The Ferocious Tide

The procession crept forward, and before long, it was the Gu Family Chamber of Commerce's turn. More than thirty people stood in their line.

"Stop! Get in line, you bastards, and put your hands over your heads!"

A collaborator in a crooked felt hat, his face covered in pockmarks, strode over with a baton, his nose pointed skyward.

He saw that every man in the group carried a blade or a cudgel, but he wasn't the least bit afraid. With his Japanese masters at his back, he thrust his baton arrogantly at Zhao Si's chest and cursed, "What are you looking at? I'm talking to you! We're searching you one by one. If you're hiding anything, you'll be shot on the spot!"

Zhao Si's gaze turned cold. Instead of backing away, he stepped forward and planted his chest against the baton.

The flesh of a Mid Force Refining Realm martial artist was as tough as bullhide. The baton struck him with a dull thud, and the impact left the collaborator's hand numb.

"Are you fucking blind?"

Zhao Si grabbed the baton and stared coldly at him. "Take a good look. We're with the Gu Family of the Tongjiang Chamber of Commerce! This trip is on Old Master Gu's authorized vessel, and we're carrying licenses from our martial arts school. You want to search the Gu Family? Have you even weighed your own worth?"

"The Gu, Gu Family..."

The collaborator froze, and his arrogance immediately wilted. Who in Ocean City hadn't heard of the Tongjiang Chamber of Commerce? It was a colossus that monopolized half the waterways. He instinctively let go and turned to look at the Eastern Island Captain by the checkpoint behind him.

The Eastern Island Captain's sinister gaze swept over Zhao Si, then lingered briefly on Lu Zhen and the group of guards.

Suddenly, he forced a genial smile onto his stern face.

"Yoshi."

The Eastern Island Captain pushed the collaborator aside and walked forward, speaking cheerfully in stiff Chinese. "So, you are friends of the Gu Family. Old Gu is a good friend of the Empire. Very, very good citizen! Since this is the Gu Family's merchant vessel, there's no need to inspect it. Let them through!"

He waved his hand, and the Japanese soldiers at the checkpoint immediately moved the barricades and barbed wire aside.

"You know what's good for you." Zhao Si snorted and waved. "Brothers, let's go!"

Lu Zhen passed through the checkpoint with the group. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the Eastern Island Captain's false smile, and his brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. There was a knife hidden in that smile.

Sure enough, as soon as the Gu Family party disappeared around the corner of the pier, the Eastern Island Captain's smile vanished, replaced by a look of icy menace.

He turned slightly and gave a cold order in Japanese to a trusted subordinate beside him:

"Go. Take a few men and keep a close eye on the Tongjiang Chamber of Commerce's berth. Once they've loaded their cargo and set off, carefully measure that ship's draft. Find out whether they're carrying the 'shipment' we're looking for on this trip to Jiang City!"

"Hai!" The subordinate bowed sharply, then slipped silently into the morning mist.

Deep in the harbor.

Lu Zhen followed the others to their berth. When he looked up, he drew a sharp breath of cold river air.

The vessel before him wasn't the traditional wooden sailboat with masts he'd imagined. It was a colossal black beast of iron!

It was a steam-powered iron ship, more than ten zhang long. Its black steel hull, studded with rivets, gleamed with a cold, weighty metallic sheen, and pungent black smoke billowed from its towering smokestack.

"Brother Lu, never seen a beast like this before, have you?"

Zhao Si patted Lu Zhen's shoulder and pointed at the thick steel hull, lowering his voice. "The world has changed. Ever since the foreigners' ironclads and cannons blasted the Water God Temple to pieces on the river decades ago, the currents of the Yangtze have been thrown into chaos."

A trace of wariness flashed in his eyes. "These days, plenty of man-eating 'water demons' lurk in the deep parts of the riverbed! Ordinary wooden boats might hold up in a storm, but if they run into the mutated monsters down below, one flick of a tail and the whole vessel will break apart!

"Only steam-powered iron ships like this, clad in thick steel and driven by powerful engines, can carve a way to survive along this waterway."

"Board the ship! Weigh anchor!"

At a gruff shout, thick mooring ropes were hauled in by the winch.

"Wooo—!"

A deafening blast of the steam whistle tore through the morning mist on the river. The steam engine roared at full power, and the great propeller churned the muddy water to foam. The iron ship slowly pulled away from the dock and entered the mighty, surging Yangtze.

Once the ship reached midriver, the wind picked up and waves began to rise.

The guards took turns patrolling the deck. Chen Er and Hou San brought several experienced deckhands to a special winch at the stern, ready to show Lu Zhen, the new expert from the Inner Sect, the Gu Family's secret technique.

"Master Lu, take a good look. This is how the Gu Family catches Red Scale Fish."

Hou San pointed to a special net on the ground, woven from steel cables as thick as little fingers. At its center was a lump of strange flesh, tied on as bait, that gave off a pungent stench and a powerful medicinal smell.

"These Mutated Treasure Fish are vicious. Ordinary nets get bitten through in one go. Only a steel net like this can hold them."

Working together, several deckhands used the steam winch to cast the heavy steel net into the depths of the river.

About the time it takes to burn two sticks of incense passed.

"Gnnng—!"

The steel chain connected to the net suddenly snapped taut, letting out a grating metallic screech.

"Got one! Winch it in!"

The steam engine roared, and the great gears clanked as they hauled the net up against the raging current.

"Splash!"

Water sprayed everywhere. In the steel net, a strange fish about the length of a forearm thrashed wildly. Its entire body was covered in blood-red scales, glowing like burning coals in the sunlight. Its gaping maw bristled with sawlike teeth, and it clamped down on the steel cables so hard that sparks flew.

"This is a Red Scale Treasure Fish!" Zhao Si came over, gripped it just behind the head, and tossed it into a specially made tank. As soon as the ferocious fish left the river, its savage energy quickly faded, and it looked ready to turn belly-up.

Lu Zhen marveled silently. The blood and qi contained within such a monster were indeed astonishingly fierce.

"RUMBLE—!!!"

Just as they had caught the treasure fish, the entire steamship suddenly lurched violently without warning!

It felt as though an underwater mountain had slammed into the ship's steel keel. Several deckhands who hadn't braced themselves were thrown to the ground. Even Lu Zhen, with his Copper Skin Iron Bone, felt his blood and qi surge from the impact.

"Enemy attack! A water demon's hit the ship!"

The lookout in the tower let out a shrill cry.

The river erupted in an instant.

The muddy water churned wildly, as though it were boiling. Then, just ten zhang from the ship's side, a huge shadow slowly rose to the surface.

It was a Mutated Black Catfish, seven or eight meters long!

Its head was larger than a carriage, and its whole body was covered in thick, foul-smelling black slime that formed a kind of armor. Two fleshy barbels as thick as a child's arm lashed the surface like black steel whips, each blow bursting the water into white spray.

Its flat, enormous maw gaped open, packed with rows of barbed teeth. A nauseating gust of fishy wind washed over them, nearly making it impossible to keep their eyes open.

"Damn it! It's a Mutated Black Catfish Demon!"

Zhao Si's face turned deathly pale. He yanked the Ghost Head Broadsword from his back, and cold sweat instantly soaked through his shirt.

"This beast usually lies in wait in Deepwater Dragon King Trench. What's it doing in a shallow shipping channel?!"

He grabbed Lu Zhen, who was about to step forward, his voice trembling.

"Brother Lu, get back! Don't fight it head-on! A mutated water demon this size has skin as tough as steel!

"Even a martial artist like you or me, in the Mid Force Refining Realm, could punch it with all our strength and do no more than tickle it. But if its tail hits you even once, it'll turn you into a puddle of flesh!"

Before he had finished speaking, the Mutated Black Catfish gave a deep, bellowing cry. Its enormous tail fin slapped the river, raising towering waves, and it charged at the steamship like a small black mountain!

"RUMBLE—!!"

Another savage impact sent a grating creak through the ship's steel keel as it twisted. River water crashed down on the deck like a torrential downpour.

"Hold your ground! Grab your weapons! All together!"

Zhao Si's eyes burned red as he bellowed at the top of his lungs.

The guards on deck were seasoned veterans who'd lived by the blade for years. After a brief panic, they immediately formed ranks. A dozen men hefted arm-thick Ironwood Javelins and hurled them at the huge black shadow in the river, using the ship's rocking motion to put their full force behind each throw.

"Clang, clang, clang!"

The javelins struck the Mutated Black Catfish's armor of black slime and burst into a shower of sparks. They couldn't even scrape its skin before bouncing into the river.

"Roar—!"

The Black Catfish Demon flew into a frenzy from the pain. One of its fleshy barbels, thick as a child's arm, swept across the gunwale with a piercing whistle, like a black steel whip.

"CRACK!"

The solid-wood gunwale shattered instantly. Three guards who hadn't dodged in time were struck before they could even scream. A muffled series of bone-crunching cracks followed. They spat blood, their breastbones caved in, and they flew backward like broken sacks, slamming hard onto the deck, their lives uncertain.