SES Chapter 45 V1

Chapter 45

The client was an elderly man named Yan, around seventy years old, with a full head of white hair. He wore a neatly buttoned traditional Chinese robe, stood ramrod straight, but his eyes weren’t good—clouded over and dim, as if wrapped in fog.

As the saying goes, the eyes are the window to the soul. With his dull gaze, the man’s whole spirit seemed diminished.

The girl Mu Dai had kicked into the water vat earlier was his granddaughter, Yan Hongsha. She didn’t even bother to change her clothes—just stood beside her grandfather, wringing the water out of her clothes on her own. Her soaked hair clung in dark strands to her pale face, creating a stark contrast—she looked like someone straight out of a painting.

Old Mr. Yan first spoke with Zheng Mingshan, polite in tone. Mu Dai figured her senior brother must’ve dealt with this man before, but not closely.

Then Old Yan turned to her and said warmly, “It’s nothing too troublesome. Just a short trip. We’ll cover your travel, food, and lodging. Two to three days if it goes fast, five to six days at most. The pay is twenty thousand—we’ll give you ten upfront. How does that sound?”

Mu Dai stared at the old man, unsure how to react to such an offer.

Just a few days—and twenty thousand?!

She felt lightheaded. Wow, was she worth that much?

Zheng Mingshan cleared his throat and gave her a side glance that clearly said: Keep it together. Don’t act like a bumpkin seeing money for the first time.

Old Yan then instructed, “Hongsha, explain to Miss Mu what we do.”

Hongsha responded with a hum and first helped him put on an eye mask. It was made of silvery gray satin and gave off a faint herbal fragrance.

Zheng Mingshan stood up. “I’ll excuse myself and wait outside.”

That was custom—like how one shouldn’t eavesdrop on martial arts secrets, it was best to step away when someone was about to share personal or confidential matters.

Old Yan, now wearing the mask, cupped his hands in Zheng’s direction as if to thank him for his tact.

Hongsha’s first words were, “We’re treasure hunters. Ever heard of it?”

Mu Dai hadn’t, but the word “treasure” immediately made her wary. She looked at her. “It’s not illegal, right? You’re not… looting, are you?”

Hongsha gave her a sharp look, but it was the old man who chuckled softly.

“You saw the text on the table earlier,” Hongsha continued. “If you didn’t understand it, let me explain. It mentioned gold, silver, gemstones, and jade. Even in modern times, those are incredibly valuable.”

Mu Dai didn’t argue, though privately she thought cold, hard cash was more useful.

“But gold and silver form deep underground—they absorb the essence of the sun. Gemstones and jade, on the other hand, form from the moon’s glow. They shouldn’t be buried. We have a saying: ‘A gem in a well reaches the blue sky; pearls rest in deep waters; jade lies in steep rivers—always touched by sky and water.’”

Hongsha recited the poetic line with a practiced air—she had clearly shown off this knowledge more than once.

Mu Dai got the gist: gemstones that form in open wells, pearls in the deep sea, jade in rushing mountain streams—all touched by open skies or flowing water.

She made a connection: A gem in a well—there had been a dry well in the courtyard just now. And Hongsha said they were “treasure gatherers”… so did they specialize in collecting gemstones from wells?

“Gemstones might not always fetch as much as the finest pearls or jade,” Hongsha continued, “but high-quality ones are still extremely valuable. Common ones include cat’s eye, amber, stardust sand, emeralds, rose gems, boiled sea elixirs, and so on. In ancient times, people studied China’s treasure-producing regions. There were two main ones.”

She turned to the wall, pointing at a large, worn leather map. It had thick brush-painted mountains and rivers, exuding an ancient, majestic energy.

“One is the ‘Western Regions’—today that’s Xinjiang. No surprise there; Xinjiang is full of treasures: Hetian jade, big red dates, Hami melons, raisins, lamb skewers…”

Old Yan coughed pointedly.

Mu Dai stifled a laugh and played along. “Mm, I love lamb skewers too.”

“The other region,” said Hongsha, “was listed in books as ‘Yunnan’s Jinchi Garrison and Lijiang.’ Jinchi referred to the area from the Lancang River to Baoshan. So, Yunnan. That’s why my grandpa and I live in Kunming—it makes getting around Yunnan easier. Xinjiang… not so much.”

Mu Dai thought for a moment. She didn’t know much about gemstones, but had some common sense. “Aren’t gems mined from deposits, too? So these wells you talk about are… mines? Those are buried too.”

Hongsha gave her a look like, I knew you’d ask that.

“Treasure hunting runs in families. Not many of us are left. If you’re lucky and find one good well, you can live off it for a lifetime. Why would we dig mines? We look for that kind of well—the kind that ‘opens to the sky!’”

Mu Dai had a stubborn streak—she didn’t like being barked at. She shot back, “Wells like that are open to the public. Unless they’re in uninhabited areas, wouldn’t someone have taken the stuff already?”

Hongsha burst into laughter—three drawn-out “ha”s, savoring the moment. “You don’t get it. Pearls still need oysters, jade still forms in raw stone—you think gems just sparkle on the surface, waiting for you to pick them up? You’d be gathering regular rocks. They need to be carved open by skilled hands to reveal the treasure inside.”

Mu Dai fell silent. She didn’t understand this. She’d imagined stumbling into some treasure hoard like a storybook thief—glittering gems everywhere.

Turns out, the well’s bottom just looked like any other pile of stones.

Hongsha corrected her again: “If a regular person just jumps in, they’d die. It’s recorded in the books—‘Treasure mist fills the well, and prolonged exposure leads to death.’”

Poison gas? Mu Dai suddenly felt like twenty grand wasn’t that much. She quickly said, “I’m not going into any wells.”

Hongsha snorted, “You think you can go in just because you want to? It takes training.”

Old Yan seemed to know what Mu Dai was thinking. “Treasure mist isn’t exactly poison. But since ancient times, valuable things have often been guarded by deadly forces. Just like the legends where dragons protect pearls, wells that produce treasures have this mist. That’s why someone has to stay topside. The person going in wears a pouch and carries a bell. As soon as they grab a gem and feel the mist overwhelming them, they ring the bell. The person above hauls them out right away.”

Mu Dai glanced at the bell on Hongsha’s waist.

So that’s what the giant bell was for.

She mulled over everything. So this grandfather-granddaughter pair usually roamed remote places, looking for such wells?