The Jiang Family's Past

Jiang Kui's face blossomed with joy when he saw Mr. Mengfei.

Soon, Auntie Jiang brought several hot dishes out of the kitchen. Jiang Kui had also bought a few cold dishes and some ready-made foods, making for a truly lavish meal.

As they passed cups and exchanged toasts, two bottles of baijiu disappeared.

Mr. Mengfei seemed to hold his liquor very well, with not the slightest trace of drunkenness on his face.

Jiang Kui's face had long since turned red, and his tongue had grown stiff.

Jiang Kui slapped Mr. Mengfei on the shoulder. "Brother Mengfei, if you hadn't done our family such a huge favor back then, our Jiang family would've been finished! Seven years have passed in the blink of an eye, and you're still just the same. You can still hold your liquor so well!"

Mr. Mengfei held his cup and chuckled without saying a word.

"Wife, go buy some more liquor! I'm going to have a few more drinks with my brother today!" Jiang Kui said, working his numb tongue to pronounce each word.

In an ordinary household, the woman of the house would probably have tried to stop him from drinking. Whether Jiang Kui held a high position in the family or Mr. Mengfei commanded that much respect, Auntie Jiang actually went out without another word.

When Mr. Mengfei saw Auntie Jiang leaving, he tried several times to stop her, but each time Jiang Kui pulled him back.

"Brother Jiang, let's stop drinking. If I have any more, I'll be drunk!" Mr. Mengfei patted Jiang Kui on the back.

"No, no, no! I know you. You definitely won't get drunk! All we've done these past few years is talk on the phone a few times. I kept asking you to visit, but you never came! Now I've finally caught you. I have to thank you properly again!" As Jiang Kui spoke, he held Mr. Mengfei's hand and thanked him over and over.

Before long, Auntie Jiang returned with another two bottles of baijiu and some meat dishes.

They actually drank through the meal from daylight until dark. It ended mainly because Uncle Jiang had drunk too much and fallen asleep at the table. Otherwise, Su Ziyang suspected they could have kept drinking until the next morning.

Unlike the thoroughly drunk Jiang Kui, Mr. Mengfei seemed to have been drinking water all along. His mind was still perfectly clear.

Auntie Jiang cooked a bowl of thin noodles for each of those still awake, insisting that they finish before she would let them go to bed.

That night, in the room.

"Master, you can really hold your liquor!" Su Ziyang had been curious about it throughout the meal.

Mr. Mengfei chuckled. "Haha, what kind of skill is that? You'll be able to do it too in the future. Cultivate diligently, and once your qi has circulated through your meridians a couple of times, the alcohol will naturally disappear."

Su Ziyang nodded to himself, thinking that what his master taught him was indeed formidable.

"Master..."

"You want to ask why Jiang Kui thanked me at dinner, right? There's no harm in telling you about it." As if he could see the future, Mr. Mengfei cut Su Ziyang off and said everything Su Ziyang had wanted to say.

Su Ziyang could only nod.

Seven years earlier.

Mr. Mengfei traveled far and wide, seeking knowledge and the Dao. In truth, very few people traveled in search of knowledge and the Dao anymore. After all, this was modern society, with information readily available online and capable people emerging one after another on the internet. Though there were plenty of swindlers, there were also people with genuine skills.

Mr. Mengfei occasionally went online, but he spent most of his time traveling across the country, taking in the magnificent rivers and mountains of his homeland and meeting gifted and extraordinary people among the common folk.

Because Jiang Kui's home was very close to Mount Longhu in Jiangxi, the ancestral seat of Daoism, Mr. Mengfei had wandered into the area.

By then, Mr. Mengfei was already highly skilled. Standing at the village entrance, he gazed into the distance.

Dark clouds hung over Jiang Kui's courtyard, and black qi billowed above it. It could not be a good omen.

With the intention of helping the world and saving people, Mr. Mengfei went to Jiang Kui's home.

As soon as Mr. Mengfei entered, he felt that the Jiang family's aura was in even greater turmoil, with streams of black qi constantly swirling around the courtyard.

"Is anyone here?" Mr. Mengfei knocked on the gate, and a woman came out from inside.

This woman was none other than Auntie Jiang.

Seeing that Mr. Mengfei was an unfamiliar face with an outsider's accent, Auntie Jiang suddenly grew wary. She went into the kitchen, fetched a cleaver, and cursed at Mr. Mengfei, telling him to get lost.

Mr. Mengfei had no idea what was going on as a torrent of curses rained down on him.

Judging by Auntie Jiang's manner, she looked determined to actually hack him with the cleaver if he refused to leave.

Mr. Mengfei hurriedly explained that he was traveling in search of knowledge and had come to Jiangxi from Guangzhou. He had seen a stream of black qi above her roof from a distance and had hurried over.

Auntie Jiang was a woman. After listening to Mr. Mengfei, she lowered the cleaver she had raised. "You came from Guangzhou? You weren't sent by that Fujian man who deserves a thousand cuts?"

"What Fujian man?!"

Seeing that Mr. Mengfei's expression was not feigned, Auntie Jiang finally lowered the cleaver in her hand completely and invited him inside.

Without standing on ceremony, Mr. Mengfei asked directly whether anything had happened in the family, either something strange or a death.

Hearing how certain Mr. Mengfei sounded and seeing that he had the ethereal bearing of an immortal, Auntie Jiang told him what had happened to the family.

By the time Mr. Mengfei finished listening, his scalp had gone numb!

Two months earlier, a Fujian developer had taken a fancy to the plot of land where the Jiang family's ancestral graves lay.

The land was on the mountain behind the village, and the Fujian developer had offered a high price for it.

Jiang Kui had rejected the proposal outright. For one thing, it was where his family buried their ancestors; for another, the Jiangs were not short of money.

Jiang Kui also had a younger brother named Jiang Wen. Together, they ran a wooden furniture factory. Although the business was not particularly large, they were prospering.

With the Jiang family's uniquely inherited healing arts as well, Jiang Kui was highly respected in all the surrounding villages.

Jiang Kui had thought it was only a minor matter, but the developer came to the house every few days to ask whether they would sell the land. Finally, Jiang Kui's younger brother, Jiang Wen, could no longer stand it. He gave the developer a thorough cursing and drove him out.

Who would have thought that, as he left, the developer would say viciously to Jiang Wen, "You refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit. When the time comes, I'll make you beg me to buy the land!" With that, he left.

The brothers Jiang Kui and Jiang Wen both practiced martial arts. Martial artists were open and forthright by nature, and quite courageous, so neither took the Fujian man's threat to heart.

Two weeks later, Jiang Wen's wife, who had always been healthy, was suddenly diagnosed with breast cancer. She died less than a month later.

Jiang Wen and his wife had been very close. Distraught, Jiang Wen drove his car straight into the roadside trees on his way home from the wooden furniture factory, snapping seven trees as thick as a thigh. He died on the spot.

After the police arrived at the scene, they found a large amount of alcohol in Jiang Wen's blood. The matter was dropped, and the Jiang family even paid compensation for the trees.

The Jiang family lost two people in succession in less than a month. Thirteen-year-old Jiang Tian, Jiang Wen's son, became an orphan.

People in the countryside were somewhat superstitious to begin with. After such things happened to his family, Jiang Kui suddenly remembered what the Fujian developer had said before leaving. At that point, whether he believed it or not, there it was.

Jiang Kui dug the business card the Fujian man had left out of a drawer and called him.

When the call went through, Jiang Kui burst into curses and demanded to know whether he was behind it.

To his surprise, the Fujian man said, "Oh, dear... I know you're upset about the deaths in your family, but don't go accusing people at random! Watch out, or I'll sue you for defamation. Hehe, wouldn't everything have been fine if you'd just sold me the land earlier?"

Before Jiang Kui could speak, the Fujian man hung up. When Jiang Kui called again, the phone was switched off.

Jiang Kui had not been very certain before, but now he was even more convinced that the Fujian man was behind it!

Unable to reach the Fujian developer, and with his younger brother and sister-in-law dead one after the other, Jiang Kui was so overcome with anger and distress that he could not catch his breath. He spat out two mouthfuls of blood and collapsed to the floor.

From that day on, Jiang Kui never got up again. He lay in bed, occasionally spitting out two mouthfuls of black blood, sometimes mixed with strange white hairs.

After hearing Auntie Jiang's story, Mr. Mengfei's brows nearly knotted into a little hill. If what Auntie Jiang said was true, then nine times out of ten, the Fujian developer was behind it.

...How could someone so vicious still exist in today's society governed by law...

Mr. Mengfei asked whether he could see Jiang Kui, and Auntie Jiang hurriedly led him to the bedroom on the second floor.

Jiang Kui lay in bed, his face dark.

Mr. Mengfei looked closely and saw black qi constantly rising from Jiang Kui's face. Clearly, if he had not come that day, Jiang Kui would not have had long to live.

"Sister-in-law, haven't you asked anyone else to look at him?" Mr. Mengfei asked as he studied Jiang Kui and thought.

Auntie Jiang sighed. "We did. They all said there was no problem, that our Jiang was simply ill and should go to the hospital. But the hospital said there was no problem either."

Mr. Mengfei smacked his lips and asked no more. He bent down to feel Jiang Kui's pulse, which was so faint that he could no longer detect it.

At that point, Mengfei had a plan in mind.

Mr. Mengfei turned to Auntie Jiang. "Sister-in-law, can you get some cinnabar and realgar powder? And some baijiu too."

Auntie Jiang nodded at once. "We have them at home. I'll fetch them for you!"

Jiang Kui often treated people, so there were some medicines in the house, and as it happened, they had both of those.

Auntie Jiang brought the cinnabar and realgar, along with two teacups. Mr. Mengfei put the cinnabar in a cup and dissolved it in baijiu, then dipped his finger in the mixture and drew a cross on Jiang Kui's forehead.

As soon as the cross was drawn, the black qi on Jiang Kui's forehead dispersed, but it still lingered around him, refusing to dissipate.

Mr. Mengfei then mixed the realgar powder with liquor. After stirring it evenly, he asked Auntie Jiang to help, and the two of them quickly rubbed the realgar liquor over Jiang Kui's body.

Before long, a great many white hairs began to emerge one after another from Jiang Kui's pores. After working for more than half an hour, the two finally forced all the white hairs out.

At that point, Jiang Kui slowly woke.

Seeing Jiang Kui wake after half a month in a coma, Auntie Jiang dropped to her knees before Mr. Mengfei with a thud.

Mr. Mengfei hurriedly helped her up. "Sister-in-law, what are you doing? Quick, get up."

Jiang Kui was a martial artist, after all. Once the evil qi had been driven away, he slowly managed to sit up. Seeing him sit up, Auntie Jiang wept for joy and insisted on kowtowing to Mr. Mengfei again.

"Sister-in-law, the matter is only half resolved. We still have a big problem!"

"Huh?!" Auntie Jiang was shocked!