Zheng Gang stopped midsentence, seemingly remembering something. But because the memory wasn't entirely clear, he pushed up his glasses in frustration.
A crucial piece of information was dangling right in front of his mind, yet he couldn't grasp it for the life of him. This kind of agonizing itch was truly unbearable.
So he turned to the bewildered Wu Daoqing beside him for help.
“Little Daoist, help me jog my memory.”
“My mind is a complete mess right now, but a key figure with the character 'Yun' in their name just flashed through my head. We definitely heard it today. Think hard—does it ring a bell?”
A key figure with “Yun” in their name?
Now that he mentioned it, Bai Ci actually recalled one—the “Grandpa Yun” the Zhao family had mentioned at the dining table.
In the world of instances, pure coincidences were extremely rare. Most of them inevitably led to a certain outcome.
Wu Daoqing earnestly tried to recall.
He carefully reviewed everything and everyone he had encountered and heard about since their arrival today, going over it from beginning to end, before finally shaking his head honestly.
“No. None of the Zhao family members, servants, or our fellow cultivators present today have 'Yun' in their names. Mr. Zheng, could you have misrem—”
Before Wu Daoqing could even finish, Zheng Gang, the one who asked, remembered it himself.
He slapped his thigh with a loud, forceful thud, startling Wu Daoqing beside the table into sitting up straight.
“I remember! It's that one, Old Zhao—”
“Ah... don't mind that form of address. Anyway, Mr. Zhao and the others mentioned at the table that they have an elder they call Grandpa Yun, right?”
Zheng Gang was a bit excited. As a player, he shared the same perspective as Bai Ci—there weren't that many coincidences in an instance.
Therefore, he was certain he had found a useful clue.
With Zheng Gang's reminder, Wu Daoqing also remembered and nodded repeatedly.
“I remember now too. They did mention a Grandpa Yun. He's a close friend of the Zhao family who watched several generations of them grow up. He's a kind-hearted man who has always been devoted to the family.”
At this point, he subconsciously frowned, his naturally pure and kind nature prompting him to defend the man.
“But Grandpa Yun is already in his eighties. From how the Zhao family describes him, he's a kind-hearted and righteous elder. He doesn't look like someone harboring a grudge and plotting in the shadows at all. It's probably just a coincidence that his name contains 'Yun'.”
Without clear evidence, he was unwilling to think ill of others.
“You're still too young, too quick to trust appearances.”
Zheng Gang closed the ancient book in his hands, stacked it to the side, and wagged his index finger with a grin. He looked like an experienced veteran who had seen it all, completely shedding his previous embarrassment from being stuck.
“In our line of work, the one thing you can never trust is a coincidence.”
“Almost all seemingly accidental encounters, similar names, and coincidental connections in this world are actually long-premeditated certainties.”
“An elder whose kindness has been remembered by several generations can easily intervene in the family's affairs. The entire Zhao family respects him, and everyone is completely unguarded against him. Hiding a drop of water in the ocean is the most perfect hiding spot.”
“This old man... this old man is quite the actor.”
Seeing Zheng Gang speak with such conviction, Wu Daoqing decided to stick to his original opinion, but he didn't want to dampen the spirits of his knowledgeable companion.
After some thought, he took a different approach and picked up on a topic in Zheng Gang's words: “So there are actually so many nuances to the field of archaeology. I've truly learned something new today.”
Bai Ci almost burst out laughing. If she didn't know Wu Daoqing's personality and that his praise was genuine, it would have sounded exactly like sarcasm at first listen.
Zheng Gang felt a slight sting from Wu Daoqing's words, but seeing how thoroughly he had fooled the young man, he could only swallow his awkwardness.
“Exactly. As an archaeologist, there's so much you have to learn. You need to be proficient in everything from fighting grave robbers to digging tunnels to escape with your life.”
In truth, when he said “our line of work,” he was referring to being a player. In his excitement, he had completely forgotten that his class identity in this instance was actually a historian.
But that didn't stop him from romanticizing the profession of an archaeologist.
“Alright, enough idle chatter. Our literature tracing for today ends here.”
“The clues are mostly pieced together now, so there's no need to obsess over books. Arguing whether Grandpa Yun is good or evil, human or ghost, is pointless right now. Without proof, guessing will only muddy the waters.”
“Let's head back first and meet up with the senior Daoist and the others. Sharing our progress and cross-referencing clues will be much more useful than the two of us guessing blindly here.”
Zheng Gang made the final call, ending the discussion.
Though he claimed that arguing was pointless and lacked proof, the subtle upward curve of his lips showed he was already completely sold on this clue.
Wu Daoqing had no objections and nodded in agreement. He stood up to help Zheng Gang organize the books and documents on the table, carefully gathering the scattered notes.
Once they finished packing up, they returned the books to their proper places one by one. Leaving the municipal library side by side, they retraced their steps, driving back toward the ancient manor on Fog Mountain.
In her spiritual form, Bai Ci lightly drifted into the backseat. Activating her auto-follow, she watched the entire journey in silence.
Zheng Gang was absolutely certain of himself now. Believing he had locked onto a clue about the mastermind and that the breakthrough to the mystery was right before him, he relaxed significantly, looking completely confident in his victory.
He hummed an unrecognizable tune as he drove.
Yet, the more Bai Ci thought about it, the more she felt something was off. The doubts in her mind piled up, impossible to shake.
A century-old grudge.
It made logical sense for the Li family to be brought down by the Zhao family's ancestor, executed to the last soul, and for any surviving remnants to harbor hatred and bide their time for revenge. It was reasonable.
But upon closer inspection, it was riddled with loopholes.
Could a grudge spanning hundreds of years truly sustain a family, keeping them dormant and patiently plotting revenge generation after generation?
Human nature was fickle. Within one or two generations at most, descendants who rejected this legacy of hatred would inevitably appear.
Furthermore, over these hundreds of years, the world had changed, wars had raged, and dynasties had fallen. The Zhao family had gone through dark times where their genealogy was interrupted and their members dwindled, their foundation shaken and unstable multiple times.
If the remnants of the Li family had truly remained dormant for hundreds of years with such profound and unfathomable methods, why hadn't they pulled up the Zhao family by its roots and destroyed them completely when they were at their weakest?
Why go to all that trouble, enduring for hundreds of years, only to wait until the mid-Republican Era to finalize the curse of dying at thirty-five, slowly and methodically harvesting the Zhao family's descendants?
What, were they growing chives? Harvesting one crop after another?
If it was for revenge, this method of slowly boiling frogs was far too sluggish.
The only somewhat reasonable explanation was that there was an extremely obsessive avenger who was fixated on a sense of ritual, wanting the Zhao family to suffer the torment of short lives and severed lineages for generations.
But who could live that long? By what right could they live that long? Why could they live that long?
Or perhaps the entire family shared this exact personality?
That was simply too far-fetched and contrived.
The sense of incongruity here was still far too strong.
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