Zhang Yueshan

The following records are from unverified archives collected by a researcher surnamed He⁽¹⁾ who had been studying the Zhang family.

This person had been gathering information about the Zhang family during the late Qing Dynasty or in the early years of the Republic of China. He had probably encountered a situation similar to mine.

There were many mistakes and omissions in his records, but this was because some of the Zhang family’s information could only be speculated.

As a result, I marked these inquiries as doubtful in my notes, which meant that they contained information that was unverifiable.

The contents from the first volume that I marked as doubtful are as follows:

Few people from the Zhang family could marry people outside of their family. To be more precise, they could marry people outside of the Zhang family, but it was difficult for them to have children. As a result, when the Zhang family first started, the number of people from the side branch was smaller than that of the main branch.

When a child was born in the side branch, there was a certain probability of them inheriting the same amazing abilities as those in the main branch, turning out to be ordinary people, or only gaining half of the abilities. Nevertheless, there was a very small chance that the child would have abilities exceeding those of the people from the main branch. If that were the case, they would then be recognized as belonging to the main branch

Of course, this would surely have an immense impact on the order of the Zhang family so the number of people from the side branch was strictly controlled.

When the children from the side branch were “released into the wild”⁽²⁾, a great number of them would encounter accidents. It was very brutal.

Of course, the children from the main branch would also be “released into the wild” so everyone’s treatment was fair. The children from the main branch, however, possessed abilities that far exceeded those of the children from the side branch.

So essentially, the researcher believed that this was some kind of behind-the-scenes method used to control the number of people from the side branch.

Of course, Poker-face’s experience of being “released into the wild” took place during the start of the disintegration of the Zhang family, so what he went through might not accurately describe the actual situation.

In principle, the people in the Zhang family couldn’t marry outsiders, but they could do so if their missions required it.

Before the Zhang family started to fall apart, the researcher speculated that many people from the side branch were not willing to become a part of the main branch.

This was how the “shan” and “hai” generations⁽³⁾ came to be. These two groups of people were deliberately separated, and many of them were siblings. This also indicated that there was a period of time when many children from the side branch were born.

In order to dissipate the power of the side branch, the two groups of people were separated and prohibited from seeing each other. In other words, it was very possible that people with the character “shan” or “hai” in their names were siblings or relatives.

The above text is purely speculation.

The Zhang family could also adopt ordinary people and turn them into Zhang family members by heating up their blood. This process was equivalent to training and taking medicine, but the exact procedure is unknown. Moreover, it brought about particularly adverse consequences for the Zhang family since it piqued common people’s curiosity.

I have personally experienced one of the Zhang family’s rituals. There was a person named Zhang Yueshan, who had the character “shan” in his name. I wasn’t sure if he was recognized as a member of the main branch, but he had a child after getting married.

The child was brought to Fujian because Poker-face needed to name him and let the child pay respects to his ancestors. The whole thing was sudden and confusing and they ended up performing the ritual in a hasty manner at the back of the kitchen. He held the child in his arms and smeared a drop of wine on his forehead, thus ending the ritual. It was just that he encountered some problems when naming him. The Zhang family’s naming system was lost, so the name that should have come after “shan” and “hai” was unknown.

This meant that Poker-face had to give him a name, which was something I couldn’t participate in.

When the child cried—which he did a lot—we could see that the little black tattoo on his arm was in the shape of a small fish. Although it was just a simple design to see if any of his hot-blooded behaviors could trigger the tattoo to appear, he must have felt uncomfortable since he was still so young.

As he grew up, the small fish would gradually be painted and expanded into a Qiongqi or a Qilin.

Poker-face was probably stumped trying to come up with a name for him. We didn’t know what name he gave to the child in the end, but I did give the child a red envelope with a lot of money in it.

This child would definitely become an extraordinary man in the future because he cried with so much enthusiasm at such a young age.

This was a good thing for the Zhang family since they had been so close to collapse for so long, but we knew that this was a very special case.

I told Zhang Yueshan that when it was time for the child to be “released into the wild”, he’d have to come to the restaurant and work part-time for me.

This child was one of the few Zhang family members who was actually younger than me so I took a photo of him and put it on the customer wall in our restaurant. Maybe this child would take our place in the future and save the world or something. If that were to happen, I would have something to boast about. Of course, I would have to work hard to stay healthy because I heard that people from the Zhang family went through a very long period of puberty.

<Fei Kun Balu – Zhang Chuntao From The Zhang Family><Table of Contents><>

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TN Notes:

(1) He Jianxi from the story “The Southern Archives”.

(2) The information about ”release into the wild” can be found in “Tibetan Sea Flower”, Chapter 43.

(3) The information about “shan” and “hai” generations can be found here in “The Southern Archives”.

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Translated by: Tiffany X
Edited by: merebear226