Family Secrets

After that phone call, Jiang Yue no longer felt like dealing with San Gou.

San Gou had been eavesdropping the whole time. When he heard his aunt had gotten him permission to stay in the city a little longer, he was over the moon.

But the call had been so heavy that San Gou instinctively felt he shouldn't look too happy.

"Second Brother, that means I don't have to go back to town, right? I say those dogs were killed by those Unclean Things last night."

San Gou had never been an atheist.

To be precise, no one in the Old Jiang Family had ever been an atheist.

"Hey, Second Brother, there's something I don't get. Why did those Unclean Things go back to town? There are so many people there, so why can't anyone else see them?"

"Second Brother, could this be the Yin Yang Eye that Yin Yang Masters are always talking about?"

That was San Gou for you, always thinking in unexpected ways.

If an ordinary kid saw unclean things several times in one day, even if he didn't have a nervous breakdown, he would surely be terrified.

But San Gou had barely given it another thought once it was over. He ate as usual and kept flirting with girls.

When it came to having a Yin Yang Eye, he wasn't frightened at all. He was actually rather proud of it.

"You know about the Yin Yang Eye?" Jiang Yue asked, surprised.

"What's that supposed to mean? Isn't that one of the Old Jiang Family's ancestral skills? When I was little, Dad used to tell me all about it."

"What did Dad tell you?"

"Huh? You don't know? Dad said Grandpa was a master with incredible abilities. He was just too modest, a stubborn old fossil who didn't know how to adapt. And..."

"And what?"

San Gou scratched his head. "Hehe, that's what Dad said, not me."

"Sounds like it wasn't anything nice."

"Hehe, it wasn't exactly flattering, but I don't believe it. With Dad, if he couldn't take a dump, he'd blame the latrine." San Gou wasn't stupid. He knew what to say depending on who he was talking to. Being politically correct mattered more than anything.

"Enough, enough. Quit rambling and tell me what else your dad said."

"I'll tell you, but you can't hit me. Those were Dad's words, not mine."

"Keep talking and see if I don't smack you."

"Look at you, so impatient! Dad said Grandpa was very capable, but a bit of an idiot. All his life, he was content to be a rustic country bumpkin. He never put his abilities to use, which was a real waste. He also said Grandpa played favorites, doting on my eldest and second uncles while holding a grudge against him. He even wondered if he was really Grandpa's son."

If anyone else had said that, Jiang Yue probably wouldn't have believed it. But Uncle Three was a good-for-nothing, and Jiang Yue could easily imagine those words coming from him.

In many ways, San Gou took after Uncle Three: sly and slippery, full of schemes, thick-skinned, and wild. Nothing fazed him, no matter how serious it was. And sometimes he could be downright vicious with his words—in other words, a smart mouth.

But the biggest difference between San Gou and Uncle Three was that Uncle Three was the sort who couldn't lift a rope with tofu on it.

San Gou, on the other hand, was young but could be counted on when it mattered.

When his second brother didn't respond, San Gou checked himself carefully in the glass cabinet's reflection.

"How can I put this? Dad just loves to talk nonsense. Second Brother, I think you and I look a lot alike. Dad's definitely Grandpa's son. We're all Old Jiang Family stock, no doubt about it."

"Why did your dad suspect he wasn't Grandpa's son?"

"He said Grandpa secretly taught all his skills to my eldest and second uncles. Especially after my eldest uncle died, Grandpa passed all his abilities on to your dad. He wanted to learn, but Grandpa wouldn't teach him."

That was hard to argue with.

But what exactly had Grandpa taught his father? Jiang Yue had no idea.

The Jiang family did have an inherited tradition: feng shui, divination, fortune-telling, physiognomy, and the like. The old man had indeed been quite skilled. But he had never involved himself in Jianghu, so he wasn't well known.

At least, Jiang Yue had grown up absorbing these things by osmosis. No one had ever sat him down and taught him systematically.

If Grandpa really had taught his father some extraordinary skills in secret, then as his father's only son, Jiang Yue should have inherited them too, shouldn't he?

"San Gou, do you believe what your dad said?"

"I do," San Gou answered without hesitation.

"I believe Grandpa had great abilities, and I believe he refused to teach Dad. But if Grandpa really was that capable, then he must have had his reasons for not teaching Dad!"

Oh?

That made Jiang Yue see San Gou in a new light. The usually scatterbrained San Gou had just come out with something so profound and high-minded?

"Then tell me, what great abilities did Grandpa have?"

Jiang Yue's ability to remember everything he saw had been an innate gift, one he'd had since birth.

His grandfather had passed away when Jiang Yue was six. But before then, Jiang Yue had spent plenty of time at his grandfather's side.

His childhood memories weren't as vivid as those from later years, but he still remembered a lot.

As he recalled it, Grandpa had been a cheerful old man. He had a touch of otherworldly grace, and he would talk about yin-yang and feng shui, as well as the stars and the moon.

When all was said and done, though, he was no different from an ordinary person. He ate three meals a day, and did all the usual things. There had been nothing obviously unusual about him.

Grandpa had often taught him to read and recognize characters, read old books with him, and taught him how to conduct himself. From time to time, he'd also shared basic knowledge about yin-yang and feng shui. Jiang Yue had absorbed all of it over the years until it became part of him.

"Second Brother, when I was little, Dad told me something that really stuck with me. I don't know if you've heard it."

"Let's hear it."

"Dad said that once, when he was still a little kid—maybe even younger than I am now—Grandpa went into the mountains to gather herbs, and Dad secretly followed him."

"When they reached the back of a mountain, Dad saw Grandpa writing and drawing on a sheet of yellow talisman paper. He worked at it for a long time, then folded the paper into a crane. After that, he dipped his finger in cinnabar and dabbed each of the crane's wings. Guess what happened?"

"What?"

"Dad said he saw the paper crane take flight right from Grandpa's palm. It didn't fly very far, but Dad said it went at least seven or eight meters high and tens of meters away! Then it burned up in midair!"

"How is that possible?" It sounded like something out of a fantasy about immortals and demons.

As the eldest grandson who had spent time with Grandpa, Jiang Yue found it hard to connect such a miraculous feat with the cheerful old man he remembered.

Uncle Three's childhood—that had been so many years ago. How could anyone say for sure what had happened? Childhood memories could be distorted, or even embellished by the imagination. That was entirely possible.

"I knew you wouldn't believe me. I didn't believe it either at the time. But Dad swore up and down it was true. And afterward, when Grandpa found out Dad had been spying on him, he gave Dad a huge slap and warned him not to go blabbing about it, or he'd beat him to death."

"After taking a beating like that, how could Dad forget it? The really weird part was that not long afterward, my eldest uncle died of an illness while he was away. My second uncle and Dad never even saw his body. They heard he was cremated right there."

Uncle Three and San Gou really were a pair of oddballs.

Who swore up and down while telling a story to his own son? Only that ridiculous father-son duo.

Still, San Gou had told the story with such vivid detail, and sworn it was true. The way it also involved something from his eldest uncle's past made it worth thinking about.

"San Gou, what else did your dad say? Be specific."

"Hmm, he grumbled about this to me several times. He said that when Grandpa saw the paper crane fly, he didn't look happy at all. His face turned grim, and he kept muttering, 'It's only been three short years. How did things change so much?'"

"What changed so much?" Jiang Yue pressed.

San Gou shook his head. "Dad couldn't figure it out either. Grandpa kept repeating that same sentence. Dad was so stunned by the slap that he didn't dare ask afterward. He waited until Grandpa passed away, but he still never dared ask."

Jiang Yue pressed him again, but San Gou couldn't say anything more. Clearly, Uncle Three had only known that much at the time.

At first, Jiang Yue hadn't believed a word of San Gou's story.

But after hearing all the details, he found himself half-believing it.

"Second Brother? There's something I've always been too embarrassed to ask. Why did Second Uncle leave home when everything seemed fine?"

Jiang Yue never talked about it, but San Gou knew it was a sore subject for his second brother, so he asked with great care.

Normally, Jiang Yue wouldn't have answered. But now they were family, all in it together. San Gou had opened up to him about so much, and it would feel wrong to keep dodging the question.

"Dad left a letter. It didn't say much. He said he'd found a lead related to Mom and was going out to look into it."

"That was it?"

"That was the main thing. The rest was just telling my sister and me to support and care for each other, and to rely on each other."

"Oh." San Gou felt sorry for his second brother.

"Second Brother, your dad left so mysteriously. Do you think it might have had something to do with the skills Grandpa secretly taught him, besides Mom?"

Jiang Yue shook his head. "Dad always worked at the office. I never saw him do anything unusual."

"If he did have some, he wouldn't exactly tell you, would he? Didn't Dad only find out by spying on Grandpa?"

Fine. San Gou's mind really did work in its own way.

San Gou thought about it, then decided that didn't add up either.

"Grandpa probably didn't teach Dad because he thought Dad was a good-for-nothing who'd never amount to anything. But if Second Uncle had great abilities, it doesn't make sense that he wouldn't teach you, Second Brother. Maybe the time just hadn't come?"

San Gou firmly believed Grandpa had great abilities. There was no shaking his faith.

"Enough, don't overthink it. When our eldest sister gets back, I'll ask her to talk to our aunt. We should all just move to Star City. The world really isn't peaceful anymore."

As they were talking, a frantic cry rang out in the corridor, followed by a series of hurried knocks on the door.

Bang, bang, bang!

The blows were so forceful that the whole house seemed to shake.

"Little Jiang! Little Jiang, are you home?"

With knocking like that, was the sky about to fall?