"Yangping Zhidugong Seal?" Zhang Zhongmou looked confused at the name. All he knew was that the last character meant "seal"; he had no idea what the others meant.
It was Jobs who patiently explained the origin of the seal. It turned out that after the death of Celestial Master Zhang Daoling, he had left three magical treasures for the Zhengyi Dao.
Legend had it that one night, Celestial Master Zhang, in a semi-conscious state, suddenly saw Taishang Laojun descend from heaven. Laojun told him that there were six great demon kings in Shu, leading millions of ghostly soldiers to torment the populace. He instructed the Celestial Master to go and subdue them, an act of immeasurable merit that could lead to immortality.
After speaking, he bestowed upon him three magical treasures: the "Zhengyi Mengwei Talisman," the "Three-Five Demon-Slaying Yin-Yang Sword," and the "Yangping Zhidugong Seal." Later, Celestial Master Zhang successfully subdued the six demon kings with these three treasures. When he ascended to immortality, he left these three treasures to his son and then ascended with two disciples.
This was the account that Zhengyi Dao had been propagating for over 2,000 years. Countless people had believed it since ancient times, and indeed, these three treasures remained with the Celestial Master's lineage, passed down from one Celestial Master to the next, a token of inheritance unbroken for over 2,000 years.
Of course, this was seen as the divine power of the Celestial Master by believers. However, from Zhang Zhongmou's perspective, the story was full of suspicious details.
Setting aside whether Taishang Laojun would truly dream to a minor cultivator and give him three magical treasures.
Furthermore, when this Celestial Master Zhang ascended, wouldn't he have taken these three treasures with him to heaven?
After all, these three treasures were certainly the ones Celestial Master Zhang used daily, his customary magical items. And as one could learn from novels like "Investiture of the Gods," a significant portion of a deity's power resided in the magical treasures they held. Without their treasures, they were nothing.
It was like in "Investiture of the Gods," where the son of King Zhou later betrayed his master, and with the magical treasures bestowed by their master, he could still beat his own master into a sorry state.
But once the magical treasures were lost, they were killed in an instant.
Therefore, Celestial Master Zhang would have definitely taken his magical treasures with him after ascending. It was as preposterous as a rich man going out without money.
Even if heaven was very harmonious and there was no need for fighting, when Celestial Master Zhang went to the Heavenly Court, he would certainly need to pay his respects and find patrons. If he could find patrons, it would naturally be Taishang Laojun.
Then these three magical treasures bestowed by Taishang Laojun would naturally be proof of Celestial Master Zhang's identity. It was like everyone needing an ID card; without one, you wouldn't be yourself. Your money in the bank, your house, even your wife and children might not be yours. Therefore, these identity-proving magical treasures must be taken along; otherwise, things would be unclear!
As a result, Celestial Master Zhang left the magical treasures to his unworthy son as tokens of inheritance for Zhengyi Dao, which was quite outrageous.
If one wanted to create tokens for Zhengyi Dao, couldn't they just find some other magical treasures?
After all, believers were merely a tool for inheritance. If they were too precious, they might be easily coveted by others. A simple stone would be more effective.
Of course, Zhang Zhongmou also wanted to complain that Celestial Master Zhang took two disciples with him when he ascended, but not his own son. Was it possible that Celestial Master Zhang feared that his son couldn't control the two disciples, so he took them with him to heaven, allowing his son to maintain control indefinitely?
In Zhang Zhongmou's opinion, the story was full of bloody undertones. Yet, even someone as intelligent as Jobs seemed to believe these legends at this moment and expressed his determination to help the sect retrieve these tokens.
Well, these three tokens, inherited by Zhengyi Dao for over 2,000 years, were no longer on Longhu Mountain but were in the hands of Zhengyi Dao in Taiwan.
When the 63rd Celestial Master went to Taiwan, he naturally wanted to take those three tokens with him. However, at the time of his departure, there was some division within Zhengyi Dao, with some people who cherished their homeland advocating for staying and defending their ancestral foundations rather than fleeing to the island.
It was said that the Celestial Master at the time had snuck away, so he left in a hurry, without many people accompanying him. On the way, something happened that caused two of the three tokens to be lost, leaving only the last one, the Yangping Zhidugong Seal, in his possession and brought to Taiwan.
The whereabouts of the two lost magical treasures were completely unknown. The Celestial Master himself could not explain it. It was likely that they were either lost somewhere, hidden in the private collection of some collector, or had even flowed abroad. No one could say for sure.
Therefore, the remaining Yangping Zhidugong Seal became exceptionally important. It was only natural for Jobs to try to retrieve this magical treasure for his sect, which would make him the greatest contributor to Zhengyi Dao.
And Jobs, being in Taiwan with no connections and no information, could only rely on Zhang Zhongmou, the local expert, to obtain this treasure.
"This is not easy, I can't get involved!" Zhang Zhongmou certainly didn't want to meddle in such troublesome affairs.
"Old Zhang, if you help me this time, then starting next year, all of Apple's contract manufacturing will be transferred to you!" Jobs said seriously.
"Hiss!" Zhang Zhongmou took a deep breath, his mind racing.
Although Apple's market value was only around 10 billion US dollars at present, all of Apple's businesses were electronics-related, making it a major consumer of computer chips.
The demand was at least 1 billion US dollars annually.
Of this 1 billion US dollars in chip demand, less than 50 million was handled by TSMC. The remaining 950 million US dollars went almost entirely to Korean and Japanese companies.
If he could secure all of this 1 billion US dollars in business, TSMC could expand further and gain a long-term partner, which was invaluable.
"Okay, I'll help you!" Zhang Zhongmou said without hesitation.
Given the importance of the entire Apple order, Zhang Zhongmou dared not delay. Although Boss Zhang had always operated his business honestly in Taiwan, seemingly without any other influence,
Once wealthy people decide to do something, it becomes incredibly simple. They can just pay professionals to handle it, not to mention their vast network of connections.
Thus, with just a few phone calls, Zhang Zhongmou basically got to the bottom of it, but the result also gave him a severe headache. Because this Yangping Zhidugong Seal had also gone missing.
The 63rd Celestial Master, Zhang Enpu, had indeed brought the Yangping Zhidugong Seal to Taiwan. However, he passed away in 1969, and his son had died even earlier. Thus, Zhang Enpu had no direct heir.
As a result, Zhengyi Dao fell into internal strife. After a period of struggle, Zhang Enpu's nephew, Zhang Yuanxian, eventually succeeded to the position of Celestial Master of Zhengyi Dao.
However, many people did not recognize him because Zhang Yuanxian had not obtained the crucial Yangping Zhidugong Seal.
According to Zhang Yuanxian, he was the successor designated by Zhang Enpu. But if that were the case, how could he not have received the Yangping Zhidugong Seal from the old Celestial Master?
Therefore, the old Celestial Master certainly did not recognize Zhang Yuanxian. But the whereabouts of this great seal remained unknown to anyone. Moreover, no one else was more qualified to succeed to the position of Celestial Master than Zhang Yuanxian, so Zhang Yuanxian confusingly served as Celestial Master for decades until now.
"This damn broken seal is definitely not in Zhang Yuanxian's hands, otherwise, he would have revealed it long ago to assert his legitimacy!" After obtaining this information, Zhang Zhongmou immediately made a judgment.
But if that were the case, where was this token?
Zhang Zhongmou was also unsure. He continued to have people investigate and proactively contacted some friends in the provincial government. He finally learned that after arriving in Taiwan, Zhang Enpu was still not free from worldly desires. Although over sixty, he still married a young widow.
This widow had a child from her previous marriage. Of course, it was reasonable to assume that after Zhang Enpu's death, this widow and her ex-husband's son would have no further connection with Zhengyi Dao, other than inheriting Zhang Enpu's personal property, and then they would be completely separated.
However, Zhang Zhongmou learned that Zhengyi Dao had been consistently providing a monthly pension to the widow of the previous Celestial Master, a fixed sum of 3,000 yuan.
Although this sum was not large, Zhengyi Dao's own income situation was even worse. Due to the weak foundation of Taoism in Taiwan Province and a limited number of believers, Zhengyi Dao's monthly income generally did not exceed 100,000 yuan. Yet, they were willing to allocate 3,000 yuan each month to a widow, which was very suspicious.
Even more suspicious was that this widow had died ten years ago, but the 3,000 yuan was still being paid, to the widow's son, Zhang Meiliang. This individual, born to a previous husband, had no relation to the Zhang family but still used the surname Zhang.
Further investigation revealed that the person most insistent on paying this money was not Zhengyi Dao, but Zhang Yuanxian himself. He had strongly insisted on paying it monthly.
This made things very interesting. Zhang Zhongmou, the old fox, immediately saw the problem. It was unnecessary for Zhang Yuanxian, a nephew, to be so filial to his uncle's widow.
Even if Zhang Yuanxian was truly filial and wanted to honor his uncle's widow.
The widow herself was one thing, but why continue to pay money after her death to someone with no blood relation?
Then there was only one answer: this widow and her son held something over Zhang Yuanxian, or something that Zhang Yuanxian desperately wanted but couldn't obtain. Zhang Yuanxian could only control them by continuously providing a monthly allowance.
What was this thing?
It was very easy to guess. Besides the missing Yangping Zhidugong Seal, there was nothing else that could make Zhang Yuanxian so cautious.
This widow had undoubtedly stolen the great seal from the old Celestial Master through her privileged position. However, she knew that her son's bloodline had no relation to Celestial Master Zhang, so he couldn't directly inherit the position of Celestial Master with this great seal.
Therefore, she used this great seal to establish a cooperative relationship with Zhang Yuanxian. She hid the great seal and then strongly supported Zhang Yuanxian's succession as Celestial Master.
In this way, although Zhang Yuanxian lacked the Celestial Master's seal, others also lacked it. Since Zhang Yuanxian was the closest in blood relation, he could smoothly succeed.
As for why she didn't directly hand over the Yangping Zhidugong Seal to Zhang Yuanxian, it was naturally because she feared that Zhang Yuanxian would betray her after crossing the river. In fact, this decision proved to be very wise.
For nearly 40 years, Zhang Yuanxian had been diligently paying the money every month without fail.
Therefore, without a doubt, this Yangping Zhidugong Seal was definitely still in the hands of this widow, or rather, her son, Zhang Meiliang.