Chapter 61: Water Water Lingzhi

Liang Qu had just stepped out of the academy when he spotted Li Li Libo waiting by the entrance; glancing left and right, he saw no one else nearby, clearly indicating he was being waited for.

"What brings you here?"

Li Li Libo, who had been squatting by the curb, looked up at the sound, spat out a blade of grass, and complained, "Finally found you. I asked Cao Shixiong Xiang, and he said you'd be dismissed at the end of the Shen hour, so I arrived a quarter-hour early to wait, yet I've been standing here forever without seeing hide nor hair of you."

"So I went to ask that old man at the gate; he said you hadn't come out yet. I didn't dare disturb a promising scholar inside, so I waited stubbornly for over an hour. Tell me, were you secretly courting some young lady in there?"

"I wish I were; everyone in my classroom is just a bunch of children."

"Then what were you doing in there?"

"Had some matters to attend to, so I was a bit late. Have you eaten? If not, my treat; we can eat together."

"That would be splendid."

Li Li Libo beamed with joy, and the two headed to a roadside inn to order food and eat.

"Come to think of it, you seem somehow different."

"Different how?"

"Not so dark anymore, and you seem taller too."

"I'm naturally still growing; besides, I haven't gone out fishing much these past few days. Come on, tell me, what do you need?"

"Hey, I nearly forgot." Li Li Libo pulled a stack of papers from his robe and slapped them on the table. "Elder Chen Li sent someone to the martial hall today looking for you. The River God Sacrifice is tomorrow at noon; as the chief officiant, you must recite the sacrificial text before the crowd. He wants you to read it aloud a few times beforehand to smooth out the delivery. The procedures are written here too; the idea is for you to familiarize yourself thoroughly."

"But he couldn't find you, so he sent someone to the martial hall instead. Since I knew you were at the academy, that person asked me to deliver the sacrificial text to you."

"Good, I've noted it. Actually, there's something else I need to trouble you with: go to the martial hall and bring over that large wooden chest from my room."

"A wooden chest? Sure, I'll go back and check, then bring it over for you."

Liang Qu took the papers, folded them neatly, and tucked them into his robe.

He had not forgotten that Chen Zhao had previously appointed him chief officiant for the River God Sacrifice—a prime opportunity to shine.

The sacrificial text wouldn't be plain vernacular; it would consist of obscure phrases and archaic expressions never used in daily speech, making it extremely awkward to pronounce, so reading it aloud several times in advance was essential. Moreover, he would need to dress formally for the occasion.

The great cloak, robes, and cloud-treading boots gifted by his senior brothers—he had been reluctant to wear them, not even daring to keep them at home for fear of theft—but now they finally had a purpose.

After finishing their meal, Li Li Libo fetched the wooden chest, handed it to Liang Qu, and returned to the martial hall to train.

Such opportunities were hard to come by; he and Chen Jie practiced like madmen every day, never once returning to Yixing Market.

Had it not been for the unavoidable River God Sacrifice tomorrow, they probably wouldn't have set foot in Yixing Market for three whole months.

Their level of diligence surpassed even Liang Qu's by a good margin; after all, he not only had to crew the boat and study, juggling multiple tasks, but sometimes even indulged in sleeping in and playing with his three beasts.

Shameful, truly shameful; from now on, he could no longer afford such laziness.

Carrying the wooden chest to Pingyang Wharf to pole his boat, Liang Qu arrived at Shangrao Wharf and slapped the water, causing a colossal beast to gradually emerge from the depths.

Its pitch-black, slender body half-hidden in the night, rows upon rows of scales shimmering faintly as the arched water flow shattered against them, streaming through the gaps between scales to merge as tiny rivulets into the river.

Unable-to-Move now measured three and a half meters in length; though it had stopped growing, it certainly qualified as a giant crocodile.

Stowing the sacrificial text and clothes in the boat's cabin, Liang Qu, wearing nothing but underpants, leaped into the water and, escorted by Unable-to-Move, swam toward Fat Catfish.

Along the way, Unable-to-Move swayed its body left and right, seeking credit from Liang Qu, for this time the treasure had been discovered not by Fat Catfish, but by itself, Unable-to-Move!

While digging a burrow underwater, Unable-to-Move had stumbled upon a special terrain feature, extremely well-concealed; upon entering, one found a whole new world within. Without such serendipity, an ordinary person would never have found it.

Liang Qu patted Unable-to-Move on the head as encouragement.

Regrettably, he currently had nothing valuable to offer as a material reward; even so, Unable-to-Move, delighted by the head pat, flicked its tail through the water, stirring up a long string of bubbles.

Upon reaching the location, Liang Qu lifted his head, utterly astonished.

How could there be such a massive stone block underwater? As far as the eye could see, it stood nearly twenty meters high, roughly the size of a small residential building.

Beneath the stone, four fist-sized creatures were patrolling in all directions; spotting Liang Qu, they paddled over and clung to his shoulders.

Suddenly, the seemingly undisturbed silt nearby bulged upward, and a four-meter-long Fat Catfish shook off the mud and sand and swam over.

Surrounded by two giant beasts and one small one, Liang Qu unexpectedly felt a faint thrill, as if he truly were a Water God commanding the vast waves, directing affairs with supreme authority.

With every gesture, thousands of aquatic soldiers cleared the way.

Yet the moment he thought of Brother Toad, that little fantasy of his vanished like smoke.

Tomorrow he would have to recite the sacrificial text to Brother Toad; for now, he would simply endure it—sooner or later, he would enjoy a dry-pot spicy frog dish.

Yielding to gravity, Liang Qu descended to the riverbed.

In water, the human body possesses a point of neutral buoyancy.

Typically, at a depth of five meters, the body naturally floats upward; doing nothing at all, one would return to the surface.

However, at certain depths, the chest cavity becomes compressed, reducing overall volume; the person no longer floats upward but begins to sink freely. Without added weight, this point is usually around thirty meters.

Since the water depth here already exceeded thirty meters, Liang Qu could descend effortlessly to the bottom.

Led by Unable-to-Move, Liang Qu located the burrow it had dug beneath the rock; crawling through the tunnel, he discovered a massive fissure at the rock's base, fully three meters wide.

Just after entering the fissure, Liang Qu faintly perceived a light source ahead; swimming four or five meters forward, the path made a sharp ninety-degree turn, leading straight upward toward the rock's center.

Along this near-vertical "cliff" grew a huge vine as thick as a human arm, reminiscent of the beanstalk from the fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk" that led to the land of giants.

It was the source of the light, emitting a soft, ethereal glow in the darkness, remarkably bright and utterly peculiar.

Liang Qu moved closer and took a bite; it was infuriatingly hard, impossible to chew. He could only climb upward along the vine. After merely ten meters, he suddenly broke the surface, shaking his wet hair, and looked around in bewilderment at the suddenly expansive surroundings.

The innermost part of the stone contained not water, but air!

Surveying the area, he saw an inverted semicircular platform, its ceiling reflecting shimmering azure ripples.

The entire rock formation acted like a gigantic dome, trapping the air within this space.

Liang Qu did not hold his breath; Unable-to-Move had previously explored here, proving the air inside was safe.

However, being a crocodile, its vocabulary was limited, preventing a more detailed description of the cave's interior; it had only mentioned stone, a hole, plants growing inside the stone, and that they glowed.

In reality, the internal space of the stone resembled an inverted eighth note: the bulbous part of the note was the space he now saw, while the stem formed the passage.

Grasping the vine, Liang Qu climbed onto the platform inside the stone. Standing upright, the height proved sufficient; a quick scan revealed, in the farthest corner, a lush plant as large as a human head.

It greatly resembled a mushroom: short, white, and thick-stemmed, plump and chubby, yet its cap bore a striking resemblance to a Water Lingzhi mushroom, deeply rooted within the stone crevice.

Water Water Lingzhi!

Having spent these past few days studying, Liang Qu was no longer the ignorant novice he once was; he immediately recognized this precious aquatic plant as Water Water Lingzhi!

Just as he was about to approach, suddenly, from the shadowy rock wall, a stone that had blended perfectly with its surroundings shook loose and shot outward!