General Red Snake

Yao Suxiu told everyone, "I shall conduct a ritual for the Dragon King and ask His Majesty to wield his Gods-given powers and stop this downpour!"

He had no ties to Shi Feiyang, their "Dragon King," nor any means of communicating with him, but he did not care. Even if he failed to stop the rain, he would have an explanation ready. He could say, for instance, that the rain had been ordered by the Jade Emperor and even the Dragon King could not lightly interfere. Besides, the villagers had not been sufficiently devout in their past offerings and had profaned the Gods, prompting the Jade Emperor to decree this disaster. He could tell everyone to reflect on their faults and collect another round of silver to atone for their sins.

He imposed levies on every village, raking in a great deal of money, and arranged a grand ritual for the Dragon King. He summoned people from all the surrounding villages, put on a Daoist robe, and made a show of pacing the celestial steps of the Dipper while muttering incantations. After carrying on for most of the day, he told the villagers, "I have conveyed everyone's request to the Dragon King. Now we shall see whether His Majesty will stop the downpour."

With their hearts suspended in anxiety, the villagers sat in their damp, moldy rooms and gazed at the sky outside. They hoped and hoped, and on the third day, the rain actually stopped!

Shi Feiyang had no idea that someone was using his name to build a Dragon King Temple, and naturally received no message from that supposed ritual. He reasoned that the root of the flash floods was still the heavy rain. Unless the rain stopped, the floodwaters would not recede. Over the past several days, he had searched through all his Daoist books and worked out a method to stop the rain.

The books said: clouds are the roots of rain.

For rain to fall, there first had to be clouds. Without clouds, there would naturally be no rain.

Shi Feiyang's true water core excelled at controlling water and producing mist. Every day at midnight, he spat out his inner core and suspended it where the clouds were thickest, then cast a spell to turn all the moisture in the air into clouds and mist. Using his core's qi, he drew the cloud qi toward the inner core.

The inner core spun, continually absorbing cloud qi, while he cast spells from the mountaintop and used that qi to refine a magical treasure.

After seven consecutive days of work, he had drawn all the cloud qi within a thousand li into his inner core and refined it into a magical treasure, which he named the Cloud-Mother Veil. Once unfurled, it became a Thousand Miles of dark clouds. When withdrawn, it was only an egg-sized clump, like cotton, ceaselessly churning.

He had gathered up all the clouds in the sky, and whenever the wind brought in fresh moisture, he gathered that up as well. Naturally, no more rain fell below.

The villagers below all believed the ritual had worked: the Dragon King had received their prayers and wielded his Gods-given powers to stop the downpour. They poured into the streets, cheering wildly and running about to spread the news. Yao Suxiu's standing rose to unprecedented heights. Everyone regarded him as the Dragon King's spokesman, whose words were as good as the Dragon King's own, and no one dared raise any further objections.

The power of faith was boundless. Those in the surrounding villages who had money contributed money, and those with strength contributed labor. Soon, the temple was finished.

The brand-new Dragon King Temple stood on the bank in front of Ni Weng Cave. It consisted of a single room with gray brick walls and black roof tiles, housing three divine statues. Naturally, the Dragon King occupied the center, with a human body and a dragon's head, clad in black armor and holding a precious pearl in his right hand. The two generals, Turtle and Snake, stood to either side. The villagers draped the Dragon King in a red silk cloak, placed an incense burner and offerings of fruit before him, and kowtowed in sincere devotion.

Yao Suxiu had amassed a great deal of money through the rituals and the temple's construction. His greed knew no bounds, and he devised ever more ingenious pretexts for one levy after another. Today was the Dragon King's birthday; tomorrow the Dragon King would ascend to heaven to meet the Jade Emperor; the day after, the Dragon King's daughter was getting married...

At first, the villagers participated eagerly, donating money and goods. Gradually, however, they grew impatient, and voices of objection began to arise.

Seething with resentment, Yao Suxiu devised a vicious scheme. He claimed that the Dragon King had appeared in his dreams again, invited him to the Dragon Palace, and treated him to fine food and drink before requesting wives. "The Dragon King once had a proper Dragon Mother, but she passed away years ago. Now he wishes to select several young maidens from our surrounding villages to marry. He wants four girls in all. Once they reach the Dragon Palace, they will all become Dragon Consorts. Whoever bears him a Dragon Prince in the future will be named Principal Dragon Mother. Such wealth and honor as this could fill the heavens! Do not let this opportunity pass you by!"

Unwilling to be parted from their own flesh and blood, none of the villagers volunteered. He named families himself—the very four households that had voiced objections to him—and declared that the Dragon King had taken a fancy to their daughters and that they must prepare to send them off as brides.

The four families could not bear to part with their daughters and had no desire to accept this heaven-flooding "good fortune." Yao Suxiu, however, said that the Dragon King had settled the matter beyond dispute. If it fell through, the Dragon King would bring down disaster and unleash a great flood to submerge the entire area.

The four families tried to flee with their households during the night, but Yao Suxiu had anticipated this. He led a group of able-bodied young men to block the village entrance and had them all tied up. He gathered everyone, fixed a date, and held a bridal send-off beside Lianjin Creek. The four girls were dressed in wedding clothes, their heads covered with bridal veils, their hands and feet bound with rope, and their mouths stuffed with red cloth. After burning his written petition, he had them all thrown into the water.

The four girls could neither struggle nor cry for help on the surface of the water. They tumbled along, drifting downstream with the current. Their parents and relatives wailed to heaven and beat the earth, desperate to rush out and save their daughters, but they were all bound and forcibly held kneeling on the ground by the young men. They could do nothing but sob and howl.

With that year's abundant rainfall, Lianjin Creek surged powerfully, sweeping the four girls downstream. In moments, they were dozens of li away.

As luck would have it, Red Snake had developed a craving for fish that day and swum into the creek to hunt. Suddenly, he spotted a red shape coming down from upstream. With over three hundred years of cultivation, he immediately sensed that it was a human.

By his nature, he had no reason to concern himself with whether humans lived or died. As a Venomous Snake, every human he had encountered while growing up had clamored to beat or kill him. He had either fled or bitten them to death. Later, as he grew larger and larger, humans became even more frightened and repulsed by him, determined to kill him on sight before they could rest easy.

Once he had cultivated magical power, he no longer feared ordinary mortals, though some hunters could still injure him. Their traps in the woods were particularly dangerous; the slightest lapse in attention could leave him wounded.

Then there were the human Sword Immortals, who sent Flying Swords to kill him whenever they encountered him. Some professed to be righteous, claiming that he had to die to prevent him from harming people in the future. Others were less righteous and merely said they wanted his gall and blood for medicine, listing their wondrous effects... Sword Immortals had cut him to death several times, and each time, Queen Mother Grass had brought him back to life.

He was convinced that humans loathed him, and he hated them to the marrow in return. In the past, whenever he went hunting, he never left any human he encountered alive. Even if he did not eat them, he would bite them to death.

Only the Black Dragon King, to whom he had recently pledged allegiance, seemed quite fond of humans, even wielding his Gods-given powers to curb the floods and save many of them. Red Snake could not understand it at all. Black Tortoise was a hidebound fellow who went out of his way to curry favor with humans, but why would the Black Dragon King, who looked so full of wisdom, do the same? Still, his chief had told him to avoid humans whenever possible and forbidden him from killing indiscriminately unless he was in danger. He would simply obey those orders to the letter.

He had no intention of meddling and continued fishing underwater. Soon, he caught another fish and ate it while coldly watching the bound bride in red drift past him.

After swallowing the fish, he was about to catch another when a thought suddenly sprang into his mind. The chief likes humans so much, and he even took Black Tortoise and me along to save them. This little human girl is drowning, but there's still some life in her. If I save her, won't the chief be pleased? Might he reward me?

He thought it was a fine idea and immediately swam off at top speed, caught up with the girl in red, and brought her ashore.

With his enormous body, Red Snake easily coiled around the girl. He turned her this way and that to find the right angle, tossed and shook her up and down, then slapped her with his tail.

After a few such maneuvers, the girl vomited up the water she had swallowed with a retching cry. He set her on the ground. At the sight of such an enormous Red-Scaled One-Horned Great Serpent, she reacted as though she had found a loved one, throwing herself forward and hugging him tightly. Trembling all over with emotion, she sobbed loudly. "You're General Red Snake, who serves the Dragon King! I recognize you! Boo-hoo... did the Dragon King send you to take me to the Dragon Palace?"