"Because you're also an heir to the Gold-Seeking Commandants."
Those few words from Gu Cheng.
Left both Hu Bayi and Wang Kaixuan utterly stunned.
Wang Kaixuan looked at Hu Bayi in astonishment. "Hu, you're an heir to those, uh, Gold-Seeking Commandants?"
Hu Bayi didn't answer him. Instead, he stared at Gu Cheng, his expression dark.
"How did you know?"
Gu Cheng chuckled. "Not only do I know you're an heir to the Gold-Seeking Commandants, I also know your ancestors were wealthy landowners with considerable local influence. Your family only began to decline during your grandfather Hu Guohua's generation."
"After experiencing the cold realities of the world, your grandfather became a disciple of Yin-Yang Eyes Sun Guofu. Later, he made a living telling fortunes at a practice in his hometown, a county town on the shores of Dongting Lake."
This time, not only Hu Bayi but even Wang Kaixuan looked shocked.
"How do you know so much?"
Hu Bayi asked.
Gu Cheng winked.
"Did you forget? I just told you my grandfather was also a Gold-Seeking Commandant."
Hu Bayi froze, then suddenly understood.
"You mean your grandfather and mine were old acquaintances? Your grandfather told you all this?"
Gu Cheng thought, I never said that. You filled in the blanks yourself.
"What else? Surely you don't think your grandfather told me?"
Hu Bayi immediately smiled.
But soon, he frowned again. "That still doesn't make sense. What does my grandfather being a Gold-Seeking Commandant have to do with me? I don't know anything about tomb raiding. Why are you so determined to recruit me?"
Gu Cheng lowered his head and sighed, speechless.
"Bayi, do you really want me to keep going?"
"You should have half a copy of the Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Art, right?"
Hu Bayi's expression changed drastically in an instant.
"You even know about that?"
That half-copy of the Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Art was his greatest secret.
He often read it to pass the time.
The deeper he delved into it, the more he appreciated its breadth and profundity.
How did Gu Cheng know about it?
Wang Kaixuan interjected from beside them. "What's the Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Art?"
Gu Cheng glanced at Hu Bayi.
Seeing that he was still staring blankly without responding.
"All right. Since Bayi wants to hear it, I'll explain."
"The story might be a little long and complicated, though."
"In the late Qing dynasty, there was a Gold-Seeking Commandant who wore three Gold-Seeking Talismans. People called him Zhang Three Chains."
"He was not only a leading figure in the Gold-Seeking School but also a major name in the tomb-raiding world of his day. He knew many tomb-raiding techniques beyond those of the Gold-Seeking School. He was an extraordinary talent."
"Once, he unearthed the sixteen-character heavenly trigram complete image from an ancient tomb. Delighted, he combined it with the Gold-Seeking Commandants' Dragon-Seeking Technique and wrote a remarkable book called the Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Art."
"The book recorded not only feng shui and yin-yang arts, but also extensive descriptions of the forms, structures, and layouts of ancient tombs from various dynasties, along with all kinds of difficulties and dangers the Gold-Seeking Commandants had encountered while raiding tombs."
"It was a genuine guide to Gold-Seeking tomb raiding."
"But the book was so powerful that it wrested secrets from heaven and earth. Zhang Three Chains feared it would shorten his lifespan, so he destroyed the section on yin-yang arts, leaving only half the book."
"Zhang Three Chains had four disciples."
"His eldest disciple, Feitian Chuni, was exceptionally skilled at scaling walls and leaping across rooftops. He fully inherited Zhang Three Chains' teachings in the Dragon-Seeking Technique and the Gold-Dividing and Acupoint-Determining Technique."
"His second disciple, Golden Abacus, came from a merchant background. He excelled at using an abacus to calculate the numerology of the five elements and divine the positions of the eight gates. He also knew Qimen Lock-Picking."
"His third disciple, Sun Guofu, was born with yin-yang eyes and thoroughly mastered Zhang Three Chains' teachings."
"His youngest disciple, Iron Millstone, had been a bandit. His body was hardened by rigorous martial training, and he excelled at raiding tombs through brute force."
"Zhang Three Chains had three Gold-Seeking Talismans to pass down, but four disciples. Dividing them was a problem."
"As it happened, Sun Guofu was a scholar who had passed the county-level imperial examination and disliked tomb raiding. Zhang Three Chains therefore passed the Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Art to him. But because the book was so powerful that it wrested secrets from heaven and earth, he feared it would harm his disciple. So he burned the section on yin-yang arts, leaving only half the book."
"The three remaining Gold-Seeking Talismans went to Soaring Suanni, Golden Abacus, and Iron Millstone."
"For Gold-Seeking Commandants, unity meant life and separation meant death. The three of them formed a tomb-raiding team, but that's another story."
"Sun Guofu later made his living telling fortunes and took a disciple named Hu Guohua-your grandfather."
"He later passed the book down to Hu Guohua."
"Your father, Hu Yunxuan, was a soldier. Your grandfather couldn't have passed the book to him."
"So I'm certain he passed it to you."
Hu Bayi was completely dumbfounded.
"How is that possible? How do you know all this in such detail? Even I don't know these things!"
Gu Cheng lifted his chin smugly. "That's what happens when you have a grandfather who loves telling stories."
Meanwhile.
Gu Cheng was secretly sweating.
Fortunately, Gu Cheng was someone who liked studying the details.
Back when he watched the TV series, he had wanted to understand all the relationships between the characters.
So he had watched the entire series and looked up a great deal of information online.
At last, he had untangled the relationships between every character.
And that had allowed him to pull off this little show.
"I'm sincerely inviting you to join my team!"
Wang Kaixuan hurriedly asked, "How would we join?"
Wang Kaixuan had spent all those years scraping by in Yanbei City, yet still had nothing to show for it.
Now that such a good opportunity had come along.
He certainly didn't want to miss it.
"It's very simple!"
Yesterday, a rat chewed through my internet cable. It took three hours to get it reconnected, so I only uploaded seven chapters, three short of the promised number.
I'll do my best to make up for them today.
Sorry.