Chapter Fifty-Four: The Secret of the Chen Family

Indeed!

That meant his father, Zhang Hu, had not heard wrong. Fifth Uncle and Third Grandfather were indeed talking about this back then—the old Chen family used to be bandits!

Ergou also pricked up his ears to listen intently. Tiezhu, on the other hand, had no interest in these matters; from time to time, he glanced at the stir-fried pork with chili and the steamed white flour buns on the table that were quickly growing cold, swallowing hard every now and then.

Recalling the demeanor of that old uncle from the Chen family, Zhang Hucheng was not particularly shocked to learn that the old Chen family used to be bandits.

"Master, shouldn't bandits be wiped out? How could any of them be left behind?"

Xiao Meng could not help asking.

After the major bandit suppression campaigns, no bandits could have escaped unscathed. Although there were still some around nowadays, they were solitary individuals or pairs; bands of bandits moving in groups no longer existed.

Nowadays, being a bandit meant execution by firing squad the moment you were caught.

"You'll have to ask the commune about that."

Wang Zhengang did not know the reason either. Some matters that required strict confidentiality were not things his Second Great-Uncle could easily divulge.

Zhang Hucheng also understood why Wang Zhengang had been so decisive back then.

"Our Zhang family was incorporated into the Three-Mile Canal of Chen Village more than twenty years ago, but the grandparent generation seemed to know all about this. The two sides had constant friction, resulting in some casualties. Our generation—no, even my father didn't clear on this. Probably many people in the old Chen family of the Three-Mile Canal don't know about these things either."

The number of people in the old Chen family who knew about this was probably very small.

Even his father, Zhang Hu, did not know; only a group of elders in the Zhang family knew. Kept under such tight wraps, it was likely that Old Great-Uncle and the others had received a confidential mission from the organization and acted accordingly.

The old Chen family was probably the same.

Were the things hidden inside the ancestral hall the firearms and ammunition from when their old Chen family used to be bandits?

He suddenly became even more curious about what was hidden there.

"We really didn't know about this. No matter what, as long as Linlin and Doudou can live a good life now, that's enough. We're getting older too and don't want to toss and turn anymore. If you two want to work in the county town, I can pull some strings and arrange it for you."

Wang Zhengang had also figured it out by now; as long as his daughter lived well, that was all that mattered.

Previously, he had harbored a bit of selfishness, fearing that something might happen at the Three-Mile Canal of Chen Village and that his daughter would end up implicating their whole family. His Second Great-Uncle had spoken to him very gravely, telling him to stop it by all means, and if he could not stop it, he must sever ties completely.

"Dad, I... we are living very well now..."

Wang Lin had not expected her father to say such things, and instantly her tears poured down like heavy rain.

Seeing her mother cry, Doudou looked here and there, her little mouth drooped, and she also wailed loudly.

"We came to see our daughter and Doudou, why are you saying all this? There, there, be a good girl Doudou, Grandma brought you something delicious!"

Shen Yue hurriedly went over to coax her.

Even Wang Zhengang felt uncomfortable, but since he had no idea how to coax children, he could only stand awkwardly and watch.

Wang Lin wiped her tears and patted Doudou. The little girl clearly had no idea what had happened, and continued to wail along with her mother.

"Let's have a meal together, I'll stir-fry a couple more dishes."

Zhang Hucheng signaled.

He walked over to Ergou and lowered his voice, "After eating, go wander around the vicinity of the Chen family ancestral hall to scout the location. We won't go practice shooting this afternoon; we'll go to the ancestral hall tonight."

He really wanted to see what kind of good things the older generation of bandits from the old Chen family had hidden away.

If he could get a few crates of bullets, he would truly be able to walk sideways through the mountains without fear.

"Got it!"

Ergou naturally understood Zhang Hucheng's intention.

He had gone looking for it back then and failed to find it, and had been extremely curious ever since.

The big rooster bought at home for a meal once again escaped disaster. Seeing that her father was going to kill the chicken, Doudou cried so hard she refused to let him do it.

Helpless, Zhang Hucheng could only make a pot of pig stomach stewed with spare ribs instead, thinking that any wild chickens encountered in the mountains in the future must not be let off, because this big rooster was clearly impossible to kill.

The clueless, blockhead-like big rooster had no idea it had just walked along the edge of life and death, and even pecked at Doudou who was feeding it—truly courting death in every possible way.

"Linlin, aren't you going to cook?"

Seeing that Zhang Hucheng was busy doing all the cooking alone while her own daughter just waited, Shen Yue felt somewhat bewildered.

Could it be that Zhang Hucheng did all the cooking?

"I... I'm not good at cooking." Wang Lin blushed with shame; her cooking was terrible.

In this era, women were supposed to cook; if word got out that a man in a household did the cooking, he would be ridiculed.

Chefs were the obvious exception, of course.

"Then what do you usually do?" Shen Yue suddenly felt that it wasn't a case of Zhang Hucheng being unworthy of her daughter, but rather that her daughter was somewhat unworthy of him—she didn't know how to do anything!

She was just like herself back then.

"I... I read books..."

Wang Lin could not even lift her head.

"Read books? There are books at home?" Shen Yue did not know what to say. How could her daughter's life seem even better than when she was living at home?

Wang Zhengang caught sight of the books on the table and picked one up to find it was *Dream of the Red Chamber*, which gave him quite a start.

This was currently a banned book, especially in places like rural production teams; if discovered, one would be subjected to public struggle sessions.

"Linlin, where did you buy this?" Before it was banned, he had gone to line up at the Xinhua Bookstore several times, but had never been able to buy a copy.

Where on earth did Linlin buy it?

"I bought this from the black market. You can't buy books like this through regular channels nowadays."

Hearing this, Zhang Hucheng offered an explanation.

The black market?

"Right, I wanted to ask you just now—you sell meat at the morning market, doesn't anyone give you trouble?" Wang Zhengang found it incredible. He knew that whether it was the morning market or the black market, both were dominated by Qin Xiaodong's gang of ticket scalpers. Once or twice might be fine, but if you went too often, they would definitely come looking for trouble.

"Nobody gives me trouble."

Zhang Hucheng shook his head.

In his previous life, he had always thought that anyone who dared to engage in speculation and profiteering would be finished the moment they were caught. Now, however, he understood that the ones who got caught were only those without connections; what appeared on television was half-true at best.

Strange.

Wang Zhengang and Shen Yue exchanged glances. Could it be that Qin Xiaodong and his gang of scalpers weren't around lately? No, he would go check out the morning market tomorrow morning. He and Qin Xiaodong were somewhat acquainted; a greeting should give him some face.

Tiezhu ate four steamed buns and a plate of stir-fried pork with chili before being dragged away by Ergou, looking back longingly several times—he genuinely had not eaten his fill.

Ergou was utterly speechless at him, lacking completely in situational awareness.

Zhang Hucheng's parents received the news and rushed over, accompanied by Hualing and Xiao Ya, making the household very lively.

"Doudou doesn't even eat peach pastries; we usually couldn't bear to buy them, but Linlin says Doudou's breakfast every morning is peach pastries and eggs." Shen Yue suspected she might be dreaming. When she came here half a year ago, the family was destitute and brought tears to her eyes out of pity; the changes over the past half year had simply been too enormous.

Hearing this, Wang Zhengang was left speechless as well. He had foolishly asked Zhang Hucheng earlier how much money he made selling meat in the morning, only to receive the answer that it amounted to his own normal annual salary.

Little did he know that this was still Zhang Hucheng's modest answer.

Shen Yue had brought several meat coupons and grain coupons along, only to discover that her daughter pulled out a small box filled entirely with various coupons and a small bundle of "Great Unity" banknotes.

Living a life like this, what on earth were they worrying about?

"It's one o'clock in the morning now, Big Brother... even if you're anxious, isn't this pushing it a bit too far?" Although Chorong could not truly be angry with Kang Myung-chul, her tone at the moment could certainly be considered complaining.

In the middle position was a hemispherical hole, about 5 meters in diameter, containing some translucent green liquid.

Moreover, Chen Shen also noticed something: with such a major event having occurred, the Imperial Court had merely summoned Li Fengwu, Zhao Yunchen, Gou Yue, and Cheng Dachang, without notifying the Ministry of Punishments.

And that was merely a summoned virtual character. Yet what he had witnessed just now with his own eyes was a living, breathing human cultivator!

Even if he were to obtain the Heaven Emperor's Trembling Sky Sword, the Heavenly Lord Realm was still very far away from him. Right now, he could not even cross the threshold of the Heavenly Master realm, let alone the Heavenly Lord Realm.

However, although every province had normal schools, higher educational institutions were ultimately rare. With an Imperial College suddenly arriving here, it immediately sparked countless admirers.

That was the sound of copper coins dropping into his money chest. The hydraulic spinning wheels and looms could operate day and night, causing copper coins to continuously pour in like a running stream.

Yet, the trauma inflicted upon Europe by the Thirty Years' War was simply too great. With Italy controlled by Spain, European support appeared exceedingly delicate.

The Dutch had already begun considering withdrawing from Taiwan Island, which had been partitioned by the Hope Company and the Expedition Company. Next, however, the Spaniards found it utterly unacceptable to abandon the Philippines. Meanwhile, the British were eager to try their hand at seizing an opportunity to gain more diplomatic leverage.

"What is South City like? I've never been there before!" After letting those words slip, she felt something was a bit off—after all, she had happily arrived at their home. But since she had already said it, Chu Qianyang stopped caring. She gave no reaction to Lan Xing's puzzled tone of exclamation, and instead changed the subject to ask.

Spending a full day apprehending all the criminals made Chen Mingrong feel slightly better. It was also at this moment that he felt, for the very first time, such intense hatred for his surname, hatred for the bloodline belonging to the Chen family lineage.

"No rush, we still have some time." As he spoke, he wrapped both their bodies under the quilt, retrieved a large body pillow from his spatial storage to stuff inside, and the two of them returned to the space.

Take Qu Ying, for instance: in order to appease her mother and save face for her mother, she was studying to the point of risking her life. But did she truly enjoy studying? Of course not.

Because it involved tens of thousands of meridians, and the paths of demonic energy flow differed from one another, it could be called complex to the extreme, making cultivation extremely arduous and difficult.

Fortunately, however, Bobo's perseverance was astonishing. Occupying a high position, he was still not greedy for beauty—to be precise, he did not touch it at all. It was precisely this kind of perseverance that allowed him to train clumsy martial arts like Boy Kung Fu and the Iron Cloth Shirt into fruitful results.

One day or two days might be excused out of consideration for matters at home, but every single day would become a matter of military law and discipline.

Though his whole body was skin and bones, Qing Zhou acutely sensed that within those skeletal arms lay boundless power. Tempered by the primordial blood strength of ferocious beasts, the toughness of his physical body rivaled that of a cultivator who had just stepped into the Mahayana realm.

Thinking this, he could not help but smile, feeling that how wonderful it would be if they could always live together in the future. Pity that it was quite unlikely.

Following the events of that day, his popularity among the surrounding believers grew even higher. More people gathered around him, and even the priest looked at him in a different light. This had left him floating in a state of euphoric excitement for the past few days.

Loneliness was like this: whenever one felt troubled, one would want to speak with the gods—even if it was that white-bearded Earth Deity elder, even if he pretended not to hear, one still had to say a few words.

To her great surprise, Yang Fengjia discovered at this moment that she was already pregnant; the child, of course, belonged to Hu Jiang.

Seeing that she had no way to change the status quo, Lin Jie had no choice but to throw herself into her role. No matter how dissatisfied she was, she still had to fulfill her work responsibilities, a point that earned Qin Ming's profound respect.

Yet Daoist Ruofeng paid no heed to their astonishment. With a solemn expression, he pulled several sheets of yellow talisman paper from his pocket.

At this moment, the succubus Loya and the God of Courage were also locked in battle, and judging by the appearance of things, they still held the upper hand.

Yuan Shu declared, "There won't be a next time." Putting Wang Zhong on speakerphone, he said to him, "Wang Zhong, is it? Don't even think about running. Be a good boy and come over tomorrow, unless you plan never to set foot in Jianghai City or the entire Jiangbei region for the rest of your life!" Having said that, Yuan Shu hung up the phone.

After a brief pause, without needing orders, the pockmarked subordinate brandished his blade and charged toward Jiang Anyi. In the dim glow of the torches, cold flashes of steel erupted everywhere.

Judging from the comments beneath that post, which were constantly refreshing upward like a surging tide, a brand-new comment suddenly popped up.

Those coming from afar might not know Qi Hao's worth, but they knew it clearly, and felt that throwing in their lot with Qi Hao was relatively reliable. Who knew where this seemingly high-profile upstart had popped out from? Even if he stayed, how could his foundation possibly run deeper than Qi Hao's?

At this moment, Duyuan and Qu Zhifeng were flying swiftly through the sky, flanked on the left and right by centurions, seventeen vanguard riders, and seventeen subordinates. To their left and right were eight mounts, led by Duyuan's falcon, soaring and darting through the air.

Even celestial venerables and other supreme deities had to manifest as spiritual avatars when descending to the mortal realm to save people, and once descended, those avatars remained trapped in that world, unable ever to return.

Ye Qingxin turned her head to look, only to see Jing Boyuan standing together with that middle-aged man much older than him. In terms of both temperament and presence, he vastly outperformed them, looking much more like a leader than the actual leaders present.

"Returning to Heaven to tidy up the Seventh Angel Legion, he probably still wants to desperately persuade Michael and the others. Although I think that's impossible, I still harbor a sliver of expectation—perhaps Sahziel can manage to persuade Michael after all." The one speaking was Chesia, who had just walked in through the floor-to-ceiling window.

Without even looking to see who was standing before her, could Jiang Xixi have taken the wrong medicine? How else could she be so bold as to deliberately pick a fight like this? Could it be that because Lanlan had ignored her earlier, she assumed the other person was afraid?

"I say, is there any need to exaggerate this much? Even if you've come from afar, there's no need to specially—*bam*!!" Right, before Itsuta Dan could finish speaking, he took a heavy blow to the ribs from an elbow strike, and collapsed directly to the ground, clutching his stomach and rolling around.