My sister, whom I raised, has turned evil after faking her death for three years.

Three years later.

In the quiet of the night, on the outskirts of the northern city.

The cemetery built by the Jiang family for Su Qing is located halfway up the mountain, backed by a dense native forest and facing the brightly lit night view of the northern city.

Moonlight spilled onto the white marble walls, enveloping the entire cemetery in a tranquil, silvery glow.

The guard booth at the main entrance was lit with warm yellow lights, and two security guards in black uniforms were sitting inside drinking tea, occasionally glancing at the surveillance screens.

There are people guarding this place all year round. During the day, there are fixed posts, and at night, there are shifts of patrols. The security level is comparable to that of the Jiang family's old residence.

Everyone in the North City knew whose territory this cemetery belonged to, and no one had ever dared to touch it until tonight.

Two furtive figures were crouching in the bushes outside the wall.

One of them was tall and wore an obviously ill-fitting small-sized black coat, with a black stocking with the eye cut out over his head, squeezing his face into a comical shape.

He was crouching behind a bush, his hands gripping the branches as he peered toward the cemetery, his teeth chattering as he spoke.

  

"Big...big...big boss, are we...are we really going to...going in? If we get caught by the Jiang family...if we get caught, will we...will we be planted in the ground to look like ginseng?" He made a gesture of digging a hole and burying someone, and the movement was so big that he almost fell into the bushes.

No sooner had he finished speaking than the tall, thin man squatting next to him slapped him on the back of the head, the sound ringing out clearly in the quiet woods.

This person also had stockings covering their face, but the stockings were obviously pulled too hard, with one eyehole above the eyebrow and the other in the middle of the bridge of the nose, making it look like they had been punched and then sewn up crookedly.

He lowered his voice and gritted his teeth as he retorted, "Are you stupid? Do you even need to ask? If we weren't afraid, would we have waited until the middle of the night to sneak over?"

These two men, Zhao Qiang and Zhang Zhuang, had been petty thieves in Beicheng for over a decade. They had stolen expired bread from convenience stores and potatoes from unattended markets. Their most glorious achievement was last winter when they crawled through a dog hole in a construction site wall and stole half a truckload of scrap steel bars, which they sold for over two thousand yuan and ate mutton stew for a whole month.

But after that, the two brothers never succeeded again, so much so that for the past few months they have been holed up in a cement pipe under an overpass in the suburbs, eating steamed buns and pickled vegetables every day.

The reason they were here tonight was because Zhao Qiang was caught red-handed stealing the wallet of a steamed bun shop owner at the market three days ago. The stall owner chased him for three blocks, nearly killing him, and he didn't even get a single steamed bun.

He squatted in the bridge arch, rubbing his sore feet from being chased, and gritted his teeth, vowing never to steal these lowly, unprofitable trinkets again; if he was going to steal, he'd steal something big.

Zhang Zhuang rubbed the back of his head where he had been slapped, glanced timidly at the security guard drinking tea in the distant guard post, then shrank back, lowering his voice to continue his last struggle: "But...but boss, my...my mother said that tomb raiding...tomb raiding will be punished by heaven! If you disturb someone's peaceful...resting place, they will...be haunted by ghosts!" As he spoke, he even made a gesture of choking himself with both hands, his eyes rolling back until only the whites were visible, acting quite convincingly.

Zhao Qiang was so angry that he laughed, and then slapped Zhang Zhuang on the head again.

The slap was quite forceful, and Zhang Zhuang staggered forward, crashing into a tree trunk. But to be fair, this big, muscular Zhang Zhuang seemed completely unaffected by the slap, not even flinching.

Zhao Qiang, however, shook his numb hand and switched to poking Zhao Qiang's chest, yelling, "Ghost? Ghost my foot! Stealing someone's steamed buns and rice isn't illegal? Since it's all illegal anyway, why not commit a bigger crime? I, Zhao Qiang, am putting this out there today: I'd rather be planted in someone's field as a ginseng root, chased and killed by ghosts, than die poor and starving! One word: are you in or not?"

Zhang Zhuang scratched the spot where he had just been patted, and after thinking it over, he nodded.

Before they arrived, they had already figured out that the cemetery was backed by a grove of trees, which was also the weakest point for patrols.

The two of them crouched down and slipped to the base of the wall, hiding in the bushes and watching a patrol of security guards walk past. Once the footsteps faded into the distance, they used the handles of the shovels they had prepared beforehand to climb over the two-meter-high wall.

When Zhang Zhuang landed, he snapped a dry branch with a cracking sound. The two men were so startled that they immediately lay down on the ground and held their breath for several minutes.

After confirming that there was no movement around them, they cautiously got up from the ground and then saw what the cemetery looked like.

Moonlight filtered through the sparse clouds, casting a thin, silvery veil over the entire cemetery.

Zhao Qiang removed the crooked stockings, and Zhang Zhuang pulled the eyeholes off his nose. The two of them stared wide-eyed at their surroundings.

This place doesn't resemble a cemetery; it's more like a meticulously maintained private garden.

A cobblestone path winds its way into the depths of the garden, with neatly trimmed evergreen shrubs lining both sides. Moonlight filters through the sparse canopy, casting dappled shadows on the path.

At the end of the path is an exquisite stone arch bridge, beneath which flows a man-made stream. The water is crystal clear, and under the moonlight, you can see several koi carp swimming leisurely.

The railings on both sides of the stream are carved from a single piece of jade, warm and delicate, and glow with a faint bluish light in the night.

Across the bridge was a wide lawn with a large tree in the center, its canopy as thick as a person's embrace. The tree had a canopy that covered the ground, and its branches and leaves were lush. When the night wind blew through it, it made a soft rustling sound.

Zhao Qiang strode to the railing by the stream, bent down, and shone his flashlight on it. He ran his fingers over the smooth, warm surface, his eyes practically bulging out of their sockets: "My God... this thing is jade, isn't it? If I carve this piece out, I could make dozens of bracelets! Each bracelet would sell for tens of thousands, right? How many bracelets could I make from this whole railing? I'm rich! I'm rich!"

He was so excited his voice cracked, and he shone his flashlight back and forth on the railing, wishing he could take out his tools right now and chisel a piece off.

Zhang Zhuang stood under the big tree in the middle of the lawn, craning his neck to look up. He saw that the tree was tall and thick, with a straight trunk and smooth bark. He reached out and patted it, and he felt that the tree was very sturdy and the heartwood must be of excellent quality.

He scratched the back of his head and muttered, "This...this tree...not bad, cut it down and sell it...sell it as timber, how about...not bad...it'll fetch seven or eight hundred?"

Zhao Qiang straightened up from the railing, the beam of his flashlight swept across the tree, he opened his mouth and then closed it, walked over and looked at it again, then slapped Zhang Zhuang on the back of the head. He didn't know how many slaps he had given tonight, but this slap was obviously stronger and faster than the previous ones.

He jumped up and yelled, "Seven or eight hundred? Seven or eight hundred my foot! This is Phoebe zhennan wood! Do you even know what Phoebe zhennan wood is? This tree is so big, you couldn't even buy a single branch of it if you sold it!"

He covered the back of his head and looked up at the tree. Zhang Zhuang couldn't understand it at all, but he always listened to his boss, so he obediently loosened the trunk. However, before leaving, he couldn't help but look back a few more times, thinking that it was just a tree and what was so great about it? His boss's family had cut down trees to sell for firewood before.

Then, without prior arrangement, the two of them turned their gaze to the very valuable-looking tombstone in the center of the lawn.

The tombstone was carved from a single piece of fine white marble. Its surface was smooth and jade-like, gleaming with a warm luster under the moonlight. Several bouquets of flowers, still glistening with dew, were quietly placed around the tombstone. They were not the kind of chrysanthemums commonly found in flower offerings, but rather carefully arranged bouquets, each one as fresh as if it had just been cut from a branch.

Fine water droplets still clung to the petals, swaying gently in the night breeze, clearly indicating that they had been replaced during the day.

All the fear and worry he had just felt vanished at the sight before him, and Zhao Qiang's eyes gleamed with undisguised golden light.

The exterior is already so extravagant; the things buried inside are probably incredibly valuable.

He squatted down, rubbing his hands together, and nudged Zhang Zhuang's lower back with his elbow, his low voice barely concealing the overflowing greed within him.

"See that? The outside is already so extravagant. Who knows how valuable the things buried inside are? Judging by this, who knows how many good things were buried with them." He swallowed hard, his eyes reflecting the glittering golden nanmu wood and jade railings under the moonlight, his mind already conjuring up an image of banknotes piled up in the bridge archway.