The Ancestral Legacy Begins in the Wild West

1880, San Francisco, Chinatown.

The old-fashioned tram, which had recently stopped running, was parked outside the tavern's stained window.

Further away, the red brick factory continued to operate, the roar of countless steel machines rising into the sky with billowing black smoke.

But Zhang Chang'an couldn't hear it, because the tavern in front of him was noisier than the factory.

"Qinghe, don't just sit here sullenly. Roll the dice a couple of times, play some cards, or at least have a couple of drinks," a tall, thin young man with a long braid said to Zhang Chang'an.

Zhang Chang'an simply waved his hand and said, "My mind is a bit muddled right now. Go have some fun by yourself, Brother Jiang."

Jiang Sheng didn't say much, turned around and went back to the noisy bar, downed a glass of wine in one gulp, and then grabbed the small knife on the table:

With a resounding "thud!", it hit the dilapidated wooden target four or five meters away with perfect accuracy.

The tavern erupted in cheers, but Zhang Chang'an was completely out of sync with the atmosphere, his gaze fixed intently on the words formed by the mottled wood grain on the table before him:

"Rift: [War and Rebellion] 9527 (75th generation: Duke Qinghe)"

"In 1880, the era of gunmen and outlaws was not yet over. The West had not yet become a country governed by the rule of law."

The area remains shrouded in mystery, with countless gang members escaping justice only to be hunted down and eventually disappear long afterward.

"Qinghe Gong lived in Guangzhou in his childhood, making a living by killing and selling fish. Later, due to his friend who was a member of the Small Knife Society, he was labeled as a remnant of the Taiping Rebellion and sent to America to work.

This is the beginning of his life in a foreign land; I hope the head of the family will help him gain a firm foothold.

"Current head of the family: Zhang Chang'an."

"Rank: Original Stone Steps"

"Time-space fragments: 0".

"Skills: [Simplified Hung Kuen from a Martial Arts School] (Common). [Martial Arts Response Techniques] (Common)."

As these words indicate, Zhang Chang'an is not the so-called Zhang Qinghe. However, this person appears to be his 75th generation ancestor, and he is the only son of the 81st generation of the Zhang family.

Here's the problem: "Spanning eighty-one generations, and still within our Cantonese region, after all this time, they should be a powerful local clan. How come I was still an orphan just a few hours ago?"

Zhang Chang'an is twenty-four years old this year. He grew up in an orphanage and later went to a martial arts school because he didn't do well in school.

He didn't get into a good university in the end, so he relied on his martial arts skills and the typical tough guy image of a Hong Kong youth to become a stuntman extra at Zhongshan Film City.

Today is his 24th birthday, but he also suffered a work injury, so he stayed in the urban village where he rented a place to rest.

He, who has few friends and doesn't like spending money, unexpectedly received two gifts. One was a 200 yuan medical subsidy from the film crew, and the other was an inheritance email from abroad.

It's called a heritage, but it's really just a simple old book:

The Zhang Family Genealogy.

Having lived as an orphan for over twenty years, he only then realized that he had ancestors spanning a full 80 generations.

However, the package itself, including a thick stack of documents, was in English. The family tree itself was also severely damaged, lacking information about his ancestors.

Therefore, he didn't understand where his distant foreign relatives came from, nor did he understand his own background.

This is extremely strange. However, the family genealogy not only contains his name but also records a rough biography that is of unknown origin but matches perfectly. Only then can we be sure that this is truly something from his ancestors.

Upon further examination of the other contents, he discovered that not only did their family history span a thousand years, but the lives of their ancestors were also increasingly legendary.

During the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, before the Qing court had fully grasped the domestic situation, one of its ancestors had already traveled to the Americas on a Spanish galleon, participating in the earliest Age of Exploration.

During the burgeoning Industrial Revolution in London, his ancestors were also present amidst the billowing smoke of steam engines and black factories.

Of course, this also includes the Western Gold Rush. During this period, countless Chinese came to the other side of the ocean, and naturally, some members of their family also came, including the ancestor Zhang Qinghe in front of us.

The pages about Qinghe Gong were relatively complete, so Zhang Chang'an only glanced at them a few times.

Who knew that when he looked up again, he would suddenly find himself here, having traveled into the life of his ancestor, where he had been in his apartment. The strange family tree had also transformed into the words before him.

"What does 'rift' mean? A spacetime rift?" Zhang Chang'an looked at the words in front of him and scratched his head in confusion.

Qinghe Gong had no braid on his head, only short, prickly hair.

Before he could figure it out, he heard:

"Sigh... He's pretending to be a foreigner, and he's touching his bald head again."

"Tch, how many people in San Francisco have had their queues cut off by foreigners? He's the only one who refused to wear a fake queue."

Over at the bar, several Cantonese men with long braids, dressed in simple, rough undershirts and mandarin jackets, openly discussed Zhang Qinghe, their words filled with disdain:

"He comes out for a drink, but sits alone on the side, all alone. It's like he's seen a foreign place and doesn't want to have anything to do with us Cantonese people anymore."

Zhang Chang'an listened, frowned, but didn't find it strange.

As these words describe, Qinghe Gong's previous experience was that, although he wasn't called Asheng, he had been killing fish at RT-Mart for ten years.

He had no connections and no money. He was abducted to this place, and it was a miracle he didn't end up as a slave to dig coal mines. Naturally, he couldn't possibly have any social standing.

The West at that time was indeed a vast and promising land, where bandits clashed with detectives, and railways and gunpowder paved the way. But the legends of each era actually had little to do with ordinary people.

Qinghe Gong is now no different from an ordinary person. His situation is not good, his livelihood is unstable, and his queue has been cut off by foreigners who bully Chinese people on the street.

Of course, Zhang Chang'an continued to look at the floating words in front of him, but his hand subtly gripped the edge of the cracked table.

"Snap!" Zhang Chang'an snapped off a splinter that looked like a chopstick with his backhand, then flicked his hand away.

"Whoosh!"

The splinter whistled through the air, instantly traversing most of the tavern, and embedded itself firmly in the wooden target still bearing the throwing knife in the distance, penetrating an inch or two deep.

Although the shot was actually off-target, hitting only the edge of the target, it just missed the people who had been talking about him.

The tavern fell into a deathly silence.

"top……"

The men were clearly startled, stopping in their tracks in shock, their pupils wide.

Zhang Chang'an calmly withdrew his hand: "Let the old ancestor suffer, I won't suffer along with him."

"Hey! You wild devil, you haven't even had a drink, are you going crazy with alcohol?" Those guys were indeed frightened.

They didn't know why Zhang Qinghe, who was always low-key and ordinary, would suddenly pull such a stunt, but after this incident, their pride was naturally shattered.

The tavern was full of fellow villagers, all sorts of people doing odd jobs and business. When they saw this big guy, they naturally walked aggressively toward Zhang Chang'an.

However, they hadn't gone more than a few steps when the tall and burly Jiang Sheng suddenly appeared in front of them and calmly reassured them:

"Don't be angry, it's just a game. Qinghe is also from our hometown, don't mess around."

These men were just ordinary idlers, and when someone tried to persuade them, they stopped, though they still wouldn't let it go:

"Hey, fellow villager, do you think he treats us like we're from the same hometown?"

"What a load of bull! If you're so tough, why don't you use your strength on the foreigners..."

After the complaints subsided, Jiang Sheng came over and led Zhang Chang'an out of the tavern.

Leaving the crowded and boisterous place, a cool night breeze blew towards them in September in San Francisco.

After his headache from the noise inside subsided a little, Zhang Chang'an looked up at the street in front of him, which was retro and rough, half Chinese and half Western, and quite simple.

It was still early in the day, and even though San Francisco was a famous metropolis, it hadn't become too crowded. And it was late at night; the streets were deserted.

"Judging by your skills, you must be quite adept at throwing knives," Jiang Sheng teased, reeking of alcohol.

Zhang Chang'an shook his head: "It's just that I've been killing fish for many years, so my hands are relatively steady."

Jiang Sheng neither agreed nor disagreed.

Zhang Chang'an thought helplessly, "I'm not being modest... How would I know if Lord Qinghe could use throwing knives?"

The brick just now was so off-target, it was just a powerful but unskilled brick flying around. He didn't expect to hit it, but since the direction was close enough, it would still be effective.

Because although he was a martial artist, he had never practiced throwing, which was a slightly unorthodox skill.

The body that wasn't injured on set was indeed Qinghe Gong's. But while the body was inherited, the ancestor's abilities weren't passed on to him.

"So where did my ancestors' abilities go...?"

As he pondered this, the clouds shifted and moved across the sky above San Francisco, revealing a long string of complex information to Zhang Chang'an:

"You have restored some face for the Duke of Qinghe. The timeline has changed, and spacetime fragments have increased by 20."

"Spacetime fragments are remnants left behind by changes in world lines, which you can use to slightly influence time or space."

"The ancestral inheritance function has been activated."