"Actually, the Native Aricans—the Indians—are descendants of the Shang Dynasty!"
This statent imdiately captured the attention of the other three.
Shen Yuan continued, "Legend has it that King Wu of Zhou attacked King Zhou, defeating the Yin Army in the decisive Battle of Muye. He then breached the capital city of Zhaoge, and King Zhou immolated himself on the Lu Platform."
"But! Right as King Wu of Zhou was wiping out the Shang, an army of 250,000 Yin soldiers, along with their families and other residents, all vanished without a trace!"
"In reality, these Yin People crossed the eastern sea, sailed across the vast ocean, and arrived in Arica! To escape pursuit from the Zhou People, the Yin People changed their customs. But on every full moon, their elders would face east and weep, asking, ’Yīn dì ān fǒu?’—Is the land of Yin safe? Over ti, this was corrupted into ’Yin-di-an.’ When Columbus landed, he misheard it as ’Indian,’ and the na stuck."
HISS—
Hearing this, everyone present gasped.
"This..."
"So the legitimate heir to Arica is Huaxia!"
Shen Yuan raised a hand. "Hey! Let’s not dwell on it. It all happened too long ago."
At his words, looks of regret appeared on the faces of the other three.
"Let’s go, let’s go. Ti to take a leak."
With that, Ah Jie and Yang Ze went to take a leak.
As for Shen Yuan, he stayed in his seat, continuing to eat his ice cream.
"What kind of random junk do you have rattling around in that head of yours?"
Hearing Li Zhi’s question, Shen Yuan smiled slightly. "It’s for balance. You need sothing to relax with, or the stress gets to be too much."
Li Zhi was noncommittal.
’After all, she had her own stress.’
It was just that Li Zhi’s thod for relieving stress was a bit... unique.
She relieved her own stress by stressing out other people.
A pure Painful Sacrifice.
But that was all in the past. Nowadays, an occasional verbal spar with Shen Yuan was enough to release her stress.
"Hey, seriously though, want to go back and wander around the Old Street for the Mid-Autumn Festival?" Shen Yuan asked with keen interest, full of anticipation for her answer.
Li Zhi shook her head and refused without hesitation. "Not going."
With that, the corners of Li Zhi’s mouth lifted slightly, and a faintly sarcastic smile appeared on her face as she looked at Shen Yuan. "Didn’t *soone* say that the Old Street doesn’t have the sa vibe it used to? Why are you still thinking about going back?"
Shen Yuan gave a sheepish smile. "I was thinking we could take a quick stroll there, then go wander around the village."
Li Zhi looked at Shen Yuan and asked a question that cut to the core: "Can you even find your way back to your old ho?"
Hearing this, the corner of Shen Yuan’s mouth twitched violently.
"Are you underestimating my mory? They just tore down the house, it’s not like they bulldozed the entire village."
However, Li Zhi just shook her head firmly. "Don’t even think about going anywhere for the Mid-Autumn Festival. I’ll probably be going to my grandparents’, and then back to the new village. You’ll probably be doing the sa."
Shen Yuan raised an eyebrow.
In recent years, Jiyang had been constantly building roads. The construction of various city ring roads and provincial highways ant that even remote little villages like Shen Yuan’s and Li Zhi’s old hos were slated for demolition.
Shen Yuan’s and Li Zhi’s parents had registered their households separately quite early on and had built houses in their old hotown long ago.
Because their plots of land were close to each other, both houses were demolished, turning them into mbers of the much-envied "demolition-rich" generation.
In reality, however, by the ti the demolitions got to them, it was much harder for families to get the kind of high compensation packages that were offered in the past.
Most were given a few options to choose from.
Either cash, a resettlent apartnt, or a plot of land to build a townhouse.
Both families chose the land, and their houses were built long ago.
The location was next to the ring road, which was considered a pretty good spot.
However, because of Shen Yuan’s and Li Zhi’s schooling, neither family went back very often.
They mostly stayed in the city.
As for the new townhouses, they only went there when they happened to think of it, or during the New Year.
After all, you need a bigger place when relatives co to visit.
Both sets of parents had a nice plan.
Once the kids graduated from high school, or maybe college, they would leave the apartnt here to the two of them.
Then they would move back to the townhouses.
It wasn’t far, really, just a ten-minute drive.
There was even a bus, but that took forty minutes.
Because route-wise, the bus took a huge detour through the city.
Going back to their hotown to see their grandparents for the Mid-Autumn Festival—if that was the plan for Li Zhi’s family, then Old Shen would likely arrange the sa thing.
So Shen Yuan stopped thinking about it.
Just then, Ah Jie and Ah Ze returned from their bathroom break, and Shen Yuan suddenly rembered sothing.
Since he hadn’t been with Ah Jie much these past few days, he’d completely forgotten to check on Ah Jie’s progress with his vocabulary copying.
"Ah Jie, where’s your English vocabulary notebook? Take it out and let see." Shen Yuan’s voice wasn’t loud, but it held a tone that brooked no argunt.
Hearing Shen Yuan’s words, Ah Jie’s body went rigid. The smile on his face vanished in an instant, replaced by a look of terror and unease.
Shen Yuan noticed Ah Jie’s change in expression and frowned slightly.
The next second, Shen Yuan dashed over to Ah Jie’s desk and pulled Ah Jie’s vocabulary notebook from inside.
"NO!! Yuan! Brother Yuan!! DON’T LOOK!"
Ah Jie lunged forward, screaming his head off.
"Brother Yuan, don’t look! I wrote a love letter in there!"
"You dumbass," Shen Yuan’s lips curled into a mischievous grin. "Now I’ve *really* got to look!"
He completely ignored Ah Jie’s attempts to stop him and shot a look at Yang Ze and Chen Mingyu, who were standing off to the side.
Yang Ze and Chen Mingyu understood imdiately. They stepped forward, grabbed Ah Jie from either side, and held him tight, preventing him from getting any closer to Shen Yuan.
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