Inside the house, everyone was fussing over their new clothes, their faces filled with satisfied and happy smiles.
With Wang An's tailor's eye, the clothes and shoes he bought for everyone were, naturally, a perfect fit.
Furthermore, the styles of clothing and footwear from the big city were more novel—or rather, trendier—than those in the county seat, and they looked very beautiful.
After holding and cuddling the two little babies for a while, Wang An handed them over to Mu Xueqing's care. He then led Mu Xueli and Wang Li to the house where Wang Dazhu and his wife lived.
After dividing the money from selling the watches and giving 50,000 yuan each to Mu Xueli and Wang Li, Wang An asked them
"Are you two staying for a meal at my place before you leave? Or are you heading home right away?"
Mu Xueli spoke first
"I won't stay for dinner; I have to go home. I haven't been back in over ten days."
Wang Li chimed in
"I have to go home too. I'll skip the meal as well."
Wang An nodded and said
"Alright then. Lao Wu, take my car and give your Brother Mu a lift. Then drive the car back home yourself. Whenever you have some free time later, just bring the car back to me."
Hearing this, Wang Li said with a face full of smiles
"Aye, you got it, Fourth Brother! Hehehe..."
Wang An also laughed
"Alright, stop grinning like an idiot and get going."
After Wang Li and Mu Xueli left, Wang An counted the money in the bag and found that, including the 4,000 yuan from selling the watches without brand names, it was exactly 89,000 yuan.
In other words, Wang An had sold those 24 expensive watches to the watch shop owner for a total of 185,000 yuan.
He distributed 89,000 from the watch sales, there were 540,000 in the sack, and he got 15,000 from Han Xiaomin. Not counting the money in Wang An's shoulder bag and the 400,000 initial capital, Wang An had brought back a full 244,000 yuan on this trip.
In this era, earning 240,000 yuan was genuinely no ordinary feat.
However, most of Wang An's money was of the "unclear origin" variety.
Even the money earned from dealing in bear gall and ox gallstones as revenge against the supply and marketing cooperative fell under the category of "speculation" at this time, so Wang An didn't dare deposit this money into the bank.
Even if he did deposit money, he only dared to put in ten thousand or so; any more than that, and Wang An absolutely wouldn't dare.
Back when gold panning, Wu Dong and Zhang Shuya had warned Wang An that when depositing money in the bank at this time, he should try not to exceed 9,000, because 10,000 yuan was a very sensitive figure.
Although Wang An had never dared to deposit money in the bank due to the complex nature of its source, it was simply because he wanted to be cautious and didn't want anyone to keep an eye on him.
In fact, Wang An didn't know the specific consequences.
It was only after Zhang Shuya's explanation that Wang An learned that if someone like Zhang Siyuan had over 10,000 yuan in deposits of unknown origin and was reported, Zhang Siyuan would certainly be purged.
And most crucially, Zhang Siyuan would very likely be executed.
Therefore, the saying existed that 10,000 yuan was an extremely sensitive figure.
Thus, although storing the large amount of cash in the Wang household was quite troublesome, Wang An would absolutely not deposit it in the bank.
After checking the money and having a clear count in his mind, Wang An packed it up and placed it in the *kangqin* (storage chest) at the end of the *kang*.
He waited until evening to leave some money for his parents and a small portion for daily expenses, then took the majority to a secret location in the house.
Calling it a secret location was a bit of an understatement; it was actually a hollow space within the walls.
After the house was completed, Wang Dazhu and Wang An had used bricks and cement to build two separate small compartments within the partition walls of the two flour rooms in the back house, as well as in the wall of the storage room on the far east side.
These two small compartments didn't take up much space, each being only about 2.5 meters long and 1.2 meters wide.
The reason they were built so small and separately was to create a visual illusion; unless someone carefully measured the interior and exterior with a ruler, these two rooms could not be discovered from inside the rooms or the corridor.
There was no other way; the sole purpose of hiding things was to ensure they weren't found. If they were discovered, there would be no point in hiding them.
If a room existed, there had to be a door, otherwise, a person couldn't enter.
However, these two rooms truly had no doors. To enter, one had to climb into the ceiling through the air vent of the great west room, navigate through the triangular beams to find the location of the small room, lift a ceiling board weighing over 30 jin, find a leather rope hanging on the wall, and pull it hard. Once the ladder was pulled up, one could climb down.
It was worth noting that one must find the rope and pull the ladder first; otherwise, if one just jumped down blindly, they would certainly be badly injured.
Overall, entering once was genuinely quite tedious!
Even if the "Flea on the Drum" Shi Qian from *Water Margin* came, he would probably have to study it for a few days before he might discover these two secret locations.
Of course, such secret locations weren't only in Wang An's house; Wang Dazhu and his wife's house had them as well.
As for the Wang family's gold, it was hidden more dispersedly and in rather eccentric locations.
Yes, very eccentric. Aside from portions kept in the four secret locations, the vast majority of the gold was buried next to the cesspit of the toilet, buried quite casually. When Wang An was home, he would occasionally take a leak over it.
Wang An only feared that the gold would sink into the soil, making it hard to find later, so he had padded the bottom with sand and stone slabs when burying it.
In any case, gold neither rots nor deteriorates when buried in the soil, so Wang An wasn't worried at all.
After returning from Yi Province, the three of them rested at home for several days, and the time reached the Gregorian year 1983.
During these nights, Wang An slept very alertly, waiting for the poisoner to reappear so that he could rush out and catch and beat them to death immediately.
To this end, while practicing his cultivation in the mornings, Wang An specifically simulated the fastest way to rush out of the courtyard if the poisoner arrived.
Ultimately, Wang An concluded that flipping over the wall was the way; unlocking the main gate and running out would definitely be too slow.
Furthermore, Wang An specifically modified the two corners of the main gate, essentially designing two "dog holes" so that the dogs could dart out at any time even while the gate was locked.
Wang An believed that with the strength of his pack of dogs and wolves, they could certainly catch the poisoner, or at least stall for time until he came out.
Because of this, Wang An repeatedly instructed Da Hei, Xiao Hei, and the other dogs that if anyone dared to throw meat into the courtyard again, they should dart out and bite them. He even spent a great deal of time negotiating and threatening the two disobedient lynxes.
There was no helping it; those two lynxes were pure "lords." Whether they did any work depended entirely on their mood. If they were in a bad mood, nothing worked, and they simply wouldn't listen to Wang An; he really couldn't do anything about them.
The reason he instructed the dogs, wolves, and lynxes to attack was primarily because the Wang family courtyard was too large. If he had to wait to come out of the house and then run to the edge of the courtyard to catch someone, the delay would be too long; even with Wang An's running speed, it would be difficult to catch up.
Unfortunately, despite preparing for days—from 1982 all the way into 1983—and having everything ready, the poisoner never reappeared. This left Wang An feeling incredibly restless and irritable.
But there was no use in being anxious. Without any clues, the only thing Wang An could do was wait.
After another two days, the poisoner still hadn't appeared. Wang An decided to take a trip into the mountains, mainly to relax his mind.
If he didn't go hunting to change his mood, Wang An feared he would drive himself sick from boredom.
Thus, Wang An, Wang Li, Mu Xueli, and Huang Zhong—the four of them—drove the sleds and led the dogs. The sleds carried two lynxes and four eagles as they rushed headlong toward Qingshigang.
Yes, it was the same Qingshigang where Wang An had discovered the traces of the cliff sheep, because the two golden eagles had grown up and were now capable of hunting them!