Republican China: The Last Jianghu Occultist

But in her heart, this young fellow surnamed Cui standing before her was even more terrifying than the Malevolent Flood Dragon!

If... if his Cui really was that Cui... then... maybe I should take the fifty silver dollars and leave?

The Ninth Lady was shaken. The evil-spirit Nuo Mask she had brought today was called "Hundred-Unheard," a mask capable of "questioning ghosts." When it came to gathering information, she believed it was a match for any form of divination.

Cui Jiuyang had done nothing at all, merely asked her to blow on his sheet of paper, and he had drawn a Malevolent Flood Dragon that even Hundred-Unheard knew nothing about?

None of them knew that beneath Cui Jiuyang's perfectly composed exterior, his heart was blooming with delight.

He had not worked it out through divination at all. A flood dragon qualified as a Demon Beast at the very least.

With his abilities, which had yet to reach the First Extremity, never mind drawing the Malevolent Flood Dragon's appearance-his divination skills were only a little better than Old Man Xiang's.

It was mostly a lucky coincidence.

After divining the inscription's origins, Cui Jiuyang had remembered Great-Grandfather's Record of All Under Heaven, which happened to contain an account of those nine Yellow River Iron Rhinoceroses.

Back then, to subdue a wicked dragon wreaking havoc in the Bohai Sea, Great-Grandfather Cui Chengshou had searched for a suitable suppressing object. He had thought of the great iron rhinoceroses buried in the Old Course of the Yellow River, but after further inquiries, he had abandoned the idea and sought something else.

Only six remained buried in the silt; three had long since been dug out. An incomplete set of great iron rhinoceroses could suppress a river demon, but it was rather inadequate for dealing with a wicked dragon.

Of the three that had been unearthed, the first had been dug up by the Boxers some years earlier and melted down into weapons. Another had been buried beneath the foundations of a wealthy merchant family's mansion in Henan as a suppressing object. The last was probably the one Fifth Master Yang had encountered.

Chapter 19: Toad

The great iron rhinoceros that had appeared in Jining Prefecture had actually been dug up by the River Administration during the Daoguang reign of the former Qing dynasty.

Its discovery had been kept secret, however. Zhang Zhijin, the river governor at the time, had intended to send it to Beijing as a gift to the emperor, asking him to grant it a new inscription before sinking it into the Yellow River again.

Yet shortly after it was unearthed, a river monster began causing trouble in the Si River.

They called it a river monster, though no one had ever gotten a proper look at it.

The people living along both banks and the boatmen on the river all said there was a huge black shadow in the water, sometimes surfacing and sometimes diving. Ordinarily, it caused little trouble.

Rain was another matter. Once dark clouds gathered overhead, a few thunderclaps cracked, and raindrops struck the river, that black shadow grew restless.

Some people watched from the riverbank during the rain. The moment the first drops hit the surface, the huge black shadow began thrashing about underwater, looking for all the world like a donkey rolling on the ground!

A donkey rolled to scratch an itch. What was this thing rolling around in the water for?

Its rolling might have been harmless, except that as it thrashed back and forth, it could raise waves twenty-three feet high on the Si River!

An inland river was nothing like the sea, and its flat-bottomed boats were even less like oceangoing vessels with keels.

When those twenty-three-foot waves struck, they flipped the flat-bottomed boats on the spot, as easily as a dog gulping down a meat bun!

That was why the common folk called such waves Mad Dog Waves.

The River Administration invited several experts, but none could do anything about it.

Fortunately, an elderly adviser who had already retired heard about the matter. Leaning on his walking stick, he went to the office and advised the river governor to sink the great iron rhinoceros into the Si River to suppress it.

Governor Zhang truly hated to part with the gift he had prepared for the emperor, but he had no choice. He could not let the river monster continue causing trouble in the Si River. If the capital heard about it and charged him with incompetence, the loss would hardly be worth it.

As the saying went, an elder in the household was a treasure. Sure enough, just as the old adviser had said, once the Iron Rhino was sunk into the Si River's Water Eye, the black shadow never caused trouble again.

For Cui Jiuyang, that saying about an elder being a household treasure was every bit as true.

Great-Grandfather had recorded the whole affair clearly in black and white, as though he had witnessed it himself!

Having all but memorized Grandfather's Record of Experiences, Cui Jiuyang naturally knew this great iron rhinoceros inside out!

The huge black shadow in the Si River was a Malevolent Flood Dragon on the verge of transforming into a true dragon. But it had committed too many sins, and though its transformation was near, Heaven intended to punish it.

Normally, nothing happened, but whenever dark clouds gathered overhead, the Malevolent Flood Dragon immediately went blind.

When lightning flashed, the thunder sounded as though it were exploding inside its ears, shaking its mind and soul to pieces.

Once raindrops struck the river's surface, things grew even worse. To the Malevolent Flood Dragon, the pain was no less than ten thousand swords piercing its body.

It thrashed about in the water because the pain was simply unbearable, forcing it to roll around!

The Malevolent Flood Dragon already possessed some of a true dragon's powers: it could vanish or reveal itself, shrink to a sliver or grow enormous.

After the River Administration sank the great iron rhinoceros into the water, it hid inside the Iron Rhino's belly whenever thunder and rain came, escaping Heaven's punishment and the agony of ten thousand swords piercing its body.

Yet although it had escaped punishment, its sins could not be pardoned. From then on, it lost all chance of becoming a true dragon. Gradually, it fell asleep inside the great iron rhinoceros's belly and never emerged again.

Earlier, Cui Jiuyang had teased the Ninth Lady and then mysteriously covered the sheet of white paper.

He had put on that air of mystery first to leave Fifth Master with the impression of unfathomable expertise, allowing him to remain involved and find an opportunity to enter the First Extremity.

Second, he wanted to show his skills so that these experts would give him less thought, sparing him unnecessary trouble.

Now that he had finally brought his grand performance to a smooth finish, Cui Jiuyang felt quite pleased with himself.

Still, he did not know where the great iron rhinoceros was now. He too was puzzled. Could something that heavy really have sprouted legs and run away?

At that moment, Spirit Medium Wei spoke hesitantly. "Fifth Master, please hear me out."

After Fifth Master gave his permission, she stole a glance at Cui Jiuyang before continuing. "The great iron rhinoceros has gone missing, but you have plenty of boats. You can afford to lose the one that sank... Pay funeral compensation for the three workers crushed to death when the cargo pile collapsed two days ago, and that should settle the matter..."

"Forgive me for speaking bluntly, but why summon us and insist on finding that great iron rhinoceros?" After saying this, she not only watched Fifth Master's expression but glanced at Cui Jiuyang again.

Fifth Master smiled bitterly. "Granny Wei, you have a point. But... just yesterday morning, a boat came to the wharf to unload, and the porters were carrying cargo back and forth over the gangplank. That old elmwood plank, which had been used for who knows how many years, suddenly snapped for no reason! Six porters fell in. Five drowned on the spot. The last was pulled out, but he only managed to say that something had sawn through the gangplank before he died too."

"Before we had even finished dealing with that, before noon, an incoming boat and an outgoing boat collided bow to bow outside the wharf."

"The boatmen on both vessels said the river ahead had looked wide open, without another boat in sight. Then they blinked, and the other boat crashed into them out of nowhere."

"I couldn't help wondering..."

Cui Jiuyang did not understand why Spirit Medium Wei kept looking at him. There seemed to be some wariness in her eyes, too. He had no time to ponder her, however, because Fifth Master's account had caught his interest.

Before he could speak, Old Man Xiang said, "We can't form much of an opinion from Fifth Master's account alone. Why don't we... go take a look at the wharf?"

The others had the same idea and silently agreed.

Naturally, Fifth Master Yang would not accompany them to the wharf. After they took their leave, Meng Da and Meng Er rode ahead on bicycles. Everyone else settled into rickshaws, the pullers formed a line, and the party headed straight for the wharf.

Meng Da and Meng Er were deferential before Fifth Master Yang, but at the wharf, their word was law.

With the two leading the way, the party went straight into the large cargo warehouse, where unauthorized people were normally forbidden. The collapsed cargo pile had already been cleared away, and only a few workers remained, guarding the warehouse while smoking and chatting.

Before the others sensed anything amiss, Mama Liu braced herself against the warehouse doorway and began vomiting noisily.

Cui Jiuyang snapped his fingers. The value of the twenty-five silver dollars he had spent to keep Mama Liu was finally showing itself!

The moment he had seen Mama Liu in the meeting hall today, Cui Jiuyang had known exactly what sort of expert she was.

If he was not mistaken, she was a guardian of Toad Boy!

Toad Boy was the focus of a... it could hardly be called a religion, only an obscure folk belief, spread within a very small part of Southwestern Shandong.

Toad Boy's origins lay in a simple story. A kindhearted child had gone to save a drowning companion. He pushed his companion ashore, but drowned himself.

Old Mother of Mount Tai pitied the child and ordered the Three-Legged Golden Toad serving beneath her to bring his soul back to Mount Tai, where the Golden Toad carefully instructed him.

Later, the child's soul was reincarnated as a human. But he was born with extraordinarily large eyes and a huge mouth, and the five fingers on each hand were joined together, looking exactly like a toad's feet.

After growing up, the child accumulated virtue and performed good deeds. Finally, with his merit complete, he returned to Old Mother of Mount Tai and became an immortal boy in her palace, known as Toad Boy.

Later, many people began worshipping Toad Boy.

Mama Liu was a guardian who had received Toad Boy's divine blessing and gained spiritual powers.

Hers was a far more orthodox path than Spirit Medium Wei's worship of the Gray Gate Immortal. After all, Toad Boy was an immortal with a place on Mount Tai, rather more firmly on the proper path than the Five Immortals beyond the pass. That was why Cui Jiuyang had spoken up to keep her.

What Mama Liu vomited up now was not her breakfast, but dead tadpoles!

Her round belly visibly shrank as well.

She wiped her mouth, raised her head, and said to Cui Jiuyang, "Mr. Cui, there's an alien evil here!"

Chapter 20: Silver

Cui Jiuyang's twenty-five silver dollars had not been wasted. Mama Liu had truly done him honor: as soon as she detected the alien evil, he was the first person she reported to.

Of course Cui Jiuyang had to flatter her. Those few years in the workplace had made him unhappy, but they had taught him a thing or two. "My, Mama Liu, that trick of yours has really opened my eyes. Well... can you tell what kind of alien evil it is?"

Mama Liu squatted down, stirred the pile of dead tadpoles on the ground with her hand, and sniffed. "A ghostly creature."

Now everyone sucked air through their teeth. How had some blasted ghostly creature entered the picture?

Wasn't it supposed to be a Malevolent Flood Dragon?

Spirit Medium Wei asked, "Liu, this isn't the first time we sisters have worked together. I know what you can do, so don't hold anything back. In a warehouse this big, where has that ghostly creature been?"

The warehouse was indeed enormous, some two hundred meters in both length and width. Finding whatever tampering a ghostly creature had done here, inch by inch, would be a real nuisance.

Mama Liu agreed, then said to Meng Er, "Second Master Meng, sorry for the trouble, but could you fetch me a basin of river water?"

Meng Er was livelier than Meng Da. He smiled. "I know you always need that for your rites, so I already sent someone to fetch it. They should be back any moment."

Before he finished speaking, two workers carried a large wooden basin through the warehouse doorway.

Mama Liu took the basin without any sign of strain. Ignoring the strands of vivid green waterweed floating inside, she lifted it and took a great gulp.

That gulp never stopped. She chugged it down, draining every drop of a full basin of river water that even the workers had struggled to carry.

The basin hit the ground with a clunk, while Mama Liu's cheeks still bulged as she chewed the waterweed.

Watching her, Cui Jiuyang could barely resist giving her a thumbs-up-what a capacity!

Mama Liu spread her hands behind her like wings and struck a pose like the fifth Gourd Brother spouting water, spraying all the river water she had swallowed into the air to form an unbroken veil of mist.

Crystal-clear droplets refracted the light within the mist. Finally, that light converged, pointing toward the warehouse's northwest corner.

Meng Da said, "That's exactly where the Iron Rhino was kept."

Everyone moved over. The lingering mist did not fall to the ground, but followed them, until Mama Liu gave a sharp command: "Reveal yourselves!"

The mist began to condense and change shape, forming two figures, one short and one tall. Two bovine horns grew from the taller figure's head, pointing diagonally upward.

The two figures lasted only an instant before scattering into splashes across the floor.

Mama Liu's face had gone somewhat pale. "Their magical power exceeds mine. This is as far as I can go."

Old Man Xiang had been working his fingers through divination calculations at the side all this time. Finally, he found a lead. "I've worked it out. These certainly aren't alien evils from our Jining City. They must have come from the east, not far away."