Governor Duan couldn’t help but turn his head to look at the guards, wishing to shake their shoulders — how exactly did they conduct the search?

Manbao crawled out from under the bed, and Governor Duan instinctively looked at her hands. Seeing that they were empty, he let out a sigh of relief. But then she got up and started pulling the bed out.

Daji stepped forward to help.

Once they moved the bed, Manbao climbed on top, jumped to the innermost part, stomped her foot on the ground, then casually picked up a scattered wooden board and scraped the ground, revealing another layer of wooden planks below.

She pried open the plank, then reached inside and slowly pulled out a jar.

The jar looked very familiar — like those used for wine or pickles, with a big belly for holding things.

Manbao opened the jar and immediately pulled out a silver ingot. Governor Duan, at a glance, recognized it as a ten-tael official stamp.

She continued to fish things out — there was gold, very small pieces, about five taels each, but quite a few of them. Finally, she pulled out more than a dozen gemstones and a handful of pearls.

Governor Duan no longer wanted to speak. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Bai Shan exclaimed, "This room must have housed a small head."

Governor Duan said weakly, "This is the residence of the third in command of the bandits. Ahead is the second in command, and the big building in the center is the leader’s."

Manbao immediately started putting everything back into the jar, "Let’s go take a look."

Bai Shan looked around, "Where’s Erlang?"

Bai Erlang let out a sharp cry from the washroom, and everyone immediately ran over.

They found him sitting on the shoulders of a Bai Family guard, his hands grabbing at the beams, and as soon as he saw them come in, he shouted, "Here, here, there’s a small box."

Unfortunately, his arms were too short to reach it.

It was ultimately Daji who helped him retrieve the small box.

The box was not very large, but a beam slot had been hollowed out to fit it. The box seemed to be made from a similar type of tree, so its color blended in. If Daji hadn’t looked closely, he wouldn’t have seen it was there.

Let alone the searchers who only looked up from below and brushed things across the beams — it was even harder to find.

Bai Erlang eagerly opened the box, only to find clothes inside, tattered and ragged. He froze.

But Manbao vaguely detected an unusual smell, so she reached out and pressed down. It was hard.

Bai Erlang also caught on and immediately started pulling the tightly packed clothes out. Inside the clothes, there was another box.

He pulled out the box, sniffed, and said, "There’s a smell."

When he opened it, he was disappointed, "It’s spices. What kind of spice is this?"

But Governor Duan couldn’t help but say, "This is styrax, a spice that only comes from the Styrax region. Do you know how expensive styrax is? Just a fingernail-sized piece costs a tael of gold."

The three were stunned when they heard that. Looking at the gold-colored spice blocks in the box, they asked, "How many fingernails does this amount to?"

No matter how many fingernails it was, Governor Duan quickly grasped Bai Erlang’s hand and closed the box, sincerely saying to Bai Shan, "Today I have truly witnessed the treasure-hunting skills of Young Master Bai and Lord Zhou. I will have someone record this and later tally up the accounts with three-tenths..."

Bai Shan placed his hand on the box and said with a smiling face, "Governor Duan, there’s no need to thank us. This is nothing, just some private stash hidden by certain bandits. The real treasure hoard is still the one shared by the robbers, those are the most important."

Governor Duan, upon hearing this, withdrew his hand with reluctance and forced a smile, saying, "Yes, these things were all found by Young Master Bai and Lord Zhou. Consider them yours. Keep them safe."

Manbao gave Bai Erlang a look.

Bai Erlang, seeing her facial tics, paused deliberately. Only when she blinked more vigorously did he finally pick out a not-too-big piece of spice from the box for Governor Duan to share.

Governor Duan emptied the contents of his pouch and put the shared gemstones into his sleeve pocket, then carefully wrapped the spice with his pouch.

Though it was just one piece, it could probably be sold for several dozen taels of gold, which would cover several days of medicine expenses.

Governor Duan calculated, then turned and showed a friendly smile to the three, dispelling his earlier gloom and saying enthusiastically, "Let’s go, let’s look in the next room. You don’t know this, but the second in command of the bandits is very cunning and deeply scheming. The leader depended on him a lot, so there might be more things in his room."

Er Ge, who they had met, was indeed very cunning, so they ran off to search again.

But after searching, they found all the rooms were especially clean, nothing was left, and what was there had already been taken by the soldiers.

In the end, Manbao couldn’t help asking Keke, "In this building, besides the things you found in the yard earlier, is there nothing else?"

Today, while Manbao was darting around looking for things, she instructed Keke not to specifically point out things to her, letting her lookup herself. Now, hearing her question, it proudly replied, "That’s right, there’s nothing hidden in this building, and in the previous one, you didn’t check thoroughly. There are still a few silver ingots in the woodshed."

Manbao wasn’t too concerned about the silver ingots in the neighboring woodshed. She could fetch them later, or the soldiers might find them when they searched again. What surprised her was that Er Ge didn’t have any private stash.

Could it be that the spot in the yard was his hideaway, instead of belonging to all the bandits?

Yet the item marked by Keke as the treasure should be large and valuable, right?

As she pondered, Manbao walked into the yard, and following Keke’s instructions, she arrived at the base of a large tree and looked at the pit-riddled ground beneath her feet, asking, "Is it underneath? Didn’t they dig deep enough?"

Keke said, "No, it’s not underground..."

Not underground? Manbao’s eyes lit up, and without waiting for Keke to finish, she exclaimed, "I know, it’s inside the tree!"

Bai Shan and Bai Erlang, who had just stepped outside, were surprised by this statement and immediately rushed over, "Really?"

Governor Duan couldn’t help but walk over quickly, and they all turned their attention to the large tree in front of them. It was a banyan tree, who knew how many years it had grown, its trunk massive and its leaves lush. Upon closer inspection, they realized that just this one tree took up almost half of the yard.

Governor Duan rubbed his chin and said, "Look, this house is set much farther forward than the others. Consider this, he deliberately enclosed this banyan tree within the walls."

Initially, leaving such a big tree on the road for everyone to enjoy shade and chat would be so much better, right? Why did he specifically wall it in?

Governor Duan couldn’t help but marvel, "Lord Zhou is impressive, able to see through any treasure and find it, no matter how cunning the person hiding it is."

Manbao knew this wasn’t her doing, so she shyly lowered her head and modestly said, "It’s nothing, really, just average."