Chapter 349

"I don't know how to explain it to you."

Fan Xinglai scratched at his temple.

"What's hard to explain?" Lin Lin Songbao set down the wooden crate. "Say what happened. Did you do it?"

Fan Xinglai quickly shook his head: "Not me."

"Then that's fine. If it wasn't you, how could Brother Shui blame you?"

"Stop playing coy. If you don't speak up, I'll dock your September wages!"

"No no no!" Fan Xinglai cried out in protest, grinning. "It's actually that big nest of rats in your pond…"

Rats?

Lin Lin Songbao gave him a sidelong glance.

Liang Qu's face darkened: "What rats? Flat-tailed ones are beavers; slender-tailed ones are river otters. Are you from Pingyang or not?"

Fan Xinglai thought for a moment: "Then they're river otters. After you left, those fellows were quiet for a few days—but come September, a whole bunch suddenly appeared, over a dozen in total!"

They looked like another clan altogether. The leader had a scar on his face, his fur all matted, and he was fierce as hell.

The two clans of river otters clashed the moment they met, fighting like crazy! Even the flat-tailed ones got beaten up. You should've seen it, Master—the whole pond was flooded with river otter blood!

The stench of blood spread far, and people thought we were slaughtering pigs!

I feared something serious would happen, maybe even a river otter death, so I hurried to the west wing to fetch the Master…"

Fan Xinglai paused mid-sentence. Lin Lin Songbao pressed: "And then? Was it resolved?"

"It was resolved, certainly—but the resolution was strange… Hmm. Master, you should go see for yourself. They're all in the west wing listening to sutras today."

Listening to sutras?

Liang Qu heard an utterly bizarre word from Fan Xinglai's mouth. He set down Wu Long and stepped through the covered corridor.

Fan Xinglai and Chishan stood beneath the courtyard's jujube tree, watching. Lin Lin Songbao stayed put.

Only Wu Long, having landed on the ground, flicked his tail and trotted after him.

The west wing's door stood wide open, offering no obstruction to sight.

Liang Qu sidestepped from the corridor, glancing sideways through the doorframe—and his eye twitched. Suddenly, he understood what Fan Xinglai meant by "strange."

The room was bright and clean.

Brush, ink, paper, and inkstone were neatly arranged. A sandalwood bookshelf leaned against the window. From an iron incense burner, wisps of smoke curled upward.

An old monk in a patched robe sat behind the desk, turning prayer beads, silently chanting sutras.

So far, all was normal.

But when his gaze crossed the long table, twelve straw mats, arranged in three rows of four, came into view—and a group of unfamiliar river otters appeared before him.

Leading them was the scar-faced river otter, seated on the central mat in the front row. He'd somehow dragged over half a yellow robe, draped it over half his body, with patches of brown fur squeezing out from the gaps.

His eyes were tightly shut, his paws pressed together in prayer, utterly still. Anyone seeing him would call him serene and dignified.

Behind the scar-faced one, the otters grew progressively smaller.

The fourth row consisted of pups, utterly lacking solemnity, tumbling and wrestling on their mats.

Wu Long lay against Liang Qu's foot, scratching his neck with his hind legs, his garlic-bulb fur rippling like waves.

Liang Qu turned to look at Fan Xinglai beneath the jujube tree. Fan Xinglai scratched his head.

Inside the west wing, the chanting abruptly ceased.

The old monk opened his eyes.

"Disperse."

The scar-faced river otter seemed to understand. He rose, bowed, and the several large otters beside him followed suit.

Only the last row of pups remained oblivious, still biting and fighting, growling low in their throats.

The large otters behind the scar-faced one leapt forward, each delivering a single paw-slap. The pups immediately fell silent and scrambled into line.

Thus, the twelve river otters, led by the scar-faced one, formed a single-file line and stepped one by one across the threshold.

The scar-faced river otter spotted Liang Qu standing in the corridor and pressed his paws together in greeting.

The large otters imitated him. The pups waved their paws, tripped over the threshold, rolled twice, then hurried to catch up.

Lin Lin Songbao beneath the hanging flower gate stood dumbfounded, wondering if he hadn't woken up yet.

What's going on?

Hallucinations at noon?

What had he just seen?

Not just Lin Lin Songbao—even Liang Qu himself was baffled. He'd never seen those otters before. He had no idea where they'd come from.

Liang Qu knocked on the door: "Master?"

"Come in, disciple."

Liang Qu stepped inside, glanced around, pulled over a stool, and sat before the old monk. He joked:

"Master, what's going on? Did those river otters take refuge in the Buddha?"

The old monk pulled tea leaves from the bookshelf and brewed a cup for Liang Qu.

Liang Qu rose to receive it, then sat as the old monk spoke.

"That day, Xinglai came to me, saying a gang of rats in the pond were fighting uncontrollably. I went to take a look and found two clans of river otters. I chanted the Great Compassion Sutra for them.

The leader had considerable karmic roots—he immediately shed his murderous intent. Since then, he's worn a yellow robe, led his kin daily to listen to sutras, and even learned a set of Luo Han Fist. I modified it slightly, turning it into Luo Han Claw."

Liang Qu's lips twitched.

A master of Entering Zhen Xiang Sect chanting the Great Compassion Sutra to a beast with no intellect… teaching it Luo Han Claw…

River otters were naturally vicious, river thugs. This treatment was precisely targeted—and it worked perfectly.

I wonder how my own pond's otters are doing?

"You've returned from managing the waters? By my count, you came back sooner than expected."

Liang Qu set down his teacup: "It wasn't too severe. The flood caused almost no plague, and with proper management, the source was blocked. By early September, the floodwaters began receding.

For the next half-month, the River Office mostly handled refugee resettlement, allocating supplies, and repairing dikes. But the cause of the dike breach… no, the process of catching the culprit was quite bizarre."

"Excellent, excellent." The old monk clasped his hands, then asked, "What was the bizarre cause?"

Cheng Chong's case would inevitably go to public trial and execution to appease the people. Liang Qu had nothing to hide—he laid out the entire sequence of events and the physical evidence found on the dike.

"Cheng Chong confessed in his own words. The ledgers corroborated it. And plant roots grew from the dike's stone slabs—ironclad proof."

But the old monk frowned deeply, silent.

Liang Qu, puzzled, asked: "Master, why the frown? Is something amiss? I'm shallow and inexperienced—this is my first time handling such matters. If I've erred, I beg your guidance."

The old monk wasn't just formidable in martial cultivation—he was a former Ming Dynasty Provincial Graduate. Liang Qu dared not take him lightly.

"No guidance needed, and no error." The old monk shook his head. "I merely recalled several old acquaintances from your account."

"Acquaintances?" Liang Qu knew little of the old monk's past. The only person he knew the monk had once known was the Daoist from Louguan Temple. But seeing the monk's face utterly blank, no trace of nostalgia, he dared to guess: "The evil monk you mentioned earlier?"

"Precisely."

"The dike breach was done by the evil monk?!"

Liang Qu had always thought Cheng Chong's behavior was odd.

But the Three Judicial Offices found no cause. They couldn't figure it out—and neither could he. He hadn't expected a breakthrough from the old monk.

But the old monk shook his head.

"I never witnessed the dike breach firsthand. Without evidence, how could I deduce the true culprit?

I merely think: deliberately destroying a dike is an act against heaven and earth, exceedingly rare outside of war or conquest. Such behavior appearing in an age of peace resembles the common practice of the Snow Mountain Sect—collecting misfortune qi and calamity qi."

"Misfortune qi? Calamity qi?"