128: Chapter 128 Excavation

The next day.

Shortly after nine in the morning, Jiang Chen finished processing the day's Wealth Intelligence, earning five hundred thousand.

He glanced at the numbers with an expressionless face, then had Lu Zheng deliver the contract to No. 17 Wutong Lane.

The contract was in quadruplicate, with every clause clearly listed.

The price, transfer time, payment method, delivery date, and even the ownership of the Plane Tree in the backyard were listed as a separate item.

All attachments within the scope of the tree and its root system belonged to the buyer.

Uncle Liu put on his reading glasses and read through it twice, word by word.

His finger lingered on the line "Two Million One Hundred Thousand Exactly" for a long time before he took off his glasses, picked up a pen, and signed his name at the end of each copy.

His handwriting trembled slightly, but each stroke was firm.

Liu Zhigang stood nearby, remaining silent throughout the entire process.

With his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze swept over the contract again and again before finally fixing on Jiang Chen's face, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Once Uncle Liu finished the last stroke, his Adam's apple bobbed, and he turned to go to the backyard.

The lighter clicked repeatedly, but he couldn't get his cigarette lit for the longest time.

Jiang Chen took the contract, signed it, and stamped it with practiced efficiency.

He tucked the two items into a document bag, nodded to Uncle Liu as he stood up, and spoke with a calm, appropriately respectful tone: "Uncle, let's go handle the transfer."

There weren't many people in the property transfer hall, but the process was still thorough.

Verification, tax payment, registration, and certificate issuance—they went from one window to the next.

Jiang Chen remained unhurried throughout, leading the way for every step, signing and swiping his card as needed.

The moment the 2.1 million was transferred, he didn't even spare a second glance at the numbers on the POS machine.

His fingers pressed the keys on the pin pad—six crisp beeps that, like six nails, hammered the matter home for good.

At 3:17 PM, the Property Ownership Certificate was handed out from the window.

Jiang Chen took it and flipped it open to take a look.

The owner column bore his name, and the location address was No. 17 Wutong Lane.

Every entry was printed clearly.

He closed the certificate and weighed it in his hand.

It was a thin book, yet it felt heavy in his grip.

Lu Zheng, who was waiting nearby, saw this gesture and knew the matter was settled.

Back in the car, Jiang Chen leaned against the back seat with the window cracked open.

The early autumn wind poured in, carrying a hint of dry coolness.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, placed the ownership certificate into the document bag, zipped it all the way, rested it on his lap, and tapped it twice with his fingertips.

It was the kind of gesture one only made after the dust had settled.

"Mr. Jiang," Lu Zheng glanced at him through the rearview mirror, "back to Wutong Lane?"

"Back," he said.

When the car turned into Wutong Lane, the afternoon sun happened to be shining on the lintel of the No. 17 courtyard.

The two characters for "Qi Wu" were illuminated by the light, making the dust and moss accumulated between the strokes clearly visible.

Jiang Chen got out of the car and stood outside the courtyard gate, looking up at those two characters for a long time.

Then he pushed open the gate and walked inside.

Uncle Liu had already moved most of his personal belongings, leaving only a few pieces of heavy old furniture in the main hall.

The midday light shone through the carved wooden windows, with tiny motes of dust floating slowly in the shafts of light.

Jiang Chen passed through the main hall, pushed open the back door, and entered the backyard.

The Plane Tree stood before him.

The trunk was so thick it would take two adults to encircle it; the bark was cracked, with fissures as deep as the furrows on an old man's hand.

The canopy blotted out the sky, enveloping the entire backyard in a dense, overlapping shade of green.

Sunlight leaked through the gaps in the leaves, carpeting the ground with patches of broken gold that shifted whenever the wind blew.

Jiang Chen walked beneath the tree, stood still, and lowered his head, his gaze falling to the ground.

The northeast corner of the courtyard wall.

Two meters west of the tree roots.

Nothing unusual could be seen on the blue-brick paved ground, only the marks of accumulated dust and humus from fallen leaves over the years.

The roots of the Plane Tree spread and intertwined underground, wrapping the iron box deep within.

It was as if a hand had gripped it, holding on for over seventy years.

Jiang Chen crouched down, his palm against the ground, his fingertips slowly tracing the gaps between the blue bricks.

The ground was cold, with the dampness characteristic of an old house's backyard, but beneath that chill, there seemed to be another layer of something.

He didn't dig or knock; he simply withdrew his hand, brushed off the dust from his palm, and stood up.

"Lu Zheng," he turned around, "have the six of them come over."

Lu Zheng acknowledged and headed out.

Ten minutes later, six men stood in a row.

They still bore the traces of yesterday's long journey, but their backs were straight and their gazes steady; when they weren't speaking, even their breathing seemed to be in the same rhythm.

Jiang Chen brought an old chair out from the main hall and placed it in the center of the backyard, facing the northeast corner of the wall.

He sat down, elbows resting on his knees and fingers interlaced, as his gaze swept across the faces of the six men one by one.

"I called you here today to do only one thing."

His voice wasn't loud, but the backyard was quiet, and every word was clear: "Dig something up."

He raised a finger and pointed to the northeast corner of the courtyard wall.

"Against the wall, two meters to the west, about 1.2 meters deep. Use shovels, no machinery, no vibrations. Pile the excavated soil on the canvas; do not let it spill outside the courtyard wall."

He Hai couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Jiang, what are we digging for?"

Jiang Chen looked at that patch of ground and paused for a beat.

"An iron box, cast iron, with two layers—inner and outer. The interlayer is filled with Tung Oil Lime. It won't be very large."

The courtyard fell silent for a moment.

The six men's breathing hitched slightly.

Zhang Heng glanced at Lu Zheng, only to see that Lu Zheng's expression was as usual, listening intently to Jiang Chen's words.

Zhang Heng asked nothing more and turned to fetch the tools from under the porch of the main hall.

The others followed suit, spreading out to take shovels, pickaxes, hand trowels, and canvas out of their bags one by one.

The sound of metal clinking was exceptionally crisp in the quiet courtyard, but everyone's movements were efficient and restrained, with almost no unnecessary noise during the exchange of tools.

It was a level of tacit understanding only found among those who had served in the military.

The canvas was spread out on the ground, its four corners weighted down with bricks.

Zhang Heng stepped his shovel into the soil.

The first shovel turned up soil of a normal dark brown color.

With the second and third shovels, the soil grew darker, mixed with broken bricks, lime chunks, and some old roots—exactly what backfill for an old house's foundation should look like.

By the fifth shovel, fine charcoal particles began to appear in the soil, shiny and black, as if they had been intentionally mixed in.

Zhang Heng crouched down, pinched a small amount between his fingers to crush it, and glanced up at Jiang Chen.

Jiang Chen sat on the old chair, his expression calm.

"Continue."

The shovels went down one after another.

The pit grew deeper and the work more strenuous.

Old roots crisscrossed below, and the six men had to use all their tools together to make any progress.

They expanded the hole inch by inch along the northeast corner of the courtyard wall.

The six men took turns shoveling; no one spoke, and there was only the dull thud of iron entering the earth and the rustle of soil falling onto the canvas.

Zhang Heng did the most digging, the depth and angle of each shovel stroke as uniform as if they had been measured.

When they had dug to about a meter deep, the soil layer suddenly changed.

It was no longer broken bricks and lime, but a layer of greyish-white paste, fine-textured and carrying a very faint scent of tung oil.

Zhang Heng's hand paused.

He set the shovel aside, crouched down, and used his palms to clear away the surrounding loose soil.

The greyish-white paste layer spanned about three feet square beneath the soil, its surface flat, as if it hadn't been touched since it was poured all those years ago.

Tung Oil Lime.

No one in the courtyard spoke.

The leaves of the Plane Tree rustled overhead, and the wind blowing in from the alleyway made the scent of tung oil wax and wane.

Jiang Chen stood up from his chair, walked to the edge of the pit, and crouched down.

He reached out and lightly pressed his fingertip against the greyish-white paste.

It was firm yet resilient; seventy-plus years hadn't caused it to become completely brittle.