As dusk fell, Qiao Mei and Xia Zhe finished sending the wedding candies to the last few families and headed home.
“Sigh, it’s been such a tiring day,” Qiao Mei said as she massaged her sore shoulders.
Xia Zhe was also feeling very tired. They visited about 20 families along the streets and alleys today. Not only did they have to send wedding candies to every family, but people from each family would also hold them back to chat for a while. They wasted a lot of time doing that.
“You must be exhausted. I’ll go boil some water for you to take a bath. You can go to bed once you’re done,” Xia Zhe said.
Qiao Mei nodded listlessly and sat on the rocking chair by the door as it swayed gently.
She had not rested long before she suddenly heard a strange sound.
“What’s that sound?” Qiao Mei looked around the room curiously.
It was a strange sound. Although this house had been around for a long time, it was not in a bad condition or in any danger of collapsing. Even if there were rats gnawing on the wooden beams, it would not make a sound like that.
Qiao Mei walked into the house slowly and checked the rooms one by one. The sound was sometimes distant and sometimes close, and it was most obvious at the wall near the yard next door.
Qiao Mei quietly brought over a stool and stood on it, looking through the small window to see what the Cao family was doing.
The Cao family did not notice Qiao Mei. They were focused on searching for something.
They had even removed the bricks in the yard. Logically speaking, if they wanted to move, they could have just moved their items away. Why did they have to remove the bricks from the ground?
Qiao Mei felt that what Grandpa Zhou said made sense. The Cao family also seemed to know that Xia Zhe’s grandmother might have hidden something underground back then.
Not long after, the sound stopped. It seemed that the Cao family was intent on searching through their entire house. Judging from the mess outside the house, they seemed to have started removing the floor tiles inside.
Qiao Mei took a closer look and found nothing useful in the Cao family’s yard. There were no plants around, even the weeds on the ground had been pulled out by the Cao family.
“This Cao family won’t stop until they have searched the entire house,” Qiao Mei muttered to herself.
Qiao Mei returned to the room and took out the remaining vine seeds from her backpack. These seeds were from the same batch as the ones she used when she saved Xia Zhe. They had become useful again at this moment.
Qiao Mei returned to the wall in the back room and stood on the small stool. Through the small window, she gently scattered the vine seeds into the Cao family’s yard.
“Little vines, it’s up to you now!” Qiao Mei said and used her energy to stimulate the vines to grow.
At this moment, Qiao Mei’s energy was already connected to the vines.
Ever since Qiao Mei obtained the other bangle, she felt that her energy was even purer than before. She could even attach her energy to plants.
The vines gradually penetrated deep into the ground of the Cao family residence. Now, she was able to share what the plants heard and saw.
She was still not very familiar with this new ability, so she could not hear very clearly. However, she could roughly make out what was going on from the intermittent voices.
“Brother, is what you said true?” asked the Cao family’s second son.
“I’m not sure about it either. This is what our father said at that time,” Cao Da whispered to his younger brother.
“Then why didn’t you say so earlier? We could have searched in any manner we wanted when the Xia family members were away. Now, we can only do the search secretly. It would be bad if what we’re doing gets discovered,” complained the Cao family’s second daughter-in-law.
“Sister-in-law, you’re being unreasonable. If we had said this earlier, wouldn’t you have demolished this house long ago? Would we still have a chance to live here until now?” said the Cao family’s eldest daughter-in-law.
“Sister-in-law, you’ve misunderstood me. When did I say that I wanted these things? If the Old Master had wanted to give them to me, I’ll take them. If not, I won’t force it,” the Cao family’s second daughter-in-law said mockingly.
The Cao family had two sons. The second son was a businessman and had a small business selling fruits and vegetables.
The eldest son of the Cao family was the only one in the extended family who was a government official. Their relatives and friends usually ignored the second son and only paid attention to him. This caused the second daughter-in-law of the Cao family to be mocked and looked down upon from the moment she married into the family.
