One Point Revealed the Past

Chapter 39: One Point Revealed the Past

After leaving the old man's house, Zi Bofeng couldn't shake the feeling that he had forgotten something.

There had been something in the old man's words that stirred him, but he couldn't quite grasp what it was.

"Forget it. If I can't figure it out, I won't think about it..." Zi Bofeng shook his head. "It'll come back to me sooner or later."

He wasn't especially worried about the jade stones. Uncle Blue Rock had plenty beneath his backside, after all. Zi Bofeng hadn't counted them, but there were probably hundreds. He simply wasn't willing to give them away.

When he got home, Zi Jian was tending to the donkey Tauxue, brushing and feeding it and building a donkey shed. Little Stone held the two puppies and watched Zi Jian work.

"You're back. Your aunt has already made dinner. We've been waiting for you to come home so we can eat." Zi Jian put down what he was doing, wiped his hands, and went into the kitchen. Before long, he brought out the food.

After they finished eating in silence, Zi Jian sent Little Stone out to play, then said to Zi Bofeng, "Bofeng, there's something I need to tell you... I'm not sure whether I should."

Zi Bofeng stared at him in surprise. "What is it? If you have something to say, Dad, just say it."

Maybe he regretted buying the little donkey today and was about to scold him for it.

But Zi Jian looked up at Zi Bofeng and said, "Bofeng, you've been acting a little strange lately."

Zi Bofeng's heart gave a sudden lurch. Had his father noticed something? What if Dad thought he wasn't his son and decided he didn't want him anymore?

"I know you're hiding some things from me... You've been keeping things from me since you were little." Zi Jian studied Zi Bofeng. "You've started keeping company with monsters again, haven't you..."

You've started keeping company with monsters again, haven't you... You've started keeping company with monsters again, haven't you... You've started keeping company with monsters again, haven't you...

Zi Bofeng's head buzzed. Those words were all he could hear. He was so startled that he nearly dropped straight onto his backside.

The tone in his father's voice, and that word again... What was going on? Was there something he didn't know?

"You used to run up the mountain every day to study and write with Blue Stone. I never stopped you. As long as you stayed out of trouble, I was content. But ever since you fainted during the exam and woke up, you've changed. You were like this when you were little, too—cleverer than anyone, more headstrong than anyone. I told you not to keep company with monsters, but you wouldn't listen. These past few days, Blue Stone has grown bigger and bigger. It's become a monster too, hasn't it..."

His father's eyes were filled with worry and helplessness. He raised a finger and tapped Zi Bofeng on the head. "Don't forget: once monsters grow powerful, they can whip up storms and bring calamity. Have you forgotten how the flood in Zi Village happened? Have you forgotten that Luo Fish?"

Have you forgotten that Luo Fish?

Have you forgotten that Luo Fish?

Luo Fish...

His father's finger struck him like a blow to the head. Another memory exploded inside Zi Bofeng's mind. He clutched his head and let out a low groan.

That was simply how the world worked: the things one ought never to forget were often the easiest to lose. In a forgotten corner of Zi Bofeng's memories, the recollections sealed away there were stirred back to life by his father's words.

When Zi Bofeng was three, Luo Fish appeared, and the Meng River flooded. The waters swallowed Zi Village, which stood on its banks, forcing Zi Bofeng to flee with his father.

After years of wandering, traveling hundreds of miles and going back and forth, they had finally settled in Lower Yan Village beneath Bird-Mouse Mountain.

That was what Zi Jian had told Zi Bofeng.

But nobody knew that the flood back then hadn't been caused by Luo Fish wreaking havoc. Even if someone did know, they would never dare say it.

A gentle breeze brushed past, and Zi Bofeng seemed to return to the time when he was three, to the days spent beneath Gui Mountain, beside the Yang River, in Zi Village.

It had been a fine spring day, the breeze warm and gentle as it stirred the willows by the riverbank. The Yang River, flowing beneath Gui Mountain, suddenly curved around. Its rushing waters slowed, turning calm and clear. Zi Village stood in just such a bend in the river.

Three-year-old Zi Bofeng dipped a twig into the water and painstakingly wrote large characters on a Big Blue Rock by the river bend.

The characters were written on the sun-warmed rock, and before he could finish a line, the sun had already dried it away. Still, Zi Bofeng wrote the same characters over and over.

When he grew tired, he sat on the rock and lowered his soft, pale feet into the river, letting the current wash over his soles as he gazed into the distance.

Without a wife, Zi Jian had to be both father and mother to Zi Bofeng, taking care of him alone. At first, whenever Zi Jian went out to work, he locked Zi Bofeng inside the house. But Zi Bofeng was exceptionally clever. After arguing with Zi Jian several times, he finally persuaded him to let him go out on his own. He could only roam around the village, but at least his world had grown larger, and he no longer had to sit cooped up at home until he fell ill.

Zi Bofeng didn't like playing with the other children. He was always on that Big Blue Rock, writing sentences no one understood.

Zi Jian didn't know that Zi Bofeng had once been in danger by the river. When he was two, he had been writing on the Big Blue Rock. As he stood up to break off another twig, he slipped and fell from the rock.

At the time, Zi Bofeng had truly thought he was going to die. All he remembered was water rushing toward him from every direction, pouring into his mouth and nose. He thrashed desperately, trying to cry for help, but every time he opened his mouth, water flooded in.

Just then, he felt something press against his waist and lift him up, carrying him until he floated on the surface.

That was the first time he had seen Luo Fish.

His pale little feet swung gently in the water, and rings of ripples spread from them. Even the flowing river couldn't scatter them. Suddenly, something tickled the soles of his feet. Zi Bofeng looked down and saw a large fish with two wings on its back, kissing his foot with its mouth.

That was Luo Fish.

The Luo Fish of legend, whose appearance foretold a great flood in the land.

For the past year, Luo Fish had been there every day when Zi Bofeng read aloud or wrote on the Big Blue Rock. At first, it couldn't understand human speech, but now it was gradually able to communicate with Zi Bofeng. It had grown a great deal, and its body had grown bigger and bigger, too. The greatest change was in the pair of wings on its back. At first, they had been only fins, just a little larger than an ordinary fish's. Now they had transformed into a pair of feathered wings. Whenever a thunderstorm came, it would spread them and soar through the sky. Sometimes it even perched on the Mountain Locust Tree outside Zi Bofeng's window.

Luo Fish splashed about in the water, sending droplets scattering across the rock and onto Zi Bofeng. The river water was cool against his skin. Zi Bofeng laughed happily, his laughter carrying far into the distance.

At times like that, Luo Fish was especially happy. Making Zi Bofeng smile seemed to be its favorite thing in the world.

But things didn't always take a turn for the better. Luo Fish grew fonder and fonder of Zi Bofeng, often sneaking into the yard in the middle of the night to watch him sleep in the moonlight or read and write by lamplight. More and more villagers saw it, too, and rumors of Luo Fish's appearance spread.

At last, one day, an immortal arrived. He rode in a Cloud Carriage drawn by a White Crane and claimed to be a Daoist from Bird-Beast Mountain, come to subdue the Luo Fish that had been bringing disaster upon the world.

Then clouds of mist and rosy light enveloped the entire Yang River bend. Luo Fish retreated beneath the water, where it stirred up towering waves and battled the Daoist. In that moment, the usually tranquil bend in the Yang River became a raging sea. Waves snapped the willows on the banks and smashed the boulders on the riverbed. The water became a furious beast, roaring as it devoured everything in its path.

The people fled their homes in panic, only to be overtaken and swallowed by the roaring river. The flood swept through the village and washed away the fields on the mountainside. The Daoist from Bird-Beast Mountain didn't even glance down. He stood high above in the clouds, clutching a gleaming sword and concentrating solely on fighting Luo Fish.

That was when Luo Fish lowered its head and saw Zi Jian clutching a door panel as he floated in the water, with Zi Bofeng sitting atop it.

The towering waves suddenly subsided. Zi Bofeng saw the old Daoist hack off Luo Fish's tail with one stroke of his sword, then pierce its back with another.

The river, which had only just calmed, surged forward like a horse that had broken free of its reins, smashing everything it could reach. The Daoist from Bird-Beast Mountain happily captured Luo Fish in his Cloud Carriage, then rode away on the White Crane.

That was an immortal.

"Bofeng, Bofeng, what's wrong? Don't scare me!" Zi Jian held Zi Bofeng and shouted frantically. He remembered how, after Zi Village had been flooded and they had fled, Zi Bofeng had fallen gravely ill. When he awoke, he seemed to have lost his soul, staring blankly and acting like a fool. It had taken him a long time to recover, but afterward he always seemed a little slow on the uptake, unable to adapt to the ways of the world. It was as though someone had drained away all his spark and spirit.

"I'm fine..." Zi Bofeng shook his head and struggled out of his father's arms. He touched his face, only to find tears streaming down it.

A great many things had come back to Zi Bofeng now, and he had pieced them together.

The Zi father and son had wandered for two years before finally settling in Lower Yan Village. On the night they arrived, rain had poured down in torrents. A thunderous crash had sounded from the back mountain, and somehow a huge boulder had appeared there.

That was the Big Blue Rock.

It wasn't just any boulder. It was the very same Big Blue Rock by the Yang River where Zi Bofeng had read and written, and played in the water with Luo Fish. Over the years, as Zi Bofeng had read and written on it, the rock had grown larger each year. It grew three inches annually, and in ten years it had become many times bigger than it had been by the Yang River.

And now the rock was still growing—and growing faster than ever.

"So it wasn't this Zi Bofeng who got the Monster Raising Art, but that Zi Bofeng... Though he's forgotten a lot, deep down he must have kept repeating the words to himself, wanting a way to raise monsters." Zi Bofeng finally understood why the Porcelain Shard had given him a "Monster Raising Art" and not an art for raising gods or demons.

Because he had to raise monsters.