Inside was an unusually spacious stone corridor.
Below, there was an iron rack—judging by its structure, it was clearly used for lifting cargo.
At the end of the corridor stood a heavy iron door.
The door was tightly shut, with a keyhole right in the middle.
Grace pulled out a thin needle from her storage space, determined to pick the lock.
In her previous life, she'd trained as a spy, so picking locks was basic stuff for her.
But this underground chamber's lock? She fiddled with it forever, and it didn't budge an inch.
"What kind of lock is this? Why is it so impossible to open?" Grace wiped the sweat from her forehead.
Cutie Pie had been watching her with its head cocked to one side the whole time.
Seeing her struggle so much, it finally couldn't help but step in to assist.
Cutie Pie squeezed through a crack in the stone by the door and vanished from sight.
Moments later, the sound of gears turning echoed from inside, and with a heavy rumble, the iron door swung open.
Turns out, Cutie Pie had burrowed in from underground and opened the door from the inside.
Once inside, Grace lit several lamps, and the entire secret chamber came into view.
It was a huge underground chamber.
Inside, hundreds of large wooden crates were stacked from floor to ceiling.
They were the kind of crates usually used for transporting medicinal herbs—made of red pomelo wood, nailed neatly together, and impressively waterproof.
Grace dragged down one crate, pried open the rivets with her sword, and peeked inside. Instead of herbs, it was packed full of Mythril Ore!
The whole crate was stuffed to the brim with raw Mythril Ore!
No way... Could all these hundreds of crates be filled with Mythril Ore too?
Grace randomly opened a few more crates, and sure enough, every single one was packed with Mythril Ore.
Mythril Ore is extremely rare—by law, only the state can own it. No family or organization is allowed to mine it.
Otherwise, if anyone gets caught, it's a major crime!
And the amount of Mythril Ore here was no joke.
How did the Sun Family get their hands on so much Mythril Ore?
Even if they were in the business, and even if they had enough money to buy this much Mythril Ore, the authorities have strict rules: every Spirit Artifact shop has a yearly quota for incoming stock.
If you could get three big crates in one year, that already means you're running a pretty massive Spirit Artifact shop.
But this secret chamber had hundreds of crates stashed away!
This must be the shady business Minister Zhuo was talking about, right?
But what kind of shady business is this, exactly?
Colluding with officials?
Or... could the Sun Family actually be secretly mining Mythril Ore themselves?
If it's the latter, they've really got some guts...
Grace stood there, thinking for a moment, then whispered a few words to Cutie Pie.
Cutie Pie nodded obediently and slipped into one of the open crates.
Then Grace carefully hammered the crates she'd opened back together, mixing them in with the rest.
After that, she left.
At the chamber entrance, she checked everything carefully.
When Cutie Pie had come in, it had burrowed through the dirt under the stone crack, so nothing looked out of the ordinary.
Back on the surface, Grace triggered the mechanism again. The well returned to its original state... No one could tell it had ever been opened...
Grace left the Spirit Artifact shop and went home for a good night's sleep.
The next morning, she woke up feeling refreshed and went to chat with her dad about it.
Her dad nodded along, totally agreeing with her.
Then Grace headed out, hopped in a carriage, and set off to see Charles Sun.
The Charles Sun she was visiting wasn’t Sophie Sun—he was Sophie’s father, Charles Sun himself.
Grace sent in her calling card, and Charles Sun had someone politely welcome her inside.