Wutong Street took its name from a plane tree more than five hundred years old in a courtyard deep along the street. After five centuries, the tree was still brimming with life. Who knew how many natural disasters and man-made calamities it had escaped in those years?
Su Yi had changed into a clean white shirt and cut his hair short. With a faint smile on his face, he looked bright and fresh, like an entirely different person from the one he had been on Sword-Washing Mountain.
A new era naturally called for a new look. Su Yi felt he still needed to learn more about modern people's ways of living.
"Kid, who are you looking for?"
A drunk in his forties lay on a reclining chair in the courtyard, with over a dozen liquor bottles piled beside him. Junk and garbage rose in heaps around the courtyard, and fallen leaves and broken branches covered the ground. The quiet elegance of fifty years ago was long gone.
"Is Chen Qifeng still around?" The Chen Qifeng Su Yi spoke of was the man who had looked after his courtyard fifty years earlier.
"Dead!" The drunk lifted his eyelids to glance at Su Yi, then waved a hand. "If you don't need anything, go play somewhere else."
Su Yi looked at the plane tree and asked, "Are you his son?"
"What's with all the questions? Get the hell out!" The drunk grabbed a liquor bottle and hurled it at Su Yi's feet.
The bottle shattered. Su Yi did not even shift his feet.
Over the years, Su Yi had traveled through countless famous mountains and rivers. He had planted the plane tree before him five hundred years ago with the woman who had been his wife at the time.
Through dynasty after dynasty, not even emperors, kings, generals, or ministers had dared touch this plane tree.
"I'd like to buy this place of yours." Su Yi had no intention of fighting. In this peaceful, prosperous age, he did not want to resort to force too often.
The drunk slowly sat up, stared at Su Yi, and looked him up and down. Finally, he could not help sneering. "Kid, do you know how much this place costs? Even if I sold it to you, could you afford it?"
"Name your price." Su Yi smiled. Whatever era he lived in, he would take up all sorts of trades, but that was only to experience new ways of life. If he really needed to buy something, money had never been a concern.
"Fifty million! Paid in full, all at once." The drunk let out a couple of loud laughs, grabbed another bottle, and smashed it at Su Yi's feet. "Get lost, kid!"
Su Yi ignored him and sat down on the stone stool beneath the plane tree.
He had no money on him.
But he believed someone would soon come to bring him money.
"You motherfucker! Getting too big for your boots?" The drunk stood up, cursing. But perhaps because he had yet to sober up, he lost his footing once he was on his feet, staggered, and fell into the pile of bottles in a sorry heap.
Su Yi did not even glance at him. The roar of a car came from outside the courtyard.
Only one car stopped at the courtyard gate, and five old men got out. Their bodyguards, meanwhile, guarded every intersection along the street, allowing no one near the courtyard.
Had the wealthy people of high society seen these five men appear together in front of an old courtyard like this, they would probably have been too frightened to speak.
The first old man out was named Yu Guoan. He held major stakes in new energy development projects throughout the world and owned several oil fields overseas. Even some foreign heads of state had to treat him with courtesy.
Yet as he got out of the car and looked at the plane tree inside the courtyard, he involuntarily shuddered.
Yesterday, Tang Jingchen had caused an uproar at the old residence on Sword-Washing Mountain, and they had done nothing. How could they not be anxious now that they were coming to see Su Yi?
If Su Yi thought they harbored disloyal intentions, what were they to do?
The other four exchanged uneasy looks after getting out of the car as well.
By rights, people of their current standing should not have feared anyone, but Su Yi was different.
They had once followed Su Yi. Each had learned only a little of the surface of what he knew, yet they had attained their present achievements.
During the years Su Yi had been missing, they had searched everywhere for information about him. In the end, they had made an astonishing discovery through some unofficial histories.
That discovery struck them as all the more unbelievable, and it was also the reason for their terror: Su Yi seemed to have lived for thousands of years!
Traces left by Su Yi could be found in many dynasties.
Hua Tuo, the medical sage of his age, had left writings paying tribute to his teacher. In a treasured old volume by Wang Xizhi, the sage of calligraphy, he had also written that a youth had guided him when he was young. By the time he reached his twilight years, that youth was still in the prime of life, without the slightest change.
Going even further back, they had found a faint description of that ageless youth in oracle bone inscriptions left from the Shang dynasty.
All of it had led Yu Guoan and the others to think of Su Yi.
If Su Yi were merely a powerful man of vast learning and many talents, then at least he would age and die just as they would. There would have been nothing so frightening about that.
"Let's go!" A shadow flashed in Yu Guoan's eyes as he led the way into the courtyard.
The other four old men lingered no longer and followed Yu Guoan inside.
Apart from the drunk who had fallen to the ground and was still cursing, they saw a young man in the courtyard.
When Su Yi slowly turned to look at them, Yu Guoan and the others felt their hearts leap into their throats.
Although Su Yi had changed his clothes and hairstyle, that distinctive bearing and gaze had not changed one bit in fifty years.
"What are you old bastards doing in my house?" The drunk clambered up, grabbed a bottle, and pointed it at Yu Guoan and the others.
Yu Guoan's expression changed drastically. How many years had it been since anyone had dared speak to him like that?
At that moment, killing intent stirred within him.
But at that very instant, Su Yi said mildly, "He's the owner of this house now. I'm planning to buy it from him. Fifty million. Which of you will pay?"
"Kid! Who the fuck are you trying to fool? This bunch of old men? They can come up with fifty million?" The drunk did not buy it at all. To put it plainly, he had pulled the fifty-million price out of thin air. He had no intention of selling and did not believe Su Yi could produce that much money.
"Master, let me pay." Yu Guoan stepped forward, took a checkbook from inside his jacket, and quickly wrote out a check for fifty million. "This is a Huaxia Bank check. You can cash it anytime..."
The drunk took the check, glanced at it, and sneered. He crumpled it into a ball and threw it straight into Yu Guoan's face. "You're fucking trying to fool me. I want cash!"
Yu Guoan was on the verge of exploding. In all his life, this was the first time anyone had dared throw something in his face.
Yet Su Yi said expressionlessly, "Give him cash."
Not daring to disobey Su Yi's order, Yu Guoan bowed his head to him. "Yes, Master!"
"Fucking idiots. Are you shooting a movie here? 'Master,' my ass! Let me tell you, if you're filming at my place and don't pay, none of you are leaving today!" The drunk found it absurd. An old man in his seventies or eighties actually calling a young man "Master"-wasn't that just too ridiculous? Other than shooting a movie, he could think of no explanation.