Chapter 67 Biggest Secret

By the time I finished recalling this memory, the cigarette in my hand had burned to the front of the filter tip so I had to light another one. “What the hell are you thinking about?” Fatty suddenly asked me.

“The power of poor information,” I replied. “In this world, to know is to have. For example, the essence of owning a fortune is that we know where it is. The bank card number is just a coordinate and that’s all we have. Without this coordinate, we lose our wealth.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Fatty asked. “Economics?”

“Little Brother said that there’s a big secret at the bottom of the Zhang family’s ancient building. That may be what makes the Zhang family so powerful.”

“Personally, I don’t think such a secret can be that awesome. There are so many things in this world so what secret could you use to make me submit? Just try me, I won’t give in to any secret,” Fatty said.

I looked at him and said, “If I knew how to bring Yun Cai back to life, would you be my lackey?”

Fatty paused, gave me a look, and stopped talking.

I continued, “Everyone has their own secrets which can often be used to control them, but there are some secrets that can be used to control everyone in the world.”

Fatty sighed, “Not everyone is as sentimental as you and I.”

“It’s not about feelings, it’s….” I didn’t go on. In fact, I already had an answer in my heart. I had a vague thought that it may be something buried under the Zhang family’s ancient building. Indeed, this answer was what everyone in the world was looking for and could be considered taboo. Moreover, it was very strange and brought about two kinds of people in this world: some wanted to know the answer while others didn’t. If I had this answer, I would be able to control almost everyone.

“Fate,” Fatty suddenly looked up at me and said. “You mean fate, right?”

This word was too blunt and I didn’t like it very much, but I was thinking along the same lines as him.

“If you want to own this world, you have to understand it first. And to do that, you have to learn all of its secrets,” I said. “There are many theories that can predict cause and effect in ancient China, such as Qimen Dunjia, Zi Wei Dou Shu, and Zhuge Liang’s divinatory diagram, but all of these theories can only produce a very vague result. (1) Legend has it that many theories are incomplete because they were lost over time. For example, the ‘Book of Changes’ that’s used now must not be the original one and nearly ninety percent of its content has probably been artificially revised and edited. The Zhang family has been robbing ancient tombs for generations, so maybe they found the originals in these ancient tombs. If so, maybe they fully understand the cause and effect of everything and thus the world is fixed and unchanging to them.”

“This is the great secret buried under Zhang family’s ancient building? How much information is there? It’s basically infinite.”

I glanced at Fatty, “There are no infinite things in this world. The amount of information may not be too big because it may have been cut off.”

Fatty gave me a confused look before his face suddenly turned white and he asked, “You mean that this secret has an end—there’s an end in the future?”

I sighed. “Yes, it seems so.”

Fatty clicked his tongue and said faintly, “What did Little Brother say, ‘there’s no time’?”

I was frightened by my own thoughts and goose bumps broke out all over my body. I touched my face and said, “Are we going too far? Is it possible?”

“There’s no time.” Instead of answering me, Fatty suddenly gave me a look and said such a thing.

“Stop joking,” I said to him.

Fatty suddenly looked up again and said, “There’s really no time.”

I suddenly felt that my idea was somewhat ridiculous and shook my head before saying, “Don’t mess with me, this theory definitely isn’t valid. Our imaginations are too rich.”

Fatty’s eyes suddenly glazed over and he looked up while muttering, “There’s no time. There’s really no time.”

I looked up and saw that the ceiling above our heads had actually changed into the huge hornet’s nest-like meteorite I had seen at the bottom of the Queen of the West’s city. Countless Little Brother’s faces could be seen, all poking their heads out of those holes and saying in unison, “There’s no time.”

I jumped up, my whole body shaking as everything in front of me instantly disappeared and turned dark.

I took a deep breath, saw a little flash of light, and heard Fatty’s voice. I wanted to move but found that I was lying on my bag. I could feel it but I couldn’t move. Fatty and Zhang Haixing were dressing my wound and talking.

“There’s no time,” Fatty said to Zhang Haixing. “That’s what your patriarch said at the time.”

Shit, it was a dream. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. It had been Fatty and Zhang Haixing talking just now. Did I hear them and have this dream?

But I was suddenly surprised as I remembered what my grandfather had said in my dream just now. Why did I think of this?

Grandpa did actually say this to me. I had completely forgotten about it but remembered it in a dream. Did Grandpa already know about the Zhang family at that time?

Before I could figure it out, I fell asleep again.

<Chapter 66><Table of Contents><Chapter 68>

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TN Notes:

(1) Yeesh, this is a lot to take in lol. Per Google Sensei – Qimen Dunjia is an ancient form of divination from China that’s still in use today. It’s based on astronomical observations, and consists of various aspects of Chinese metaphysics, including the doctrines of yin and yang, 5 elements, the 8 trigrams, the 10 Heavenly Stems and the 12 Earthly Branches, as well as the 24 solar terms. Zi Wei Dou Shu is a form of fortune-telling in China, and remains one of the most well-respected processes for laying out “The Destiny Path” or “Fate”. Pretty sure it uses astrology. Zhuge Liang (181-234) was a military leader and prime minister of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period. His divinatory diagram is 1 of the 8 divinatory trigrams of the Book of Changes/1 of the 64 divinatory hexagrams of the Book of Changes. I think it also uses astronomy.

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I’m sorry I’m leaving so many notes today lol. I usually try to keep it around one a posting spree but I couldn’t leave this note on last chapter cuz I didn’t want to spoil anything (plus there are more commenters now so we can discuss opinions and stuff. YAY!!). You have NO IDEA how happy I am that it was a dream. Do you know how confused I was trying to translate that shit??!! I was like “oh no, did I copy the wrong chapter? But that doesn’t make sense since he had blacked out and it looks like he woke up here??” And then he went into that weird dialogue about the Zhang spies and I was like “who’s talking, where is this coming from? Shouldn’t there be a page break or something?!” Maybe tomorrow we’ll see if him nearly bleeding out (what a dumbass) revealed anything cool~~~~

Updated 1/16/2022