[Taihua alligator under command. Can evolve.]
Can evolve?
Clutching his muddled head, Liang Qu had no time to look into it carefully. He rushed to the surface for air and panted in great gulps for half a quarter of an hour before his body began to feel better.
So commanding was not something to use carelessly. Overuse it and he might well turn into an idiot — and failure would be more dangerous still.
But the Marsh Cauldron's "can evolve" had him curious. Two meters was nearly the limit for a Taihua alligator — there was still room for it to evolve?
He reached out to it again, and the Marsh Cauldron bloomed with light.
[May consume eighty points of essence of the waters to evolve the Taihua alligator into the Hornwood Alligator.]
Eighty points?
Was that a lot or a little?
Liang Qu had no way to judge — and besides, he didn't have a single point of essence of the waters on hand, so for now he had to let it go.
He rested a while, then dove back down, itching to examine the lotus root he suspected was a treasure plant — the centerpiece of tonight's haul.
He broke a section loose from the silt and had the Sow Dragon come near and try a piece.
The Sow Dragon paddled over, scrabbling at the water with its small claws, shaking its head as it gulped the piece down.
Through the spiritual link, Liang Qu felt its high spirits. Combined with the traces of gnawing left behind on the roots, he was now certain the lotus root really was something good — not poisonous — and that the alligator lying here was no coincidence.
Verification complete, he stopped hesitating. He snapped off a section, wiped away the mud, kept the water from spilling into his nose and mouth, and took big bites.
After a night of such toil, his piece of flatbread had long since been digested, and his stomach was rumbling again. Without the slight boost to his constitution from refining the marsh spirit, he might have gone right back to looking like a guttering candle in the wind, as he had when he first arrived.
Liang Qu had no wish to suffer like that again.
Hunger was the hardest thing in the world to endure.
The deep-water lotus root lacked the slime and stringy threads of the ordinary kind. It carried a faint watery freshness, and its texture was wholly unlike ordinary lotus root — crisp as an apple, surprisingly delicious, gone in a few bites.
And once it reached his stomach it turned into a current of warmth. The three fingers he had cut to command the alligator were healing, slowly, at a speed visible to the naked eye!
It truly was a treasure plant!
Liang Qu was overjoyed — though this plant seemed to lean toward healing, and since he had no real injuries to mend, the energy turned instead to filling the deficits his long starvation had left behind.
Even without a mirror he could feel the improvement in his vitality and spirits. He no longer looked like the withered wreck people shunned on sight.
A pity he knew nothing more detailed about it. Perhaps its uses didn't stop here?
[Essence of the waters +0.1]
Essence of the waters!
So this was the essence of the waters?
Liang Qu's eyes went wide. He stared at the prompt in disbelief — the essence of the waters he had longed for, day and night, had come to him this easily?
He had thought finding a healing treasure plant was surprise enough. He had never imagined the surprises wouldn't stop there.
Wait — one section of root was 0.1. If he ate everything here, wouldn't that be several whole points?
Overjoyed, he dug out several more sections and ate them all in one go. But the experiment told a different story.
Essence of the waters could indeed be gathered again and again — but not from every root. Only the ones near the spot beneath the Sow Dragon carried it; farther out, there was none.
Only about twenty-three sections were actually of use. Counting the two he had already eaten, that came to the equivalent of 2.5 points of essence of the waters. The trouble was that one section of root was no small mouthful — he had just tried a few pieces and couldn't manage another bite.
"First, let's see how much fusion 0.2 points of essence of the waters buys," Liang Qu thought.
So far the Water Monkey marsh spirit had helped him enormously. Barely refined and already this powerful — it had turned a guttering candle in the wind into someone with no worry for food or warmth. What would it be once fusion hit one hundred percent?
As for the Sow Dragon's evolution—
For a fierce beast of the water, evolving was of course a good thing. But with the lotus root as a yardstick, Liang Qu now understood how staggering eighty points was. It was a cup of water against a cartload of burning firewood. He could only look for a chance some other time.
With a thought, the Marsh Cauldron gave a sudden shiver; several pale-blue motes of light drifted upward.
A shadowy figure of a spirit monkey appeared behind him, and the motes, as if they had found their direction, swirled through the air and merged into it.
[Cauldron Master: Liang Qu]
[Refined marsh spirit: Water Monkey (White) (fusion: 5% ↑)]
[Essence of the waters: none]
[River favor: none]
[Command of water beasts: Taihua alligator (can evolve)]
[Evaluation: The Water Monkey marsh spirit derives from the great Lord of the Huai and Guo Rivers — insufficiently awakened, a small figure of meager nature and weak fate.]
"It doesn't rise right away?"
Liang Qu eyed the arrow beside his fusion and frowned faintly. The good news was that he really could feel himself growing closer to the water; presumably the fusion wouldn't take long. That was passable enough.
Gathering essence of the waters was simpler than he had imagined. So long as it could be gathered, there was no need to panic — sooner or later he would fill it up.
Zhang Shun, "White Streak in the Waves," could stay underwater for seven days and seven nights. Surely it wasn't too much to ask that he, a Water Monkey, manage three days and three nights?
At that thought, most of the unease he had carried since arriving in this other world drained away.
However cold his old world had been, anyone who truly saw a man about to starve would hand over a white steamed bun or two without a second thought. Here, scarcity had made indifference the norm. And with no family, no friends at his side, at first he really had felt lost and adrift.
A certain famous centenarian once said that people live for peace of mind.
With his knack for work in the water, Liang Qu now had the capital to settle down and make his living.
He rose to the surface for air and looked over his newly recruited little brother — the Sow Dragon!
Thick-hided and thick-fleshed, it had taken a vicious blow from a stone yet carried not the slightest real injury. Now it lay quiet in the water for all the world like a family dog — and through the spiritual link, it understood him better than any dog could.
Evolution was out of the question; eighty points of essence of the waters was far too much. But it was still a Sow Dragon, and a Sow Dragon was bound to be a fine hunter!
The result—
He watched the sluggish Sow Dragon and slapped his forehead. "Oh no. It really is about to hibernate!"
What Xiao He made, Xiao He unmade.
The cold had thickened his new little brother's blood and slowed its every move; the mood that came through the link was listless. It wasn't that the beast couldn't burst into action — this was simply its ordinary state — but counting on it to help catch fish was a long shot.
"The cold's got you so you can't move? Fine — from now on I'll call you Can't-Move. And fine again — just keep lying right here. Be my gatekeeper, and bite to death every little fish and shrimp that comes sneaking a meal!"
Having received its name, the Sow Dragon wagged its tail and burrowed into the mud. When the murky water settled, the place looked exactly as it had at the start. No one would ever guess a treasure plant lay hidden below.
Zeye Marsh Landing.
Liang Qu surfaced, swept his gaze around, and, once certain no one was there, picked up the yellow croaker and headed for home.
The Zeye Marsh yellow croaker was not the sea fish of his past life, the kind that died the moment it left the water. Liang Qu tied its head and tail together with reed leaves — enough to count as the bow-fish technique — which would keep the fish fresh and lively out of water for a long time.
He walked along in high spirits, feeling less as if he carried a fish than a heavy string of copper coins.
To get along in this world, it really did take a golden finger. A few hours ago he had been lonely and adrift; in the space of a blink, life no longer seemed so bad. He was already better off than most of the plain common folk of Yixing.
Eighty wen was no small sum. But winter was nearly on him: he needed two sets of clothes, his own were in rags — and there was still salt, rice, soap pods, a stool, a pot, bowls...
Er... Liang Qu abruptly felt that eighty wen wasn't all that much after all.
Still — the ability was his now. The days would get better.
Which left one more urgent problem: he had no boat!
A man who plans nothing far ahead is sure to meet troubles close at hand.
With the Water Monkey marsh spirit refined into him, his ability underwater had improved enormously; even without a boat he could bring in a good catch. But without a boat for cover, once or twice was fine — go on long enough and someone was bound to grow suspicious.
Even with heaven-sent fishing talent and a perfect sense of where the fish ran, it couldn't be this outrageous, could it? Not even owning a boat — was he supposed to dive into icy water for every catch, all winter long?
His own family hadn't always been without one. It had been seized by a local rogue — Scabby-Head Zhang.
Scabby-Head Zhang was Yixing's most infamous scoundrel. With a couple of days of fist-work learned at a martial hall to back him, he lorded it over everyone, and no one dared provoke him.
After Liang Qu's "father" died, the family's greatest asset — a black-awning boat — naturally caught his eye. On the pretext that Liang's father had once asked him for silver to drink and now owed him a debt, he simply took it.
A fishing boat was a fisherman's lifeline; a man practically ate and slept aboard. The house had nothing but four bare walls of yellow earth precisely because so much of the family's belongings lived on that boat!
Damn it all — who ever borrowed money from a street thug to buy drink?
But with Scabby-Head Zhang's fists to consider, no one would court ruin for a lone orphan's sake. They could only let it be.
Worse, the scoundrel came back afterward, claimed the boat didn't cover the debt, and stripped him of his last three dou of grain as well!
Wasn't conduct like that just another way of devouring a family left with no heir?
Every dead end he faced had been forced on him by this scabby wretch!
He had to find a chance to take it all back — that would make it far easier to hide his golden finger. And once he had saved enough money, he would go to town to train in the martial arts and see for himself what marvels a martial master truly commanded. With a proper standing, everything else would be simple.
Lost in thought, Liang Qu walked on, and without realizing it he had already reached his own door — where someone was waiting for him.
"Young master, have you given the matter any thought?"
Chapter 4