On the way down the mountain, Pan Long suddenly remembered something and asked, puzzled, "Grandpa, how did the old ancestor know I'd been helping people and upholding justice? We never mentioned it."
Grandpa smiled. "Did you think we did nothing all last night?"
"Huh?"
"From the moment we decided to take you to meet the old ancestor, the Ren Family began investigating what you'd done since entering the Martial World," Grandpa said. "You traveled with a caravan from the Chang'an Commerce Guild and earned the praise of the notorious bandit King of Nine Mountains at the foot of Ghost Gate Mountain. After leaving the guild, you killed bandits all along your route. We can confirm you wiped out at least two groups. You and a friend tried to help others, but things went wrong. Your friend was killed, and you later slipped into the enemy's home for revenge... We know about all of it."
Pan Long was startled. He had never imagined the Ren Family's intelligence network was so formidable.
"We can even guess that the so-called One-Coin Hero is probably you."
"What?!" Pan Long cried. "You figured out even that? I thought I'd hidden it so well!"
Grandpa laughed heartily. "No matter how well you hid it, you couldn't change the fact that you traveled the same route as him. Six martial artists traveled the same route as the One-Coin Hero, and you're the most likely of the six."
"Then... do I have no secrets left at all?"
"Not necessarily. Take what happened in Yong Province, for example. We only know the broad outlines; much remains unclear," Grandpa explained. "Here in Yi Province, the great families and local powers are all connected. They've long since formed a vast, tangled web. We exchange information, and we often conduct dealings beneath