Looking at the heavy ancient books stacked higher than a person on the table, Wu Daoqing silently massaged his aching arms. He still had to return these and bring back a new batch.
Sigh...
He had truly come to appreciate the hardships of worldly training.
After years of cultivating, practicing Daoist arts, and tempering his character in quiet contemplation, he had ultimately been defeated by carrying books.
The worst part was that this archaeologist had claimed earlier to be a weak scholar with no strength to speak of.
Yet in reality, the man could lift a thick stack of local chronicles with one hand and carry four or five stacks at once without even batting an eye, his taut muscles fully on display.
Meanwhile, as a certified Heavenly Master from the Heavenly Master Association, Wu Daoqing had confidently boasted not long ago about protecting this “weak scholar,” promising to help with whatever was needed.
How could he possibly admit in public that his physical stamina was inferior to that of a desk-bound academic?
He could only bite the bullet and power through, dutifully carrying books and sorting through archives alongside him without daring to slack off in the slightest.
Floating nearby, Bai Ci watched Wu Daoqing's aggrieved, helpless expression and couldn't help but chuckle inwardly.
What an honest kid. He cares way too much about saving face.
Once the books were moved, Zheng Gang sat back down and began flipping through the two new piles in front of him, which totaled nine volumes.
The spacious ancient books reading area fell silent, save for the soft rustling of pages turning.
It was the perfect white noise for a nap.
Zheng Gang was fully in the zone. He flipped through the pages at an astonishing speed, skimming ten lines at a glance while his hands never stopped moving. His pen glided across his notepad, rapidly jotting down key details.
Screening, cross-referencing, and correcting errors—the entire process was seamless and fluid.
Bai Ci leaned in to take a look, only to find that his notes consisted entirely of dots and squiggly lines.
Pardon her ignorance, but she couldn't recognize a single word.
Even so, if anyone asked Zheng Gang what he was writing, he could easily spin a highly logical explanation on the spot.
He could guarantee he wouldn't blow his cover anytime soon.
Time slipped by as the sunlight outside the window slowly shifted.
Sitting opposite Zheng Gang, Wu Daoqing managed to stay awake at first.
But it didn't take long for his eyelids to grow heavy, and his head began to nod.
Eventually, unable to fight the fatigue any longer, he collapsed onto the book-piled table. With the perfect white noise playing in the background, he closed his eyes and drifted into a deep sleep.
Watching him made Bai Ci feel a bit sleepy as well.
Ming Yi found this amusing and gently reminded her that Ghost Immortals didn't need sleep.
Yet, he ultimately relented. He had Bai Ci pull him to the surface to keep watch so she could rest. He promised to wake her once the book-flipping scholar found a clue.
After an hour or two of quiet, Zheng Gang's rapid page-flipping abruptly stopped.
He scanned the text from start to finish once more, confirming that his interpretation was correct.
He had found it!
The moment he locked onto the crucial historical record, Zheng Gang couldn't wait to share the joy. The only living person available to hear it was right in front of him.
Zheng Gang nudged Wu Daoqing's arm. “Little Heavenly Master, wake up. Don't sleep.”
“I found a key clue. It's the origin of the Li family.”
Startled awake by the sudden nudge, Wu Daoqing raised his head blankly, his eyes bleary and his mind completely dazed.
“Huh? The Li family? What Li family?”
“Didn't Lady Ming throw a jade plaque over earlier? It's the character 'Li' on that plaque,” Zheng Gang reminded him, snapping him out of his daze.
Without wasting any more words, he spun the open volume of transcribed ancient records toward him, tapping his finger on a specific passage.
“The Li family of royal merchants during the Ji Dynasty. At their peak, they were fabulously wealthy and possessed immense power, colluding with high-ranking court officials to monopolize local grain transport.”
“Historical records state that during a massive flood that devastated several regions, leaving the land covered in starved corpses, the imperial court allocated a massive amount of disaster relief grain. The Li family and their corrupt co-conspirators embezzled every grain of it, reselling it for a fortune to line their own pockets.”
“When the scheme was exposed, the Emperor was absolutely furious and ordered a thorough investigation. The corrupt officials involved were executed along with their entire families, and the Li family was completely uprooted. It was a massive scandal that shook the entire court.”
Zheng Gang explained clearly and concisely, translating the dense passages of Classical Chinese into plain English that was easy to digest.
Wu Daoqing massaged his throbbing temples, forcing himself awake as he looked down at the text.
He had no trouble understanding it. After all, many of the texts required to become a Heavenly Master were written in Classical Chinese. The higher one climbed in the ranks, the stronger their grasp of ancient literature had to be.
If they lacked this foundation, they wouldn't even make it through the door, let alone advance further.
But understanding it only made Wu Daoqing more puzzled. “The Ji Dynasty's royal merchant Li family was executed to the last soul, but that's a cold case from hundreds of years ago. What does it have to do with the Zhao family's current curse?”
Zheng Gang adjusted his glasses, sliding his finger down to point at a citation in the footnotes.
He pulled another book from the massive stack on the table, checking the cover to confirm.
Then, without a moment's hesitation, he flipped directly to a specific page and pushed it in front of Wu Daoqing.
“Look at this name. These two are part of the same story.”
Wu Daoqing looked at where he was pointing. Having no recollection of the name, he shook his head. “I don't recognize it. The name is too common—the kind you see everywhere, nothing distinct about it.”
“Though, since the surname is Zhao, could it be one of the Zhao family's ancestors?”
“Exactly. This person is an ancestor of the Zhao family, written clear as day in their genealogy book,” Zheng Gang confirmed, even specifying exactly which generation of ancestor they were.
Hearing this, Wu Daoqing was filled with astonishment and admiration.
“You actually remember that?!”
“There are hundreds of names in that genealogy book, yet you can match them up so precisely? That is incredible!”
To him, the genealogy book was a dizzying, overlapping mess of countless ordinary names that were incredibly difficult to tell apart, let alone memorize.
Yet Zheng Gang had managed to pinpoint the exact individual from a sea of historical records. It was practically a superpower.
This went far beyond just having a good memory.
Faced with Wu Daoqing's earnest and heartfelt praise, Zheng Gang felt a pang of guilt.
It wasn't that he had a photographic memory. He hadn't actually memorized any of this; it was entirely his class skill. As long as he had read something, the skill would process it, automatically cross-referencing and pinpointing the relevant data.
With his skill doing all the heavy lifting, he was basically just acting as a translator and messenger. Eighty to ninety percent of his apparent genius was pure artificial assist.
Put it this way: it was infinitely more reliable than some brain-dead AI that hallucinated fake information.
Plus, the input was incredibly convenient, completely controlled by his thoughts.
Zheng Gang had to admit he absolutely loved this class. Aside from having zero self-defense capabilities, it had no other flaws.
Of course, he had absolutely no intention of revealing that he was a player, or that his extraordinary abilities were actually class skills.
Thus, he adopted a calm, nonchalant posture, waving his hand dismissively as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“It's nothing, just routine. This is basic literacy for an archaeology major. Any qualified archaeologist can do it.”
Other normal archaeologists: Wait, really? Me?
Zheng Gang had no idea how much his casual modesty warped the naive young Heavenly Master's perception, unintentionally elevating the standard of the entire archaeological profession to god-like heights in Wu Daoqing's mind.
Bai Ci, who had just been woken up by Ming Yi, burst out laughing the moment she heard this.
As if she didn't know what a real archaeologist's job was actually like! Zheng Gang was totally taking advantage of Wu Daoqing's gullible nature.
Still, she understood why Zheng Gang was doing it. His goal was to conceal his player identity.
This train of thought made her mind wander.
In Anomalous Infection, eighty to ninety percent of players tacitly chose to hide their identity upon entering an instance.
Yet, there was actually no official rule or explicit prohibition against revealing it within the system.
It was a choice players made entirely on their own.
First, there was a persistent, unverified rumor that revealing your player identity to an instance NPC would severely penalize your final evaluation score.
Second, if you went up to an NPC during an investigation and said, “Actually, I'm a player and you're just an NPC in a game,” most rational NPCs would simply throw you into a psychiatric ward.
How to derail your own investigation and make yourself suffer: unlocked.
Third, the NPCs' reactions were incredibly realistic, making the world feel completely genuine.
Aside from a few sociopaths, most players, driven by a subconscious sense of empathy, chose to protect the NPCs' sanity and worldview.
Or perhaps, these really were real worlds.
In fact, many players in the Explorers faction had already deduced that these instances were real worlds, along with the true purpose of the Anomalous Infection system. Their threads were still pinned prominently on the forums.
The Anomalous Infection system had never made any attempt to censor or delete these discussions.
The players' insistence on treating it like a game had simply evolved into a psychological coping mechanism to manage their stress and anxiety.
“My master always taught me that there is always someone better, and a wider world beyond our own. I used to think it was just an old, comforting cliché, but today I have truly seen it for myself,” Wu Daoqing reflected with deep sincerity.
“To think that every profession hides top-tier talents like you, Mr. Zheng. Relying solely on mundane knowledge, you can accomplish things that even magical spells struggle to achieve. It is truly humbling.”
Facing Wu Daoqing's unadulterated, earnest praise, even the thick-skinned Zheng Gang felt his cheeks flush slightly with embarrassment and guilt.
Clearing his throat, he quickly composed himself and forced the conversation back on track, not daring to let the embarrassing praise continue.
“Let's set aside the digressions and return to the main point. Let me summarize this historical record for you.”
“Actually, while this is celebrated as a classic tale of righteous vengeance among the common folk, from the perspective of the Zhao family's ancestor, it reads like a classic underdog revenge story.”
“The official who spearheaded the downfall of the Li family and investigated the embezzlement of the disaster relief grain came from extreme poverty. His hometown was the epicenter of the flood.”
“That year, the flood raged, wiping out all crops. The relief grain sent by the court was completely withheld and resold by the Li family and their corrupt allies. His entire family starved to death, and he only barely survived by eating dirt and wild roots.”
“Despite the desperate circumstances, he didn't wallow in self-pity. Instead, he studied tirelessly for decades, eventually passing the imperial examinations and rising to a high position of power.”
“After biding his time for years, he finally struck, bringing down the Li family and every single corrupt official who had preyed on the helpless populace, bringing them all to justice.”
“Single-handedly, he avenged his family and appeased the public's wrath. It's a legendary tale of a righteous official.”
Having finished the tale, Zheng Gang paused and added his own commentary: “Honestly, it's pretty badass.”
Hearing this dramatic history, Wu Daoqing was now fully awake, his expression turning serious as he pondered.
“The Li family embezzled grain and starved the people. The evidence of their crimes was absolute, and their execution was well-deserved justice.”
“But even if a descendant of the Li family managed to escape and survive, relying solely on revenge as their driving force, how could they nourish a grudge so fundamentally warped and keep it alive for hundreds of years?”
“Besides, this doesn't align with the clues we deduced earlier.”
“The Zhao family's curse only took its final shape during the mid-Republican Era, while the generational gaps in their genealogy book appeared hundreds of years before this story took place.”
“Could the Li family have done something during the Republican Era that broke the cycle of the Zhao family's generational gaps, thereby triggering the curse?”
“It's possible,” Zheng Gang shrugged. “As for the Li family's warped revenge, who knows? Human depravity always has a way of defying imagination.”
As he spoke, he prepared to let his skill analyze this conclusion, only to make a tragic realization—
His class skill was on cooldown.
He was currently limited to the logical reasoning of an ordinary person, with nothing but a regular human mind at his disposal.
He muddled through a few regular lines of thought for a moment, but remaining completely stumped, he decided to throw in the towel. Letting out a long sigh, he grumbled, “I'm done. I've burned through all my brain cells. I can't think anymore.”
Both of them fell into a contemplative silence.
Floating nearby, Bai Ci watched them. Recalling the details from earlier, she spoke up to break the silence.
“The man who was tailing you earlier made a phone call right before he died. He addressed the person on the other end as 'Uncle Yun'.”
Zheng Gang jolted, blurting out, “Uncle Yun? Li Yun-something?”
The moment he uttered the name, he froze, a look of sheer disbelief washing over his face.
Wait. I was just joking. Is it really the Li family?
Beside him, Wu Daoqing looked utterly bewildered, unable to keep up with his erratic train of thought. “Who is Li Yuncha? What does that have to do with the Li family or Uncle Yun?”
Zheng Gang took a deep breath, suppressing the chill creeping up his spine.
“I meant 'X' as in the letter. A variable.”
“It was in the footnotes. A few scattered records regarding the Li family mentioned that to flaunt their family prestige and project an image of noble gentlemen, they had a generation poem that determined the naming convention for every generation.”
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