Chapter 220: Cloud Dragon

"The commoners are all asking you to perform a sacrifice to the Dragon King to stop the rain!" Hu Jinhua has now become Xu Jia's secretary.

"Sacrifice to the Dragon King?" Xu Jia thought of himself beheading a dragon in his dream and having just suppressed a flood dragon, so he smiled. As a Lushan Grand Master and a Lingbao Heavenly Master, why would he sacrifice to any Dragon King? Wasn't his major in university "Dragon Slaughtering"? "All water affairs in the south are managed by the Jiujiang Shuidi. Sacrificing to the Dragon King is useless, and sacrificing to the Jiujiang Shuidi might not bring any relief either."

The Nine Rivers Water Emperor is not the Jiujiang of Jiangzhou, but the superintendent in charge of the nine rivers in the south. Though called an Emperor, he is actually just a type of local deity with a very hollow status. Under his seat are nine other Emperors: the Zhejiang Water Emperor, the Yangtze River Water Emperor, the Songjiang Water Emperor, the Wujiang Water Emperor, the Chujiang Water Emperor, the Hong Kong Water Emperor, the Shengjiang Water Emperor, the Hanjiang Water Emperor, and the Southern Frontier Water Emperor.

It is not that Xu Jia is doing nothing; rather, as a Daoist, while he must follow the Dao in other matters, at a critical moment of human life, he must believe that "man can conquer heaven."

"How are Chang Yuying and Chang Yu'e doing with clearing the waterways?"

"They both have an Earth nature and are not very skilled with water. They are not as good as Hai Sanniang. Hai Sanniang is proficient in water and rivers; together with Qiu Jinsha and Jingchi, they have already cleared various water veins. Even Kan Yinwu has brought his mice descendants to clean the town's waterways, all leading into the Xin River."

"It's just that the Xin River is also full and will backflow. The Xin River Water Official has sent a Shan Lishi to ask the Heavenly Master if there is any way to control the water. If the Xin River breaches its banks, one hundred thousand people on both sides will suffer."

Xu Jia has also built up a reputation. Under normal circumstances, this Xin River Water Official would definitely have come over furiously, or perhaps even sent a dream message. Now that he has only sent a Shan Lishi, it is clear he wants to negotiate.

"What is the background of the Xin River Water Official?"

"He is an old soft-shelled turtle."

"A Turtle Deity?"

A turtle is a large soft-shelled turtle, but the skirt of a turtle's shell is closer to a circle, and some say a turtle's eyes are round.

"He was originally a demon in Pengli Hu, known as General Yuan. Because he often saved people who fell into the water and helped calm the wind and waves, he was petitioned by the Pengli County Magistrate to the imperial court and was granted the title of General. Later, he moved to the Xin River and became a Water Official. He is a Great Demon who has survived the Five Hundred Year Great Tribulation."

Pengli is ancient Poyang. Now that Poyang has a "Poyang Dragon King"—the small, broken-tailed dragon that Xu Tianshi spared back then—it has attained Didao, established a Dragon Palace, and subdued many demons. Those among them who were unwilling to live under others for long have left Poyang one after another and gone elsewhere.

"So that's how it is." Knowing the foundation and background, Xu Jia knew how to respond. It could be said he was "sizing up the person to serve the dish."

He then said: "Go back and tell him that this area has many mountains and many low-lying places. We can assist him in diverting the water and building water conservancy."

He added: "If there are any demons taking advantage of the situation to stir up trouble, they can report directly to our Daoist Office."

Xu Jia is currently using the Qi of the incessant drizzling rain to cultivate the Body God of the "Water Spring Acupoint," which specializes in treating "urinary incontinence."

Viewing the external Great Heaven and Earth through the small heaven and earth of the human body, the current incessant rain is a "failure of the water spring." A spring is a water source.

The superintendent of the Water Spring Acupoint connects to the kidneys and bladder and can treat all water-related illnesses.

Xu Jia is also following the timing of heaven to cultivate this acupoint's Body God, which is precisely the "Jiujiang Shuidi."

Following the water springs, he is also cultivating the Tianquan, Jiquan, Yinlingquan, and Yanglingquan acupoints.

The remaining ones are the Hegu, Lougu, Shuigu, Yingu, and Rangu acupoints. Although they are "valleys," they are similar and close to springs and can be used for guidance.

Once he refines these water gods as Body Gods in one go, Xu Jia's water method can basically be considered "great success."

Under normal circumstances, this would likely take three to five years, but now, with the help of the timing of heaven, Xu Jia has already crossed the threshold.

To control water, one must know water. The father of Great Yu was a Water Official; he inherited his father's position and achieved success in water control, which is how he became the co-lord of the world.

Now, Xu Jia is not trying to be the co-lord of the world, but merely governing one county, and he has already felt the difficulty.

"The Daoists from Shanju Guan have also rushed over. They were previously presiding over funerals for various families. Many of these commoners dream at night that the young girl has returned to claim their lives, asking why they sacrificed her..."

"This is purely because they have done something wrong, so they are afraid of ghosts knocking at the door."

Hu Jinhua said: "Even that old scholar is praying for the construction of a girl's temple to appease their wandering souls."

Xu Jia said: "Although they are building this temple because they did something wrong and want peace of mind, since it is the will of the people, then we shall grant it. It can also be considered our first foundation in Dexing. This temple does not need to be built too large. Tell them that each family should contribute one brick, one tile, one bowl of rice, and one foot of cloth."

Hu Jinhua immediately gave the order and asked: "When will we start building our Lingbao Temple?"

"Large-scale temples are all imperial-commissioned, and we lack the financial resources and ability. However, we shouldn't think about imperial-commissioned temple decrees from the court right now, and the money from Jinchan Duobao cannot be taken out and used all at once. Let's start building it brick by brick ourselves, and add more later."

Among the Lushan Methods, the most prominent is the "Chang Method." Everyone says that the Lushan Method is exceptionally fierce.

But in fact, the Lushan Chang Method absorbs the "Northern Emperor Method." It is because the Northern Emperor Method is fierce that the Lushan Method appears fierce.

The Lushan Thunder Law, on the other hand, absorbs the "Divine Heaven Thunder Law."

Lushan is also famous for its "Water Method," which absorbs from the Yuanhuang Sect and the Meishan Sect.

Lushan itself is a "comprehensive collection" that is registered under the Heavenly Master, but it did indeed slowly evolve from shamanism to Daoism, developing the Lushan Lu.

In his previous life, Xu Jia entered the Dao through this, but now that Xu Jia is walking the orthodox path and has avoided detours, he has discovered that the twists and turns of folk minor methods, seeking wonders and shortcuts, are actually "seeking complexity," not simplicity.

Xu Jia is now internally refining his Body Gods and has a system. These things that previously required bowing to this and that now only require bowing to himself.

He saw a basin appear in front of him. The phantom in the basin was precisely the Sanqing Mountain and its surroundings within the Dharma Realm, which included Yushan and the two counties of Dexing.

Above it were thick clouds, and vaguely, a phantom was shuttling through them, exhaling and inhaling Water Qi.

It was a dragon.

This dragon was not the bald-tailed old dragon from Poyang, but it was indeed a dragon.

This dragon is a "formless dragon."

It is formed by the changes of cloud Qi and the transformation of Yin and Yang Qi.

This is transformed from a strand of Qi of the bald-tailed old dragon, and it has also become a dragon—a dragon of clouds and rain.

This shows that this old dragon has at least cultivated to the "Yang Spirit," which is to say, it has reached the standard for ascending to the Form Realm. Otherwise, it would not be able to "exhale Qi to form a shape."

It is not just here that there is a cloud dragon; Xu Jia estimates that many places in the Jiangnan West Circuit have these cloud Qis, and it may even affect the entire region south of the Yangtze River.

"In my dream before, a Spirit General grabbed this old dragon and invited me to go and behead it. Is this old dragon going to the Qiaolong Tai?"

Xu Jia secretly thought: "If Heaven wants it to perish, it must first make it mad. But I cannot just sit and wait for it to go mad until the Heavenly Court takes action; by then, I fear Jiangnan will have become a watery kingdom. But why would it do this?"

Xu Jia pondered for a while and waved his hand toward the basin. This is the art of "scooping the moon from the water."

He saw three Demon Gods appear on Xu Jia's body: the Five Elements Demon God, the Nine-Child Mother Demon God, and the Char-Woman Demon God. These past few days, the three Demon Gods have been absorbing the Stone-Gravel Evil Qi and combining it with evil thoughts to refine many Chang soldiers. They were surging with Black Qi, driving the gale, and soon reached the clouds to begin surrounding and attacking this cloud dragon.

Although this cloud dragon exhaled Qi to form its shape, it also utilized the timing of heaven. Around the Dragon Boat Festival, the flying dragon is in the sky, which is the timing of heaven. Moreover, "clouds follow the dragon, wind follows the tiger," and the surrounding layer of cloud sea is the "geographical advantage."

He saw the cloud dragon flick its tail, and the clouds transformed into ten thousand shapes.

Children often look at clouds; this cloud looks like the Buddha, that one looks like a Bodhisattva, this one looks like a dragon, and that one looks like a phoenix. They all think it is an "auspicious omen." From the Daoist perspective, these are all formed by the "lewd Qi of heaven and earth," and thus take shape; they are not the manifestation of any Buddha or Bodhisattva.

But if people believe in them, then in the Dharma Realm, thoughts are born, and these clouds also have their own true lives.

In the Heavenly Court, there are also many attendants who are transformed from clouds, such as the Tuilong Tongzi, Wuyun Tongzi, and Baiyun Tongzi. There are also deities specifically in charge of clouds. In Chu mythology, they are called "Yunzhong Jun," and in the Investiture of the Gods, "Yunzhong Zi" is based on this prototype.

For Taoism, the Cloud God is the Thunder God, and the name used is from the ancient Heaven Official system, called "Cloud Official."

This cloud dragon is proficient in this divine ability of lewd Qi transformation.

The Cloud Qi transformed into a turtle wrestler, a turtle Commandant, an eel military advisor, shrimp soldiers, crab generals, and whale carriages, resembling a battlefield, and he was the sole monarch above the clouds.

Cloud Qi transforming into a dragon is called a "Shen"; the Shen is skilled at illusion, and it is rumored that when a dragon and a pheasant mate, the offspring born will become a fierce bird if it encounters wind, a Flood Dragon if it encounters water, and a Shen if it encounters clouds and mist.

Xu Jia's Demon Gods: the Five Elements Demon God is skilled at transporting, the Nine-Child Mother is skilled at setting up arrays, and the Charming Maiden is skilled at absorbing Essence Qi.

But with this Cloud Sea surging, how could one transport, and what could be transported? Setting up an array was merely a grain of millet in the vast heaven and earth, and no matter how well the Charming Maiden could absorb, she could not compare to that Cloud Dragon, which could suck up a swirling water column from a great river with a single breath.

Soon they were defeated; those illusory cloud soldiers, if you hit them, they would scatter like Cotton, but if they hit you, it was real, tangible damage.

These three Demon Gods were all Xu Jia's Body God Protectors, refined from baleful Qi; seeing that they could not defeat the Cloud Dragon, Xu Jia put them away, waved his hand toward the basin again, and took it away.

However, after such a disturbance, although there were many clouds in the sky, they were only accumulating and no longer continued to pour down.

But this was not a good thing; the thicker the clouds, the more ferocious the downpour would be when it finally struck.

"Even if the Sheng Ying's Primordial Spirit leaves his body and uses the Dharma Power of the Red Banner Flame Flag, he cannot burn away this Cloud Qi."

"Unless there is a treasure that can bag clouds, one that can capture this Cloud Dragon."

"Or find someone else to behead the dragon in a dream."

After all, this was not the old dragon from Poyang arriving in person; it was merely him exhaling a breath.

It was likely intended to assist the wicked Flood Dragon beneath Dexing in causing a flood.

It was just that while that Flood Dragon was now suppressed, this Cloud Dragon still remained.

This Cloud Dragon gathered clouds and spread rain without a hint of Dharma Power manipulation; it was perfectly natural, for after all, "clouds follow the dragon," and this was merely an instinct, requiring nothing else.

Xu Jia had not noticed anything unusual in the rain at first; it was only while practicing water arts that he slightly discovered an anomaly, which is why he used the "Scooping the Moon from Water" method combined with the "Thousand-Mile Courtyard Shrinking Landscape" technique to condense the scenery around Sanqing Mountain into this basin of water to observe a general overview, discovering this Cloud Dragon that gathered and dispersed at will.

Through deduction, he learned that this was just a breath exhaled by someone.

It is normal for those who have achieved great Divine Ability to have such skills; for example, Xun Taizi was born only after obtaining a bit of the lewd Qi of the Horn Wood Flood Dragon among the Four Wood Avian Stars.

Even Jinchan Duobao was initially pointed and transformed by Xu Jia using gold, and it was only after sitting on the Treasure Basin that it became a true living creature.

Xu Jia has such abilities, let alone that old Poyang dragon; back then, his entire family was slaughtered by Heavenly Master Xu, and only he, still young, was left with his tail severed and suppressed, permitted only one day a year to sweep graves and visit relatives.

Hence, the Jiangnan West Circuit has the weather phenomenon of "it must rain on Qingming."

At first, this little dragon's Daoist Practice was not high, and it was very obedient, coming and going in just one day.

Later, it practiced diligently in the Well, first passing the Five Hundred Year Great Tribulation to achieve the status of an Earth Immortal, and then its courage grew; it did not return to the Well on time, and discovering that nothing major happened and no one came to catch it, it often ran out to play.

After achieving the Yang Spirit, it stopped returning to the Well entirely, wanting to recreate its past glory; back then, beneath Poyang, there were nests of Flood Dragons, totaling over three hundred, with over thirty direct descendants of the Dragon Palace, all of whom were slaughtered one by one, otherwise Nanchang would not have had the name "Flood City," as it flooded every year.

Of course, the land of Nanchang is a rare plain in Jiangxi, originally formed by the retreat of Pengli and Yunmeng Daze.

This old dragon, disliking that the Poyang water was now shallow and Yunmeng had shrunk, making them unworthy of being called a "Sea," wanted to use this method to, first, urge the Flood Dragons to enter the Poyang Great Sea (ancient people called large lakes "seas") to replenish the Dragon Palace, and second, to submerge all of Nanchang, turning it into an underwater city to be used directly by his aquatic subjects to establish a demon kingdom.

Although Xu Jia did not know all these inside details, he could see that such heavy rain was not just targeting Dexing or Yushan, but the entire Jiangnan.

It was blocking the Water Qi heading north and causing it to fall directly in the south, triggering massive floods and even forcing local levees to break and rivers to change course, refilling Yunmeng and Pengli (Poyang) to reconnect these two great lakes and restore the territory of the Poyang Dragon Palace to its former peak.

But when Poyang and Yunmeng were connected, it was still the Qin Dynasty; when Heavenly Master Xu beheaded the Flood Dragon, that was the first time they tried to implement this plan.

If all of Nanchang were submerged, this wicked dragon would certainly be caught, and according to the Heavenly Court's principle of "enforcement by proximity," Xu Jia, as a Lingbao Heavenly Master, would certainly be conscripted.

But is it really necessary to wait for all of Nanchang to be flooded, or even the entire Jiangnan West Circuit to be submerged? And then repeat the path of Great Yu, or Heavenly Master Xu, to control the waters... and execute the demons...

Xu Jia felt it was unnecessary, so could he go and talk to that old dragon? It's not as if only the Central Plains are suitable for a Dragon King to establish a Dragon Palace; doesn't America have the Great Lakes? If this old dragon were willing to open his eyes and look at the world, that would be excellent; if he were unwilling, Xu Jia felt that relying on his own strength, he could behead this Cloud Dragon, but to go directly to Poyang to challenge the boss, that would basically be suicide.

(End of chapter)