Chapter 323 - A Buried Truth

Xiong Zhi glanced down. It seems like Linfeng could handle it alone.

"..." 

There was an overwhelming silence that lasted for a long time.

The two older men were shocked to the core.

Since the very beginning, the Xiong Patriarch had passed down a decree to set the Zhou family free once the dynasty changed. Once the reigning imperial family changed. The Xiong family and the Zhou family gave much importance to their ancestor's will, and such a decree would be considered the highest order of importance. Any succeeding generations must adhere to it.

And yet...

"T-there's no... There's no such decree passed down..." Old Xiong managed to say after a while. 

A few eras have passed. The dynasties have changed many times. Why was there no decree about this?

Old Xiong was both startled and confused.

"There's no decree..." he repeated again and again absently. 

His old body trembled. He began pacing back and forth again, still in shock. After a while, he exhaled a heavy breath.

"We don't know if that journal was true. How can we make sure that you didn't make this up?" Old Xiong said with a tremble in his voice.

Butler Zhou was in a silent daze, frozen. He was still processing the truth he had read.

Linfeng watched them quietly and calmly replied. 

"The Xiong Patriarch buried this journal in his friend's grave, the Young Master Zhou who was banished. He bought a piece of land privately, without the Zhou's and the Xiong's families' knowledge. In that island, he buried his friend and named the place after him."

Zhou Min's eyes suddenly turned wide. He fished out his phone with a trembling hand. He had memorized all of the ancestors' names since he was young. The one who caused the Zhou family's downfall was engraved in his mind. 

He typed to search, [Zhou Huang Te].

There was no record of a place named Zhou Huang Te in the results. However, after he scrolled down to the bottom, there was a tiny and obscure Huang Te island that popped up. With a trembling hand, he tapped on the link and read its history.

There was not much information showed. It was one of the early islands who was bought by a wealthy person ages ago. It was recorded in the early dynasties as Huang Te. Its name was never changed.

They… had never realized such a connection.

Zhou Min's heart palpitated. It was possible that this island was the island that the Xiong Patriarch bought for his friend.

His mind seemed to lag as he processed this information. After a while, series of questions popped up.

"How did you managed to track this down?" 

Lifeng's lashes lowered, casting shadows on his cheeks. He answered his father in a quiet voice.

"Since young, I always wondered what happened to the first Zhou who had caused all of this. I know that many other in our family had once wondered about this, too. But it seemed to be a forbidden topic. Aside from his name, he was never mentioned in our history. I happen to be obsessed in studying the history of the two families, so I never gave up looking for clues." 

Zhou Min knew about that. The young Linfeng never brought down the family's history book of the two families from his bedside table. It was his storybook before he slept. He remembered how the little child read the history book of their family avidly with shining eyes.

"It was clear in the journal of the Third Xiong Patriarch that he looked up to his father. The Zhou's journals always mentioned how great the Second Xiong Patriarch was. " Linfeng's voice echoed in the hall. All eyes were on him.

"There was one time that I read in someone's journal which said that the Second Patriarch, when he was still young, was a friend to the Young Master Zhou, the cause of ruin, and that's why the Second Xiong Patriarch was extremely kind to the Zhou family when he had become the patriarch of the Xiong family. "

"That was when I realized that the Second Xiong Patriarch and the banished Young Master Zhou should be very close friends, like their fathers had been.

"However, I could not find any journal of the Second Xiong Patriarch."

"But I did not give up and searched for more clues in the journals. There were a lot of journals, with the ancient language that evolved through time, so it was not very easy." 

Thankfully, some predecessors have already tried to investigate, although there was not much fruit. Linfeng was able to utilize them.

"There was a small detail that I took notice in the earliest records of the Xiong family's treasures. A large sum of money inexplicably went missing. The two families tried to investigate but the Second Xiong Patriarch, who had become the clan elder as he had passed the baton to his son already, allegedly intervened and told them to stop. There was no further information about it, it was just mentioned in passing. But it caught my attention. I wondered what it was for."

At that time, there was a nagging intuition in Linfeng's mind that it could be very important.

That huge sum of money, for the Xiong family at that time, was quite a big sum. There would be no doubt that they would see the matter at the end of it and find the culprit. Yet, they chose to abandon it after a few attempts of investigation. Clearly, someone manipulated it.

But why?

"So I searched for more. It took me a long time, and finally I found another possible clue in one Zhou's journal. It was said that in the elder's late years, he would leave the capital for extended period of time and go to some island to unwind. There was no record of which island. It was just mentioned in passing."

"I might simply be paranoid, but I found it strange. There were so many scenic landscapes without going to a far off island, so why must an elder in his late years travel such a distance? Was there something in that island worth visiting for?"

"I did a lot of investigations and searched for more clues."

"Then one day, it clicked on me, a certain possibility that I have overlooked. The missing money was huge, enough to buy an entire island during those times. It also happened during the Second Xiong Patriarch's later years, before he started visiting an island. It was not mentioned all at once, but pieces that I managed to investigate in many journals, that's why many predecessors have overlooked it." Linfeng's voice became more solemn.

"What if that huge money was truly used to buy that island? It was just an assumption, and intuition. So I've searched which small islands had records that they had been bought in the early centuries, not extremely far from the mainland. And this tiny, obscure island came up." 

Linfeng paused, took a deep breath, and continued on. His voice was much lower. "When I saw the name of the island, I got the strong feeling that it was indeed connected to the Zhou Huang Te in the Zhou family's registry."

The three, including Xiong Zhi, listened to him list his discoveries in great astonishment. Who could possibly connect all random puzzle pieces scattered all over like that? There were millions of information to gather it from, but the young teenager managed to crack this mystery.

Besides, who would care for the loopholes in history?

It was three hundred years ago. People tended to busy themselves with the present and look forward to the future. Even if they did try to study the past, they would not probe as deeply as he did, unless one was an archeologist or a historian.

But people of those professions only focused on the country's history. Why would they bother to study and devote themselves to a specific family's history?

Linfeng must have spent a lot of effort, way more than he appeared to have done. It was also not easy to have those proud experts devotedly study all those journals and relics in secret.

"I visited the island. Also, I just recently bought it with the help of some friends." Linfeng lightly smiled at the memory of the five kings who generously lent him some money. They said he could pay them ten years later. Truly generous.

That island, although obscure, cost him a lot, since it was an island with a three hundred years' worth of history. 

In fact, even before he had bought the island, he had already started to scour it, but keeping it in utmost secrecy without alerting the inhabitants was a bit difficult. Only when he had bought it was he able to freely investigate, under the pretext of construction projects.

"I thoroughly searched that island with the help of my men. You can check the next file about what I found." 

Linfeng said as he gestured for them to check another file.

Old Xiong and Butler Zhou Min both swallowed. They felt overwhelmed by all the information that Linfeng had poured down on them.

Old Xiong's facade of nonchalantly listening was thrown out of the window. He peeked at Zhou Min's side. He, too, wanted to know if this shocking story was really true.

With trembling fingers, Butler Zhou Min swiped to see the next file.

[Huang Te Island, and the secret buried within it].

Another sensationalizing paparazzi-style title that was enough to make their hearts beat more wildly.