Chapter 1 The Beginning

Zhang Yuanqing stole two bottles of good wine from Fu Qingyang's cabinet, a high-end ham from the kitchen, and a box of top-quality Cuban cigars from Lingjun's room.

He had already stolen cigars from Fu Qingyang last time, so he couldn't keep fleecing Young Master Qian.

Returning to his own villa, he asked the Queen for the car keys and set off alone.

The things he was about to do next were not suitable for bringing teammates, not even Guan Ya.

Zhang Yuanqing's hometown was in a rural area on the outskirts of Songfu. At that time, Songhai City had not yet become the financial center of the country, a super first-tier metropolis.

The pride of the Songfu people was still there. When mentioning Songhai next door, they habitually raised their chins and said:

Back then, Songhai was just a small fishing village, a desolate place, a rural area under the jurisdiction of our Songfu.

Now Songfu is just a district of Songhai, and a district far from the prosperous areas.

Zhang Yuanqing drove a white car through the bustling streets, turned onto the outer ring elevated road, and half an hour later, left the urban area and entered the Sheling Tunnel.

Unlike the Sheling Tunnel in Lingjing, the real Sheling Tunnel has clean and smooth asphalt roads, and the xenon lights at the top of the tunnel are snow-white and bright.

The traffic flowing back and forth shuttled through it, without any terrifying or strange atmosphere.

In the slight noise of the wheels rolling over the asphalt road, Zhang Yuanqing couldn't help but recall the fear and anxiety he felt when he first entered Lingjing, and for a moment, he was filled with emotion.

Time flies, time passes, and now he is already…

Bah, it's only been four months, it's not time for me to reminisce about the past yet. Zhang Yuanqing muttered in his heart, cut off his divergent thoughts, and concentrated on driving.

Twenty minutes later, he arrived at his father's hometown, Ji'an Village.

Oh no, it's now called Ji'an Community.

Zhang Yuanqing hadn't been here for many years. The rural village in his memory was gone. New villas and residential buildings had sprung up everywhere. The streets were full of shops, a scene of prosperity.

He remembered that everyone's houses were north-facing red brick houses, with a corridor on each floor. During summer rainstorms, the corridor would be wet with rainwater.

After his father passed away, his mother took him back to Songhai. Within a few years, Ji'an Village was demolished.

His mother didn't want the house and exchanged it all for compensation, plus the savings she had accumulated from work over the years, and bought a large flat in Kangyang District.

Although Zhang Yuanqing didn't live the life of a rich second generation who collected rent, the large flat in his home was now worth 40 million.

While examining the unrecognizable village, Zhang Yuanqing recalled his family history. His father, Zhang Zizhen, was the only son in the family. It was said that the year after his grandmother gave birth to him, she suffered a serious illness and could no longer have children.

So his father became a rare only child at the time.

When this only child was ten years old, his grandfather was killed when a mad ox broke through his lungs while working with the production team.

His grandmother took on the family's livelihood alone, and before his father came of age, she became ill from overwork and passed away.

So Zhang Yuanqing had no uncles or aunts.

His grandfather's generation did have several siblings, but they either married far away and cut off contact, or went abroad due to the turmoil of that year, and basically no longer contacted each other.

The closest blood relative Zhang Yuanqing could find was from his father Zhang Zizhen's great-uncle's lineage, that is, his great-grandfather's younger brother.

He parked the car on the side of the road, followed his childhood memories, returned to the 'village' where he used to live, caught a gray-haired, leisurely aunt on the bustling roadside, and asked in the Songfu dialect:

'Where does Zhang Guojun live now?'

'Zhang Guojun?' The aunt was stunned for a few seconds, and didn't react for a while. 'I don't know him.'

'You are from Ji'an Village, how could you not know him? Zhang Guojun is from your father's generation.' After all, the era was too long ago, Zhang Yuanqing reminded.

The aunt then reacted, realizing that there was such an elder in the village before, and looked at the young man in front of her in surprise:

'Are you looking for him? He has been dead for many years.'

'I am his relative, he is my father's great-uncle,' Zhang Yuanqing explained.

'So you are one of us...' The aunt felt immediately amiable, pointed behind her, and said:

'His son lives in Building 18, Room 207. 208 and 209 are also their home, but they live in 207. 208 and 209 are rented out. Alas, his son also died of cancer a few years ago, you have to find his grandson.'

After speaking, the aunt asked tentatively: 'Who is your father?'

'My father is Zhang Zizhen.'

The aunt said 'Oh' forcefully, and said in a gnashing tone:

'You are Zhang Zizhen's son, let me think... I remember, didn't your mother remarry with you?'

'She didn't remarry, my mother took me back to her parents' home.' Zhang Yuanqing thought that although he didn't remember, the aunt was from the same village as him back then, so it was a good opportunity to ask about his father, so he said:

'Do you still remember my father?'

'Who doesn't remember that little swindler, claiming to be the reincarnation of the Ziwei Emperor, swindling money from fortune-telling all over the village.' The aunt's tone began to gnash her teeth again:

'Back then, he also tricked me, saying that my family's feng shui was bad, and there were evil spirits, so my old man's toes hurt. It was because a ghost was hugging his feet, and he needed to use his boy's urine to pour it on for forty-nine days, two cents a day.'

'Later, when he couldn't bear the pain, he went to the hospital and found out it was gout. That little devil, made my old man smell like urine every day. Everyone in the village was tricked by him.'

[In truth, I have been using Yeguo Reading to read books and follow updates recently, switching sources, with many reading voices. .yeguoyuedu can be used on both Android and Apple.]

Some people are dead, but they still live in other people's hearts, and every time they think of it, they jump with anger.

It's all over, it's all over, let the past go with the wind... Zhang Yuanqing quickly said:

'Auntie, you are busy, I won't bother you.'

He fled in a hurry.

Returning to the car, he took out the gifts he had scrounged, and went to the street to buy a bag of fruit and two cartons of cigarettes. Zhang Yuanqing followed the direction pointed by the aunt and found Room 207 in Building 18.

'Ding Dong!!!'

He rang the doorbell.

After a while, the anti-theft door opened, and behind the door was a middle-aged man in his forties, slightly obese, with swollen eye bags, looking at the stranger at the door and asked:

'Who are you looking for?'

Zhang Yuanqing tried hard to stare at the middle-aged man, trying to remember his face from his mind, but he had no impression at all.

'I am Zhang Zizhen's son, Zhang Yuanqing,' he announced his identity.

'Zizhen's son...' The middle-aged man was obviously stunned, and then his face suddenly became excited, both surprised and delighted, and said:

'You are so old? Come in, come in and sit down.'

Zhang Yuanqing entered the living room with gifts in his hands, sat down on the sofa, and said:

'Uncle, no need to pour water, I'll just sit for a while and leave.'

At the same time, he introduced the gifts he brought, such as whiskey worth tens of thousands, a limited edition Cohiba worth five thousand yuan, and a ham worth thirty to forty thousand yuan.

'Why bring such valuable gifts, how can I be embarrassed to accept them?' The middle-aged man was stunned.

'My mother made some money from speculating in real estate, and asked me to come and see you. I am going abroad at the end of the year, and I will rely on you to take care of my father's grave in the future. Go and see him during Qingming Festival, so he won't be lonely.'

Zhang Yuanqing lied casually.

The middle-aged man reluctantly accepted it, and said with emotion:

'Going abroad, going abroad is good, now all the rich people want to go abroad, alas, your mother took you back to her parents' home back then, and it's been more than ten years since she came back to see. But there is really nothing to see, Zizhen has no brothers or sisters here!'

After a chat, Zhang Yuanqing learned that the uncle's name was Zhang Zitao, and he was a distant cousin of his father.

'I heard my mother say that he stayed in a Taoist temple when he was a child?' Zhang Yuanqing began to inquire about his father's past.

The main purpose of his returning to his hometown this time was to inquire about two things, one was the truth about his father's death, and the other was his enemies.

Zhang Zitao heard the words, fell into memory, and nodded:

'He did stay there. Life was very difficult at that time. My uncle left early, and Zizhen was weak when he was a child. Your grandmother was afraid that she wouldn't be able to raise him, so she sent him to a Taoist temple. There was a Taoist temple near the village at that time, I remember it was called Xiaoyao Temple.' (Xiaoyao means carefree/unrestrained)

'The Taoists inside specialized in handling funerals for the village and were also barefoot doctors.'

Xiaoyao Temple?? I seem to know the origin of the 'Xiaoyao' organization's name... Zhang Yuanqing entered the topic and asked:

'My mother said that after my father had a car accident, it was Great-Uncle who did the encoffining. Where did the accident happen?'

Since his father couldn't have died in a car accident, then there wouldn't be a collision, and the scene of the crime certainly wouldn't exist. As a corpse encoffiner, Great-Uncle at least knew how Zhang Zizhen died.

Zhang Zitao shook his head: 'I was working outside at the time, so I don't know very well. I just remember my father said that Grandpa was called over by your mother, and after he came back, he notified the family to hold a funeral for Zizhen, saying that he had a car accident.'

'Sure enough, that's how it is. I said it couldn't have been a car accident. The car that could kill a peak Ruler would be at least a demigod-level car.'

A doubt in Zhang Yuanqing's heart was answered.

When he discovered that his father knew the spirit of the zoo, he suspected that his father didn't die in a car accident!

In the past few days, after gathering information and learning about the existence of the Xiaoyao organization, he didn't believe it even more.

Now that Great-Uncle had passed away, if he wanted to know the real cause of his father's death, he would have to find his mother who was far away abroad, but if everything the Palace Master of Zhisha (止杀) said was true, then maybe his mother didn't know the real cause of his death either. She just had a premonition and was mentally prepared for his death.

'I met an aunt on the way here, she said that my father used to often swindle people in the village? He must have had a lot of enemies, where did he work before?' Zhang Yuanqing asked about the old things in a joking tone.

This was the second purpose of coming here today.

'Enemies??? He used to be quite good at swindling people, but that was when he was a child. Everyone also pitied his life experience, so if he swindled, he swindled, just treat it as giving him a meal, how could there be enemies?'

Zhang Zitao waved his hand and said, 'After he married your mother, he became stable all of a sudden, and he never swindled people again. As for work, I don't remember very clearly, but he was often not at home, and he couldn't be found every now and then. I also advised her to keep a close eye on her wife, how could she often let her be at home alone? Your mother was very beautiful when she was young.'

My father was probably busy killing Rulers and going to dungeons every day. Zhang Yuanqing asked:

'After my father got married, did he always live in the village, did he ever take my mother away?'

He wanted to know if his father had ever escaped to take refuge, and if so, when did it happen.

Zhang Zitao thought for a while and shook his head, 'It doesn't seem like it!'

The two chatted for a while, and Zhang Yuanqing didn't get any valuable clues, and was a little disappointed, but he was unwilling to go back like this.

Think again, think again about what to ask, what small details are useful to me, and Uncle Zitao knows about. He actively used his brain! Uncle Zitao is an ordinary person, even if his father had enemies, he wouldn't tell him, and he wasn't in the village when his father died.

Great-Uncle has passed away, and Great-Uncle's son has also passed away, the people from the past are all gone, it's not easy to investigate.

Zhang Yuanqing sighed in his heart, made a curious face, and smiled:

'What skills did my father learn in the Taoist temple, does he really know magic??'

He planned to first find out when his father became a Lingjing Xingzhe. (灵境行者) Given Zhang Zizhen's character in everyone's mouth, he was a charlatan for most of his life, and suddenly one day he became a Night Watcher, really gained the supernatural power to catch ghosts and exorcise evil spirits, he would definitely be eager to prove to everyone that he had real skills!

Loose cultivators have always lacked vigilance in this regard.

Zhang Zitao smiled and said: 'How could he know any magic, he just did some chores in the Taoist temple, practiced a few fake moves, and then followed the Taoists to handle funerals and see doctors, etc.'

'Alas, it's a wasted trip.' Zhang Yuanqing stood up with a disappointed face and said:

'Uncle, then I'll go back first.'

Zhang Zitao tried to persuade him to stay: 'Why don't you stay for lunch?'

'No need, I still have classes in the afternoon, I won't be able to make it back after lunch,' Zhang Yuanqing refused.

Zhang Zitao didn't insist any longer and sent him out. Before leaving, Zhang Yuanqing thought of another question and said:

'Why didn't my father inherit the Taoist temple? Being a barefoot doctor and handling funerals can also make a living, it's better than swindling people.'

'It seems that it was taken down during the time of breaking feudal superstitions. Your father had nowhere to go, so he could only swindle people in the village,' Zhang Zitao said:

'That Taoist temple was a bit spooky. He stayed in it for more than a year, and then he kept clamoring that he was a descendant of the Xiaoyao Sect, saying that the Xiaoyao Sect was a sect passed down from ancient times. When we played together, he also said that he would take me as a handyman and asked me to give him my new clothes and new shoes as a tribute.'

'Every time he said that, I would beat him!'

Passed down from ancient times? Zhang Yuanqing was startled, suddenly stopped, and said in a somewhat urgent tone:

'A sect passed down from ancient times? What do you mean, Uncle, please explain clearly.'

Zhang Zitao didn't understand why his nephew was suddenly anxious, and smiled:

'Who still remembers this, it's been decades.'

'Uncle, I'm going abroad at the end of the year, and I don't know when I'll be back, and I won't be able to hear about my father's past anymore, please think again.'

Zhang Zitao frowned and thought for a while, and said helplessly:

'He said that he saw in the ancient books of Xiaoyao Temple that the end of the world was coming soon, and the ancient times had already experienced the end of the world once! The Xiaoyao Sect was a sect that survived from that time.'

'He also said that he had to find a way to save the world, and if he didn't want to die, he would give him his new clothes and new shoes as a tribute... That's probably it, I really can't remember, I only remember that his original words were very literary, and he was just reciting things from books.'

'It can't be...' Zhang Yuanqing was silent, thinking, for a long time, he said:

'Uncle, can my father draw talismans?'

Zhang Zitao nodded, 'Aren't Taoists just for drawing talismans?'

'Do you remember what kind of talismans my father drew?'

'I don't remember.'

'Let's go inside first!'

The two returned to the house again. In Zhang Zitao's dazed gaze, Zhang Yuanqing found a ballpoint pen and a piece of white paper in the living room, and drew a corpse suppression talisman as if flying.

A corpse suppression talisman that only had a similar shape but no spiritual power!

Zhang Zitao stared at it for a few seconds, slapped his thigh and said:

'Yes, yes, it's this kind of talisman, weird, so he taught you that.'

Huadu, Wanbao House.

A young man wearing big shorts, a black T-shirt, and flip-flops walked into a small store that had been closed for many years in the eyes of ordinary people.

The young man was wearing a baseball cap and a mask, and slowly scanned the cluttered store, finally landing on the cashier counter.

On the soft chair behind the cashier counter, lay a charming and lazy mature woman, she was holding a cigar in her hand, her eyebrows were lazy, like a lazy traveler in the world of games.

The young man leaned over, stared at the woman, and under the baseball cap, a pair of gloomy and crazy eyes were revealed, and said:

'I heard that this is the largest intelligence distribution center in the South, with the largest black market, is this it?'

Lian Sanyue raised her eyelids and glanced at him: 'Buying props, materials, or intelligence?'

The young man's eyes contained hidden madness, and he said in a deep voice:

'I want to buy intelligence, the distribution list of Night Watchers in the major branches of the country, Taiyi Sect.'

Lian Sanyue sneered:

'I have a rule, I don't sell intelligence that is detrimental to the official, this is the basis for the shop to continue operating. But you can enter the black market and find someone to trade with yourself. Do you have a hand card?'

'No!'

'One hundred thousand for one.'

'No money!'

'If you don't have money, get out, you lonely ghost.'

'Being able to see that I am a body snatcher, you are indeed a Ruler.' The young man chuckled, his expression still crazy, like a lunatic who could lose control at any time.

He took out a bead from his pocket and placed it on the cashier counter.

'Pledge it to you, I'll come back in three days to pick it up.'

The bead glowed, presenting dreamlike pictures.

Lian Sanyue grabbed the bead, looked at it for a few times, and said: 'Saint quality, Dream Bead, worth about 20 million, deal.'

She opened the cabinet of the cashier counter and took out a hand card and crushed it.

The young man's eyes blurred, and the small store turned into a large market.

Lian Sanyue beckoned to a tall and strong man and ordered:

'Give him a card, write the distribution list of Night Watchers in the national Taiyi Sect, and put it in booth number six.'

After the strong man retreated to do business, she glanced at the young man, threw him a mask, and said:

'My place is just an intermediary market, I am not responsible for your safety. If you are targeted by official practitioners, it's okay here. Once you leave, your life and death are in your own hands.'

The young man grinned:

'Target me? I couldn't ask for more.'

Lian Sanyue bit her cigar, twisted her butt, and walked away.

The young man immediately sat down at booth number six and waited patiently.

Before long, a man wearing a black robe and a mask approached and said in a hoarse voice:

'You want the list of Night Watchers of the Taiyi Sect? The Taiyi Sect has recently recalled most of the Night Watchers, there are not many left outside. I happen to have a copy, five million, I'll give it to you.'

The young man was silent for a few seconds and laughed strangely: 'How can I believe you?'

'The owner of Wanbao House can identify the authenticity.'

'Deal!!!' The young man nodded, the eyes under the mask were full of madness, and said:

'There is no such thing as coincidence in the world, you are deliberately sending me the list, being able to deduce my itinerary, the person behind you is not simple!'

The black-robed man smiled in a hoarse voice: 'As expected of the Pure Yang Sect Leader, you are observant.'