Duden's house looked a little old. Simon walked to the door of the house, and there were small wooden cages and empty wine barrels neatly placed on both sides of the door.

"The chickens Duden raised were sent to the chicken coop behind the Lord's kitchen a few days ago, and Ida was responsible for raising them in captivity." Little Klein said, pointing to the cage full of chicken feathers and chicken manure.

"I know." Simon nodded.

Ida was a servant brought by Simon from the village of Fold. She was a hardworking and capable woman, so Simon assigned her to manage the lord's kitchen in the wooden fort in Esbai.

The door was pushed open with a "click" sound, and a strong smell of hay mixed with a smell of sweat came to your nose.

Simon leaned on the door foot when he saw Duden's saddle. He guessed that this was a preparation for escaping at any time.

In fact, no matter how much careful Duden thought or plan he made, Simon was not worried. From the day he captured the escaped Koliff, Simon sent two soldiers to secretly monitor Duden and his family.

Once Du Deng makes any move to leave the village, he will be taken down on the spot by soldiers who received orders in advance.

To put it bluntly, this is not catching a cat or a mouse, but catching a turtle in a jar.

"This extravagant bastard!" Little Klein followed Simon into the house and couldn't help but swear.

Whether it was Duden's comfortable big bed, the already sour vegetables and half-eat meat strips on the table, or the shelves of smoked fish and cheese in the storage room, his life seemed to be no different from that of a little lord.

On the contrary, Simon couldn't help but think of the old village chief of the village of Folder. His simple home had nothing but more firewood and wheat than the farmers.

"I have to find his cellar." Simon said to himself, lowering his head and pushing away the hay on the ground with his feet, stomping hard to see if the floor is hollow.

The floors of the Duden family were covered with strips of polished and perfectly polished oak wood planks. In this era when most people lived in semi-floor cottages and were made of mud, wood floors mostly only appeared in the lord's house.

After a while of testing, Simon found that there was a clear sound rather than a dull sound when the floor beside the bed was stomping on it.

"That's it!" Simon said in surprise.

Soon, the hay on the floor beside the bed was cleaned up by Simon and Klein, and a neat sawing slit appeared on the floor.

Simon reached into the gap in the floor and gently lifted it up. As the sawed floor raised, a cold wind came from the black cellar, making Simon shivering.

When the five wooden boards were lifted aside by Simon and Klein, a wooden ladder that seemed to lead to the endless abyss appeared in front of them.

"Little Klein, take a roll of hay that has just been lifted and lit it on the stove."

"Okay Master."

A fat mouse jumped out of the pot with a scream. After a while, the iron pot hanging on the stove made a "gurgling" sound again after a few days. A scent of beans mixed with bacon came out with the piping white air in the pot.

Simon picked up a burned candle from Duden's table and lit it under the stove, then walked down the wooden ladder.

A faint smell of mold mixed with the raised dust floating in the air of the cellar, and the screams and crawling sounds of mice came from the darkness. Simon thought that there should be no food stored here.

The cellar made of stone is very small, and perhaps Du Deng can't afford so much stone. Simon saw a wooden shelf with a large locked box and several tightly sealed wooden boxes.

The dust on the box is far less than that on the shelf, and Simon speculated that Duden had recently moved this big box.

There was only a layer of dust that was so shallow that it was almost invisible. Simon thought that Duden might have transferred all the valuable things in the big box to the small box so that he could take them away directly when he escaped.

The first box was short and long, and Simon opened its lid, and a gold-plated dagger with exquisite patterns shone brightly in the fiery red candlelight.

This is simply a wonderful work of art. It looks like it belongs to a certain nobleman, but I don't know what means Du Deng got it.

Simon opened the second box with doubt, and a birch recurve bow carved with patterns lay quietly on the off-white linen cloth, next to it was bowstrings and several extremely sharply grinded heavy arrows.

"This cunning old guy has a shabby hunting bow hanging on the fireplace, but there is such a great recurve bow hidden in the cellar. No matter what, it's all my fault now." Simon's mouth couldn't help but curl up.

There was a small iron lock tied to the last box.

Simon shouted at Little Klein at the entrance of the cellar. After a while, Little Klein handed down a string of keys that were "crackling".

Fortunately, Simon had the foresight. Since he wanted to take Duden's house back to his hands, the key was definitely indispensable. Simon's soldiers roughly pulled the keychain from his waist when Duden was just taken out of the dungeon this morning.

Simon unscrewed the iron lock, and what caught his eye were Denell silver coins of varying quality, which looked like there were about fifty.

"Ha, I guess the Denell silver coin deposit that Koliff gave Duden is here." Simon picked up one of the silver coins and put it in the palm of his hand and weighed it.

Someone once said that the peasants in the Middle Ages were the most cunning people in the world. If you don’t make up your mind to squeeze them, you will never know how much wealth they seem to be poor are hiding in private.

As a village chief who does everything he wants, Du Deng, the wealth he hides in the cellar, is completely stunned by Simon.

Simon couldn't help but imagine that this was the wealth accumulated by accepting bribes and doing so many bad things.

Then, Simon used the key to open the large box with a small amount of dust. As he guessed, there were no other valuable treasures in the box except for a few rolls of yellowed parchment.

Simon picked up the parchment paper, put the candle close, and read the above records with some difficulty. After reading for a long time, most of them recorded Du Deng's financial flows, including the expenses for house renovation, and who was bribed for which day and for what reason.

Interestingly, Simon found the origin of the gilded dagger on parchment paper.

It turned out that the luxurious dagger was customized by the Earl of Bruges from the craftsmen in Cologne, but the news was found out by a group of bold and careful thieves.

The thieves sneaked into the workshop while the craftsmen had almost finished making daggers. One person was responsible for shaking the jewelers, one person was responsible for handling the guards, and another person was responsible for prying open the boxes for storing the jewelry.

They obviously overestimated their lock-opening ability, and they could not find any keys on the alert jeweler. They were furious and did not want to make things worse, so they took away the almost finished gilded dagger on the table and sold it to the black market.

After hearing about this, the furious Earl of Bruges sent a spy to find the whereabouts of the dagger near the Cologne area. Obviously, anyone with a well-informed knowledge would not want to touch this bad head, so the dagger was circulated underground like a shameless work of art.

Later, a bandit leader got the dagger from a businessman who could not pay back his debts. He wanted to make a big fuss with this difficult work of art, so he joined the line through Kolif and Duden.

Du Deng colluded with the bandits and planned a sophisticated plan, plundering the Merlingen Ranch in the south of the Baron's territory, and also removed the ranch manager who had been unfavorable with Du Deng.

A successful escape from sanctions made the bandit leader happy. After that, he paid Du Deng a silver coin and gave the dagger to Du Deng as another three silver coins. Then he briefly told its story and finally told Du Deng not to be too arrogant.

Seeing this, Simon felt that his breathing was not smooth. He knew that he had been in the cellar for too long and had some oxygen deficiency. He put away the parchment roll, called Little Klein, handed the parchment paper and three boxes on it, and then returned to the ground.

"It's really a great harvest today," Simon smiled and patted the dust on his body, "Let's go back."

…………………………

After dealing with everything in the village, Simon finally relaxed.

Now, he has a small forest and a logging farm of his own. This means he can obtain the wood needed for the next major construction of the territory.

"I also need blacksmiths, leather craftsmen and weapons craftsmen, and more farmers and merchants who come to settle down." Simon thought secretly.

After planning the large piece of land beside the Mill with Ryan last time, Simon has been obsessed with it.

In his vision, a small dock would be built on the bank of the river, followed by several stalls and several houses for people to live in.

Now, after the Earl's War and the Earl's Reign and Esbaimuburger, he has accumulated a lot of wealth. In addition to renovating the fort walls of Foldeburg and Esbaimuburg, Simon thought that he would build a new trade town in the lower Rhine.

"Wait for the dock first, the stalls and resident huts are built before thinking about what to do next. I have to prepare my luggage. It's time to visit the half-Linder brother at Deventel Church in the north."

In addition to visiting Monk Linde, Simon also hopes that this trip will bring back some excellent craftsmen and some merchants who are willing to settle in the village of Esbai. In addition, he can also visit the lords of the adjacent territories in the north.
Chapter completed!