The backstreet wasn't large, only a few hundred meters in total.
Legend had it that this street was once the most prosperous area in the Six Continents decades ago, but its former glory was now nowhere to be seen. The old-timers of the Six Continents always spoke of it with a touch of melancholy.
The times were changing, but the old street had been forgotten.
In front of an arched gate with green bricks and tiles, a shabbily dressed old woman still enthusiastically invited Chen Che in for tea.
Two old men, holding enamel mugs, sat in the shade of a tree playing chess and chatting. With every piece they placed, they let out dramatic roars like dragons and tigers.
A group of half-grown kids were sprawled on the ground, playing with marbles.
After asking a passerby, he found a shop in a corner of the backstreet with a sign that read 'Master Wu's Honest Locksmithing'. An LED sign above the door continuously scrolled subtitles like 'House Calls for Lockouts' and 'Key Duplication Without Originals'.
Inside the open doorway sat a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl, hunched over the counter doing her homework.
"Are you here to buy something?"
The little girl looked up, adopting the air of someone in charge. "The ones on the wall are all locks for mortals. The ones in the counter are for Cultivators—we have fingerprint and True Essence types. See which one you need…"
Chen Che glanced around at the shop's interior.
Sure enough, the shop was filled with all kinds of locks. Besides the mortal items, there were also many locks for Cultivators, including a safe box similar to his.
"I need a lock picked," Chen Che said.
The little girl froze for a moment, then turned and shouted, "Dad, someone's here to get a lock picked!"
At her call, a man in his forties walked out. He had a cigarette dangling from his lips, wore blue work clothes stained with grease, and had on a pair of work gloves.
He sized up Chen Che. "What lock do you need opened?"
"This one."
Chen Che took the safe box out of his schoolbag and carefully placed it on the counter.
Master Wu narrowed his eyes, picked it up casually, and examined it from all angles. "Where'd you get this?" he asked offhandedly.
"I'm not sure. I found it in a crack between some bricks while cleaning during summer vacation. No one in my family could open it, so they gave it to me as a toy."
Chen Che recited his prepared excuse.
He wasn't afraid of the other party's suspicion.
The Immortal Sect had existed for over five hundred years, and there were still frequent news reports about people renovating old houses and discovering ancestral treasures or even unearthing a Cultivator's tomb. If you could prove the tomb's occupant was your ancestor, the contents could be claimed as private property.
However, most Cultivators were descended from ordinary people just a few generations back.
Such lucky finds were rare.
"Of course your family couldn't open it. This box doesn't belong to you at all."
Master Wu glanced at the button on the bronze box and explained to Chen Che:
"See this? It's a restriction. You can't open the restriction on this thing with True Essence. Only a direct blood descendant of the owner can open it."
"Generally, this kind of restriction isn't just for theft prevention; it's something ancestors leave for their descendants. Not only can people with a different surname not open it, but even collateral relatives a few generations removed might not be able to. But this type of safe box has been obsolete for decades."
Chen Che was confused. "Why?"
"Property disputes. If several children in a family can all open it, and there's no will, doesn't it just belong to whoever grabs it first? Plus, in the old days, there was a distinction between children of the primary wife and concubines, but that's gone now, so very few people use them anymore."
Master Wu was truly a professional locksmith.
When it came to related knowledge, he spoke with the confidence of an expert.
However, Chen Che didn't care about these socio-ethical issues:
"Can the box be forced open?"
Master Wu pondered for a moment, sized up the box again, and shook his head. "I don't know if there's a restriction inside the box. If there is, and it's subjected to external force, the contents could be instantly destroyed."
"If there's something valuable inside, wouldn't you be at a huge loss?"
'Does that mean this box is useless?'
After a flicker of alarm, Chen Che came back to his senses.
He couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.
After all, before coming here, he had held high hopes for the contents of the safe box, but if only a direct bloodline could open it…
"Eight hundred!"
"Huh?"
"I said, I can help you open this box. Flat rate, eight hundred. It's up to you. If you think that's too expensive, then forget it."
Master Wu put down the safe box and spat out the cigarette he was holding in his mouth. "But you have to pay first."
Eight hundred!
Chen Che felt a pang of reluctance. After all, the money he earned was his own blood and sweat!
If he opened the box and there was nothing inside, the money would be completely wasted.
"Do it!"
Chen Che said through gritted teeth. He'd just treat it like opening a blind box.
After paying, Master Wu took the safe box to a workbench in the corner and pulled out a huge toolbox filled with all sorts of strange gadgets. Without even taking off his work gloves, he picked up two magnetic needles and inserted them lightly into the seams around the button.
With a CLICK, which sounded like a spring mechanism, the box lid opened by itself.
It didn't even take five seconds.
This left Chen Che, who had been hoping to see the man show off his skills and maybe learn a trick or two himself, completely dumbfounded:
"It's that simple?"
"Yup. This is how I make a living. It'd be a joke if I couldn't open this lock, wouldn't it?"
Master Wu looked as if this was only natural. Showing his professional integrity, he didn't peek at the contents and handed the box directly to Chen Che, adding a reminder, "Be careful not to close it, or you'll have to pay another eight hundred to open it again."
'No wonder he made me pay in advance!'
Chen Che grumbled inwardly.
If he had known it was this easy, he would have tried to haggle the price down by at least half.
However, he also knew that it was a skilled trade. It looked easy when someone else did it, but when it was his turn, he wouldn't have known where to start.
Taking the box, he found two parchment scrolls inside. One looked like a map, and the other was covered in text. He gave them a quick glance before putting them in his schoolbag. Now was not the time to study them.
"If you need a lock picked in the future, I also make house calls. Just give me a call if you need anything, but there's an extra fifty for the visit."
Master Wu also handed him a business card.
[Immortal Sect Certified]
[Master Wu's Locksmithing]
[We Open All Kinds of Immortal/Mortal Security Doors and Locks. Fair Prices, Service First.]
[Phone: 0564-67088888]
"Alright."
Although he didn't know if they would have future dealings, Chen Che took the card anyway.
After opening the box, Chen Che, who had originally planned to wander around the backstreet a bit more, lost the mood for it. He bought a bowl of rice noodles from a street vendor and went straight home, carefully examining the two parchment scrolls while he ate.
One of the parchment scrolls was covered with over a thousand characters written in tiny clerical script.
Most of it was dedicated to the history of the Qing Family's rise:
Their ancestor, the founder of the Qing Family, had been a simple cowherd. He embarked on the path of cultivation after befriending a down-on-his-luck Loose Cultivator. After returning from his travels, he established a great clan. Most of the text was dedicated to hyping up how awesome this ancestor was.
Chen Che treated it like reading a novel, not even caring when soup from his rice noodles splashed onto it, merely wiping it away casually.
This was because the ancestor was only at the Qi Refining Ninth Layer.
But the next part made Chen Che's spirits lift:
After establishing his family, the Qing Family ancestor still hadn't given up on Foundation Establishment. He searched everywhere for a method to achieve it and eventually discovered the Cave Mansion of a Foundation Establishment Great Power in a certain region of Yunzhou.
After multiple investigations, he determined that the Foundation Establishment Cultivator had long since perished.
Unfortunately, the Cave Mansion was sealed by an Array. The ancestor spent the latter half of his life trying to break it, but to no avail.
On his deathbed, he passed the map down to his descendants.
From then on.
Every generation of the Qing Family strived to access this Cave Mansion, but they never succeeded.
The very last line urged the descendants of the Qing Family to enter the Cave Mansion at all costs and restore the family's prestige.
"No wonder!"
Only then did Chen Che have a sudden realization.
'Qing E must be a descendant of the Qing Family. She came looking for the Cave Mansion because she knew what was inside the box.'
'And because the Cave Mansion was so important, she tried to kill me to silence me when she ran into me on the back mountain. She just never expected to fail and get killed by me instead.'
"The truth is out!"
"So, this map leads to the Foundation Establishment Cultivator's Cave Mansion? Could it be… right on the back mountain?"
As this thought crossed his mind, Chen Che quickly picked up the other map.
The map wasn't drawn to scale, but it clearly depicted every mountain peak, waterway, lake, and even some areas where Demon Beasts roamed within an eight-hundred-li radius. The required path to the Cave Mansion happened to be that very valley. And the Cave Mansion's location was three li upstream along the valley's river.
"I sat at the entrance of a Foundation Establishment Cultivator's Cave Mansion for over a year and never even realized it?"
For a moment, Chen Che was completely numb.