BPIFC -Volume 1 – Chapter 159 Granddisciple

In the deep waters of the East Sea, the old man Kong Dalong sat alone on a small skiff, fishing.

In the distance, the sun was setting. Just as the last trace of light was about to vanish, Kong Dalong suddenly lifted his fishing rod and pulled up a tiny yellow croaker, barely the size of a fingertip.

“You’re still so small, and you already dare to steal my bait…” Kong Dalong shook his head helplessly. As he removed the fish from the hook, he continued, “Whether as a person or as a fish, you can’t be too greedy. Heaven has the virtue of cherishing life, so I’ll send you back. Be more careful in the future—don’t go after a fisherman’s bait again…”

As he spoke, he tossed the little yellow croaker back into the sea.

He lit a small oil lamp and was about to cast his line again when a voice came from behind him.

“You’ve already injured its mouth with the hook. Even if you release it, it won’t live long. It would be better to simply purify it.”

Kong Dalong didn’t turn around. He only smiled faintly.

“That’s its fate. There are plenty of fish that slip off the hook—one more doesn’t matter. Besides, even if it dies, who knows? Maybe it gets eaten by a starving bigger fish, and in turn saves that fish’s life. I just do what I do. As for the outcome, that depends on its destiny.”

After speaking, the old man finally put down his fishing rod. He turned around and respectfully bowed to the person behind him.

“You’ve actually come in person. I’m not worthy of such an honor. Quickly, I should kowtow to you… Grandmaster above, your little granddisciple greets you—no, no, Kong Dalong the granddisciple pays respects to the Grandmaster…”

Standing before him was a man who looked to be in his thirties, yet had a head full of long white hair, neatly coiled into a bun and held in place with a dark jade hairpin.

He was barefoot, wearing a plain ancient-style white robe. Compared to Kong Dalong, he looked like someone from an entirely different era.

“Get up…” the white-haired man said as he sat at the bow of the boat. Looking at Kong Dalong, he continued, “I sent you to erase those who call themselves ‘fangshi’. I gave you a two-year limit, but you ended up taking twenty years… Fine, twenty years it is. But you even ended up creating someone called Che Qianzi, casually implying everywhere that he’s my son… In all the world, only you, Kong Dalong, would dare to make such sport of me.”

“I had no choice…” Kong Dalong sighed bitterly, furrowing his brows. “You said that Che Qianzi’s mother left the child with me. I couldn’t just ignore him, could I? I ended up acting as both father and mother. I raised him with great difficulty, and still had to carry out your tasks. I also had to worry about the child suffering losses, so I boldly let him borrow your reputation…”

“So my light has been borrowed by your disciple…” the white-haired man said, then suddenly smiled as if remembering something.

“But speaking of which, if that child really is my son, then you are my granddisciple… what should he call you then? If I go along with your idea and acknowledge him as my adopted son, that wouldn’t be impossible either…”

“Don’t joke like that…” Kong Dalong said with a wry smile. “That kid is reckless and thoughtless. If you really acknowledged him as your adopted son, he’d probably start calling me ‘Little Kong’ in front of everyone. Then I’d end up having to call him uncle or even master…”

“In this world, aside from me, no one is qualified to be your master…” the white-haired man said quietly.

He then looked up at the stars in the night sky and continued:

“But I also cannot be your master. My own granddisciple’s granddisciple is already over a thousand years old. Taking in another disciple in his thirties would only make you lose out.”

He opened his palm.

Inside lay a black pill.

“This is your New Year’s gift. Take it back and use it to amuse the child.”

Kong Dalong’s eyes lit up with joy as soon as he saw the pill. He accepted it with both hands.

“Thank you, Elder. That child Che Qianzi truly has received great fortune…”

“Now that you’ve received your New Year’s gift, you must also remember my matter.” The white-haired man looked at him.

“Twenty years ago, the matter I asked you about—have you thought it through?”

Kong Dalong fell silent for a moment, then shook his head.

“The task you gave me is too great. I still can’t take it on. How about waiting a few more years…”

“How many more years do you have left?” the white-haired man asked calmly, shaking his head slightly.

“Take care of yourself. You don’t have much time left. You need to move faster.”

With that, he no longer paid attention to Kong Dalong. He turned and stepped off the skiff.

He walked across the surface of the sea, each step carrying him hundreds of meters forward. In just moments, he disappeared from the old man’s sight.

Watching him leave, Kong Dalong let out a lonely sigh.

He turned the boat around to leave—but did not notice that the yellow croaker he had thrown back into the sea earlier had already floated belly-up beside the skiff.

Back at the Bureau of Investigation, Sun Desheng had almost fully figured out Du Qian’s case.

She had once worked with her three younger brothers in a drug trafficking operation. Later, all three brothers were taken down by Ren Rong. They always took the lead in operations, while Du Qian controlled everything from behind the scenes. After the incident, she fled overseas.

The three brothers were stubborn to the end and never revealed that they even had an elder sister.

After staying abroad for a while, Du Qian sent people back to probe the situation. Once she learned that her brothers had taken all the blame for her, she began planning revenge—she wanted to kill Ren Rong to avenge them.

But now Ren Rong held a high position in the ministry. Du Qian could not act openly, so she took an indirect approach: she hired a master skilled in supernatural methods to assassinate him.

That way, she could take revenge without exposing herself.

After pulling in several contacts and spending a large sum of money, Du Qian finally found this “master.”

Only Du Qian had ever seen this person’s face. No one else had access to him.

However, after learning that the target was a high-ranking official in the ministry, the master put forward several conditions. He wrote down a list of names—famous occult practitioners from the South Seas region, including a pair of siblings who worked as a couple, and another practitioner disguised as a doctor.

These people were all designated as scapegoats in his plan.

Everything had originally gone according to his script. But at the last moment, after seeing Shao Yiyi—who had almost been accidentally harmed in the hospital—he abruptly called off the assassination plan.

This left Du Qian, who was already preparing to celebrate, extremely disappointed.

Realizing that the master had been frightened by the woman in the hospital, Du Qian decided to act on her own.

She sent out two groups of gunmen—one to assassinate Shao Yiyi and cut off the master’s retreat, and another to directly attack the Bureau of Investigation.

Both attempts ended in failure.

And because of this, they angered the mysterious master.

In the end, he killed Du Qian and preserved her body in formalin, sending it to the Bureau of Investigation as a “gift” consistent with his earlier words.

After sorting through the entire chain of events, Sun Desheng said to Ren Rong:

“More or less, that’s how it went. The criminal group led by Du Qian has been completely eliminated. The only one still missing is that so-called ‘master’. His movements are unclear, but his style is distinctive. If he commits another crime in the future, we’ll have a chance to catch him.”

Director Ren looked at Du Qian’s body floating in formalin across from him and took a deep breath.

“Thankfully, we had you, Desheng. Otherwise, I would have been killed by Du Laosan’s ghostly tricks at the hospital. I’ve been in law enforcement for so many years, and this is the first time I’ve encountered something like this. Thinking about it now still gives me chills…”