, she guessed right. There really was a secret compartment in this cabinet.

After breaking off the broken wood, a red lacquered wooden box the size of two palms was revealed at the bottom of the cabinet, with a small iron lock hanging on it. The appearance and style were exactly the same as the lock she had just pried off.

It seems that Wei was trying to save trouble by buying two identical locks from the same iron shop.

He took the box out and put it on the ground. Gu Tang swung it with an axe and the iron lock broke immediately.

When I opened the box, I was instantly dazzled by the white silver inside!

Gu Tang didn't have time to count, so he quickly closed the box and put it into the system backpack.

Then he stuffed all the clothes and fabrics on the bed back into the closet, closed the door, and ran back to the west wing quietly.

When she returned to her room, Gu Tang took out the box and called her father outside, asking him to come in and talk.

Gu Lianshan stayed in the main room to prevent Gu Liansheng from suddenly opening the door and returning to the east wing.

When he heard his daughter's cry, he knew that she had succeeded. He quickly responded and hurried to the west wing.

"How is it?" Gu Lianshan asked curiously when he entered the house.

Gu Tang took out the box behind him and said, "I found a box of good stuff! Open it and take a look. I guarantee you'll be surprised!"

Looking at the red lacquered wooden box, Gu Lianshan had a premonition.

I took the box and opened it, and what I saw was a box full of silver!
Gu Lianshan's hands, holding the box, couldn't help but tremble. He was stunned. "This, this is what you found in the big house?"

"That's right!" Gu Tang nodded, took the box back, and poured the silver onto the table.

"Be careful, don't drop it!" Seeing her casually pouring silver onto the table, Gu Lianshan hurriedly stood over and put his hand on the edge of the table to stop the silver from rolling to the ground.

As all the silver was poured out, Gu Tang quickly sorted it out and weighed it one by one on a scale.

There were three chubby little silver ingots, each weighing five taels, and the three together weighed exactly fifteen taels.

Gu Tang placed it on the corner of the table: "This should be my aunt's dowry. Didn't her mother say that she secretly gave her a lot of silver? These three silver ingots should be it."

Gu Lianshan nodded: "I guess so. This silver ingot must have been exchanged at the bank."

Apart from these three silver ingots, the remaining silver was silver coins of various shapes, which Gu Tang simply gathered together and felt heavy.

"It's a little more than twenty taels. If you round it up, it will be twenty taels. Add the silver ingots, and the total amount is thirty-five taels of silver!" Gu Tang showed the scales to her father.

Looking at the number on the scale, Gu Lianshan was furious. "Let's not talk about Wei's own dowry, that was given by her mother! Of the remaining twenty taels, minus the silver that Wei stole from you, the remaining five taels were definitely given by your grandmother in secret! It's not enough to give her money openly, I didn't expect she would give you so much in secret!"