USWHC -Chapter 10 Morals Shattered All Over the Ground, Want to Pick Them Up? (Part 10)

When Ji Mei heard the words silver notes, her eyes were instantly ignited, blazing like raging flames that seemed ready to burn the whole room down. Her mouth opened with a “ding,” stretching all the way to her ears.

“Silver notes?” Her high-pitched voice could not hide her excitement in the slightest.

“Yes!” Zhu Jie replied confidently. “When I came out this time, all my belongings were carried by the servants. Right now, the only thing I have on me is a few silver notes.”

Although Zhu Jie said so, she still didn’t take any out for quite a while.

Ji Mei watched as she searched and searched—digging from her outer robe all the way into her inner clothes, reaching deeper and deeper—but no matter how hard she tried, nothing came out. Could something have happened? The silver notes couldn’t have just flown away, could they?

Just as Ji Mei was staring nervously at Zhu Jie, she suddenly heard her cry out.

“Ah! Where’s my purse? Why is my purse gone?”

“Could it be that the young master forgot where he put it?” Ji Mei reminded him.

But Zhu Jie looked completely stunned. She took off her outer robe and shook it vigorously several times. When nothing like a purse fell out, she suddenly turned pale and said in alarm, “Could it have been lost?”

“How much silver was in the purse, Young Master?” Ji Mei asked.

Zhu Jie pretended to think for a moment before letting out a long sigh of relief. “Luckily it wasn’t much—just five silver notes of one hundred taels each.”

“How much?” Ji Mei’s voice instantly shot up several octaves, practically piercing the clouds. Five notes of a hundred taels—that was five hundred taels! Her eyes immediately filled with the dazzling image of silver. If all that money were used to buy meat, how many years would they be able to eat?

At this moment Zhu Jie no longer seemed anxious, but Ji Mei had become the anxious one instead.

“Young Master, think carefully—where exactly did you lose the purse?”

“Perhaps I dropped it in the snow,” Zhu Jie said hesitantly. “Forget it. It wasn’t that much money anyway. The snow on the mountain is so thick—how could we possibly find it?”

Ji Mei immediately grew restless. This guy was unbelievably rich! Five hundred taels and he wasn’t worried at all. Did he even know what five hundred taels meant? For a family like theirs, that amount could last a hundred years! And he just said it was lost so casually?

“Miss, excuse me—I’m going to take a bath now,” Zhu Jie said politely on purpose when she saw her absent-minded expression.

Ji Mei suddenly seemed to snap back to her senses. “Ah! Right, right. Young Master, please wash first. I won’t disturb you!”

With that, she hurried out in a fluster.

As soon as she left, Zhu Jie quickly moved to the door and pressed her ear against the wooden panel to listen.

Just as she had expected.

The moment Ji Mei stepped outside, she rushed straight toward the main house, shouting loudly, “Mother! Mother! We’re going to get rich!”

Her voice was shrill like a chicken whose neck had been stepped on, each scream louder than the last.

“What? Get rich how?” Sister-in-law You immediately perked up at the word. If there was money to be made, she certainly didn’t want to miss out.

Ji Mei hurried over and shared the good news about Zhu Jie losing his money. As soon as Old Madam Ji heard it, she also became excited.

“If he doesn’t look for it, then we will! With these five hundred taels, we’ll be rich!”

As she spoke, Old Madam Ji swallowed a mouthful of saliva. The greedy look on her face was completely undisguised.

“But Mother, in this heavy snow, where are we supposed to search?” Sister-in-law You said somewhat dejectedly.

Ji Mei immediately rolled her eyes at her in disdain.

“How could there be nowhere to search? Think about it—when would he be most likely to lose it? Obviously when he was lying in the snow! I bet the purse must have dropped there!”

“Yes, it must have fallen there!” Old Madam Ji immediately agreed, nodding vigorously.

She suddenly stood up and shouted toward the outside, “Erhan! Erhan!”

Ji Yi had just finished carrying bathwater for Zhu Jie and was sitting in the courtyard daydreaming. His mother’s thunderous roar was so powerful that it nearly shook the snow off the roof and buried him alive.

Before he could even stand up, Old Madam Ji and the others impatiently grabbed him.

“Come on! Take us to the place where you picked up that boy!”

Ji Yi looked utterly confused as the entire family suddenly poured out of the house. Even Old Master Ji and the eldest son followed along—the whole family mobilized.

Some were carrying hoes, others had shovels. Sister-in-law You didn’t have anything handy, so she simply grabbed a ladle from the kitchen and ran out with it.

“Where are you all going?” Ji Yi asked, unable to help himself as he looked at their bizarre equipment.

“To dig for treasure!” the eldest son Ji shouted excitedly.

Without giving Ji Yi a chance to react, he grabbed him and dragged him outside.