Chapter 1: The Return of the Magnate

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Spring 2018, Qingming Festival, a light rain.

Just after 7 a.m., a fleet of cars arrived at a remote village in the southwest of Zhejiang. All the vehicles were luxurious—Range Rover SUVs, Porsche crossovers, and even the most elite supercars. The village folk, unaccustomed to such sights, looked on with curiosity.

Such a scene was not something you could see in just any village. Even the most sheltered locals knew that ordinary families couldn’t afford so many luxury cars.

“Uncle Seven, look at these rich folks—wherever they go, it’s all pomp and splendor, drawing everyone’s eyes. They really know how to live. If only our family’s ancestral tomb could bring some luck, so I could splash around a few million for a day—even just one day would make life worth it.”

Inside a small convenience store at the village entrance, a young man in his early twenties bit into an ice pop, clicking his tongue as he watched the procession. Behind the counter sat an elderly man with gray hair, who glanced at the cars before returning to his newspaper.

“Eating ice so early in the year? I’m warning you, those ice pops are leftovers from last year. If you get a stomachache, don’t blame me.”

“Uncle Seven, you don’t need to worry. They’re still seven days from expiry. Anyway, you won’t sell them, so I’ll just finish them off and save you the trouble of throwing them out.”

The young man patted his leather jacket, grinning mischievously, and reached into the freezer for another ice pop. The old man shook his head in resignation but said nothing more.

“Look at you, always glued to that old newspaper. These days, everything’s about smartphones and 4G—the world’s connected everywhere. Yet your shop doesn’t even have Wi-Fi. No wonder there’s no business. With your old-fashioned ways, you might as well travel back to ancient times. Life would be a lot simpler if you didn’t have to think so much. Look, look! Even that little kid in the car is clutching a phone. Now that’s the future of our country, haha.”

Following the young man’s finger, the old man looked over. In the back seat of the first Santana, by the window, sat a boy of no more than ten, utterly absorbed in his phone.

“That’s the grandson of a major tycoon. Of course he’s the future of the country. You should be worrying about yourself—can’t get into college, loaf around the village all day, and my shop’s sure to be eaten out of business by you.”

“Pfft!”

The young man choked, nearly swallowing the whole ice pop.

“Damn, a tycoon? How rich do you have to be to scare me like this? Uncle Seven, sounds like you know them! Don’t tell me they’re from our village? I’ve got to get a photo with that supercar—what’s that brand called again?”

He made an exaggerated face and was about to pull out his phone to leave the shop when the first SUV stopped right in front of him, startling him so much that his phone clattered to the ground.

“Damn!”

He cursed instinctively, then realized his mistake and quickly covered his mouth. He snuck a peek at the car as the window rolled down, revealing a square-jawed face—a man in his early fifties with thick brows and keen eyes, relaxed yet radiating authority.

At that moment, the old shopkeeper finally set down his newspaper and stood up.

“Old Seven, after all these decades, you’re still here at the village entrance every day. Not easy. Time flies, but every year I come back and still see your familiar face. Heaven’s been kind to me, Lu Guofu.”

“Hahaha, Guofu, you come back every Qingming to honor your ancestors—you never forget your roots. That’s true filial piety. Of course Heaven looks out for you. Enough talk, when you’re done, come have a drink with me. You always rush off every year, but this time you must give me the honor.”

“Alright, this year I’ll definitely drink with you. Just don’t chicken out when the time comes, haha.”

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Lu Guofu laughed heartily, genuinely delighted. When he finished, he turned to the child in the back seat.

“Xinyi, stop playing on your phone. Get up and greet your Seventh Grandpa!”

The boy frowned, still staring at his phone and muttering, “Grandpa, this game is called ‘Onmyoji.’ It’s awesome—I’m in the middle of a dungeon! I don’t have time, just wait a minute.”

“What do you mean, wait a minute? Secretary Yan, take his phone away. I don’t know how your father’s been raising you—always glued to your phone, playing games, lazy and clueless! When the company needs people in the future, my grandson cannot be a good-for-nothing. Otherwise, I’d be letting down my employees!”

Lu Guofu’s tone grew stern, his authority so palpable that even the young man inside the shop straightened up and barely dared to breathe.

Following Lu Guofu’s order, the secretary in the back seat reluctantly confiscated the boy’s phone and slipped it into her handbag. The boy instantly erupted, kicking and thrashing, lashing out at the secretary.

“Give it back! Give me my phone! Dad and Mom are always abroad, never have time for me, what can they teach me? Boohoo, Grandpa’s so mean, picking on me, boohoo…”

“Hmph! Keep crying and I’ll gag you too. You’re old enough to stop bawling like a baby—what kind of example is that?”

“I don’t care, I want my phone! It’s vacation time, and the teacher said we can play games in moderation!”

“Which teacher said that? Bring them here! And you call this moderation?”

…

The child’s wailing soon drew everyone’s attention. Lu Guofu’s brows furrowed, but he held back his anger. Before long, a group emerged from the other vehicles.

The leader resembled Lu Guofu but had graying temples and looked a few years older. Dressed in a traditional Chinese jacket and glasses, he had a kindly air. Behind him were a middle-aged couple and a teenager in a school uniform. Clearly, they were all family, come to comfort the boy.

“Xinyi, why are you crying? Come, Grandpa’s car isn’t very comfortable—come ride in your Great-Grandpa’s car.”

“Xinyi, come on, your brother Tingfang will take you to play.”

The boy, seeing the teenager in uniform beckon, grunted, flung open the door, and dashed out. Lu Guofu slammed his palm down on the seat.

“Greet your Seventh Grandpa before you go!”

“Hello, Seventh Grandpa!” the child shouted, not even turning his head as he ran off. Lu Guofu closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I’ve failed at raising him, Old Seven. Sorry for the spectacle.”

“No matter, no matter. Kids are always like this—we were no different. Today’s a big day, don’t get upset.”

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Seventh Grandpa shook his head with a wry smile, then looked at another man.

“That’s right, Guofu. Old Seven here really is even-tempered, bound to outlive us all. Times have changed—why do you still raise kids the way our parents did? Kids like Xinyi, overseas they all play on their phones and computers at his age. Hasn’t stopped technological progress or civilization, has it? You manage a company of tens of thousands and care for the nation, but public is public, private is private. You can’t run a family the way you run a business.”

“Alright, alright, you keep spoiling them—sooner or later you’ll regret it. Let’s go, or we’ll miss the right time.”

With that, Lu Guofu slowly rolled up the window. The man in the traditional jacket smiled at Seventh Grandpa before getting into the car. The convoy soon drove deeper into the village, vanishing into the morning mist.

“Heavens, that scared me to death. Tens of thousands of employees—so this is the aura of a real tycoon, scarier than ghosts. Seventh Grandpa, he really is from our village, isn’t he?”

After the convoy left, the young man tossed his melting ice pop in the trash and patted his chest in relief.

“If I had a grandpa like that, I’d definitely study hard—no time for games! That silly kid playing Onmyoji—hell, I’d have deleted it ages ago.”

“Seventh Grandpa, that guy in the traditional jacket didn’t seem ordinary either, but he doesn’t seem close with you—didn’t even say a word.”

“Him? That’s Lu Guoqiang, the eldest of the Lu family. Went abroad very early. He was always bookish as a kid, never liked playing with the rest of us. I hear he’s now an academician in both academies, a doctor of history, a leading expert in archaeology… too many titles to remember. Anyway, he’s not like us.”

“Lu? But isn’t everyone in our village named Lü? What’s going on, Seventh Grandpa?”

…

In the southeast of the village stood a building shaped like a temple, clearly old. Every village had a clan hall like this—not used for much, but indispensable. Its main purpose was ancestral worship, but the ‘ancestors’ referred to the forebears of the village’s surname. In other words, the clan hall was for the family, and only those of the same surname could use it. In this village, almost everyone was surnamed Lü—clearly, the Lu family wasn’t among them.

At this moment, Lu Guofu and Lu Guoqiang were walking to the innermost part of the clan hall, alone. Above them, the beams were carved wood, adorned with dragons and phoenixes. Not far away was a stone well, the ground paved with pebbles and thick with moss.

“Big Brother, last Qingming you were in America and couldn’t come back, but you said something serious on the phone. I remember it was about the feng shui of our family’s ancestral tomb, right?”

“That’s right. Eighteen years ago, when I first returned to China, I climbed the mountain myself and studied the earth’s veins. Do you recall what our great-grandfather said? Our Lu clan migrated here from the Central Plains over a thousand years ago, specifically to bury an ancestor on that Longshan Peak.”

“I remember, of course. Even if modern people don’t believe in these mysteries, there’s meaning in what the ancestors passed down—we can’t forget our roots. Still, our family’s success can’t be all about ancestral feng shui, can it? When we were kids, we were so poor we had to live in the clan hall—didn’t even have a mud-brick house.”

“Sigh, Guofu, you now have assets in the billions—a tremendous fortune. But there are 1.3 billion people in our country. How many have come this far?”

Lu Guoqiang sighed, as the two brothers stopped in front of an ancient wooden door.