Chapter 2: The Mystic Nine Leaders

Chapter 2: The Mystic Nine Leaders

My grandfather and even my generations affairs originated in old Changsha. From Dart Summit (1) to Qiu Dekao, the seeds planted back then seemed to have finally grown into my generation.

In order to have a general understanding of the customs in Changsha at that time, I had sorted out some of the things about the Mystic Nine leaders from my grandfather's notes, along with all the interesting things he had told me before. When I looked back at them now, I felt a lot of things.

All the people in the underworld had known or heard about The Mystic Nine. These families of tomb robbers were so powerful that they covered all aspects of cultural relic smuggling. Almost all the grave goods flowing out of Changsha had to pass through one of the families.

There were many explanations as to why they were called The Mystic Nine. The most recognized one was that the ancient big city had nine gates, and merchants who entered or left the city had to choose one of them. That was how the name The Mystic Nine came to be. In Changsha City, you could only choose one of these nine powers to do business with, and there was no other way to go.

I didnt know much about these powerful peoples stories, because my grandfather didnt want me to know too much about their past. What these people did sounded glorious to those in the underworld, but their stories were all misdeeds to normal people.

The new Mystic Nine was nothing compared to the old Mystic Nine. Most of the new Mystic Nine were self-sufficient, but the achievements of the old Mystic Nine had been spread by word of mouth because they had worked so diligently.

In an era of information obscurity, it was necessary to have extremely special experiences so that their reputations could be passed on. One could only try to imagine how powerful they had to be to get such ranks among that kind of society.

The founders of the upper three clans were all extremely famous grave robbers. These three families were people of their own word.

It wasnt really fair to say that they were grave robbers, because their family power was already similar to that of some of the small warlords at that time.

Since the Autumn Harvest Uprising (2), most of these three families joined the revolution. One of them was even the hero of the founding of the country. But this matter was quite secretive, so it wasnt convenient for people to tell me more about it, and I only learned a few names.

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TN Notes:

(1) Pinyin is Biaoziling (). Its the first place mentioned in Vol 1 Cavern of Blood Zombies, where Wu Xies grandfather encountered the zombie. They called it Dart Summit in Vol. 5 Deadly Desert Winds.

(2) It was an insurrection that took place in Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, China, on September 7, 1927. It was led by Mao Zedong, who established a short-lived Hunan Soviet. Wiki link