Republican China: The Last Mystic of the Martial World

He just had not thought of a way yet... He would have to give it some serious thought.

For now, they needed to surface. The bottom of the lake was still too dangerous.

To be safe, the three of them retreated a hundred feet before beginning their ascent.

Once he climbed into the skiff, Cui Jiuyang no longer even felt like stealing another eyeful. He explained what had happened beneath the lake, leaving everyone at a loss.

Meng Er said, "So it's true! I've loved swimming in Lake Taibai since I was little. I've heard the old men fishing on the shore say there's a lake god here-a giant softshell turtle."

"The lake god hates being disturbed by loud noises. That's why people fishing on Lake Taibai just cast their nets. If they catch something, good; if not, they leave it at that. They never use noise poles."

Meng Da picked up the story. "That's right. When I first joined Shengdelong, I guarded a warehouse at the docks, and the old warehouse keeper told me about it. Once, an old fisherman from Weishan Lake down south refused to believe the warnings and insisted on striking the water with a noise pole. He only struck five times. On the fifth strike, before he could lift the pole out of the water, something in the lake bit down on its far end and yanked it under. It was a long time before the broken pieces floated back up."

Chapter 29: Making a Ruckus

"That old fisherman from Weishan Lake was so frightened he fell flat on his backside on the deck. He never went out on Lake Taibai again."

"But aside from that, I've never heard of the lake god hurting anyone. I suppose turtles just like peace and quiet and don't want people making a racket."

That was all Meng Da and Meng Er knew about the lake god.

Having just seen the Giant Softshell Turtle herself, Cui Jiuyang thought it over and decided the legend was probably true. The lake god was not vicious by nature.

After all, they had been extremely close to it. If it had truly meant them harm, a creature that enormous could not possibly have failed to notice the two people right beside it.

Most likely, it had simply been too lazy to bother with them and had let them go.

Even so, Cui Jiuyang still did not dare venture rashly into the area covered by the Malevolent Flood Dragon's aura.

No one could predict how the Giant Softshell Turtle would react. If it mistook them for the Malevolent Flood Dragon's minions, the consequences would be unthinkable.

Ninth Lady wrapped Spirit Medium Wei's clothes more tightly around herself and suddenly spoke. "Since this lake god doesn't like noise, why don't we make a racket on the southeastern side of the lake and lure it away? Then we could take the chance to dive down, couldn't we?"

Mama Liu agreed from beside her. "That's what I was thinking too. But we don't know how fast this lake god can swim, so it might not work. And the risk is considerable."

Still, for the moment, the plan seemed feasible.

After briefly weighing it up, Cui Jiuyang decided to proceed. Time was short. If that huge turtle really woke the Malevolent Flood Dragon...

Meng Da found two boatmen and split off from the others, taking another boat toward the southeastern part of the lake. They did not dare stay aboard. Instead, they stood onshore and kicked the boat out into the water.

The lake was so vast that neither group could see the other, so they agreed on a time. When that time arrived, Meng Da's group would begin striking the water with noise poles.

Cui Jiuyang's group would wait a little after the appointed time before entering the water.

When Meng Da judged it was about time, he extended a noise pole and began smashing it against the surface.

The two boatmen followed suit, striking the water with their own poles.

The two boatmen muttered inwardly, Master Meng Da said that the moment we feel something bite the pole underwater, we have to let go. Otherwise, if we're dragged in, no one's coming down to fish us out.

What kind of job has he roped us into...?

Hold on. Both boatmen suddenly realized something.

They exchanged a look. He's making us fish for the lake god, isn't he?

That Meng Da is a right bastard!

Does he think the lake god is something you can provoke lightly?

Yet Meng Da was pounding the water for all he was worth. The sharp cracks rang in their ears like firecrackers!

He had no choice but to give it everything he had. His own younger brother was on the other boat. If the lake god chewed him up, how could he ever explain it to their family?

Noise poles were fishing tools every old fisherman knew how to make. Essentially, the bamboo was specially worked so that the hollow section at its tip had a particular shape.

When the pole was slammed hard into the water, the sound it produced at that particular frequency could travel a great distance underwater.

There were two kinds of noise poles: one for driving fish away and one for drawing them in.

As the names suggested, one sent fish fleeing, while the other attracted them.

Most fishermen in the old days knew how to use them. But... after noise poles caused too many incidents, people gradually stopped using them.

Before coming to this era, Cui Jiuyang had watched documentaries online in his spare time. Fishing boats were already using sonar and radar to catch fish then, and noise poles had long since faded into history.

The three of them put tadpoles into their mouths again and entered the water once more. They said something might happen once or twice, but not a third time. Cui Jiuyang kept praying inwardly that nothing else would go wrong and that they could at least reach that great lump of iron without further trouble.

They swam straight down after entering the water. This time, they had adjusted their entry point so that they were descending almost directly over the center of the Malevolent Flood Dragon's aura.

Cui Jiuyang and Ninth Lady were already familiar with the various techniques involved in diving, so they led the way.

Mama Liu paddled along behind them.

She was happy to watch the youngsters being affectionate-she still mistakenly believed they had been holding hands underwater earlier.

Her misunderstanding had merely changed from thinking they were flirting underwater to thinking they had held hands to encourage each other after seeing the lake god.

They descended especially quickly this time, worried that the Giant Softshell Turtle might swim swiftly back after destroying all the noise poles. If they ran straight into it, things would likely end badly.

They reached the lakebed, but in the dim light, they could not make out what lay among the water weeds.

Taking out the Faintlight Lotus Pod, Cui Jiuyang once again swam into the weeds first. The water here was utterly silent, without a single little fish or shrimp. Only the weeds drifted with the currents.

Listening to the water gurgling around his ears, Cui Jiuyang's throat worked twice as he resisted the urge to swallow. He glanced back at Ninth Lady and Mama Liu, then continued searching deeper among the weeds.

They were already very close to the center, yet there was still no sign of the Giant Softshell Turtle. That meant Meng Da's efforts were working well. The huge turtle of a lake god must have gone to pick its teeth with him!

At last, he pushed aside a particularly thick layer of weeds, revealing a cave entrance over ten feet wide.

The cave sloped downward. Dark green algae covered its entrance, swaying like feelers in the surging undercurrent.

Cui Jiuyang stared in astonishment. There was an underwater cave here!

While he was still wondering about it, before he could examine the inside, Mama Liu suddenly slapped his shoulder several times in rapid succession!

He looked back to see the Giant Softshell Turtle already racing back from the distance. Its eyes glowed a murky yellow as it stared straight at the three of them.

It accelerated in an instant and charged toward them at a terrifying speed!

How could something that huge swim so fast?

In that desperate instant, before Cui Jiuyang could do anything, Ninth Lady reached back and fastened a strange Nuo Mask over her face!

Wave patterns covered the Nuo Mask's cheeks. Two dragon whiskers extended beside its blue-green mouth and white teeth, and a golden dragon scale set between its brows cast out rays of golden light!

Cui Jiuyang did not recognize it, but Mama Liu had seen this Nuo Mask at a temple fair. She remembered clearly that this mask was called "Leaping the Dragon Gate"!

The phantom of an enormous golden carp swelled behind Ninth Lady. With a flick of its tail, it propelled all three of them sideways into the underwater cave.

Mama Liu opened her mouth and spat out a stream of green smoke, shrouding the entire entrance and blocking the giant turtle's sight.

The underwater cave entrance was only about ten feet wide. The Giant Softshell Turtle, more than twenty feet long and wide, could never fit through it.

But just because its shell could not fit did not mean its head could not.

An enormous, pointed turtle head thrust through the green mist, lunging straight at Cui Jiuyang, who had fallen behind the others.

Cui Jiuyang already had a stack of waterproof and fireproof talismans ready in his sleeve. With the turtle's head right before him, he first pressed himself against the cave wall to dodge the Giant Softshell Turtle's densely packed rows of teeth, each like a little knife.

Seizing the chance, he slapped four or five talismans onto its head, then frantically retreated deeper into the cave.

Cui Jiuyang had not fully mastered a single technique of the Five-Element Thunder Art, though he had made it halfway through all of them.

The flashbang he had unleashed that night had been Golden Thunder: light, but no thunder.

The talismans he had just applied were Fire Thunder. They could only release a sudden burst of intense heat and fell short of the requirements for a true Fire Talisman.

The talismans were stuck close to the Giant Softshell Turtle's eyes. When they detonated, they all but cooked its eyelids halfway through.

The Giant Softshell Turtle flew into a savage rage and rammed the cave entrance desperately from outside, actually bringing it crashing down...

Cui Jiuyang, Ninth Lady, and Mama Liu stared at one another. What were they supposed to do now?

Chapter 30: Raise a Cup

There was something uncanny about this cave. After the Giant Softshell Turtle, the lake god, collapsed its entrance, sealing it completely, no more lake water flowed in. The water inside the cave actually began slowly receding...

The cave sloped downward, growing deeper the farther it extended. Water still filled its depths, leaving open space only near the entrance.

In no more than the time it took to drink a cup of tea, the water near the entrance had dropped to chest height.

Without a word, Ninth Lady removed Leaping the Dragon Gate from her face, lifted her Treasure Bag above the water, and began searching through it.

Cui Jiuyang sensed that her aura was extremely disordered. Invoking the Nuo Mask seemed to have taken a great deal out of her.

After rummaging for quite a while, she finally found a palm-sized Celadon Porcelain Gourd and pulled out its stopper.

With a pop, the rich aroma of liquor filled the confined space near the cave entrance.

Ninth Lady took a deep breath of its fragrance, then poured a mouthful into the Nuo Mask's mouth first.

Strangely enough, although the Nuo Mask was merely a mask with hollow openings for its mouth and nose, the liquor poured into its mouth did not spill or leak. Not a single drop fell to the ground. The mask drank it all.

Once that mouthful had been poured, the Nuo Mask stared at Ninth Lady through its empty eye sockets, despite having no eyes.

As though she had expected this all along, Ninth Lady did not hesitate. She tilted her head back and gulped down a mouthful of fine liquor.

Seeing her drink too, the Nuo Mask took on a delighted expression.

Watching from beside her, Cui Jiuyang suddenly remembered Dongfang Bubai drinking so gracefully in the water in the film adaptation of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer. The same drenched robes, the same breathtaking beauty.

Although Ninth Lady had a little less of Brigitte Lin's masculine gallantry, she had far more of the carefree spirit of someone born to the martial world.

This Ninth Lady is rather interesting.

Then the woman and the Nuo Mask took turns, one mouthful at a time, until they drained the entire gourd.

Cui Jiuyang watched with a broad grin, thinking, This girl can really hold her liquor. She must have built up her tolerance over years of offering wine to Nuo Masks.

Only after the Nuo Mask had finally drunk its fill did Ninth Lady let out a long breath and put it back into her Treasure Bag.

But drinking so quickly... meant the liquor took effect quickly too. First, she let out a drunken hiccup, still covering her mouth with a little embarrassment.

After a while, however, her whole demeanor changed. The sultry Ninth Lady who had hunted down the man in black that night gradually awakened within the delicate, lovely young woman!

She rubbed her face, smacked her lips, and reached into her Treasure Bag to pull out another Celadon Porcelain Gourd!

Turning her head, she saw Cui Jiuyang staring at her, but she was no longer shy. "Look, I was rude just now. It won't do to keep all the liquor to myself. Mr. Cui, Mama Liu, would you... care for a drink?"