“That means you are his childhood friend.”
Zhang Haike nodded, lit a cigarette, and said, “That’s right, you can use the term ‘childhood friend.’ I trained with him from the beginning, and I know a lot about him—his habits, his preferences—more than you do. If you want to listen, I can tell you everything about him.”
I was still hesitant about whether to believe him when the fat man said, “Just go ahead and speak. But let me tell you, if I find even the slightest inconsistency, we have nothing more to discuss.”
Zhang Haike replied, “Don’t worry, for the sake of better cooperation and my own purposes, I will definitely not deceive you.” As he said this, he gave Zhang Haixing a glance, and she got up and left.
Then, Zhang Haike sighed and said to me, “When he was born, something very significant happened in the Zhang family. This event was the beginning of everything and the root of all decline.”
Zhang Haike really didn’t have much talent for storytelling; he was all over the place, and the fat man was left confused. I was definitely a bit better than the fat man in this regard; summarizing and organizing information is my strength, and I already had some theoretical understanding of the Zhang family and the entire incident. Therefore, I recorded what Zhang Haike was saying in my own words.
For a long time, intermarriage among the Zhang family was very strict. The Zhang clan was extremely powerful and could almost control everything. This family generally practiced internal marriages, and fortunately, with such a large family, there were no awkward issues that arose.
However, the younger brother was an anomaly within this family. No one knew who the younger brother’s mother was. When his father brought him back to the family, it was supposed to be a cold winter. At that time, his father had gone to the Nepal region to transport a batch of goods and was gone for a long time. When he returned, he was holding a baby still in swaddling clothes.
Without a mother’s care, the younger brother grew up in a chaotic environment. In his early years, he didn’t even know who his father was, as the huge and flourishing system of the family made it impossible for him to discern. This was largely why the younger brother was reluctant to speak much.
According to Zhang Haike’s description, the Zhang family’s mansion at that time was located in the Jinling Mountains, consisting of seven connected buildings from the Ming and Qing dynasties, with as many as thirteen courtyards. This was just the residence of the main branch of the Zhang family; the entire village had dozens of households from the Zhang clan’s external branches. Although they all shared the surname Zhang and controlled many people, the status of the main family was much higher than that of the external branches.
Zhang Haike was a child of the Zhang family’s external branch, so he had very few opportunities to visit the main family’s mansion. Most of the children from the main family were arrogant, so whenever Zhang Haike occasionally entered the main courtyard, it was usually to pay New Year’s greetings, and those children were generally unwilling to play with him.
In truth, Zhang Haike didn’t care much about this, because for him, the authority represented by the main Zhang family was merely supported by the external branches of the Zhang family; it was a kind of tacit understanding.

He believed that he could live more freely among outsiders, as the family rules were numerous and burdensome, often weighing heavily on people. However, what particularly caught Zhang Haike’s attention was a very reclusive child he often saw at the Zhang family home. This child did not speak or play with other children; he merely stood quietly in the courtyard or under the columns by the courtyard, staring blankly at the sky above.

Zhang Haike found this child very intriguing, which sparked his curiosity to understand him better. Moreover, this child was not well-liked by others in the family, which gave Zhang Haike a sense of familiarity and kinship.

Once, when his father took him to the family home for business, his father was discussing matters with other clan members while he wandered alone in the yard. He saw the child again. The child was Zhang Qiling, who was only three years old at the time. After some thought, Zhang Haike mustered his courage to walk over and asked, “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you playing with them?”

The child looked at him, shook his head, and did not speak. This was the first conversation between Zhang Haike and Zhang Qiling.

That day, Zhang Haike stayed in the yard with the little brother. He had a strange resilience, believing that if he kept talking, the child would eventually respond and communicate with him. However, this time he met his match.

The child quietly listened, gazing at the sky, and Zhang Haike couldn’t tell if he was paying attention or understood anything. As he left, Zhang Haike wondered if the child might be sick, abnormal, unable to speak, or perhaps he simply did not understand what Zhang Haike was saying.

After that meeting, it took ten years for them to meet again. By then, Zhang Haike was already fifteen. Children in the Zhang family underwent very strict training from a young age, with rigorous requirements for agility and physical ability. Age fifteen marked a crucial milestone, as children could then seek out ancient tombs and establish their own reputations. The Zhang family referred to this act as “going wild.”

Ten years later, the little brother would be thirteen, so Zhang Haike was particularly surprised to see a boy shorter than him among a group of children preparing to “go wild.”

The process of going wild was extremely dangerous; many children from the Zhang family had met untimely deaths during this venture. However, thanks to the family’s strict training, things gradually improved over generations.

Children in the Zhang family learned from a young age that going wild was a very dangerous endeavor, so they trained diligently. Of course, some children abandoned this training early on to avoid the dangers. While they did not strive for any status within the family, they managed to save their own lives.

Going wild often had dire consequences, and a fundamental mindset among the Zhang family was that the only goal was to complete the task, regardless of the means. Thus, many children would team up to raid an ancient tomb, believing that more people meant greater strength and the ability to work together.

Zhang Haike noticed that the little brother did not seem to have such plans. While everyone else was packing their bags and preparing provisions and travel expenses, the little brother had already set off quietly on his own.

Zhang Haike is a person with a very wide social circle. At that time, he was discussing with a few friends about where to go for tomb raiding. One of his friends had somehow obtained a layout map of an ancient tomb in Shanxi, rumored to be an oil pit, which would allow them to easily acquire antiques once they arrived there. This was also permitted within the Zhang family, as the source of information and the ability to handle and manage intelligence were considered very important skills. If Zhang Haike followed them, this endeavor would likely encounter no problems, and the subsequent events would not unfold as they did. However, seeing a thirteen-year-old boy setting out on his own made Zhang Haike feel a bit worried.

Zhang Haike was very averse to the family system, and his dislike for the family stemmed from this. He didn’t appreciate the rigid rules set by the family and felt that forcing a thirteen-year-old child to embark on such a journey alone was very unfair to the boy. He heard from other children in the family that the boy’s father had passed away when he was around seven or eight years old, and he was raised by uncles and relatives. While he was not raised in an abusive environment, he certainly lacked love and happiness. Moreover, the boy was very quiet, which led Zhang Haike to believe that someone in the family might not want him to continue living.

At that time, Zhang Haike was very confident in his abilities. He had trained his fingers to be much stronger than those of an average person, and his speed had also reached a certain level. Therefore, he could almost be considered a rare tomb raider. In contrast, the boy was still very small and thin, and his finger strength and length were not particularly remarkable, especially since he was only thirteen. The way the boy walked, so frail and weak, made Zhang Haike feel that his chances of survival were slim, so he chose to part ways with his friends and decided to protect this young boy from the Zhang family. This may have been the most successful decision he made in his life.