Very Pure and Ambiguous: The Prequel

At this time, the last ray of hope that all the people from the various aristocratic families had had been smashed by the imposing aura of Wang Jinlong murdering right before their eyes. They all took the contract in their hands and looked at it. In fact, it was all the same for everyone; there were no questions asked.

Wang Weihan was very satisfied with Wang Jinlong’s act just now. It was the best to kill the chicken to warn the monkeys. Liu Zhenhai was wondering why I hadn’t made a move and shot me a look. I simply smiled towards him as the moment hadn’t arrived yet. I will never believe that Wang Weihan was going to be satisfied with just money. Was it all really for money?

When Liu Zhenhai saw that I didn’t intend to move yet, he signed the contract without any feeling. In his opinion, it was all theirs. With my ability, it would be a breeze to take it back.

After Wang Jinlong took the contracts, he handed them to Wang Weihan. Wang Weihan turned over the contracts with satisfaction, then looked at everyone in the audience and said, “Very good, now, we can move on to the next scene! I heard that every one of you got a sheepskin ten years ago?”

As the various family heads listened to his words, their complexion changed. They had not thought that Wang Weihan even knew such a deep secret of theirs! It must be known that only the heads of the Five Major Families knew about this matter. Their descendants didn’t know a thing about this matter.

This matter happened a decade ago. At that time, the China Reform had just passed and the several major aristocratic families also started their economic development. At that time, the relationship between the families wasn’t like this. Their interests and mutual friendship was really good. Except for the reclusive Wang Family, the other families got together quite often.

In the year of 1989, the Martial Arts Competition was held in Liu Zhenhai’s hometown in the Sonjiang Province. As a result, when they were climbing the mountain one day, it was heavily raining. The heavy rain was smashing down on them like bricks, so Liu Zhenhai proposed to find shelter from the rain. Among the various people, only he was a war veteran and had an understanding of the weather. According to his estimates, the rain wasn’t going to stop until the next day.

The others also thought it wasn’t suitable to descend the mountain now, therefore they approved of his suggestion. Liu Zhehai, Meng Rusong, and Ding Chang (Ding Wenfeng’s grandfather) took the lead. As many places in the mountains of Songjiang had yet to develop into scenic spots, there weren’t any official roads. Because it was raining so heavily, it was hard to identify the path they took, so, they all soon got lost.

Fortunately, Meng Rusong discovered a cave, and everyone soon hid inside there.

Ouyang Bo and Situ Danshan started a fire with some dry branches, while everyone started to dry their clothes before the fire. Suddenly, Ding Chang exclaimed as he pointed towards the depth of the cave and shouted, “What’s that?”

Everyone turned around and saw that there was a light blue flame in the depths of the of the cave, shining faintly.

“Haha, this Ah! I estimate that these are the bones of some wild animal. The phosphorous inside the bones must have reacted with the air in the surroundings and self-ignited. There’s nothing to worry!” Liu Zhenhai had traveled widely and had a lot of experience, so he laid bare the secrets.

Although the others had never seen something like this before, they had heard of this matter, therefore their curiosity also increased.

After a while, when the clothes of the several people had dried, they took out the food that they brought with them and sat in the cave to eat and drink, just like they were on a camping trip. But there was a different flavor to everything.

When everyone was full and tired of eating, the sky had already dimmed. As everyone was free to do whatever, Meng Rusong suggested, “How about we play a game?”

“What game?” Ding Chang asked as he was thoroughly bored right now.

“We all should guess what animal the bones belong to. How is it?” Meng Rusong said.

“Alright, let’s do that!” Situ Dashan nodded, “Then I will guess first. My guess is that it’s a wolf!”

“Impossible! How could a wolf die in a cave like this? I think it is a rabbit that a wolf ate here!” Ouyang Bo said.

“I think it’s a fox!” Ding Chang said.

“What fox? I am 80% sure it’s a wild cat!” Meng Rusong waved his hand, “Right, Old Liu, what do you say?”

“What do I say? I think it’s the bones of the dead {person\\human},” Liu Zhenhai said faintly. Over the years he had witnessed a lot. In his early years when he was appointed in the North, he had to deal with the deceased and visit tombs frequently, so the first thought he had was that the bones here were that of a dead person.

“Ah! Dead people? Old Liu, you are cracking a joke, right? How can there be the bones of the dead here?” Ding Chang said with an awkward smile as he didn’t believe that.

“Believe it or not, let’s go and see what it really is!” Liu Zhenhai smiled, “Now that every one of us has guessed, we might as well confirm it together!”

Liu Zhenhai’s proposition won everyone’s approval, so they all walked towards that group of jack-o-lanterns.

After they all saw what it was, they forced a smile. Unexpectedly, what Liu Zhenhai said was the truth. It was indeed a skeleton of the dead! But to the side of the skeleton, there was something similar to a bag.

As they saw how the skeleton had decayed, it was obvious it wasn’t from the recent times.

“What you said was really correct. These are truly the bones of the dead {person\\human}!” Ding Chang said with an inconceivable look on his face.

“Oh, right, let’s see what’s inside this bag? Would it be Gold or Silver, or some other treasure?” Situ Danshan said as a joke.

Meng Rusong picked up the bag and jolted it twice, then said, “It’s quite light. I doubt there will be anything valuable in it!”

Following that, the people untied the bag as they were overtaken by curiosity. And indeed, there was nothing valuable inside the bag. There were several ragged clothes, some broken sheepskins, and the most valuable was some silver notes from the Fukang Currency Shop that would only be collectibles now and had no real value and couldn’t be converted into silver. The Fukang Currency Shop was a bank in the Qing Dynasty established by Hu Xueyun. It was once spread throughout China, but later on, it declined and went bankrupt. It seems that everyone had guessed right and the dead man was really from the Qing Dynasty.

The long night had no sign of ending while all of them had no interest in sleeping. And the fact that it was raining outside and the weather was cold and wet, it made it harder to sleep. Several of them had nothing better to do, so they started to study the broken sheepskin. After studying it for a while, they were all shocked. It turned out to be a map!

After they put the map together, they found that the picture above was exactly the same as the mountain range they were in now. On the steep side of the mountain, there was a star with the words “Death Valley” next to it.