Grandmaster didn't lie to himself; he had indeed collected a bunch of... junk.
As a child, he was often taken by his mother to her workplace. Back then, the protection of cultural relics wasn't as strict as it is now; many didn't even have a glass cover, and you could even touch them up close.
Therefore, Li Zhiyuan had observed many magic artifacts up close, the solemnity of Buddhism, the simplicity of Taoism, the mystery of Lamaism.
When he looked at them in the past, he was sated by the sheer quantity and even grew a bit sick of them, but no matter what, they were in no way comparable to what he saw before him, at least... they didn't come with tags.
Yes, on several Daoist robes that followed, Li Zhiyuan spotted tags, even tags indicating the size.
The bright yellow Daoist robe in the back even had a sticker that wasn't ripped off, it read: "For exclusive use by the drama crew."
Li Zhiyuan also found three large baskets of talisman paper; he picked them up and scrutinized them. The texture was smooth, he couldn't understand the patterns, but he could tell they were done in one go and beautifully written.
This piqued his interest, and he flipped through other talismans, finding a wide variety of them.
But soon, Li Zhiyuan noticed something off. When he placed two similar talismans in front of him, he couldn't tell them apart; they even had identical ink-tracing flaws in the bottom right corner.
So... were these printed?
Li Zhiyuan rubbed his eyes, which were a bit sore from all the looking, he even suspected that Grandmaster had hoarded so much stuff here with the intent to form a funeral troupe, with the tables, chairs, bowls, pots, and paper figures above, forming a complete funeral industry chain.
No longer looking at those items, Li Zhiyuan walked to the very back, where a dozen boxes were placed here.
He remembered Grandmaster mentioning that these were kept here for storage by others, and inside were books.
Li Zhiyuan bent down, took his flashlight, and examined the boxes closely. This material... was almost identical to a piece loved by Grandpa Zhou back at the family courtyard who liked to collect.
On that occasion, Grandpa Zhou had received a box and excitedly called his old friends to boast. Li Zhiyuan was also called over to brew tea.
Now, boxes like that one in front of him, there were three.
Although the other boxes were made of different materials and colors, upon inspection by Li Zhiyuan, all appeared to be of good quality.
This raised some expectations in Li Zhiyuan's heart; surely, the content within such valuable boxes couldn't just be books from a publishing house.
Moreover, in the past, state-owned publishing houses would not publish books like "Golden Sand Luo Wen Scripture," which, after all, were considered feudal superstition.
There were traces of seals on the boxes, which seemed to have been ripped off long ago, and there were locks, but those had been forced open too.
Li Zhiyuan felt that Grandmaster must have done this, so, were these really stored here by others?
Even without locks, opening the box lid was a struggle for Li Zhiyuan. As soon as he opened it and shined his flashlight inside, he took a deep breath.
Books, books, books, all books!
And not printed ones, it was clear from the covers that they were handwritten.
Back in school, every term he would go through several sets of textbooks, but he only found them interesting the first time he browsed through them.
Now, he finally felt a kind of bliss being surrounded by books.
He picked up several books in a row and looked at their covers, finding they were all "Jianghu Chronicles," divided into many volumes.
In "Jianghu," it was not about martial arts, but about actual rivers and lakes.
Li Zhiyuan, holding the flashlight, flipped open the first volume and found not only text but also illustrations, including one of a person standing and walking in moving water.
This book actually described corpse undercurrents?
This was not a place for reading, after closing the book, Li Zhiyuan searched for a while in this box and finally collected the entire set.
"Jianghu Chronicles," totaling forty-two volumes.
The number of volumes was a bit many, but it was no wonder, after all, they were handwritten with a brush, and the characters were quite large.
Li Zhiyuan decided to finish this set first; it was probably like an encyclopedia specifically describing strange phenomena in rivers and lakes, considered an introductory reading material.
Li Zhiyuan didn't open the other boxes; he wanted to maintain some sense of anticipation.
Next, Li Zhiyuan began the laborious task of transporting books. It took three trips to finally move the entire set of "Jianghu Chronicles" to his room on the second floor.
He also relocked the basement door, not keeping the key in the cloth shoes, but carrying it with him.
"Little Yuanhou," the voice of Li Sanjiang called from outside, "Little Yuanhou, come out quickly."
Li Zhiyuan opened the door and stepped out.
"Whoa... Did you just roll around in the mud, kid?"
"Grandmaster, I'm going to take a shower and change clothes now."
"Don't rush, take a look at this first, hehe. Come on, Li Hou, put it here, let's stand side by side, grandfather and grandson."
Uncle Qin came up carrying a rattan chair.
A warm feeling surged in Li Zhiyuan's heart. Just yesterday, he told Grandmaster that he wanted a rattan chair, and today Grandmaster had really bought it for him.
"Grandmaster, I also want a desk lamp."
The light bulbs in the room weren't bright enough; they were fine for lighting up the room at night, but difficult for reading. Li Zhiyuan saw that there was a kerosene lamp in the house, but there was no need to stubbornly make do with it.
"You want a desk lamp to read books?"
"Alright then, Li Hou, you go to town again, bring back a desk lamp for the kid, and buy some more pens and notebooks. I think the other kids also have that... what's it called, a pencil box... forget it, you decide what you think is adequate and buy it."
"Got it, I'll go after lunch."
"Don't wait for the afternoon, there's still some time before lunch, you go now."
Li Sanjiang turned to Li Zhiyuan again, seriously saying: "When your grandpa came by earlier, I had instructed him to send Yinghou over this afternoon to help you catch up with your studies."