Chapter 968: The Eight Winds and Rain Converge at Zhigucheng

At dawn, the Beiyun River was still veiled in a thin mist, yet cargo barges had already begun their journey toward Jingcheng.

The grain barges, delayed for days at the Sancha River junction, now linked end to end, heading northward.

Fishing skiffs darted nimbly through the ceaseless stream of vessels, when from afar, through the white fog, came the sound of bells and drums. The fisherman stood at the bow, looking up, and saw several colored shapes gradually sharpening in the mist.

Soon, a hundred-stone boat, bound with a hundred colorful ribbons that fluttered in the wind, drifted slowly from the fog—its hull woven entirely from willow branches as thick as a thumb and ribbons.

At its bow stood another figure.

He wore a leather coat adorned with ribbons, one hand raised high holding a whip, the other shaking a bell drum, his head crowned with an ancient, solemn nuo mask.

Behind him, also standing at the bow, countless shadowy figures loomed within the mist—strange, misshapen, tall and short, fat and thin.

This eerie spectacle left the fisherman stunned.

The grain barges on the river all veered aside...

Since ancient times, Zhigucheng has suffered frequent floods; people say it is because the nine-river Dragon King’s sons vie for power, fighting over water domains and often stirring up floods to inundate each other’s rivers. Thus, bridges here bear all manner of talismans.

On the stone bridge ahead hung a sword to slay the river dragon!

The rusted iron blade, bound with rope, hung beneath the underside of the bridge; beside the shaman on the willow boat, wearing the nuo mask, a tall, thin shadow suddenly trembled all over.

Many such agitated figures stood on the boat—some short and stout with bulging bellies, emitting muffled drum-like thuds; others had extra arms flailing at their sides; some writhed as if boneless...

The shaman at the bow lightly tapped his small drum, then pointed his whip—suddenly, the sword beneath the bridge reversed, its tip slowly turning toward the bridge above.

The stone lions on the bridge’s end, facing the river, all turned their heads backward.

The hemp ropes tied to the bridge railings snapped one by one; the copper coins nailed to the bridge, along with their nails, flew off.

An old man from Zhigucheng crossing the bridge saw this and dared not step further.

“The Dragon has passed!”

The old man cried: “The Dragon has passed!”

As the willow boat slowly drifted past the ancient bridge, several disciples of the Xuanzhen Sect exchanged glances—the yellow cloth covering their feet had torn, and the talismans placed along the Eight Trigrams on it now bore cracks.

“The sword to slay the dragon reversed, the demon-quelling lions turned their heads—I borrowed from Elder Cui his divination cloth to suppress the Eight Immortals’ talismans, yet none could hold him back. This must truly be the head of the Shaman Sect!”

The Xuanzhen disciple presiding over the ritual wore a grave expression.

Though the sword to slay the dragon was merely a rusted iron rod, it had fallen three times, slaying three great river dragons that had reached maturity.

As for the demon-quelling stone lions on the bridge, the most famous are those on the Lugou Bridge in Jingcheng, with two hundred and eighty-eight lions suppressing demons and devouring ghosts—but few know that this ancient bridge on the Beiyun River, though bearing only sixteen lions, was carved from the same stone as those on Lugou Bridge.

Since the stone lions were installed, no demonic entity has dared descend into Zhigucheng from the north.

Yet all these talismans were shattered in this very moment.

“Quickly report to the Sect Master and all the Administrators—the Northeast Shaman Lord, accompanied by a hundred immortals, has bypassed Jingcheng and is heading straight for Zhigucheng!”

………

At this moment, beneath the Haihe River sluice gate, the soldiers guarding the sluice heard a muffled sound coming from below.

It sounded as if something had struck the river barrier...

The river patrolman leaned out to look—the water was deep green and murky, littered with tangled weeds; he could make out nothing. Then the noise from the sluice mechanism grew louder and more frantic. The soldier cautiously prodded with a bamboo pole.

At that moment, a pale face slowly surfaced, staring upward.

It was a corpse, its face swollen and wrinkled from water, eyes wide open, clouded and utterly lifeless, fixed on the patrolman.

Though the river patrolmen were hardened men, chosen for their fearlessness, even they now felt their legs go weak.

For across the entire Haihe River, countless corpses had risen, floating thickly like passersby...

An old veteran beside him trembled: “Open the sluice!”

The younger patrolman, still dazed, was jabbed in the ribs by the veteran: “Hurry and open it! They’re coming through!”

At dawn, the Haihe Riverbank erupted in panic—yesterday a woman’s corpse had been fished out, accompanied by rumors of the water monkey; today, countless corpses surged upstream, floating and sinking against the current, all the way to the Sancha River junction.

Even the sluice gates within the city had inexplicably opened.

Someone saw shadowy figures moving upstream through the waterways leading into the city...

………

On the steam-powered paddlewheel boat, the twin paddlewheels spun as a group of tall, deep-eyed foreigners stood at the bow, staring at the dense clusters of floating corpses.

A gentleman in formal attire, wearing a powdered wig and a tailcoat, gazed at the corpses with an unreadable expression, his blue eyes as deep as the ocean.

“Archbishop Menor has fallen—he has become a heretic of the Original Sin Sect!”

“Menor was clever. Holding the ritual for the descent of the Original Sin Son in this ancient, decaying empire is the Church’s hardest challenge to prevent or interfere with. Many secret societies and nations of the Western Continent even welcome it—after all, the dead are all Easterners.”

The ambassador adjusted his cravat, speaking with casual ease.

But the gentleman’s tone differed: “Yet they will return to the Western Continent.”

“If we do not stop him now, next time he returns to the Iris Kingdom, to Camelot, he will make us pay a far greater price...”

“Our mission is to deliver the corpse of the Demonic God to the Eastern Emperor. Through our negotiations, he will lease port-city lands to us in exchange for governing rights. The King of the Deep Sea has lingered on our vessel too long—the sailors are growing uneasy; many have suffered hallucinations, and...” The ambassador pressed a handkerchief to his nose: “The lower classes are growing stinkier!”

The ambassador referred to the sailors’ fishy, salted-herring odor.

Though sailors were forbidden from entering the upper-class quarters, a faint, lingering stench still clung to the ambassador’s nostrils.

“The King of the Deep Sea is the most stubborn. Even with the Church’s Holy Nuns watching, His corruption grows worse. We don’t even know if He is dead or alive...” the ambassador sighed.

“He is the most widely worshipped Deep Sea Demonic God, with followers from East to West, from the Old Continent to the New. The one we are transporting now is merely a deity worshipped in the southern oceanic islands—away from His land of faith, He has grown far more docile.” The gentleman smiled faintly, gazing toward the ship’s hold.

Inside, over a dozen ascetics never left the foul, smoky hold—even though the ambassador believed the environment there had become unfit for human life.

A golden chest, chained in the center, surrounded by the ascetics.

It was carved with reliefs depicting the sacred savior of the Holy Church.

The steamboat reached the Sancha River junction, just as it was about to enter the Beiyun River—suddenly, no matter how hard the paddlewheels turned, the vessel could not advance an inch.

“Quickly summon the engineer!”

The ambassador hurriedly ordered.

The chief engineer crawled out of the cabin, sweating: “The engineers found no mechanical fault—only some force is holding the ship back, preventing forward motion.”

“The ascetics believe the force comes from the golden chest—it is the Demonic God fearing!”

Inside the cabin, the ascetics were in chaos, many holding silver pendants and sacred triangles, chanting scriptures toward the golden ark.

But the force only grew stronger—until the entire steamboat was pulled backward.

The ship reversed, capsizing the boats behind it...

“He fears!” the gentleman stared at the Sancha River junction: “The scholars were right—the Demonic Gods truly fear what lies buried here. Beneath this river junction, some supreme power rejects all demonic gods!”

“Even the King of the Deep Sea, Dagon, is no exception... Only the power of the Celestial Watchers could be this strong!”

………

The Ziya River rushed into the sea, merging into the Haihe at the Sancha River junction.

Upstream of the Ziya River lay the mysterious, unfathomable “Nine Rivers”—a name even all of Zhigucheng could not fully explain.

Everyone says Zhigucheng lies at the end of the Nine Rivers, but few could name them. Some claim the Nine Rivers are Tu Hai, Tai Shi, Ma Jie, Fu Fu, Hu Su, Jian, Jie, Gou Pan, and Li Jin—nine branches of the ancient Yellow River, split north of Mengjin.

The Nine Rivers were carved by Yu the Great in ancient times, to channel the Yellow River’s floodwaters.

They are also the location of the River Map, known as the Ancient Yu River Channels.

Today, a strange event occurred on the Ziya River—a stone figure, half a man’s height, with a single pillar-like eye, was fished up.

The stone figure’s face had been blurred by water erosion; it was bought for a fortune by a merchant from the north.

………

“The thirteen thousand six hundredth attempt at stream fragmentation has failed!”

Qian Chen withdrew again from the inverted time of the Kunlun Mirror, gazing at the Light of the Lamp-Father, seated atop the cosmic zenith: “Using the True Illusion Dao Fruit to refine this world has ultimately trapped myself—I no longer know which laws of this universe are real, which are illusion.”

“Which will be proven false, which will be forged into truth.”

“It is as if this photolithography machine is partly real, partly virtual data—without the Kunlun Mirror, I wouldn’t even know if the Tianfu True Talisman I etched could function.”

“In the time-shifted moments of the Kunlun Mirror, I have drawn talismans for three thousand years—and still cannot match one percent of my cultivation in the Elixir Path. If I had a choice, who wouldn’t rather simply draw a talisman with a brush and let the Dao reign over all?”

“If I had a choice, who would willingly push beyond the limits of Light Law, etching patterns onto the tiniest units of Qi with the Supreme Spirit Light, covering an area as vast as the entire Secret History—a world destroyed?”

“I feel that to break through the limits of Light-Etched Talismans, I must return to the Elixir Path.”

“It was the Supreme One who created this world—even the Primordial Dao Ancestor could only adapt. Thus, the Elixir Path is closer to the source than talismans. My advantage lies in this: my thinking is closer to the Supreme One, closer to the Dao, than any other in this world!”

Qian Chen closed his eyes in exhaustion—when, at that moment, the crow arrived, wings flapping, bearing intelligence from all directions.

He glanced briefly at two reports.

Beside him, the crow whispered carefully: “Master, demons run rampant outside. The winds of eight directions converge, Zhigucheng trembles. Should the Master appear to calm the people?”

Qian Chen set down the reports, raised an eyebrow, and said coolly: “Merely petty clowns. They don’t even amount to half my current task.”

He paused briefly, then said: “Very well. Take the eight talismans from Wanghai Tower... place one in each direction to suppress these vermin.”

“Since I have taken Zhigucheng, I will not let it descend into chaos.”

The crow looked up, gazing at the eight talismans hanging from the eight pillars of Wanghai Tower—skin, rope, metal, flesh, bone, armor...

Some like human skin stretched taut, painted with colorful tattoos; some like knotted ropes, ancient and natural; some like cast bronze bells, engraved with five thousand sutras; some like the face of Tai Sui, showing joy, anger, sorrow, and delight; some like charred human bones carved with bone patterns; some like the back of a divine turtle, bearing the River Map...

Eight talismans—some sinister, some sacred, some bizarre, some profound.

Arranged in the eight directions, radiating a chilling, uncanny aura.

The crow’s heart steadied; it flapped its wings and summoned the eight Administrators...