[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-dao-dust-pearl":3,"chapter-the-dao-dust-pearl-the-dao-dust-pearl-chapter-970":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","The Dao Dust Pearl",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2360471,4614,"Chapter 970: Corpses Like a Forest, Water Like a Dragon, the Holy Son Crosses the Yin River in a Boat","the-dao-dust-pearl-chapter-970",970,"\u003Cp>The crowd was noisy and agitated!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All beings were in chaos...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lao Guangming stood on Jintang Bridge, watching the river filled with countless corpses floating upward like tiny boats against the current; on the bridge stood members of the Five Rivers Corpse Retrieval Team, yet no one dared to enter the water to retrieve them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Haihe River had become a path to the netherworld—the San Tu River!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lao Guangming stood on Jintang Bridge as if standing on Naihe Bridge.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But he knew these corpses were not vengeful ghosts—they were more terrifying than ghosts, for each was merely a part of one single “person.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The people of Zhigu by the riverbank murmured anxiously, their unease spreading panic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some had already begun scattering spirit money and burning incense on the shore to appease the dead, but Lao Guangming knew these were not spirits—they were living, newly born “lives.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though they were corpses, they were also “alive.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The charlatan Daoist Cui was dragged over; he glanced at the hundreds of floating corpses in the river, then turned and walked away: “Uncle, I can drive off ordinary zombies and water ghosts for you—just feed me two meals. But this? Do you think I’m fool enough to touch it?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Still, Cui went and fetched his senior brother from the Tianhou Palace.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Faced with this horrifying sight, the senior brother said nothing; he simply took the red string hanging from the Clay Doll Mountain, tied it from one end of Jintang Bridge to the other, blocking all the floating corpses behind him from advancing further.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Strangely, though the corpses swam upstream, no matter how fiercely the current rushed, none could pass the Sancha River Mouth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And once the red string was tied across Jintang Bridge, the endless stream of corpses surging upstream were all halted...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the Tianhou Palace’s senior brother only shook his head and sighed: “This red string used to bind dolls is a thread from death to life—it ties the child like an umbilical cord. Normally, for yin spirits, once this string is tied, no matter how powerful they are, as long as they defy nothing of the Tianhou Niangniang’s law, they cannot cross it.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The other day, that Wu official from the Xuanzhen Sect blocked a ghost ship and borrowed our red string—this was why.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“But these floating corpses are neither alive nor dead; though they resemble ghosts, their essence is demonic. My red string can hold back vengeful spirits, but not demonic corpses for long. And demons are inherently perverse! Once they enter the city, something terrible will surely happen.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The veteran captain of the Five Rivers Corpse Retrieval Team bowed to the old Daoist with a riverman’s salute and said: “Thank you, Immortal, for your aid. Is there any way you can bless us, so our brothers may enter the water to retrieve the corpses?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The captain’s son slowly raised his head and grabbed his father’s arm: “Father, they said these are corpse demons!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Don’t touch them!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Other elders also stepped forward to stop him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“We live by retrieving corpses—even if we earn the dead’s yin money, pulling bodies from the water and returning them to their ancestral soil, sparing them from fish and shrimp—that’s a meritorious deed.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The old captain said earnestly: “The people don’t shun us—they know we earn an honest living.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Now that demonic corpses are swimming upstream into the city, disaster is coming. Since these corpses are on the Five Rivers, it’s our duty to handle them. One, to prevent this disaster; two, because it’s our trade. Just like how every festival, everyone gives offerings to the Water Gods—yet when fire breaks out, we retreat? That’s absurd!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hearing this, the crowd was moved.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Immediately, the retrieval team selected eighteen men with the best swimming skills, donned diving suits, lit protective incense, paid respects to the Fire God and the Nine Rivers Dragon King, and prepared to enter the water.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cui Er carefully pulled out a stack of tattered yellow paper and shouted: “Wait! Let me issue you a plague notice—maybe we can trick Old Yama.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Tianhou Palace’s senior brother also tied a red string around each man’s wrist.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cui Er asked each man’s birth details, calculated the current hour, then pulled out a bald-bristled brush and a small inkstone with barely any ink left.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The old Daoist beside him sighed in admiration.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Cui kid, you’re actually using that underground yin ink dug from a Han tomb? Didn’t you say you’d save it to write your own yin contract?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cui Er sighed: “I’ve got no fate for that! Second Master is generous—I can’t be stingy!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The old Daoist thought a moment, pulled out a copper box; inside was bright cinnabar ink: “This Longquan Eight Treasures Seal Ink was imperial-gifted when the Emperor came to pay homage to Tianhou Niangniang. Later, when he developed his lust for immortality, he dared not return! Use it—if you run out, I’ll ask my junior brother—he should still have some.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cui smiled, called each retrieval man forward, wrote the plague notice in black ink on yellow paper, and had each man press his thumbprint into the seal ink.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only the living issue plague notices—gangsters sign and stamp them to show courage, and as a kind of death contract; if anyone later reneges and sues, the authorities can verify his own signature on the notice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Who ever issues plague notices to the living?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So every step followed the gangsters’ custom.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu Daoyuan, the ghost-litigation man of Zhigu, stood with hands tucked in his sleeves, watching. He saw the retrieval men, now clad in diving suits, holding ink-soaked ropes, ready to dive.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He leaned forward and shouted: “Don’t fear! If you die down there—I’ll sue the White Bone Goddess and get your souls back!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Everyone knew he was foul-mouthed but meant no harm—he was fiercely loyal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So they ignored him, one by one, plunging into the river like ducks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The old captain led the way, swimming to a corpse, circling behind it, and wrapping his inked rope around its head—it was a male corpse, likely a dock laborer, sturdy and muscular; though bloated in water, his face was still recognizable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This job was dangerous, so they started with the easiest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Retrieving corpses was less feared with male bodies—they floated face-down and never suddenly opened their eyes. Women carried heavy yin energy; children were safe unless something went wrong—and then it was fatal. Both floated face-up; if they opened their eyes and looked at you, death was certain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Whether water ghost, soul-taker, or corpse-revival, the old captain’s ancestral trade had methods to handle them all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If a floating corpse opened its eyes, or a sunken corpse clenched its mouth—that was a dire omen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But if a floating corpse opened its eyes entirely white, or a sunken corpse held its breath—then even immortals could not save you.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No sooner had the old captain wrapped a corpse than he felt a hand grip his ankle underwater—but he remained calm, held his breath, and sank. Sure enough, two blue-tinged hands clamped his right ankle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He tied a red string to the hand; instantly, the hand released his ankle and sank straight into the Haihe.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just as the old captain thought the danger passed and prepared to surface, he noticed a colorless rope tied around his ankle, adorned with a copper coin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It looked familiar—he reached down, rubbed it, wiped off the green algae, and saw four inscriptions on the round coin with a square hole: “Expel Evil, Ward Off Demons!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The old captain’s mind went blank...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This coin was a huaqian—a charm coin, modeled after copper cash to ward off evil and bring fortune; originally made in the palace from gold and silver, engraved with auspicious phrases, hence called palace coin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This particular “Expel Evil, Ward Off Demons” coin—he knew it well—it was a palace-born fetal coin.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During the Jiazi Great Year, the Emperor ordered the Imperial Astronomical Bureau to cast a batch of mother coins to stamp clay molds for casting gold and silver palace coins. One somehow ended up in the hands of a young eunuch, who spent it as ordinary cash when he left the palace.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After several twists, it reached his father’s hands.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As a child, he was sickly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His father often said he’d give him the coin; as a boy, he wore it for protection—but whenever he went out on a job, his mother would find him and rehang it on his father’s body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He’d touched its pattern hundreds, if not a thousand times, since childhood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that moment, the old captain thrashed violently underwater, clutching the coin, diving deeper to find the hand he’d tied the red string to.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His greatest regret in life: he’d spent his whole life retrieving corpses—but never retrieved his own father.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet as he looked around underwater, he saw shadowy figures everywhere—as if this weren’t the bottom of the Haihe, but the crowded East City Gate; the corpses on the surface were terrifying, but beneath, ten times worse.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His sudden movement disturbed his breath—he exhaled a stream of bubbles underwater.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that instant, all the corpses upstream, previously closed-eyed, opened their eyes—pale, pupilless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Corpses reached out hands—countless pale hands, waving like waterweeds beneath the river; the old captain felt the current wrap around him, dragging him toward that forest of arms.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Helplessly, he tumbled into the corpse forest at the riverbed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The red string on his wrist had turned black...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that moment, the “Expel Evil, Ward Off Demons” coin in his grip shattered—the current around him twisted violently; the old captain spun wildly, and a hand suddenly lifted him to the surface.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The retrieval team had just secured a few corpses when they saw the old captain burst from the water, gasping, staring in horror around him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Get out!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Get to shore—we’ll find another way, drain the river! No more diving!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The old captain shouted desperately.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But at that moment, hundreds of corpses on the river flipped over—faces upward, men and women, young and old; those tied with ropes circled like boats toward them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jintang Bridge trembled—stones rattled, dust rained from cracks, wooden structures groaned, beams creaked.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The red string stretched taut—as if an immense, invisible force was battering it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Tianhou Palace’s senior brother on the bridge grew grim; people screamed and fled the boats...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A vortex had appeared on the Haihe’s surface—dozens of corpses spun around it, colliding, arms raised toward the sky like a tree growing from the river.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The vortex grew larger, revealing the riverbed’s dense mass of corpses...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that moment, every heart sank.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The retrieval men held hands, forming a circle on the water, kicking away floating corpses—but they were helplessly drawn closer to the vortex.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The dense corpses stood like a forest; their arms waved as if the vortex had opened a gate to another world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cui Er threw his tattered banner into the vortex—it flapped without wind, the words “Iron-Mouth Divine Diviner” fading, revealing four large characters: “Plague God Er Er.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The vortex’s expansion halted instantly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But then, a pale-blue ghost hand suddenly shot from the vortex, grabbing the banner’s pole.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then a second, then a third—countless hands emerged, gripping the banner, slowly dragging it into the vortex.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cui Er unfastened his Daoist robe, flung it into the air—it grew with the wind, spreading across the river as a yellow cloth three zhang square. He shouted below: “Climb up—quick!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beneath the cloth, a hand’s shape grew clearer, then a head wrapped tightly in wet fabric, then a second, third hand—the head rose slowly, revealing a human form with arms outstretched, facing them, wrapped in the yellow robe like a long gown.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Behind him, a second, third hand emerged—countless hands sprouted from his back, ribs, shoulders like a dharma wheel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the river’s surface, he was encased in the robe—the earth-yellow fabric clung to him, shaping a terrifying image.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like the King in Yellow!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only Lao Guangming recognized the grotesque figure—it was the missionary from the foreign church: Menor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The only path to survival had become the most terrifying evil.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The retrieval men pressed back-to-back, tightly huddled—finally, the dense corpses beside the vortex wrapped around them, each man pinned by seven or eight hands; the corpses, pulled by the vortex, swirled around them like a giant corpse-ball.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before the eyes of tens of thousands on the Haihe’s banks, these men were about to be dragged into the vortex...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Onlookers shuddered; some wept in silence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that moment, the crowd blocking East City Gate was violently shoved aside; someone opened their mouth to curse—then saw who it was, and fell silent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>East City Gate led straight to Jintang Bridge; people fleeing the bridge were rushing toward the city gate when the crowd ahead parted like a tide.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thousands were shoved aside.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A group of Xuanzhen Sect disciples, clad in red-black robes, wearing demon-god masks, cloaks billowing, held Xuanzhen Seals in one hand and waved their cloaks like black banners—those they touched felt suddenly lighter, then inexplicably pushed to the sides.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Step by step, they forced through the crowd toward Jintang Bridge.\u003C\u002Fp>",2183,"2026-06-21T05:40:02.617Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","63544b3ef7f6f5509e884ca624dbc9f64201b46fe221174bd2eb183f465f65bd","the-dao-dust-pearl-chapter-971","the-dao-dust-pearl-chapter-969",1000,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-dao-dust-pearl-cover.jpg"]