The Lost Tomb Vol. 8

Chapter 81: Conclusion

The story should be over by now. I knew all the puzzles I could know and put down the ones that I couldn't. There are still some things worth mentioning and sorting out, however, which are beneficial to the integrity of the whole story.

By now, I could basically confirm that the Zhang family was indeed from Kanto and they lived in an area inhabited by ethnic minorities outside the customs. Of course, they weren't a minority at that time. It was also basically known that since the Mongolians entered the Central Plains during the Yuan Dynasty in China, the Zhang family's activities were at their lowest, and almost all of them were hidden. It wasn't until the Ming Dynasty that they resumed their activities.

The Zhang family had extremely strict family rules, and Zhang Qilin wasn't a name that just anybody could be called. Only the heir of the clan's chosen patriarch could take that name.

That's why the Zhang Qilin project was created at that time. They wanted to find the current patriarch of the Zhang family using this method.

And I guess in regards to the Zhang family's strange blood, not all of them had it. It was probably a recessive gene that could even be said to be a disease. Among the Zhang family, only a few people had it, and among those who did, the one with the strongest blood effect was likely to become the patriarch. The patriarch's wife also had to be a woman with the same strange blood in her family, so as to ensure that the ability could continue. This was the so-called intermarriage we had seen, but it also lead to the long-term inheritance of another genetic disease, namely amnesia.

No one had entered the ancient building since the middle of the Republic of China, which indicated that the Zhang family began to decline rapidly at that time. The reason for this was because they had reached the end of China's feudal society, and the ensuing revolutions were completely focused on ideology. The Zhang family had more wealth and power, and under the impact of this new trend of thought, they began to fall apart from within.

It was then that Zhang Fo Ye's small family, as one of the forces, left the Zhang family's control, supposedly led by Zhang Fo Ye's father. When they left, they didn't take any information about the family with them. They still moved around in the northeast, but abandoned all the ancestral teachings of the Zhang family and began to trade extensively, gradually becoming businessmen. After the Japanese invaded, Zhang Fo Ye's family almost died in the local war, so he fled to Changsha with his people. It was also said he went there because the stronghold of tomb robbing inside the Pass was Changsha.

After he arrived in Changsha, Zhang Fo Ye rapidly expanded his power, actively resisting the Japanese on one hand and developing relations with the local heroes on the other. At that time, it was the most turbulent and legendary period in China. Heroes from all walks of life came forth one after another, and slowly The Mystic Nine came into being. Three of them became members because of Zhang Fo Ye's resistance to the Japanese, and slowly moved closer to the military circles. After China's victory in the war, Zhang Fo Ye entered politics, and his background ensured him the position of head of a special department. At the same time, he must have discovered the Zhang family's secret of longevity.

Although he wasn't familiar with the Zhang family's main clan, Fo Ye knew that all of his ancestors' secrets were in the Zhang family's ancient building, the family's mass grave.

He needed to find Zhang Jialou.

First, he started the Zhang Qilin project to look for the Zhang family patriarch that had completely disappeared during the chaos of war.

A large number of people with the same name and surname as Zhang Qilin had been found, but they weren't the one he was looking for. At that time, The Mystic Nine was under Zhang Fo Ye's supervision, and although they were protected, they were also monitored. They finally found Zhang Qilin in the 1960s, and under his leadership, the Mystic Nine carried out the largest joint grave robbery in history, but suffered heavy losses.