Once his pent-up force had burst forth and the knot in his heart had loosened, Xu Yi felt much better. He went straight to the vegetable patch behind the house, picked several pounds of scallions, cracked over a hundred eggs, and fried up a huge bowl of golden, fragrant egg sauce. He polished off twenty pounds of noodles with fried sauce in one sitting, then flopped onto the reclining chair in front of the door and fell sound asleep.
"Hey, young man, could you let us through..."
In a haze, Xu Yi heard someone call out. He opened his eyes and saw an old servant standing before him. It turned out the reclining chair was set right at the entrance to a mountain path. He had carved the path himself years ago; it led to the ancestral graves of the branch of the family descended from Duke Mingde.
Xu Yi glanced at the old servant, then shifted his gaze. Not far away, three riders waited. The one in the lead was a lean, refined-looking middle-aged man with a calm gaze. Behind him were a young man and a young woman. The man was dashing, the woman pretty and lively, and all three bore a family resemblance. At a glance, it was clear they were blood relatives.
The moment he made out the middle-aged man's face, Xu Yi sprang to his feet, his expression darkening. "What's your relationship to Zhou Daogan?"
"How dare you address my great-grandfather by his name!"
The girl snapped at him. If Xu Yi hadn't been dressed like a mere mountain villager, she would have made him pay for it already.
The middle-aged man's eyes lit up. "Young man, how are you related to Duke Mingde?"
"He was my ancestor," Xu Yi replied.
At their first meeting,