Chapter 86: Buying Life

On the cross-lake bridge of Yunmeng Marsh, vehicles came and went, and snow-white cruise ships floated on the clear water like white geese, carrying early tourists across the lake to Chuyun Mountain.

Chuyun Mountain and Yunmeng Marsh are both famous scenic spots in the country, and they are crowded every holiday. Although it is not a peak tourist season now, there are still many tourists with money and leisure who come to play during the off-season.

Yunmeng Marsh is misty and vast, the cruise ships are noisy, the sound of shutters clicking from time to time, and the birds and flowers are chirping.

There are girls discussing with their boyfriends whether to go to the Lake Heart Island or the Summer Resort Villa on the mountain to take pictures first; there are groups of budget-traveling college students reviewing the snack guides they checked before coming, which are the old shops eaten by locals, and which are the internet-famous shops that specifically slaughter tourists; there are also bright-dressed middle-aged and elderly women who specifically come to the mountains to dig for the so-called wild ginseng for longevity that can cure all diseases.

Although they don't know that these so-called wild ginseng are actually the graduation projects of graduate students from the Agricultural College of Yunlu Academy.

On a half-loaded cruise ship full of young people, a male college student with clear eyes held his mobile phone with a selfie stick and walked to the bow of the ship, pointed his other hand at the Lake Heart Island with the Confucius statue in the distance, and said to the camera:

"Arrived at the largest lake in the Central Plains, Yunmeng Marsh! Yunmeng Marsh is so beautiful... hey, isn't this Confucius."

"Let's look at Chuyun Mountain in the distance, family members..."

This male college student was happily aiming the camera at famous landmarks on Yunmengze, when suddenly the cruise ship made an emergency stop, the white hull drifted obliquely, everyone on the ship tilted forward uncontrollably, and the student standing at the bow stumbled and fell onto the railing, and the mobile phone he bought in installments specifically for taking pictures fell into the water with a plop, leaving only an empty selfie stick.

"Damn, what's the situation..." Several students climbed up from their seats and looked at the captain in front of the cockpit suspiciously, only to see that the captain himself was also confused.

"Don't look at me, I didn't pull the emergency brake..." The captain hurriedly defended: "The routes of the cruise ships across the lake are all planned, basically driven automatically by computers, and we are just necessary supervisors responsible for dealing with emergencies, rarely driving the ship manually."

That is to say, the emergency stop and drift just now was the ship itself making an emergency brake, not the captain manually pulling the brake.

"The camera identified a humanoid object in front, so it made an emergency brake... strange, how can there be people in the middle of the lake?" The captain had a ghost-seeing expression. Yunmengze is known as the first largest lake in the Central Plains, which is not a false name. Even in the dry season, the diameter of the lake surface must be counted in hundreds of kilometers. How can human power swim to the middle of the lake?

Did any tourist fall off the cruise ship, or jump off? Or is some large aquatic animal bubbling in front?

Thinking of this, the captain didn't dare to neglect. He immediately took over the control of the ship manually and drove slowly toward the direction where the suspected humanoid object was detected with the lowest gear horsepower.

The college students who knew the situation also poked their heads and cameras out of the railings on both sides of the cruise ship, looking around to see if there were any people who fell into the water.

The mist on Yunmengze in the early morning was slightly thicker than on a sunny day, with a slightly hazy artistic conception. The captain turned on the searchlight at the bow of the ship and carefully groped forward for a long time. Finally, a humanoid outline appeared in front of the cruise ship.

"Found it! It's really a person!"

"Wait, this person... what's going on?"

After the short joy of the crowd, it was replaced by confusion, because the blurred figure that appeared not far away was not half of the body submerged in the water, with only an upper body exposed to the water, nor was it lying flat or floating on the lake surface with its back up.

The figure that appeared directly in front of the searchlight was a complete person.

Or to be more precise, that was a person standing on the lake surface.

"I don't remember there being plum blossom piles in Yunmengze? That's a trick of Daoist martial monks..." The young people on the ship discussed, and the water depth in the middle of Yunmengze lake could not possibly have any plum blossom piles for people to stand on. Could that person be standing on something like a bamboo raft or a wooden raft?

That's not right either. The figure stood on the water motionless, its body hunched and stiff, just like a chopstick stuck in the sand, without any center of gravity shift or loss of balance. Any bamboo raft would be hard to be stable to this extent.

What's that word? —Walking on flat ground. Just like standing on the ground.

"How can there be people standing in the middle of the lake? Could it be..."

"Don't talk nonsense, it's better if you don't say this kind of thing, if you say it, it might..."

The noisy young students quieted down one after another, and the cruise ship fell into a weird silence. The captain held the joystick, and for a while, he couldn't advance or retreat. The engine roared behind the ship's butt, but it just stopped in place and didn't dare to move forward at all.

The ship didn't move much, but the figure got closer and closer.

There was no action of walking with legs, nor any extra swaying. He moved over silently like this. The loose Confucian shirt on the old man didn't get any water stains, and a burst of corruption stench came from the round belly.

"What is that?"

"The ghost knows!" The captain roared, hurriedly manipulated the ship to turn and wanted to escape from this weird place, but the figure moving on the lake was faster than the engine-driven cruise ship. The hunched old man had a pair of dark red eye sockets on his face that penetrated the flesh and blood.

They say eyes are the windows of the soul. The early morning sun sprinkled down, making the God of Wealth's dead old face look golden and brilliant. You could vaguely see the milky white rotten brains in His skull from the eye sockets.

=9+Shu_ba

The searchlight at the bow of the ship swept across the thin mist on the lake, pulling the God of Wealth's thin and hunched old shadow very long.

The screams and collapsing shouts on the ship came one after another. The crowd fleeing in panic was full of fear. They, who were hot-headed, didn't notice that when the searchlight swept across the lake, it didn't just reflect one shadow.

Behind the God of Wealth's hunched body, the air was empty, only a pitch-black figure darted across the sparkling clear lake in the blink of an eye, shooting toward the God of Wealth's back like an arrow from a string.

If you slow down the movement of this shadow, you can barely distinguish the distorted humanoid appearance. It should be a tall and thin adult man, holding a long object in his hand, don't know if it's a stick or a sword, or just a mop?

The black shadow darted behind the God of Wealth with lightning speed, raised his hands high, and fell quickly, cutting off its head.

At the same time the shadow was beheaded, the hunched old man's neck also broke, and a round head fell into the lake with a plop, blooming a bright red like a dark cloud.

The God of Wealth is dead.

But the sound of the head entering the water had not yet dissipated, followed by a crisp metal collision sound on Yunmengze, like a copper coin rolling out of a pocket with a hole, clattering to the ground.

The God of Wealth is alive again.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 87 =====