Chapter Forty-One: The Flood

Tong Xiaomeng and I looked at Old Water Ghost, our emotions tangled and uneasy. His deranged state made us feel as if he had suffered some immense blow; if he truly lost his mind, how would we handle the long night ahead?

“Brother Bai…” Tong Xiaomeng unconsciously grabbed my hand. I didn’t know how to comfort him either, so I stared fixedly at Old Water Ghost, my other hand gripping the tea mug, ready to react to whatever danger might arise.

Fortunately, Old Water Ghost’s frenzied mind soon calmed. He turned to me and asked, “May I borrow the Blood Jade?”

I hesitated. “What for?”

He replied, “I can’t tell you yet, but with this item, not only can we survive tonight, there’s a great chance you can avoid marrying the Lady of the Yellow River and becoming a creature neither human nor corpse.”

I thought it over. In this situation, trusting him seemed the only option. I took the Blood Drop Jade from my neck and placed it in his palm.

He held the jade pendant, visibly moved for a moment before regaining composure. Then he stood, walked to the jade coffin, and stared at its contents for several seconds before placing the pendant inside.

My heart stirred at the sight, and I couldn’t help but ask, “Could it be that the female corpse from Erdao River Mouth tracked us here because of the Blood Jade?”

Old Water Ghost didn’t answer. He glanced at the old clock hanging on the wall and said in a low voice, “One more hour. In an hour, the Lady of the Yellow River will come ashore for her wedding. Whatever her intentions, a flood is inevitable. How are you two at swimming? If not, you’d better find a high place to take shelter. Leave me here alone.”

Tong Xiaomeng and I exchanged a glance. Both of us were far better swimmers than most, especially Tong Xiaomeng, whose skills surpassed mine. We should be fine.

Old Water Ghost nodded, then sat back in his chair and looked at me. “All things come from cause and effect, shaped by fate. If I’m not mistaken, as a child, you often walked by the river, and saw far more strange things than others, didn’t you?”

I shuddered at his words, surprised. “How do you know?”

He chuckled softly. “What have you seen?”

I stared at him in shock, murmuring, “The coffin in the water…”

He quickly interrupted, “It’s enough that you know in your heart. Don’t speak of it.”

“That’s what the sorcerer told me back then,” I sighed.

“Yes. Some things, once exposed to daylight, are no longer tolerated by the heavens. You kept it to yourself, and that saved her life. Now, she’s saved yours.”

I grew even more uneasy, recalling the female corpse who saved me at Erdao River Mouth. Trembling, I asked, “You mean the owner of the jade pendant is the one in the coffin…”

He nodded silently.

When I was seven, I went swimming with Jin Yitiao by the Hai River. The pollution wasn’t as bad then; the entire river was Tianjin’s grand swimming pool, especially in summer, crowded with people like dumplings in a pot.

That summer, Jin Yitiao and I competed at diving in the river; loser would treat the winner to a popsicle costing two yuan apiece—a fortune at the time. We dove in, resolved to float back up only if someone came to rescue us. But as soon as my head dipped below the surface, a dark shadow drifted past my feet.

Growing up by the river, I’d heard countless ghost stories about the water, but I didn’t see it clearly, so I wasn’t afraid. I pinched my nose and crouched underwater.

But after a while, I felt a current pressing against my back. I twisted around sharply and saw that dark shadow resting behind me—a black coffin, its massive silhouette wrapped in river weeds taller than a man, swaying and tugged by the current, trapped in the distance.

I was petrified. In water, panic makes your legs cramp, and the breath you’ve been holding bursts out. By the time I realized I needed to swim up, something had already wrapped around my ankle.

What could a child do in such a situation?

Just scream.

But you can’t scream underwater. Instinctively, I reached upward, hoping to escape as fast as possible.

Driven by instinct, when I felt I couldn’t swim anymore, I grabbed at the river weeds wrapped around the coffin—pulling hard and kicking furiously.

The weeds snapped one by one, and the coffin, bound by them, seemed to struggle as if alive. I watched as the weeds broke apart, and from the cracks between the coffin boards, streams of crimson liquid seeped out, clouding my vision. After that, I remembered nothing.

When I finally woke, it was two days later. I was home, the room plastered with talismans to ward off evil. My parents, eyes red and swollen, were at my bedside. When they saw me awake, they told me I’d been dragged under by a water ghost, and if Jin Yitiao hadn’t noticed in time and hauled me out, I wouldn’t have survived.

Jin Yitiao had saved my life. That’s why, no matter the terms, I promised Jin Zhenbang I’d rescue him.

But after my parents left, the sorcerer they’d hired for exorcism secretly asked what I’d seen in the water.

I told him everything. He was silent for a long time, then said, “I didn’t hear anything you just said. If anyone asks you in the future, you must not tell. Otherwise, one day she’ll come for you, drag you back under, and make you pay with your life.”

As a child, those words terrified me. I kept it secret from even my parents. Later, as I grew up, I gradually forgot. Yet fate circled back, and at twenty-eight, I found myself entangled with the coffin’s inhabitant once more.

Snapping out of my reverie, I looked at Old Water Ghost. “So tonight, the one in the coffin might come too?”

He nodded. “That’s why I placed the jade pendant in the coffin. Cultivation is hard; cultivating kindness is harder. A thousand years of fate destroyed in an instant—I can hardly bear to watch.”

I gazed at him silently. I’d thought that after spending so much time with Old Water Ghost, I’d finally understand this mysterious figure who wandered the banks of the Yellow River. But now I realized he was like layer upon layer of mist; peel one away, and you only sink deeper into the fog.

As we chatted, time was racing toward the hour when the Lady of the Yellow River would come ashore. Tong Xiaomeng, listening nearby, didn’t quite grasp the details, but her natural intelligence let her piece together much. She asked, “What should we do when the time comes?”

Old Water Ghost replied, “Do everything you can to survive in the water. The rest is not yours to worry about.”

He hadn’t finished speaking when a roar like mountains collapsing and seas raging echoed from outside. The ground trembled violently. Alarmed, I turned my head—and the sound of surging river water was already at the door. Before I could react, Old Water Ghost cried urgently, “Hold your breath—the Yellow River’s coming!”

No sooner had he spoken than Tong Xiaomeng and I inhaled deeply and pinched our noses. At that moment, the wind-blown door suddenly shattered into pieces, and muddy Yellow River water rushed violently into the room.

The flood hit me like a boulder slamming into my chest—no time to react. Darkness enveloped me as the current slammed me against the back wall. I felt my bones would break, but survival was paramount; I clenched my teeth, refusing to pass out, though I couldn’t avoid a moment of confusion in my mind. When I came to, I opened my eyes in panic, but the muddy water made everything indistinct—I couldn’t see a thing.

Worried for Tong Xiaomeng and Old Water Ghost, I bared my teeth and thrashed my arms, trying to find them. As I reached out, I heard, to my astonishment, music playing from deep within the water.