I inherited my grandfather's Tang Dynasty assets.

Chapter 1 Chen's Mountain Goods Shop

Lanqiao Town's Changgu Street is an ordinary mountain town deep in the Qinling Mountains, so remote that almost no one knows about it.

Young people flock to big cities to make a living, leaving behind mostly elderly people and children.

"Chen's Mountain Goods Shop" is an old shop that has been open for more than 30 years on the street.

The main business is collecting mountain products, dried mushrooms, and herbs from the villagers in the mountains, and also selling some bamboo and rattan household items.

The front hall is about 50 square meters, and it is filled with brooms and bamboo baskets made by Grandpa Chen Yue. Of course, there are also mountain products such as wood ear fungus and goji berries. There are very few customers.

Behind the front hall is a small courtyard with a large jujube tree. The courtyard is surrounded by warehouses, a kitchen, and bedrooms, making it a fairly large space.

"Grandpa, dinner is ready."

A sumptuous meal was laid out on the stone table in the courtyard: stewed free-range chicken, scrambled eggs with toon leaves, stir-fried cured pork with garlic sprouts, and cornmeal porridge as the staple food. Although it was just ordinary home-style cooking, the ingredients were absolutely additive-free and pollution-free.

Chen Yue, 26, returned to his hometown after his business failed, and he has come to a realization these days.

Sometimes, the more you want to succeed, the harder it is to succeed. It's better to go back to your hometown and run your grandfather's shop, inherit his mantle and become a mountain peddler, and take care of him in his old age. Anyway, his family is very rich, so you don't have to worry about making a living.

Grandpa Chen Shan was a thin, seventy-year-old man, wearing a faded dark blue Zhongshan suit, the buttons fastened tightly, and his short, gray hair stood up in stubble.

Hearing his grandson shouting as he walked into the yard smoking, his face, as round as an old walnut, wore the pride of a victorious general as he glanced at the stone table.

"This is amazing! I just played five games of chess in a row, beating out Old Zhang and the others. I won so well, look how green their faces are!"

He sat down happily on the bamboo chair, picked up a piece of cured meat and chewed it with satisfaction, while tapping the table with his finger.

Chen Yue understood immediately and filled his glass with wine. The old man slurped down most of it, looking quite satisfied.

Chen Yue poured himself a cup and looked at the old man.

"Grandpa, I've thought it through. I'll stay in Lantian from now on and not go anywhere else. I'll run our family shop well and I plan to expand our online business. People in the city really like authentic mountain products these days."

Items like ginseng, gastrodia elata, lingzhi, and jujube are very expensive and often unavailable, with many on the market being fake.

But in Zhongnanshan, as long as you're not afraid of hard work and run around the mountains frequently, receiving these items isn't difficult.

Although being a peddler in the mountains is hard work, if you're lucky, you can really get rich; the old man is the best example.

Chen Yue has never had to worry about food or clothing since he was a child, and he has never known what it is like to be short of money. When he said he wanted to start a business, his grandfather gave him more than a million yuan as funding. It was these things that made him so successful.

Chen Yue remembers that when he was a child, big bosses from all over the country often came to his house to buy his goods.

It's just that they've suddenly disappeared in the last ten years or so. Since Grandpa could do it, Chen Yue believes he can too.

As Grandpa gets older, he rarely goes into the mountains to collect goods anymore. He has been familiar with the local products since he was a child and is quite knowledgeable about the trade. Now he has to take on this responsibility.

Chen Shan glanced at Chen Yue but didn't say anything; he just smiled with satisfaction.

After dinner, the old man went out to chat and play chess with others. Chen Yue washed the pots and pans and went to his bedroom to play games. This was his only form of entertainment during the month or so since he came back.

The computer cost over 20,000 yuan, but as the old man would say, it was nothing.

To this day, Chen Yue has no idea how much money his family has; it seems like they have an inexhaustible supply.

Chen Shan didn't return until almost nine o'clock and knocked on Chen Yue's door.

Just then, Chen Yue's crystal exploded, and he got up to take off his headphones.

"What's wrong, Grandpa?"

"Come with me, I have something to tell you."

Chen Yue raised an eyebrow in surprise. His grandfather had actually started speaking Mandarin, something he could only recall very rarely.

The last time was four years ago, when he had just graduated from university. His grandfather asked him very seriously if he wanted to come back and inherit the shop. At that time, Chen Yue was proud and arrogant, and felt that as a graduate of a 211 university, he should go out and make a name for himself.

Later, I successfully landed a job at an internet company as a security architect. After two years, I resigned and started a company with two friends.

The business ultimately failed, and the more than one million yuan in start-up capital given to him by his grandfather was all lost. At that time, he even felt like dying.

The old man was not angry at all; instead, he comforted him, saying that the money was just for him to practice with and that he shouldn't take it to heart.

Chen Yue always knew that he was an orphan that his grandfather had found while collecting goods in the mountains. However, his grandfather treated him the same as his own grandson, and the old man never married.

When Chen Yue was a child, he often heard the neighbors gossiping in private, saying that his grandfather had such a large family business, why didn't he find a wife and have a son to inherit the family business, but instead gave him this bastard child, which was simply stupid.

Every time the old man heard this, he would berate the other person mercilessly, and even get into physical fights over it.

Chen Yue got up and followed the old man to their warehouse.

"Grandpa, why did you bring me here?"

Although it was their own warehouse, Chen Yue rarely came in. It was used to store mountain products, some of which were poisonous. The old man was afraid that young Chen Yue would be tempted to eat them while playing, so he always kept the warehouse key on his person.

Chen Yue had been living at school since middle school, and after returning home, he had no interest in the warehouse and never paid any attention to it.

The old man reached out and tugged at the wire next to him, and with a "click," the dim incandescent light came on.

The warehouse was filled with dusty sacks and other old items. His family's business had long since failed, and the front room was big enough to store the goods, so the warehouse hadn't been used for a long time.

Chen Shan grabbed a cloth bag and threw it aside; the dust it kicked up was particularly noticeable under the light.

Chen Yue waved his hand and made a few "poof" sounds, almost unable to breathe.

"Grandpa, why are you fiddling with all this?"

"Move these bags away."

Chen Shan did not answer, but simply pointed to the sacks and gave instructions.

Chen Yue didn't think much of it and started working, quickly moving the things aside.

"Huh? There's a hidden door? Is this our family's cellar?"

Chen Yue looked at his grandfather strangely; he had never known about this before.

The old man still didn't answer, but simply gestured for him to open it.

Chen Yue grabbed the handle and pulled hard, and there were stone steps below, which stunned him.

"Come in with me."

The old man took out a flashlight, turned it on, and went downstairs first. Chen Yue followed curiously behind. What he saw was a basement of about 30 or 40 square meters. When he saw what was inside, Chen Yue was completely dumbfounded, his mouth agape.

Under the flashlight's beam, he could see clearly that there were two large wooden cabinets inside, on which were displayed some very beautiful antique porcelain pieces, as well as a dozen exquisite wooden boxes. There were even some calligraphy and paintings hanging on the wall, and two large wooden chests below the cabinets.

In the middle of the cabinet, there was something about two meters tall, covered by a yellow cloth.

Chen Shan opened a wooden box, which was found to be more than half full of copper coins, gold ingots, and silver ingots.

"Grandpa, you...you're not a tomb raider, are you?"

Chen Yue swallowed subconsciously, staring at him in shock. This was too outrageous. He picked up a copper coin and looked at it; it was inscribed with "Kaiyuan Tongbao".

If he remembered correctly, these seemed to be copper coins used in the Tang Dynasty, as well as these antiques and calligraphy and paintings. How could his grandfather, an old man who collected mountain goods, have these things?

Although he couldn't understand the calligraphy and paintings, his intuition told him that each one was very valuable.

Chen Shan tapped Chen Yue on the head and blew on his beard.

"What tomb raiding? I made all this money by reselling mountain goods."

"You must be joking. What kind of mountain products could you earn that much? That's impossible."

Chen Yue didn't believe it at all, which only strengthened his suspicion that the peddler was just a cover for his grandfather. He must have a secret, which would also explain why his family was so rich.

The old man was silent for a moment, then suddenly spoke.

"What if I told you I had a way to get to the Tang Dynasty?"

"What? What?"

Chen Yue thought he had misheard, his brain momentarily short-circuiting. Go to the Tang Dynasty? He hadn't drunk much that night, so why was he talking nonsense?

"Now that things have come to this, I won't hide it from you anymore. Haven't you always wanted to know where our family's money comes from? And why I always receive good things?"

"I'll tell you now, I collected them all from the Tang Dynasty. Alas, it's all my fault for being careless; I was bitten to death by a poisonous snake in Zhongnan Mountain ten years ago, and I've been unable to enter since."

The old man shook his head as he spoke, then pulled the yellow cloth open, revealing a strange door. Behind the door was pitch blackness, as if it were an unknown space.

It seemed to have a kind of magic, making Chen Yue unable to resist moving closer to examine it carefully.