Chapter 138 Wei Zhongxian's Treasure
Hearing the words gold, silver and treasures, Wei Zhongxian glanced at Wang An strangely but did not say much, just expressed his agreement.

Wei Zhongxian then said, "That's exactly why I want to ask An Ge'er to keep it for me. What do you think?"

Seeing that the topic had hit the point, Wang An immediately stopped talking and stroked his chin, looking up at the sky.

Wei Zhongxian chuckled and shook his head, saying, "Of course, I won't let An Ge'er work in vain. Apart from this one thing, there are other personal belongings. An Ge'er can spend them."

Upon hearing this, Wang An was overjoyed and did not care what the "one thing" Wei Zhongxian mentioned was.

In his opinion, it was just some precious treasure, or an antique, or a painting, but no matter what it was, as long as he didn't leave empty-handed.

He immediately looked at Wei Zhongxian with fiery eyes and said, "What are you talking about, Eunuch Wei? To be honest, since the first time we met, I felt that Eunuch Wei was not what outsiders said, but a man who values ​​friendship and loyalty and is worth making friends with!"

"By the way, where is the father-in-law's treasure hidden?"

"Haha." Wei Zhongxian chuckled a few times, stood up and said, "Brother An, come with me."

Without saying a word, Wang An immediately stood up and followed Wei Zhongxian.

Wei Zhongxian did not bring Li Yongzhen today, so the two of them went to the backyard one after the other.

After entering the backyard, Wei Zhongxian continued walking towards the main direction.

After entering the room, Wei Zhongxian went straight to the bed, lifted the quilt and pressed a few times on the bed board, and a secret compartment was immediately opened.

Wang An was immediately annoyed when he saw this. It turned out that the treasure he had been longing for had been sleeping next to him all along. It was a pity that he had moved in for a month and had not even discovered it.

But after just a moment of frustration, Wang An felt something was wrong again.

Throughout the Ming Dynasty, apart from the Ming Baochao, which was like waste paper, no silver note of any kind was ever issued.

The banknote-issuing offices that were popular during the Qing Dynasty and specialized in issuing silver notes never appeared in the Ming Dynasty.

The only thing similar to a silver note is called a meeting note, but it is essentially a remittance from place A to place B.

Lu Shiyi of the late Ming Dynasty recorded: "Nowadays, many families have to move their wealth to the capital. Because the roads are inconvenient, they entrust the money to the wealthy merchants in the capital and take the tickets to the capital to pay the money. This is called Huipiao."

It is just a sideline business for some businesses, from which they charge fees.

These businesses often had money transactions between the capital and their hometowns, so they also engaged in the exchange of silver. It is precisely because they were run by individual businesses that the exchange was inconvenient and had a limited scope of use, which was completely different from the later silver bills.

So when Wei Zhongxian opened the small secret compartment, Wang An felt excited but then a little disappointed.

How much silver can such a small secret compartment hold? Even if it were all gold or precious antiques, there wouldn’t be much…

Sure enough, Wei Zhongxian took out a small box from the secret compartment that was well-made and obviously worth a lot of money. His face was full of excitement and even his eyes were a little red.

Wang An didn't bother to care about Wei Zhongxian and rushed over directly.

There were indeed quite a few treasures scattered in the secret compartments.

There were pearls, agates, rings, snuff bottles and the like, but they were all small items, not even a gold bar.

Wang An's voice trembled immediately, "Eunuch Wei, this must just be a place to store small items. Is there a cellar under the bed?"

Wang An was about to lift up the heavy wooden bed, but the damn ancient people didn't know how to pass off inferior goods as good ones. The wooden bed was made of solid wood, and it was extremely heavy. No matter how hard Wang An tried, it didn't move at all. Wang An was busy, and Wei Zhongxian was tired of reminiscing about the past. Seeing Wang An sweating from his busyness, he couldn't help laughing and said, "Don't work in vain, Brother An, there's nothing under the bed!"

"Not only is there nothing under the bed, there is nothing else in this entire house except this secret compartment."

Wang An was stunned for a moment, and after a long while he finally said, "So these are the treasures you are talking about?"

Wang An pointed at the thing in the secret compartment.

Wei Zhongxian asked in return: "Any item here is worth hundreds or even thousands of taels of silver. Isn't it considered a treasure?"

Wang An suddenly felt like he was in an online argument in his previous life, where he was speechless because someone quoted classics to retort him.

Indeed, although there are not many things in the secret compartment, each one is of great value and can be considered a treasure in anyone's eyes.

However, Wang An's expectations were too high. He originally thought that Wei Zhongxian's treasures were worth at least millions of taels of silver. Now, there were only a dozen or so treasures in the secret compartment. The gap was too big.

The most important thing is that with just this little stuff, even if Wei Zhongxian was willing to share it with Wang An, how much could he really know?
Wang An's vision has now become higher, and a few thousand taels of silver are no longer a concern of his.

After all, his cousin was a wealthy man who could easily take out tens of thousands of taels of silver, and he himself was nominally the owner of two coal mines, which were worth more than 20,000 taels of silver.

After Wei Zhongxian finished speaking, he looked at the valuable box in his hand and murmured, "But compared to this treasure of ours, those things are just garbage."

Wang An's eyes suddenly lit up again, and he stared at the wooden box, thinking that maybe the box contained a treasure similar to the "Imperial Seal" obtained from the palace?

If that's true, then it's not a loss.

Thinking of this, Wang Anba came up and said flatteringly, "What kind of treasure is this? Can you let me open my eyes to it, sir?"

Wei Zhongxian's eyes flashed with a trace of reminiscence, and he said, "That's fine, but no one except my wife has ever seen this treasure, so I'll let you open your eyes."

Wang An suddenly became excited, his eyes almost glowed green, and he stared at the wooden box intently.

After Wei Zhongxian finished speaking, he opened the box directly.

However, the things in the box made Wang An frown.

Because the box was actually full of white powder. "It seems to be... lime?"

Wang An frowned.

Wei Zhongxian stretched out his long fingernails and poked at the lime a few times, and a wrinkled thing that looked like a dead branch came out.

Wang An moved closer, but he didn't smell anything strange, so he asked tentatively, "Is this some kind of jade?"

Wei Zhongxian laughed and said, "What jade? This is our family's treasure..."

"What treasure is this? I really didn't see it... Wait!"

Wang An's eyes widened in horror, staring at Wei Zhongxian and asking, "Could this have been cut off before the eunuch entered the palace..."

Wei Zhongxian nodded with relief, and then said with some sadness: "Without this treasure, even if I die, I can't be a healthy man in the next life. Do you think this is a treasure?"

(End of this chapter)