Qilipu was a typical village in the metropolitan territory.

  The houses in the village were built side by side.

  Most of the houses were old courtyard houses.

  The elders were taking care of the flowers and plants in the courtyard.

  The cats and dogs that the elders kept were standing at their courtyard’s entrance, basking in the sun.

  Ling Pingan walked past these courtyards with his pet in his arms.

  The elders raised their heads and looked at him with doubt in their eyes.

  “Whose child is that?” They thought in their hearts, but not many people paid much attention to him.

  A long time ago, the rural areas in the metropolitan territory of the Federal Empire had become nursing homes.

  They would work in the cities when they were young. Then they would return to their rural homes to grow flowers and plants after they retire. When they had leisure time, they would play cards and fish with their old friends, enjoying themselves.

  As for the land?

  It had been rented to those fruit and vegetable companies for some time.

  Therefore, the rural society two to three hundred years ago had long collapsed from the traditional point of view.

  It wasn’t until they saw Ling Pingan walk to the entrance of an old courtyard in the village and skillfully took out the key to open the door.

  The elders suddenly realized.

  “The children of the Ling Family…”


  They began to whisper among themselves.

  The elders recalled the legends of the past that they had heard about when they were young.

  At that time, the elders always taught them, “Don’t go to that courtyard to play, understand?”


  “Don’t go to the Ling Family’s courtyard no matter what…”


  There were different reasons behind it.

  Some said that the ancestors of the Ling Family raised demons that devour humans.

  Some also said that the Ling Family members all knew magic, the kind that if one offended them, then they would fetch a basin of water in their courtyard at night. Then, he would mumble something and smack the water with his palm. The person he cursed would get sick…


  Some even said that the Ling family members themselves were demons.

  Because someone had seen themselves that the Ling Family woman was dressing up on the windowsill, taking a bloody human skin off her face, and then placing it on the table, drawing eyebrows with an eyebrow pen, and then gluing it back on her face.

  In any case, the Ling family was taboo in this village.

  No one dared to approach them, other than a few families that were familiar with the Ling Family.

  The elders looked at the young man wearing glasses and holding a kitten.

  They thought of the legends they had heard when they were young.

  A child holding a toy ran out of the house excitedly at that moment. “Grandpa… Grandpa…”


  “Look at my invincible flying car…”


  “Du…”


  The elderly man immediately turned his head and looked at his grandson with a smile. “That’s amazing…”


  The little boy was curious. He looked at the place where his grandfather had just looked, and his eyes immediately lit up. “Grandpa… didn’t you say that the courtyard is dangerous and there are monsters there? And you told us not to play around it.”


  “Why does he dares to go?”


  The elderly man chuckled as he stroked his grandson’s head. “He… is a member of the Ling Family…”


  The little guy looked at the stranger who was opening the door curiously.

  A cute little kitten immediately attracted his attention.

  “His kitten is beautiful!”


  Only then did the elderly man notice the little kitten that was squatting beside the young man’s feet.

  Every strand of fur was shining brightly under the sunlight as if there was a five-colored radiance surrounding it.

  The little kitten was extremely intelligent.

  That pair of cat eyes were as beautiful as a gemstone even under the sunlight.

  The elderly man was stunned…


  The legends from when he was young assaulted his mind again and again.

  “The Ling Family raises demons…”


  “They know magic…”


  “The Ling family is demons themselves!”


  He quickly pulled his grandson back. “Good grandson, don’t look, don’t look…”


  “Go home and watch cartoons with Grandpa…”


  It was better to believe in such things than not!

  No one would risk their descendant for that……

  Ling Pingan opened the gate of the courtyard and walked in with his pet.

  That was a typical rural courtyard.

  The lawn in the courtyard was clean, and there were no weeds.

  There was a well In the middle of the courtyard. It was old.

  Ling Pingan walked over and opened the cover of the well. He looked at the well water. It was clear to the bottom and clean.

  At the side of the well was a pavilion.

  He remembered that he would sit in the pavilion at night as a child and look at the sky and count the stars every time he came back there.

  That was one of the few hobbies he had as a child.

  He could not even imagine that he had such a hobby as someone insensitive to mathematics.

  He looked at the door of the ancestral house as he sat on the railing of the clean gazebo.

  The brass wooden door was locked.

  He walked over and opened the door. There were many deity tablets densely packed together in the hall.

  That was also the purpose of most rural ancestral houses, to worship the ancestors!

  Ling Pingan was an atheist.

  But, he still respected the ancestors like most people.

  So, he walked up and picked up a lighter on the altar table. Then, he took out incense candles from under the altar table, inserted them into the incense burner, and lit them one by one.

  Then, he raised his head and looked at the deity tablets placed on top.

  These diety tablets were his direct ancestors.

  There were almost nine generations from the first generation to his parents for more than two hundred years in the Guangnan Ling Family.

  The first ancestor’s tablet was placed in the center.

  Then, the descendants of each generation were arranged specially.

  The father on the left and the son on the right.

  That was the ranking of Zhaomu!

  Ling Pingan didn’t understand and only thought that such an arrangement was interesting when he was young.

  But he knew that this was a very ancient Zhaomu System when he grew up.

  Such arrangement placed the father and son always apart, while the grandfather and grandson were always on the same level.

  Only the Emperor family could use such an arrangement a long time ago.

  But now…


  Anyone could arrange it that way as they wished…


  Ling Pingan bowed slightly and said as he looked at the diety tablets that had been wiped clean, “The ancestors probably won’t blame me for not coming back for a long time…”


  He poured a cup of wine for the cups on the table.

  Then he continued, “It’s not that I don’t want to come back to visit the ancestors… But… I’m lazy…”


  He was honest in front of his ancestors.

  Although he knew that people died all the time.

  But the influence of tradition was still strong.

  Materialists only opposed feudal superstitions. They still respected traditional morals and values.

  He took the cups of wine and poured them on the ground as an apology to his ancestors.

  Suddenly, his eyes saw something under the altar table.

  He squatted down and tilted his head to look. It was a card stuck on the altar table.

  It looked like the same material as the card he found in the family tree in the cupboard.

  Ling Pingan curiously reached out and gently pulled it. The card fell into his hand.

  He picked it up and blew at the dust on the card.

  Then, he saw lines of words written in ink.

  Ling Pingan scratched his head as he looked at those words. “Did my parents leave this behind?”


  “But why is it so strange?”


  It was because that card was still a chapter from Tao-Te Ching.