Raimei Angelfish

Lightning flashed and thunder roared, waves rising and falling.

The great ship pitched with the waves, heading toward Meng Yuan.

Had they come to rescue me? Meng Yuan immediately dismissed the thought. It was a rainy night, and though lightning flickered overhead, he was like a feather on the surging sea. The people aboard could not possibly see him.

Sure enough, once the ship drew closer, Meng Yuan saw people jumping overboard one after another, like dumplings being dropped into a pot. There must have been two or three hundred of them.

But their cries for their fathers and mothers never stopped. Clearly, none of them had jumped willingly.

"What was this? Was someone scouring the mountains and combing the seas?"

Meng Yuan did not understand what was happening, but after a few tumbles in the waves, the people in the water had already reached him.

Those purple points of light came chasing after them as well.

Meng Yuan saw clearly now: those strange points of light were sea fish.

These fish were about an arm's length, with horns growing from their heads that gave off a faint purple glow. Whenever lightning struck overhead, their horns seemed to resonate with it, releasing mottled purple sparks, a strange and dazzling sight.

They also swam extremely fast, darting back and forth like thunderbolts, impossible to predict.

But as the thunder overhead grew more frequent, the purple electric fish seemed to have their ferocity stirred and began tearing into the people in the water.

Once a fish bit someone, it refused to let go, relentlessly dragging them toward the seabed. In an instant, more than a dozen lives were lost.

"Lower the nets, quickly!" someone aboard ordered loudly. "Raimei Angelfish are hard to come by! Catch them, and everyone gets a reward!"

Sure enough, a net immediately dropped from the ship, scooping up someone an electric fish had bitten, then tightened and rose. The electric fish refused to let go and was hauled aboard as well.

Meng Yuan finally understood. These people had been forced to jump into the sea to serve as bait for those purple fish.

The waves were already high in the wind and rain. The people in the water cried out without cease, and those bitten by the electric fish wailed all the more.

And those electric fish were apparently called Raimei Angelfish.

"Using people as bait, chumming the water with human beings-is this the cultivation world? What a thrill!"

Meng Yuan was still marveling when a heart-piercing pain shot through his calf, followed by a tingling numbness that spread from his calf throughout his body.

Looking down, he saw that he too had become bait in the feeding ground. A Raimei Angelfish had bitten him.

Meng Yuan howled as electricity coursed through him, utterly unable to resist.

Just as the Raimei Angelfish was about to drag him to the seabed, a large net dropped overhead. It tightened, hauling Meng Yuan and the fish up together before dumping them onto the deck.

Before he could catch his breath, Meng Yuan saw a Daoist of around thirty standing before him.

The Daoist had ordinary features. He stood in the rain, yet his robes remained dry. He pointed a finger, and a streak of white light landed on the Raimei Angelfish. Meng Yuan immediately felt its jaws release him.

The Daoist scooped up the Raimei Angelfish and placed it in a bamboo basket, looking somewhat regretful. "The thunder's about to stop."

Meng Yuan lay on the deck panting for a while, then glanced out over the sea. The dense crowd was still there, but the purple Raimei Angelfish had scattered without a trace.

"Senior brother, the thunder's stopped! The Raimei Angelfish have all run off!" A young female Daoist came forward and stamped her foot in annoyance. "We only caught sixteen!"

This female Daoist was about twenty-five or twenty-six, short, very beautiful, and exceptionally innocent-looking.

"Sixteen is quite good." The male cultivator smiled. "We only borrowed this ship to rest our feet and shelter from the lightning, making a little money on the side."

"Thank you for bringing me along to make a fortune, senior brother!" Yet the female cultivator sighed. Standing on the deck, she watched the human bait being swept away by the waves, their wails utterly drowned out by the wind. "Senior brother, listen to how pitifully they're crying! Hearing them cry makes my heart ache terribly!"

"There's nothing to be done about it. Raimei Angelfish only emerge on stormy nights, and they prefer live prey above all. There were no other living creatures aboard, so these mortals had to suffer a little."

The middle-aged male cultivator soothed her. "Junior sister, this is your first journey far from home. Using mortals in place of deer or horses is something everyone tacitly understands. Besides, it's only a few dozen mortals making a little noise before they die. Just bear with it a little."

"Senior brother, it isn't that I can't bear it. I was thinking that for cultivators like us, the Dao heart matters most."

The innocent-looking female cultivator was very serious. "Tell me, senior brother, if word of this gets out, will it affect my Dao heart? There are still so many mortals watching aboard!"

She kicked Meng Yuan beside her and said earnestly, "Why not kill them all to silence them? Otherwise, everyone back home will laugh at me for being softhearted!"

What sort of logic was that? Meng Yuan had thought this female Daoist was a kind person with a compassionate heart. He had never imagined that this was what she was thinking.

"Who hasn't heard of your reputation, junior sister? Your name as the ruthless beauty has long since spread far and wide! But I asked: these people are being shipped to Deer Island. We've already let half of them drift away. If we kill any more, it would look bad for Senior Brother Huo." The middle-aged male cultivator smiled.

"All right." The innocent-looking female cultivator was willing to take advice. "But that old dog is a smiling tiger. Once we reach Deer Island, I'll go drain him a little!"

She put on an innocent smile. "We're nearly at Deer Island, and there's no way to catch any more Raimei Angelfish. This loneliness is hard to bear, senior brother. Since we have nothing to do, why don't we dual cultivate?"

"Junior sister, I cultivate a method of clearing the mind and curbing desire. I dare not ruin thirty-three years of practice." The male cultivator immediately raised a hand in refusal, then offered a suggestion. "There are plenty of mortals here. Pick a few serviceable ones to make do with for now. They should at least barely scratch the itch."

"Look at that one!" The middle-aged male cultivator pointed at someone. "When others are bitten by Raimei Angelfish and lightning enters their bodies, they lose most of their lives. But this one's breathing is only slightly weak. Clearly, his constitution is extraordinary."

"Oh! You're right!" The female cultivator approached him and squeezed his arm. "Such powerful sinews and bones are exceedingly rare among mortals. He's truly gifted! Come look, senior brother!"

The middle-aged male cultivator came forward and pressed a finger to Meng Yuan's chest. "Heh, he practices mortal martial arts. This Cultivation Method... has the flavor of the West Cloud Sect. It should be a mortal martial art adapted from their Purple Mist Scripture. Hmm, he even has a natal endowment, though his aptitude is rather poor..."

He looked at the innocent-looking female cultivator and smiled. "He's somewhat lacking as a cultivation furnace. You'd have to put effort into nurturing him. But as a plaything to relieve boredom and scratch an itch, he'll barely do."

"Let me see!" The female cultivator seized Meng Yuan's arm with one hand and reached down for a handful with the other.

I sold my body back home, and now I'm selling it in the cultivation world too. Didn't I come here for nothing?

Meng Yuan tried to resist, but his arm suddenly went numb, and pain stabbed through his Dantian. The Internal Cultivation he had practiced for years was utterly useless.

"He's got a fiery temper! And he's well endowed!" In the end, the innocent-looking female cultivator shook her head. "Unfortunately, he's still far too frail. A few bounces from me and he'd be finished. No fun at all."

"If you're unwilling, junior sister, wait until we reach Deer Island and have a bout with Senior Brother Huo," the male cultivator said with a smile.

The female cultivator laughed as well.

Seeing that the two cultivators were no longer paying attention to him, Meng Yuan actually felt worse for not having been violated by the female cultivator than if he had been.

After catching his breath for a while, Meng Yuan found the mortals in the lower hold and sat down without a word, merely listening to their chatter.

Before long, dawn came, and Meng Yuan limped out of the cabin.

Blue waters shimmered, without wind or waves. The ship had docked.

The two cultivators stood on deck, talking about who knew what.

The innocent-looking female cultivator seemed to sense something. She turned her head slightly toward Meng Yuan, then gave a scornful laugh.

Meng Yuan pretended not to see. Closing his eyes to visualize, he found that the Hundred-Life Reincarnation was actually turning a little faster.

In this life, I absolutely won't rely on women again! Meng Yuan had spent several lifetimes bedding loose women and had always depended on women to get things done. Now, on his first arrival in the cultivation world, he had nearly become a loose plaything himself. Knowing shame thus spurred him to greater courage.

He clenched his fists and silently swore that he would make a name for himself!