This stone slab was an irregular circle, not particularly large, with a diameter of about sixty to seventy centimeters.
Wang An picked up a fire shovel from the stove pit and began to pry at the slab.
It had to be said that while the slab wasn't large, it must have been very thick because it was exceptionally heavy; the ash wood handle of the shovel creaked loudly under the strain of prying.
Finally, after prying open a gap, Wang An exerted a great deal of effort to move the slab to one side.
Beneath the slab, instead of a conventional stone box, there was actually a hole.
Looking into the pitch-black opening, Wang An didn't dare descend rashly, mainly fearing that once he went down, he wouldn't be able to get back up.
There wasn't a single soul around here; if he got stuck, he'd be trapped to death inside!
Consequently, Wang An returned to the east room, remembering that there was a flashlight at the end of the kang bed.
Flashlights from this era had a very annoying quirk: the connections were often loose, meaning the bulb wouldn't light up even after flipping the switch.
Thus, Wang An had to bang and knock it repeatedly before he finally managed to get the flashlight to light up.
If it were any other time, Wang An would have thrown this piece of junk away long ago; failing at the critical moment made it utterly useless.
However, at this moment, Wang An didn't dare throw it away. At the very least, having this thing allowed him to make do; throwing it away would leave him with absolutely nothing.
Shining the light into the hole, he could see that the opening led to a cellar. The entire cellar didn't look large, only about four or five square meters.
There was actually a ladder on the side wall of the opening, but the entire ladder had been nailed flush against the wall, making it invisible in the darkness of the cellar.
And so, with the flashlight clenched in his teeth, Wang An climbed down the ladder into the cellar.
It had to be said that this old fellow, Jia Renlu, really had some decent treasures.
Inside the small cellar, two leather suitcases and two small wooden boxes were arranged neatly.
Beside the boxes were several pieces of porcelain that were clearly antiques.
The old fellow was a man of understanding; he knew these antique porcelains were valuable and would eventually fetch a high price, which is why he had kept them preserved in the cellar.
Opening the first leather suitcase, the contents immediately made Wang An's eyes widen.
The suitcase was full of money—a suitcase brimming with cash.
However, this suitcase was considerably smaller than the one in the stone mountains. Wang An counted it; there was only about 150,000 yuan in this box.
Still, 150,000 yuan in this era was no small sum!
He wondered where the old fellow Jia Renlu had managed to scrape together so much money.
Closing the suitcase and snapping the latch shut, Wang An opened the second leather suitcase.
With one glance, Wang An closed it again, because the contents of the second suitcase were identical to the first.
In other words, the money in the two suitcases totaled 300,000 yuan, and all 300,000 now belonged to Wang An.
With an excited heart, Wang An opened the first wooden box.
To be honest, the contents of this wooden box left Wang An stunned for a moment.
Inside the box was not money, nor gold or silver, but a stone. To be precise, it was a piece of jade, an irregularly shaped piece resembling a river pebble.
Under the beam of the flashlight, the jade was as white as clouds and emitted a white glow without a single flaw; it was truly beautiful.
Wang An concluded that this jade was not a product of this province, but came from the Northwest—the famous Hetian jade of China.
In Heilongjiang Province, while there were many types of stone, they didn't produce this kind of flawless, delicate white jade; instead, they produced things like green jasper, agate, colorful stones, and fossils.
Setting the flashlight aside, Wang An fished the jade out of the box and weighed it in his hand; it had to be at least 30 jin.
Truthfully, even with the knowledge from his previous life, Wang An had never seen such a large piece of jade.
Therefore, the specific value of this piece of jade was simply immeasurable.
After placing the jade back, Wang An shone the flashlight on it once more. This jade was truly stunning!
Time was tight and the task was urgent, so after that one look, Wang An closed the wooden box containing the jade.
Then, Wang An opened the second wooden box, the last of the four.
But just as the final box was opened and Wang An glanced inside, the flashlight's connection failed again and the light went out.
This plunged the entire cellar into absolute, pitch-black darkness!
It was truly black—the kind of black where you couldn't see your own fingers in front of your face.
Wang An, who was in the middle of looking into the box, let out a loud roar: "Holy fucking shit!"
Then, instinctively, he slammed the lid of the box shut.
Wang An panicked. Thinking back to the image in the box, he suddenly felt his skin crawl and a chill run down his spine. He reached out and pulled out his Type 54 pistol.
It had to be said that with the Type 54 in hand, although Wang An's heart was pounding, his emotions stabilized.
The reason Wang An reacted this way was simply because he had seen a human head in the box—a withered, dried-up human head.
It was a head, not a skull!
The entire head was completely dehydrated and dried, looking like someone who had exhausted every drop of their life's blood until not a shred of flesh remained. Fortunately, the eyes were just holes, otherwise Wang An would have been even more terrified!
Stealing things in a pitch-black cellar and having a thing like that suddenly pop up, and then making eye contact with it!
Worst of all, the flashlight had died at that exact moment!
Fuck, anyone would be scared! It nearly scared Wang An to death!
After steadying his nerves, Wang An began banging on the flashlight again. This piece of junk was truly enough to drive a person insane.
If it had gone out earlier or later, it would have been fine, as that was just the device's flaw.
But of all times, it had to go out right when he was terrified. How fucking infuriating was that?
After repeated banging and knocking, Wang An finally got the broken flashlight to light up quite reluctantly.
Then, Wang An opened the box containing the head once more.
Wang An felt that although the head in the box was dehydrated and dried, it looked somewhat like a certain person, though he wasn't sure yet.
Because after dehydration and drying, the facial distortion was too severe, making it truly difficult to distinguish.
So, when Wang An opened the box again and looked at the dried head, he frowned deeply.
It looked like him. It really looked like him. It looked far too much like him!
It didn't look like anyone else; it looked exactly like Qiao Xiaohu's grandfather.
Although Qiao Xiaohu's grandfather was only in his sixties and not yet seventy, if someone said he was eighty now, anyone who had seen him would absolutely not disagree.
People of this era were generally not fat, and Qiao Xiaohu's grandfather was no exception; to say he was skin and bones would be absolutely accurate.
This resulted in Qiao Xiaohu's grandfather's face appearing to have no flesh at all, and this head also had no flesh.
(End of Chapter)