Chapter 775: Turning the Tables

What happened?

Li Yan frowned slightly, sensing something was off.

He was the leader of the Twelve Zodiacs; though injured and unconscious, Wang Daoxuan and Sha Lifei could temporarily take charge, but splitting forces was dangerous—they’d never decide without consulting him first.

Unless something major had occurred.

Sure enough, Sha Lifei lowered his voice: “Something has indeed happened.”

“Three days ago, that chaos erupted wildly, and word reached the capital. The court was furious—imperial envoys rushed south, and a string of officials were dismissed and arrested—the Prefect of Yangzhou, the Canal Transport Commandant, the Battalion Commander of the Regional Military Commission, even the abbot of the City God Temple—all were detained.”

“Now the entire city is plastered with notices; soldiers are searching every household for remnants, and the canal docks remain sealed.”

“Didn’t you ask Cheng Yun of the Golden Swallow Gate to deliver a letter to the Luo Daoist in the capital? That Battalion Commander Tian followed the envoy to Yangzhou. Lin Fatty, to preserve the bigger picture, confessed everything about Lin Yaozu’s collusion with the Japanese pirates! As a result, the entire Lin family of Jinling was branded as traitors and thrown into the death cells awaiting execution.”

“Lin Fatty feared implicating the innocent members of the Lin clan, so he, Kong Shangzhao, and two others went ahead with Battalion Commander Tian to Jinling to oversee the trial, to prevent innocent people from being wrongfully executed.”

Li Yan mused: “It’s a case of sacrificing a pawn to save the king—to preserve the Lin family’s future. But Jinling’s situation is complex; three men alone won’t be enough. Why didn’t you go with them?”

Sha Lifei slowly shook his head, his expression turning grave: “You’ve been unconscious these past three days, your breath faint as a thread. Master Wang examined you—he says your body needs at least three more days of bed rest, no moving around. And…”

As he spoke, Sha Lifei leaned closer, glanced around, then whispered:

“The Golden Swallow Gate’s covert agent just sent a secret report—the ‘Nine Cauldrons’… have surfaced!”

“What?!”

Li Yan’s pupils shrank to needle points.

He had witnessed the power of the Nine Cauldrons firsthand; though the Immortal Ascension Array from Qin Shi Huang’s time had long been destroyed, whenever one of these artifacts emerged, it brought catastrophic disaster.

Thinking of this, Li Yan immediately asked: “Is it the Yangzhou Cauldron?”

“Correct.”

Sha Lifei nodded, pulling a torn fragment of silk from his robe and pointing to its blurred ink markings: “The tip came strangely—a night watchman found it beneath a broken stele at the old River God Temple at Guazhou Ferry. The whole thing was scribbled over with vague star charts and water vein diagrams, plus a few lines of tiny script… here, this one.”

He pointed to several twisted, tadpole-like characters: “A few elderly scholars in the Golden Swallow Gate pored over the Yunji Qiqian until they barely recognized some ancient Chu shamanic script—it seems to point to the Yangzhou Cauldron’s location.”

He licked his dry lips and lowered his voice: “The trail leads to a figure only mentioned in obscure histories and folk tales—Zhou Yin Yao. Master Wang says this man appears in Daoist records; he once boiled white stones for food in Guangling, Yangzhou, then transformed into a white crane and rode the clouds away.”

“Sounds like pure fairy tales. But I and Master Wang went to the death cells and interrogated a few local water bandits hiding among the Japanese pirates—no heavy torture, just showed them your name, Li the Reaper—and those cowards spilled everything.”

“They confessed that recently, someone paid handsomely to have them scour Yangzhou’s streets and outskirts, openly and secretly, for news of an old Daoist! The description was bizarre: an old man in a worn hemp robe, often lingering in quiet spots along the Qinhuai River, most notably—he wore an old gourd tied at his waist, engraved with the character ‘Boil,’ and sometimes they saw him boiling water with greenish stones.”

“They even gave him a nickname—‘The Green Frost Boiling Stone Elder!’”

“Zhou Yin Yao…”

Li Yan frowned tightly: “He doesn’t just boil stones.”

He had previously commissioned people to collect stories about Daoist folk deities; as a living Yin Officer, after witnessing the power of Zhao Changsheng and Lu Sheng, he’d gathered ample data on immortals across the land.

Zhou Yin Yao was a legendary immortal in Daoist lore, his deeds scattered across Tang and Song dynasty tale collections and local gazetteers, most thoroughly recorded in the Taiping Guangji’s citation of Xianchuan Shiyi.

He claimed descent from Lu Li, one of the Four Elders of Mount Shang, cultivated the Great Yin Body Refinement Art in Zhenjiang, and achieved immortality through three staged deaths.

He revived six years after his first death, died again sixteen years later, and came back to life seven years after that.

Though nearly eighty, his appearance remained youthful.

Emperor Yang of Sui and Emperor Taizong of Tang both summoned him—he politely refused both times.

The Great Yin Body Refinement Art was a crucial, immensely difficult method for cultivating an Earth Immortal body; yet this man succeeded three times in a row—far beyond reason.

Could he, too, be a hidden Yin Offender?

And who had ordered those water bandits to seek him out?

As Li Yan pondered, his ear twitched imperceptibly.

Outside the docks, the noise had grown louder.

A tide of voices surged closer.

“Is this Li Immortal’s treasure ship?”

“Master Yu’s son was cured by Li Shaoxia! A miracle doctor!”

“My old mother has been paralyzed for three years—please, Li Immortal, use your divine arts to save her!”

“Move aside! Let me through! My child is vomiting black blood—!”

“Bang! Bang-bang!”

The hull trembled slightly under rhythmic pounding—many were striking the wooden planks.

“Splash!”

Something knocked over a stack of bamboo baskets piled on the dock.

Women wept, elders pleaded, children screamed, strong men shouted in desperation—all at once.

“Clang!”

The front cabin door burst open, rushing in with damp air and river wind.

The first to step inside was Wang Daoxuan.

The Daoist looked disheveled—his wide robe’s hem was splattered with mud, his forehead slick with sweat.

Behind him, Long Yan looked utterly exasperated.

Wu Ba entered and braced his body against the door, which kept shaking.

Wang Daoxuan strode three steps to the porthole, shoved open the shutter, glanced out, then sighed helplessly: “Little Yan, trouble’s here.”

Li Yan rose slowly and walked to the window.

The scene outside made his scalp crawl.

The broad dock was utterly jammed—crowds of heads surged like a river of ants, stretching deep into the streets as far as the eye could see.

Men, women, old, young, dressed in coarse cloth or fine silks—all mingled.

Some held crude banners with slogans like “Miracle Doctor Reborn” and “Living Bodhisattva of Salvation”;

Others pounded the hull, the screech of nails on wood blending with their cries;

Some cradled sickly children whose faces were gray, lips frothing;

Others carried elderly men on wooden doors—their bodies stiff, exposed skin marked with strange purplish-blue fingerprints…

Faces filled with despair and desperate hope completely blocked the dock.

The roar crashed through the narrow porthole:

“Immortal, save us from suffering!”

“Li Shaoxia! Please, have mercy and look at my child!”

“My wife is haunted every night…”

…

“The news of Master Yu’s son’s recovery spread too fast.”

Wang Daoxuan shook his head, smiling bitterly: “And with your recent display of exorcising demons in the fog… the people of Yangzhou truly see you as a living immortal come to save them!”

“Hmm…”