Chapter 181: Treasures Underground: The Zhou Family Fist Manual

On the day the ground was broken for the new house...

Before dawn, a large group of people arrived at the site in the dark: Zhou You's parents, Zhou Laiwei, and the hired laborers.

"I have a favor to ask. The child Tie Niu is not very bright, and I am getting on in years; I won't be able to look after him for much longer."

"I ask that you take him into town to earn a living."

Zhou Laiwei pulled the mute youth Tie Niu over to stand before Zhou You and his father.

Zhou Laodie was filled with trepidation, "Fourth Brother, this won't do."

After Zhou Laifu was expelled, Zhou Laiwei held the highest prestige within the clan, and there was a vague trend of him becoming the next Clan Head.

He had only this one lone seedling, Tie Niu, left in his household, and he was incomparably precious.

Zhou Laodie did not know, however, that this matter had been discussed in advance by the Grandfather, Zhou Laiwei, and Zhou You.

They were sending Tie Niu to the city to protect the old couple closely, making it convenient for Zhou You to leave home in the future.

"Dad, our family isn't short of one extra mouth to feed, just accept him!"

Zhou You spoke up to persuade him.

Zhou Laodie gritted his teeth and felt it was feasible; he certainly didn't want other relatives, but the child Tie Niu was honest and simple, obedient and quiet, and worked hard—he would be a good helper to have by his side.

The matter was settled right then and there.

They lit candles, burned yellow paper, and offered incense to pray to Heaven and Earth.

The weather was kind, with no wind or rain, and amidst the shouts of the laborers, the remaining frame of the old house was dismantled and turned into a flat plot of land.

While clearing the ground, they suddenly discovered something.

At the four corners of the old house—southeast, southwest, northeast, and northwest—two copper coins had been buried in the ground, so rusted their surfaces were unrecognizable.

They were house-protecting copper coins; they had some age to them, but they were not precious and held no value.

Every household had similar customs: burying something in the ground when building a house to serve as a house-protector.

The eight copper coins were collected in a clay pot and handed to Zhou You to hold.

They continued to dig deeper, and as the mature soil was tossed out shovel by shovel, the figures of the laborers gradually sank below ground level.

By this time, it was already light, and other families in the village crowded around to watch the excitement.

Renovating an old house was considered a major project for the countryside; only those whose descendants had succeeded would have such financial means.

During this period, the old Zhou Family had hired hands and bought materials, spending a large amount of money, and had even bought up all the fat pigs in the vicinity.

Quite a few people wandered around the construction site, hoping to get a taste of the scraps left over from mealtime.

"There's something under the ground!"

A laborer's voice came from the dirt pit, and immediately, a series of gasps rang out.

There was no entertainment in the village, and telling stories was one of the few pleasures; the folk tales everyone loved to talk about included stories of digging up treasure from one's own land and becoming rich overnight.

But those were only good things that happened in stories.

Everyone in the village farmed and knew what was in the barren soil; digging up a piece of scrap iron was like winning a prize.

Was there really treasure buried under the old Zhou Family's house?

Clatter, clatter—the crowd became restless, and many villagers squeezed through the protective fence and rushed to the construction site.

"Everyone stop right there, what is the meaning of this chaos!"

Zhou Laiwei let out a thunderous shout, and the villagers subconsciously stopped in their tracks.

Someone shouted loudly, "Fourth Uncle, the things buried underground were left by the ancestors; they cannot belong to just one family."

This remark drew agreement from those around, "That's right, that's right."

In the pit, the laborers lifted out an iron chest and used thick ropes to laboriously hoist it to the surface. It was so heavy that there must be gold and silver jewelry inside.

The villagers grew restless—they were going to strike it rich!

Zhou Laodie smiled bitterly; who would have thought that renovating an old house would lead to this.

He comforted his son, "You'er, we cannot keep things left by the ancestors all to ourselves."

And what if they did keep it to themselves? Zhou You remained calm; he vaguely guessed that the iron chest was nine times out of ten not filled with gold or silver.

It would be one thing if he didn't know the origin of his ancestors, but since learning from the Grandfather about the origins of the Zhou Clan ancestors, he knew that the ancestors were not the type to bury useless wealth underground.

It was only the ignorant villagers who took stories seriously, thinking every family had a wealthy ancestor.

The surface of the iron chest had a layer of floating rust and was quite old, but it wasn't locked! Zhou Laodie lifted the lid, and several heads crowded forward, wanting to see what was inside.

A wave of uproar! After the chest was opened, it was empty inside; there was no gold or silver, not even a scrap of copper, just a fist-sized rock lying there.

Even the country folk could see that the stone was the most ordinary petrified wood, worth even less than a stray dog on the side of the road.

Just this? No treasure? "This rock is still clan property, let's all split it up!"

Zhou You spoke up, and the surrounding villagers shook their heads one after another—they didn't want it; what would they do with this broken rock, take it home to boil for soup? Since no one wanted it...

"Dad, why not donate it to the clan to be enshrined in the Ancestral Hall."

Zhou You looked at Zhou Laiwei, "Fourth Uncle, how does that sound?"

Zhou Laiwei had no objections; he knew that Zhou You's meaning was equivalent to the Grandfather's meaning, and no one in the clan opposed it.

This sensational event ended with a whimper.

They dug up a chest while laying the foundation, only to find no treasure inside, just a broken rock.

The stone was enshrined in the Ancestral Hall, which verified the rumor and saved everyone from thinking the old Zhou Family had come into a windfall.

The only ones hurt were the villagers who had dreamed of getting rich; the chance for everyone to get a share was gone.

Zhou You held the rusted iron chest, his fingertips gently stroking the inner and outer surfaces of the chest body; hidden beneath the rust, the inner and outer surfaces were covered in orderly rows of raised bumps, which were, shockingly, cast characters.

The real treasure was the iron chest; that rock was merely a distraction.

The iron chest, which no one paid attention to, had its surface abnormality discovered by Zhou You, hiding a text.

"This is an advanced cultivation technique, starting from the initial stage of Qi and Blood, all the way to the Qiangwu Qichongtian."

That night, Zhou You copied the text from the iron box, then without hesitation dismantled it into pieces and found a furnace to melt them down.

The missing first half of this cultivation technique was exactly the Zhou Family Fist that circulated in the village.

The ancestors of the Zhou Clan had extraordinary origins and possessed a technique that led directly to the Strong Martial realm, but unfortunately, their descendants were uninspired, no one broke through anymore, even martial masters were few and far between, and in the end, they completely declined.

To this day, there is only one person in the clan at the Blood Qi level, Zhou Laiwei.

The Zhou Family Fist had been reduced to mere farmhand tricks, with only the part practiced up to the Blood Qi level remaining within the clan.

The text originally found beneath the old house was precisely the latter half of the technique, and also the missing part of the Zhou Family Fist.

The wisdom of the ancestors, this is... a backup copy! Zhou You originally thought little of the Zhou Family Fist, but now it seemed he still had to pick up the family tradition! My surname is Zhou, a dignified member of the Zhou Family, what is wrong with practicing the Zhou Family Fist? "Fourth Uncle, I want to learn the Zhou Family Fist, lend Tie Niu to me for a few days!"

Zhou You found Zhou Laiwei the next day to make the request, and he readily agreed.

Not many people in the clan knew Zhou You's identity, and Zhou Laiwei was one of them; in the eyes of outsiders, he was an elder, but in reality, he treated Zhou You with the etiquette of a servant in private, just like the Granduncle.

The older people were, the more they valued clan rules and traditions, and their loyalty was beyond doubt.

Conversely, the remaining relatives and clansmen would not hold much awe even if they knew the truth.

This was also the reason why Zhou You did not want to take over as Clan Head! (End of chapter)