Shen Tang suppressed the urge to get goosebumps.
She tentatively asked, "I'm not very familiar with this period of history. Could the Sovereign who founded the Wu State have been Gongxi Chou's ancestor? Was the royal clan crest of the Wu State the Gongxi Clan's crest?"
Going by the usual conventions, that should have been it.
But Gu Chi clearly didn't like doing things by the book.
"The Wu State's royal line lasted only one generation. The Sovereign had the compound surname Ji Sun, and no one knew his native place, family, background, or origins. He seemed to have appeared out of thin air. According to historical records, he was a convict laborer forced to build an imperial mausoleum. When he grew dissatisfied with the overseers' indiscriminate killing of innocents, he raised a rebellion. He surged forward with unstoppable momentum, killing gods if they stood in his way and Buddhas if they blocked his path, sweeping across the entire northwest..."
In just eight years, he had seized the whole northwest, the whole southwest, and over half the northeast. He had been only one step away from unifying the continent. The small countries in the remaining territory had trembled beneath the great demon king's might, and even the most pessimistic among them had prepared themselves to lie flat and accept their fate. Who could have guessed that the vast Wu State would collapse overnight?
From then on, the realm split apart, and war returned to the land.
Shen Tang caught on to something. "Ji Sun? That compound surname has a history, too. This Sovereign of the Wu State, with the compound surname Ji Sun, must have had a distinguished background. Come to think of it—the Gongxi Clan seems to be a branch of the Ji Sun Clan. Could the two really