At the wharf, over a hundred fishing boats clustered tightly together, spreading outward from the bank like fish scales.
In the middle of the night, no one set out on the water.
Looking up, there was neither moon nor stars.
The sky was darker than usual tonight—an overcast expanse heavy with moisture and bitterly cold.
Liang Qu could only pray it wouldn't rain before he returned.
Wind and rain always went hand in hand; when rain came, the wind blew hard, and when the wind blew hard, the waves rose, making it easy for boats to capsize. Moreover, if a boat was left unattended on the water, it could easily drift away.
The sampan had no anchor; when out on the water, he relied on a large stone tied to a rope to hold the hull in place. It served its purpose, but only just.
There was no helping it; Liang Qu had to go even if it rained. A treasure fish was right there—he couldn't afford to pass it up.
Most of the treasure fish he had seen so far possessed strength vastly surpassing ordinary fish. They swam swiftly, and if left to thrash, they could even tear through fishing nets; relying on Cannot Move and Fat Catfish alone made catching one difficult.
The wind wasn't too fierce yet, rippling across the water as the fishing boats at the wharf knocked against one another with dull thuds.
Stepping across the bows of boat after boat, Liang Qu leaped onto his little sampan. The craft sank abruptly, sending up a large splash of spray.
"Ah Shui, why are you heading out to fish now?" Lin Songbao's voice drifted over from the bank, though the darkness made it impossible to see him.
"If I don't fish, I won't have anything to put in the pot."
"Nothing to put in the pot? Then come eat at my place! It looks like it's going to rain tonight; you'd better not take the boat out."
"No need—the bigger the wind and waves, the dearer the fish!"
"Then be careful."
"Will do!"
Liang Qu untied the hemp rope, took up the punting pole, and poled the craft through the crowding boats out into the open lake, then quickly switched to oars and rowed toward his destination.
The treasure fish discovered this time wasn't near the lotus root waters, but in a stretch of water he had never visited before.
Liang Qu rowed for over half a double hour before finally arriving. He tapped his oar against the water, and the Sow Dragon, Cannot Move, surfaced. Atop its head, Fist clacked its pincers together in a rhythmic clatter.
Fist hadn't changed much, but Cannot Move had grown at a startling pace. Even though he had braced himself, Liang Qu was still taken aback when he saw Cannot Move's size.
In just a single day, Cannot Move had grown from its original 2.3 meters to nearly 2.7 meters—growing by almost half a meter!
When he first met Cannot Move, it was under two meters long and weighed only around thirty kilograms—lighter than Liang Qu himself, incapable of executing a death roll with someone on its back.
Now it weighed at least sixty kilograms, nearly double. Liang Qu suspected the flesh energy left behind by the crab monster hadn't been fully digested yet; it was definitely still taking effect, and Cannot Move could still grow further.
If Cannot Move had been this size when they first crossed paths, Liang Qu never could have subdued it—he probably would have met his end right then and there.
It was all a stroke of serendipity.
Without domination, a Taihua alligator like Cannot Move could hardly break past the two-meter mark, 2.2 or 2.3 meters being the absolute limit of the species—unless it consumed special precious herbs or encountered some other fortuitous chance to grow into a spirit creature.
He wondered what Fat Catfish had grown into, but catching the treasure fish came first.
Liang Qu lowered the stone to secure the sampan, stripped off his clothes, grabbed his dip net, and leaped bare-chested into the water.
Late in the twelfth month was midwinter. Even though Liang Qu had refined the Water Monkey marsh spirit and possessed an innate water affinity, he still felt the cold. An ordinary person entering the water would shiver uncontrollably, and staying in for too long might even freeze them to death.
Fortunately, Liang Qu, with his increased fusion, could handle it. Due to its growth, Cannot Move had also gained a degree of cold resistance; its agility hadn't increased, but neither had it diminished much, remaining in a balanced state of slight decline.
The one human and two beasts soon found Fat Catfish lying in wait beneath the silt.
Fat Catfish had grown even more aggressively: its length had breached the three-meter mark, reaching roughly 3.1 to 3.2 meters. It was a good few sizes thicker, and its weight definitely exceeded a hundred kilograms.
However, it seemed not to have adapted to its newfound size; it had burrowed into the silt to the same depth as usual, leaving its entire greenish back exposed with zero camouflage.
Never mind Liang Qu easily spotting it through the spiritual link—any random fish swimming by could have seen it!
It had gotten smarter, but not that much smarter.
Liang Qu patted Fat Catfish's back. The creature didn't even realize anything was amiss and excitedly signaled the direction of the treasure fish.
This kid... he'd have to teach it slowly over time.
Swimming forward a few meters in silence, Liang Qu sensed the treasure fish Ah Fei had mentioned. It was a red-blood perch, exceptionally large, looking to be about seven or eight jin.
Red-blood perch and tiger-head groupers were probably the most common treasure fish species in the shallow waters around Shangrao Landing, right?
Liang Qu rubbed his hands together. Without even needing help from Fat Catfish or Cannot Move, he closed in on the treasure fish alone, outstretched his fingers toward the red-blood perch, and abruptly clenched his fist.
The red-blood perch resting in the silt instantly felt the surrounding water turn incomparably viscous, like hardening mud. It tried to struggle, but its movements were excruciatingly sluggish. It could only watch helplessly as its gill cavity was hooked, hoisted from the mud, and shoved into the dip net.
Liang Qu gave the net's opening a twist, held the red-blood perch tight, and swam to the surface. Back on the sampan, he dropped it into the fish basket and secured the lid.
Everything went smoothly.
Rain began falling from the sky, droplets shattering against the water's surface to raise a hazy gray mist.
Compared to the cold of the water, his water affinity actually made Liang Qu dread the chill of the wind more. He simply chose not to dress, tucking his padded cotton clothes into the compartment.
The rain poured hard. The waves crested over a chi high, crashing against the sampan so hard they nearly broke inside, tossing the boat violently.
Liang Qu drew his stone knife, quickly gutted the fish, and fed the bones and trimmings to the three beasts.
Cannot Move and Fat Catfish opened their wide mouths and gulped down their respective shares, leaving only Fist gripping a fish intestine between its pincers, slurping it down little by little like a wide noodle. Perched steadily on Cannot Move's head, the crab wasn't bothered by the wind and waves in the least.
The rain grew heavier and heavier.
Everywhere he looked, water spray clashed and shattered; every breath drew in thick vapor, making Liang Qu feel as though he hadn't surfaced at all, but remained underwater.
Even the mooring stone could barely hold the boat down, and the sampan drifted inch by inch in another direction.
Liang Qu had originally wanted to practice underwater the abilities enhanced by his surge in fusion, but that plan had now thoroughly fallen through.
"Cannot Move, Fist, head back first. Watch over my lotus root patch and don't let any fish steal from it again. Ah Fei, guide the way up front."
Upon receiving their orders, the two beasts vanished in moments, leaving only Fat Catfish swimming toward the wharf while Liang Qu rowed with all his might behind it.
The torrential rain blurred everything around them into an endless sheet of white; Liang Qu couldn't tell which direction the wharf lay in at all.
In his past life, he had watched plenty of wilderness survival livestreams by the great master Bi Fang, but Liang Qu hadn't learned every trick in the book. He had to rely on Fat Catfish to lead the way.
Rainwater streamed down Liang Qu's bare back, his hair thoroughly soaked as droplets beaded along his chin and dripped in a steady string.
Lightning flickered and vanished among the clouds, accompanied by dull rumbles of thunder.
Liang Qu rowed with all his strength when an inexplicable dread suddenly seized his heart. He wiped the water from his face and looked around in bewilderment, but saw nothing.
He asked Ah Fei through their spiritual link, but Ah Fei didn't respond—as if that sudden shudder of foreboding had just been an illusion.
The sky was black as ink. The raindrops fell so densely they seemed to shatter against one another in midair. Occasionally, a bolt of lightning struck straight toward the ground, briefly illuminating the sky.
Liang Qu grew increasingly unsettled and dared not move.
A jagged fork of lightning flared and vanished among the clouds, a deafening blast detonating in his ears.
Liang Qu clapped his hands over his ears, his pupils sliced in two by the blinding glare.
An unimaginably colossal shadow suddenly loomed, blotting out the blue-white lightning, and those silvery-bright pupils dimmed into darkness once more.
For a moment, Liang Qu doubted his own eyes, wondering if he had just seen an illusion.
Chapter 43