Chapter 935: Iron Chains Across the River Cut the Midstream

"These porters run barefoot on the earth, and with every step they take, they accumulate a trace of imperceptible spirituality."

"On the long road, even if this method of spiritual accumulation is extremely inefficient, it is enough for many of them to reach spiritual fulfillment. At this time, they can transfer to an extraordinary practitioner of another path, such as street hooligans—they are known as 'Qingpi' thugs."

"An extraordinary practitioner with full spirituality needs to undergo a secret ritual known as 'Opening the Stroll', provoking trouble on the streets and letting others harm them."

"Finally, they are led by their elder, the 'Big Player', to their gathering place, the 'Pot-Fire', to be taught the secret of opening the Ouroboros Gate. They call this the secret knowledge of 'Worshipping the Ancestor', allowing them to be promoted to a second-rank extraordinary practitioner, the 'Mixed Star'. Then, through begging for money, bullying others, and other hooligan behaviors, they further accumulate spirituality until they achieve success and fame, undergoing secret rituals like 'Drawing the Death Lot', 'Establishing a Stronghold', and 'Gathering the Pot-Fire', to be promoted to the third-rank 'Big Player'!"

"Besides the Qingpi path, they can also practice martial arts, embarking on a mysterious path known as 'True Martial'."

"This path specializes in combat, is very terrifying, and is extremely easy to dual-class in."

"Almost every extraordinary practitioner who enters the door in this city will dual-class in this path, practicing a secret technique of 'Alien Martial Arts', possessing different abilities."

"The extraordinary practitioners of the Qingpi path have extremely powerful endurance and recovery, and they are rich in combat experience, coupled with the lack of any gentlemanly character."

"They will use any weapon, poison, and means to deal with enemies."

"The number of official knights and Holy Church pastors who have gone missing in this city has already exceeded hundreds."

"This is something no one can underestimate..."

"Even because the archbishop sent to this place by the Holy Church was killed by a group of extraordinary practitioners of the 'Penetrating God' or some other messy path—they are known as 'Boxers', an extraordinary society that spans the north."

"We have had to have fierce conflicts with the Eastern extraordinary practitioners!"

"Obviously, sir, this is why you and I were sent here. The West needs our communication skills to avoid conflicts with the ancient extraordinary societies of this country."

"Three living saints ascended to heaven, a knight order sent by the church to the East was wiped out, all the churches in the north were destroyed, and various families and colonists who came to the East suffered heavy losses. Finally, we had to beg to see their emperor, using the emperor's desire for longevity and his wariness of the Boxer society, promising to offer 'Immortal Medicine', only then managing to barely use the imperial court to wipe out this widespread extraordinary society."

"Even so, on this land, we are also discriminated against and excluded."

"Except for the land the emperor promised us for temporary residence, we cannot even easily go out, otherwise we will go missing..."

"From the most basic extraordinary path—the Porter—they have accumulated over a hundred thousand extraordinary apprentices, and then through 'rules', they transfer to different paths. They have established a huge and complex extraordinary system in this city, and the reserve of followers is endless."

"Many extraordinary practitioners don't even know they have stepped onto the path themselves, which can be said to be the ultimate 'secrecy'."

"This allows them to retain most of their mysterious power while widely disseminating the extraordinary!"

"So you think they are holding an ignorant, primitive ritual?"

Drummond's tone held a deep sense of wariness.

"No, sir, this is a secret ritual involving over a hundred thousand extraordinary apprentices, spanning several paths, and jointly organized by more than twenty secret societies and dozens of extraordinary professions in this city, all to stop the 'White Lotus,' the secret sect with the deepest foundation in the entire North, from summoning an evil god!"

Kadoorie fell silent at once!

He looked at the noisy, rustic, bustling gathering that was infused with a thick atmosphere of daily life, taken for granted by everyone, but also contained deep 'secrecy'.

He finally caught a glimpse of a trace of a dense shadow beneath the surface of the deep civilization that had been entrenched in the East for countless years.

Dozens of capable sailors and porters.

Drummond preferred to call them second-rank extraordinary practitioners of the Dragon King path and the Strongman path.

First rank: 'Boatman' and 'Porter'.

Second rank: 'Sailor' and 'Strongman'.

Third rank: 'Ship Master' and 'Headman'.

Fourth rank: 'Helm Master' and 'Earth General'!

These porters and sailors on the small boats had muscles knotted all over their bodies, had practiced martial arts, walked on the boat hull as if on flat ground, and possessed immense strength.

Following the crane on the steamship, the four thick iron chains were lowered.

On the river surface, four small boats rowed up, each with eight strongmen and sailors on board.

They shouted work chants, deeply shouldering the iron anchors weighing several tons, taking them over, and placing them on the boats.

Then, under the exquisite manipulation of the boatmen, several more small boats moved in, and the iron chains on the steamship slid out bit by bit, with a small boat going up from time to time to catch a section.

Across the entire river channel, four iron chains, each dozens of meters long, were supported by more than ten small boats and parked on the river surface.

"Generate the Dharma Fire!"

With a shout from the Boatmen's Guild helm masters on both banks, the four iron chains extended.

Two small boats carrying huge furnaces and fire basins arrived at the place where their ends met.

Accompanied by the work chants, the strongmen carried the iron chains into the furnace, and several blacksmiths blew the bellows for their lives.

The lead blacksmith picked up a rooster, its eyes red and round, making people gasp—what a rooster.

But the blacksmith just slashed the rooster's neck, and the chicken blood sprayed out, pouring onto the furnace fire. Suddenly, the flame turned from red to blue—the furnace fire was pure and green, burning the iron chain until it was red-hot.

Two strongmen and the blacksmith's apprentice worked together, using huge tongs to clamp one end of the iron chain out.

The lead blacksmith swung his heavy hammer, intending to forge the two sections of the iron chain together.

But the huge hammer struck the thick iron chain, sparks flew everywhere, yet it remained motionless, with no intention of fusing at all.

The lead blacksmith's face changed!

"Are these iron chains old anchor chains?"

The lead blacksmith's face was flushed red by the heat rushing at him. He glanced at the sparks flying from the iron chain, reached out to catch a few, and rubbed them carefully in his hand.

On the high platform, a Daoist priest holding a Dharma sword saw the clue.

The Daoist said to the Boatmen's Guild helm master beside him: "This thing is an old anchor dismantled by foreigners from an ocean-going ship. It has been soaked in the deep sea for years, and the Qi of Gui Water is too heavy. I'm afraid ordinary furnace fire cannot melt it!"

"No!"

The blacksmith on the boat also shouted loudly: "This thing has startled the Dragon King and been sprayed by the Dragon King's mysterious water. Ordinary furnace fire simply cannot melt it! Even using thousand-year coal essence would be useless!"

Coal essence is coal jade mined from the West Mountain, looking like a black-feathered chicken!

Only the manpower and material resources of the Boatmen's Guild could find six thousand-year coal essence chickens, burn them in the furnace fire, and then use the blood of carefully raised angry-eyed chickens to sacrifice and stimulate their spirituality.

But they didn't expect that these four anchor chains were all dismantled from ocean-going cargo ships.

Each one had been soaked in the deep sea for decades, following the Westerners across all the oceans.

They were no ordinary objects either!

"Let's each provide two people..."

On the case, the old hooligan Zhang Sanzhi held up the only two fingers on one of his hands. The leaders of the two major Boatmen's Guilds hesitated slightly, but nodded in agreement.

Two hooligans wearing brocade robes, dressed majestically, with satin clothes more impressive than the princes in the capital.

They walked in a square step, walking out of the ranks sideways. One clasped his fists in a square salute, his face triumphant; the other had a solemn expression, carrying a trace of sorrow.

The two came to the furnace. The majestic hooligan glanced at the furnace fire, raised his eyebrows, put on a pompous look, and laughed: "Hey! Your skills are really loose; it won't work without me!"

After saying that, he took out a knife and slashed his own neck.

The neck blood sprayed out at once, sacrificing to the furnace!

The furnace fire turned from blue to red, and the blood dripped onto the anchor chain.

The old blacksmith bowed three times to the hooligan's corpse, then scolded the apprentice who was stunned beside him: "What are you still stunned for? Hammer the iron!"

The heavy hammer swung up and struck the red-hot anchor chain heavily.

This time, the red-hot anchor chain was finally hammered into deformation.

On the other side, the hooligan with a sorrowful face bowed to the four directions and simply jumped into the furnace fire...

With four human lives, the four large chains were finally strung together, connecting into two huge iron cables, each hundreds of meters long, spanning the Southern Canal.

The ends were cast into large iron rings.

At this moment, even the most ignorant common folk knew what the Boatmen's Guild and the Qingpi trade wanted to do!

"Iron chains across the river... the last time, that was back in Cao Cao's time!"

"The time is right, but that was chaining ships with iron cables; crossing the river was an old trick of Eastern Wu, broken by the fire basin strategy when the Later Jin destroyed Wu! The time before that, that was the Long-Haired..."

"Shut up! You dare to talk about this?"

On the Wanghai Tower, a group of scholars in long gowns were telling old stories.

"Invite the Stone Ox!"

The helm master of the Northern Canal shouted from the high platform.

The big hooligan Wang Haichuan and a group of Qingpi Big Players, shirtless, martial arts masters, and porter headmen.

Nearly a hundred people, barefoot, with belts tied around their bodies, shouldering huge shoulder poles.

Dozens of prominent figures, along with dozens of strongmen from the porter trade, carried a huge stone ox from the northeast corner of the city, step by step, shouting work chants, moving the huge, heavy stone ox—one zhang high and several zhang long, enough to reach half the city wall—bit by bit toward the riverbank.

And on the opposite Lion Grove, Hebei Main Street, there was also such a group of people, shouldering another huge stone ox, coming toward the river channel step by step.

"Yellow River Stone Ox?"

"This thing was the river-suppressing object of the old floating bridge; hasn't it been lost for two hundred years? This... where was this found?"

"Dug out from the old Yu River channel three days ago. The Boatmen's Guild used large boats and rollers on dry land, moving it for dozens of miles, hard-moving it here!"

Where had the onlookers ever seen such excitement? Iron chains across the river, stone ox suppressing it...

It seems the Boatmen's Guild really made up their minds.

Let alone a mere Red Mansion Ghost Ship, even if a real Yama or river demon came, they could block it!

"This... even if Yin soldiers were passing, they couldn't pass this pass, right!"

The stone ox landed steadily before the Chaoguan Floating Bridge, its whole body suppressed on the riverbank.

Thousands, tens of thousands of porters and strongmen, step by step, pulled the stone ox, stabilizing it on both banks of the canal.

The iron chains, as thick as an embrace, were lifted by the strongmen and sailors on more than a dozen small boats and hundreds of porters on the shore, and then the iron rings at the ends were hung on the horns of the stone ox! ===== CHAPTER 936 =====