Wielding the Thunders Across Two Worlds-Chapter 30: The Flaw in the Palm Thunder Video
"Dad, Mom, I’m home!"
Gu Zhao pushed open the front door to see his father, Gu Qi, and mother, Li Man, sitting cozily together watching TV.
Gu Zhao covered his eyes. "Am I interrupting something?"
Gu Qi turned around and said irritably, "We’re watching the national news!"
Li Man, however, stood up and glanced behind Gu Zhao. "You really didn’t bring a ’temporary’ girlfriend home?"
"Didn’t I promise I’d go with you to Shu Province?" Gu Zhao replied. "I was planning on finding a girlfriend there."
"Absolutely not!" Li Man immediately refused. "The girls in Yue Province are better. No need to look far and wide when the best is right here."
Gu Qi nodded in agreement. "Def..."
He had just gotten one word out when he saw Li Man turn her head, so he quickly changed the subject. "Ahem, have you eaten yet?"
"If I said I haven’t, is there anything at home?" Gu Zhao asked.
Gu Qi looked at Li Man. Li Man slapped the table and shot up. "Are you looking down on your mom? Speak. What do you want to eat?"
"Twice-cooked pork, fish-fragrant shredded pork, and water-boiled beef slices," Gu Zhao immediately rattled off.
Li Man clapped her hands and headed for the kitchen, calling out to the housekeeper, Aunt Zhang, who was resting in a side room. "Aunt Zhang, time to get to work!"
Li Man’s ability to keep Gu Qi wrapped around her finger was largely thanks to her incredible cooking. Gu Zhao had also grown up eating Sichuan cuisine, developing a formidable tolerance for spicy food.
Meanwhile, Gu Zhao put down his backpack, took off his jacket, and sat down next to Gu Qi.
"There’s a trade fair in Lin City this weekend. I have to go in person," Gu Qi said.
"Mom told me," Gu Zhao said, lounging on the sofa. He asked casually, "What kind of trade fair is it? Why is it all the way out in Lin City?"
Gu Qi was in the Chinese furniture business. Based near the port, he owned a furniture factory that imported various types of hardwood from abroad. He hired skilled craftsmen to produce and sell traditional hardwood furniture.
However, the Gu Family’s few shops were all around Yangcheng, with the farthest being in Peng City. Even the trade fairs they attended were mostly in the Pearl River Delta. Lin City, on the other hand, was the capital of Wu Province, all the way in the Yangtze River Delta.
"An Intangible Cultural Heritage Artistic Furniture Fair," Gu Qi said. "There are more wealthy people over in the Wu and Hai Provinces, so they’re holding it in Lin City."
"Jingzuo Hardwood, Jin-style Furniture, classical furniture from Min Province, and Ming-style furniture from Hai Province will all be there. The fact that I received an invitation means I’m representing the best of Yue Province’s hardwood craftsmanship!" Gu Qi said, quite pleased with himself.
Although the Gu Family’s business wasn’t huge, it had an excellent reputation in the industry. Moreover, Gu Qi had apprenticed under a master craftsman in his younger years. Besides being a businessman, he was also a fine carpenter.
Back in the day, what attracted Gu Qi to Li Man was her excellent Sichuan cooking. The key to Gu Qi winning Li Man over was a lifelike Wood Carving of a beautiful woman that he had carved for her himself.
"Dad, you’re awesome." Gu Zhao gave his dad a thumbs-up.
But Gu Qi clearly wasn’t satisfied. He even sounded a little jealous. "Wouldn’t it have been better for you to learn Wood Carving and furniture making from me? You just had to go and learn Daoist Technique from your grandfather. What, is your grandfather’s legacy a legacy, but your old man’s isn’t?
"And look now. Your thing is still considered feudal superstition, but your old man’s craft has become an intangible cultural heritage that the country is actively promoting. If you had learned from me, you might have even made it onto the Spring Festival Gala. What a shame."
"The arts they showcase on stage are usually atmospheric or things you don’t see every day. I remember the last Spring Festival Gala featured a large-scale Wood Carving, a miniature world carved directly from a single tree. Now that was stunning."
Gu Zhao gestured around them. "Our Ming and Qing-style furniture doesn’t exactly count as a rare art form. Strictly speaking, Mom’s Sichuan cooking could also be considered an intangible cultural heritage."
Gu Zhao gave a thumbs-up to Li Man, who was peeking out from the kitchen. "Mom’s an artist too!"
Li Man gave Gu Zhao a thumbs-up in return and raised an eyebrow at Gu Qi.
Gu Qi, "..."
"You have a point, but as someone from a family of carpenters, you should at least know the basics, right? Yet you made a short video with special effects and still managed to get the wood in the background wrong. Isn’t that embarrassing?" Gu Qi shook his head. "It’s like making Sichuan food and using ketchup instead of chili peppers."
Gu Zhao was confused. "What short video with special effects?"
"That Palm Thunder video of yours." As he spoke, Gu Qi picked up his phone, opened Doukuai, and found Gu Zhao’s video.
It was the very video that Gu Zhao had labeled with "[Special Effects, For Entertainment Purposes Only]," but had actually been a real demonstration of Palm Thunder in the Otherworld.
"How do you have my Doukuai account? I’ve never even shown my face!" Gu Zhao asked in astonishment.
As everyone knows, children will always block their parents from their social media feeds, and they usually don’t let their parents know their Doukuai account either.
’Mom knows my computer password, and Dad found my short-video account... they’re not actually a cook and a carpenter, are they? They must be secret agents in disguise!’
"Zhang Hang’s dad and I are good friends, so I came across Zhang Hang’s video while scrolling. He actually shows his face," Gu Qi said nonchalantly. "Then I just followed the trail from him to you."
’Okay, the logic checks out, but...’
"What’s so wrong with my special effects?" Gu Zhao couldn’t help but ask.
’Other people might not know, but how could I not know what’s really going on in this video?’
’It couldn’t be more real!’
"Your special effects are pretty good. The details of the lightning strike, the fire, and the tree snapping all look very realistic," Gu Qi commented, then asked, "How much did it cost? Or did you use AI to make it?"
Gu Zhao rolled his eyes. "Just get to the ’but’ already!"
"Alright, but!" Gu Qi chuckled and emphasized, "These trees in the forest, where did you get the images from? It would’ve been fine if you’d used pines, firs, or even birches or camphor trees. Why on earth did you have to choose this specific type?"
Gu Zhao looked at the small tree in the video that had been struck by lightning, and at the trees surrounding it.
’I don’t recognize them, but they just look like ordinary trees. What’s so special about them?’
"What’s wrong with these trees?" Gu Zhao asked.
"What’s wrong with these trees?" Gu Qi retorted. "It’s an entire forest of Small-leafed Purple Sandalwood, and you snapped one as thick as a thigh in a single blow. You tell me what’s wrong."
Gu Zhao was stunned. "What? Small-leafed Purple Sandalwood?"
"Yep. Small-leafed Purple Sandalwood." Gu Qi nodded, giving Gu Zhao a sidelong glance. "The one you snapped in your video is at least a hundred years old. It’s probably worth three or four hundred thousand."
Gu Zhao: Õ_Õ
Even though his family owned a furniture factory, the lumber delivered to it was already roughly processed raw material. He had grown up in the city, and aside from recognizing the most distinctive trees like pines, willows, and ginkgoes, how could he possibly tell all the different types of trees apart?
In his eyes, the trees in the forest behind the village were neither thick nor tall, just sparse and unremarkable—the most common kind of woodland trees.
’So they were actually the finest quality of lumber?’
Gu Qi delivered his final summary. "It’s a good thing you don’t have many followers. If an expert saw this, they’d expose you in a heartbeat."
