The Lost Tomb : Extras & Special Stories

Extra Story: The Zhang Family Log | 001 Zhang Haiyang

This Extra Story are recommended to read after Ten Years Later.  

Some people from the Zhang family were still out there somewhere.

I wondered if they were still stuck in a hopeless position, walking back and forth in the mountains and the wilderness. They had lived for a long time, but it was as if they had never existed. The whole thing was an unsolved mystery.

I wondered if there were others who had been picked up by someone like me and got to enjoy the beautiful things in life. I still thought it likely that there might be countless wonderful stories like mine that we didn't know about.

The plan to find people from the Zhang family lasted for a long time. I would intermittently get some responses—including both emails and letters—but I didn't know whether they were telling the truth, and there was no way for me to tell, either.

For a long time, I felt as if the Zhang family members I personally knew were the only ones in the world.

Zhang Haiyang [1] was the first to come to Wushanju, almost like he was applying for a job interview.

I was a bit uncomfortable, since it made me feel like my distant relative was coming. I had to be polite and appear decent while not knowing what the other person's intention was. Was he here to borrow money, take refuge, sort out the genealogy, or show his superiority?

Zhang Haiyang wore a simple sweatshirt, looked young, and had a buzz cut. It was rare for people in the Zhang family to have buzz cuts and fierce looks. His eyebrows made him look very aggressive.

I stared at him for a long time and couldn't shake the feeling that he looked familiar. When I remembered it later, I realized that he looked similar to Hanamichi Sakuragi. [2]

I felt that he wasn't the kind of person I was good at communicating with.

"I'm here to say goodbye." Zhang Haiyang drank my Yuqian Longjing tea and looked around at my shop. "So, this is the temple. Not bad, not bad at all. It's livelier than I expected."

"What do you mean?"

"There are rumors that the place where the patriarch lives now is the Zhang family's temple. I thought the building would look like a church or an old mansion like the Zhang family's ancient building. I didn't expect that it was a shop at a tourist attraction."

"You all know the patriarch lives here?" I was somewhat surprised.

Zhang Haiyang shook his head, "We just heard some things about you sometimes since you did a lot of thrilling things." With that said, he took out a laptop-sized box from his backpack and put it on the table. "This is a first-meeting gift." He opened the box and I saw a bunch of property ownership certificates inside. "These are the houses I've bought over the years. Now that I'm leaving and don't have any children or family, these things should belong to the patriarch. You can count how many certificates there are. When the patriarch comes back, I'll chat with him for a while and then leave."

My jaw dropped and it took me about three minutes before I calmed down enough to close it. I picked up one of the certificates and found that it was a property in Gubei, Shanghai. I quickly put it back down.

I knew that the glory and wealth of the next half of my life was right in front of me, but I couldn't take it. I would burn if I had such a vast amount of wealth. [3]

"What do you mean you're leaving?" I asked him.

"I'm terminally ill and won't survive the year. But I've lived long enough. I want to meet the people of my clan since I hardly get to see them. I also want to see the patriarch. After that, I'll peacefully accept my death."