The Marsh Cauldron pulsed with a glow of spirit-light. The blood scattered through the water, gathered together by some mysterious power, congealed without dispersing, and slowly etched itself onto the smooth back of the six-whisker catfish.
In the dim waters, the 川-character water talisman gave off a bloody radiance of its own, and the catfish that had been struggling for its life went dazed and still in an instant.
A formidable spiritual force thundered into his mind. Liang Qu felt as if the back of his skull had been struck by a heavy hammer; his head spun and his vision swam.
His nose went hot, and he sensed blood welling out — dominating the six-whisker catfish this time was far more dangerous than it had been with the Sow Dragon!
Though the two beasts were nearly identical in size, the will to resist of the half-hibernating Sow Dragon was nothing like as fierce as the catfish's!
Only after a deadlock of a dozen-odd breaths did the spiritual will in his mind at last begin to crumble rapidly.
The 川-character talisman sank beneath the catfish's skin and vanished, and in its place a spiritual link of an entirely different character took shape in Liang Qu's mind.
It worked!
Exhausted as he was, delight broke over Liang Qu's face — chased at once by a flicker of lingering fear.
The catfish's resistance had been that intense? That he had succeeded with the Sow Dragon last time was pure luck.
Fortunately, success was success. Once the spiritual link was established, the beast's life and death alike lay in his hands; betrayal was simply not possible.
Luck, after all, was part of one's strength.
The Marsh Cauldron shed its radiance.
[Six-whisker catfish dominated. Evolution available]
[Spend eighty points of essence of the waters to evolve the six-whisker catfish into a tiger-head catfish.]
The same evolution notice as before — but Liang Qu still didn't have that much essence of the waters, so that too would have to wait for another day.
The struggle had drained him to the last of his strength. He quickly summoned the two beasts, gripped a tail in each hand, and had them carry him up to the surface for air.
Splash.
"Whew!"
Wiping the water from his face, Liang Qu drank in great lungfuls of air, and his aching, swimming head rapidly cleared, like a swallow of ice-cold soda on a blazing summer day.
It was still early. In the daylight, with his strength returned, Liang Qu studied the two beasts' enormous, fearsome bodies, and pride and a sense of safety rose in him unbidden.
With the two beasts at his side, even a big strapping man like Scabby-Head Zhang — even unwounded — would be entirely at Liang Qu's mercy if he fell into the water, to be toyed with however Liang Qu pleased.
Except...
Liang Qu looked at the torn wound on the six-whisker catfish's tail and felt a pang. These were all his babies now!
Earlier, when Cannot Move had fought the catfish, its thick hide and flesh had come through without a scratch, while the catfish had been bitten into one great scar. That was one of Cannot Move's strengths too: the Sow Dragon's agility and endurance fell far short of an ordinary fish's, but it more than made up for it with a savage attack and a hide that could take a beating!
"Well, since you're so fat, I'll call you Fat Catfish — Ah Fei!"
Liang Qu gave the six-whisker catfish its name on a whim. When a feeling of delight came back through the link, he brought the two beasts back to the lotus root waters, snapped off a piece of lotus root, and fed it to the catfish.
This piece held no essence of the waters, but it had the same healing effect — only much weaker.
Once the Fat Catfish swallowed it, the wound on its tail began healing at a pace visible to the naked eye, though far more slowly.
Ah Fei rolled over in the water and began circling around Liang Qu.
Judging that one piece would do, Liang Qu returned to the boat and fed Cannot Move a few fish, leaving it to keep watch over the home base; then, once the Fat Catfish's wound healed, it would fish for him with the lotus root waters as its center.
The six-whisker catfish was a formidable hunter. One suck of that big mouth could snare whole schools of small fish, and it left no obvious wounds to make anyone wonder where the fish had come from — which was exactly why Liang Qu had wanted to dominate it.
"Spit whatever you catch in here. Just make sure nobody sees you."
Liang Qu pried up the plank at the stern and pointed at the empty space inside.
Scabby-Head Zhang's sampan was crude, but complete in every essential — a little over three meters from end to end, built like any proper fishing boat, with watertight compartments at bow and stern for storing fish.
The Fat Catfish rose and sank at the surface, wagging its head.
The spiritual link was not without its benefits for the water beasts either. At least as far as Liang Qu could see, a beast with a link was clearly smarter, capable of a measure of thought — no longer a mere wild animal.
With Ah Fei's confirmation, Liang Qu didn't bother closing the stern cover. He simply lay down, pulled a straw rain cape over himself, and dropped into a deep sleep.
Establishing a spiritual link had cost him dearly; he badly needed the rest — and he would see what the haul looked like when he woke.
The sky darkened by degrees. The river wind breathed, and the water's surface shimmered with red light.
Liang Qu blearily opened his eyes. The sun hung in the west like fire. He had slept clear through to dusk — and he hadn't even woken on his own; a fish had leaped out of the water and slapped him in the face.
Still groggy, Liang Qu touched the slick slime on his cheek. He sat up and gaped at the several big fish flopping about in the boat.
The watertight compartment at the stern was stuffed full of fish!
Every so often a fish would leap out of the narrow opening, either diving back into the water to escape or landing in the boat. That was how the one that smacked him awake had ended up beside his head.
The enormous surprise bowled Liang Qu over: even if every one of these fish was an ordinary fish, the lot had to be worth a hundred wen!
Was this all Ah Fei's haul from the better part of a day?
Just then Ah Fei surfaced, opened its great mouth, and spat out three more big fish, water and foam and all.
Liang Qu asked, "You caught all of these?"
Ah Fei swayed its body, then bobbed its head up out of the water.
"So you worked together with Cannot Move — and this isn't even the whole haul? A few fish jumped out and got away?"
As he read the information flowing through the spiritual link, it suddenly dawned on him.
Cannot Move was clumsy and slow, but it could seal off escape routes, and the two made a perfect team. Around the lotus root waters alone they had taken nearly fifty big fish — including a spotted-head fish worth thirty wen!
The whole boat's catch came to a hundred and thirty wen!
That Cannot Move had left its post to help fish was a fault, true — but before a haul like this it wasn't worth mentioning.
"Excellent! Well done, both of you!"
Liang Qu heaped on the praise, then hurriedly gathered up the fish from the boat, stuffed them into the compartment, and shut the cover. Then he climbed down into the water, broke off two pieces of lotus root as a reward for the two beasts — there were a good hundred-odd pieces left that carried no essence of the waters, and he didn't grudge them one bit.
He also took the chance to check on the Fat Catfish's wound: essentially healed, leaving only a scar.
Rewarded, the two beasts rolled and circled in the water, churning up clouds of white foam, and only after a long while dove away, making their den together near the lotus roots to guard the treasure plant as a pair.
Oar in hand, Liang Qu rowed for the wharf. By the time he arrived it was fully dark. Lanterns hung along the dock, and fishermen were drifting back to their boats in twos and threes, heading home to eat before putting out again in the small hours.
There was too much catch to move at once — a good hundred jin if there was one — so Liang Qu called a fishing yard hand over to fetch fish baskets and help.
The hand, Lin Songbao, grinned. "Ah Shui! Come to sell fish again today?"
Lin Songbao was the second son of Lin Di, the fishing yard's manager, and worked as a hand on the side.
"Of course. Otherwise would I dare use your fish baskets? You'd skin me alive, wouldn't you?"
"Now what kind of talk is that, Ah Shui? Everyone knows our things are as fair as fair can—" Lin Songbao rolled out his patter, but Liang Qu wasn't buying any of it and just told him to hurry up and take the fish.
"Quite a haul today, by the look of it — three baskets." Lin Songbao carried the baskets to the boat's side and had just pried open the cover when he saw the crowded mass of fish and blinked in surprise. "You caught all these yourself?"
"Mm-hm."
Lin Songbao's eyes swept over the pile; by his estimate, the catch was worth well over a hundred wen. Only a handful of the best hands at the wharf could reliably bring in that much — let alone Liang Qu, who wasn't yet grown. Even if he had simply been lucky enough to run into a school of fish, that would still be something remarkable.
"Looks like our wharf is about to have itself another fine fisherman."
Dropping his joking tone, Lin Songbao paid him the compliment.
A while back, Liang Qu's father, Liang Dajiang, had died, and before long the black-awning boat had been sold off by someone. Everyone had assumed the orphan could only quietly wait for death — who would have thought he would survive on a single sampan, and haul in a tidy sum today besides.
Yixing had no shortage of orphans; they either sold themselves into servitude or took up begging. Liang Qu was the first to make something of his life.
When Lin Songbao came onto the wharf carrying three stuffed-full fish baskets, more than a few fishermen stopped in their tracks.
Chapter 9