“I was just about to go back to shore when I felt the oar hit something. As soon as the flashlight shone…” Old Master Zhang’s face changed color slightly. Even when he recalled that memory now, he was still frightened. “I saw a huge shadow swimming by the side of the boat, and my oar hit it. It seemed to be startled, and it sank into the water and disappeared.”
Old Man Zhang, a native of China, lived by farming and fishing. He was too familiar with this water area, but the things underwater were beyond his knowledge.
“Since half a month ago, most of the ships passing through our town have sunk. I don’t know why. There are also fishing boats in the town which capsized inexplicably. Everyone said that there was a water monkey in the river. I didn’t believe it, because everyone hadn’t seen it. It was just nonsense. However, I was scared that day. I saw something in the river.”
“I rowed hard to the shore, but I only managed to travel a few meters before a strong force underwater turned my boat over, and I fell into the water.”
“You saw the big fish?”
“It was too dark. It’s darker in the water. I couldn’t see clearly. I vaguely remember a long tail, thick, long and black.”
Li Xianyu frowned slightly. What fish’s tail was thick, long, and black?
“Is it an alligator?” asked Li Xianyu.
Old Man Zhang listened and patted his head. “It’s possible. Could crocodiles have appeared in the river? I’ve heard the news of species infestation on TV before. There used to be crocodiles here.”
He obviously didn’t associate the big fish in the water with the monster.
Great-Grandma kicked her great grandson and said, “Can you think of anything else besides crocodiles?”
Li Xianyu replied, “Giant salamanders?”
“That feeling was good. We’ll keep it alive this time,” Great-Grandma said as she rolled her eyes.
Dragon salamanders had a ferocious temperament. If this was really the case, Old Man Zhang would have already been converted into a ghost at the bottom of the river.
“What happened after?” asked Li Xianyu.
“Then, I climbed into the boat and rowed back to shore. I’ll tell you that I haven’t used a boat since that day. If it’s a crocodile, I dare not go to the river.” Old Man Zhang was still in a state of dread and hesitation.
“We still want to rent fishing boats. Don’t refuse us so fast. There is more than one family with fishing boats in the town. If you refuse, others will agree.” Li Xianyu took a stack of money out of his wallet. “Two hundred a day, I’ll give you one thousand as a deposit… Is the fishing boat big? Is this deposit enough?”
Ninety percent of the world’s problems could be solved with money. The last ten percent could be solved with more money.
Li Xianyu and his grandparents rented a fishing boat, as they wished. This was not a professional fishing boat. The small fishing boat handmade in the town could carry about eight to nine people. The old wood mixed with new wood made the boat look like it was often maintained.
“Old Master, there are a lot of mice in your town.”
As they neared the boat, a big mouse escaped from the boat. He hurriedly crossed the shallow water area and escaped into the melon field next door.
“Our town was called Cat Town a few decades ago,” Old Man Zhang said.
“Not Rat Town?”
“Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, there were rat disasters and rat-induced plagues in the town. Many people died. People who were more affluent moved away. The poor people stayed here to die. It’s said that this was caused by a rat spirit. However, one day, a cat god appeared in the town. It subdued the rat spirit. There is a temple on the mountain behind the town, dedicated to the cat god. The town had also built a temple dedicated to the cat god. Instead of worshipping heaven and earth, the town worshipped the cat god every year. They prayed to the cat god for a good harvest every year. In fact, people in the town started to raise cats to catch mice, and the rat disaster was solved slowly,” Old Man Zhang said. “However, the tale of the cat god temple was too bizarre, so we made up this legend to increase the level of persuasion.”
In traditional Chinese culture, there was also a particular code of conduct on building temples and offering sacrifices to gods. These gods must had been officially acknowledged. Otherwise, these landmarks were classified as immoral temples that housed evil gods, which could not be constructed.
“In recent years, the rat disaster has resurfaced. The town is full of rats. They ate the crops, as well as the supplies of grain inside houses. The cats are useless as well,” Old Man Zhang said. “In this era, all businesses lack ethics. Even cats lack ethics. They don’t know how to catch mice. They only know how to eat sneakily.”
They rowed into the river. The river was very wide, about 100 meters. Li Xianyu tried to open his spiritual eyes. There were no movements within the quiet river, as well as no traces of demonic auras.
Things in the river were the most difficult to deal with. For creatures on land, they would leave behind some traces. As foreign species lived in certain habitats for long periods of time, their scent would linger for a long time. However, the river was constantly flowing. Unless you saw it personally, it was difficult to find them.
The boat had its own fishing rod. Li Xianyu retrieved a few pieces of meat from his wallet and let Great-Grandma sit at the bow of the boat to fish.
“My adoptive father’s favorite pastime is fishing. He has to go fishing every other day. He dreams of going out to sea in a yacht one day. However, his salary is barely enough to feed me and Ice Shards. She’s not ambitious as well. She didn’t work after graduation and is still living off my adoptive parents. Their dream will still remain a dream. I hate fishing the most though. I don’t want to sit there for a long time and not catch any fish,” Li Xianyu said.
“I didn’t like fishing when I was young,” Great-Grandma said. “Later, I found that fishing was not bad, and it could kill time. I had all the time in the world.”
She held the rod in her hand and looked at the water. Her eyes were as mesmerising as the waves.
Here we go again.
From time to time, Great-Grandma would show the vicissitudes of life precipitated by the years on her face. Only in this way could Li Xianyu realize that she was a 150 year old antique.
Immortality should have been a happy thing. How many emperors and generals dreamt of it? Li Xianyu had harboured the same thoughts before. However, after inheriting his great-grandma, he found that living forever was not necessarily a blessing.
One couldn’t die, but one’s family and friends were all dead. When people beat time, they were still not invincible. The next hurdle waiting for them was loneliness.
Moreover, times were always changing, and people’s worldly views would not change. Great-Grandma was constantly suffering from the pain and helplessness from having her worldly views altered. According to the proportion of men and women in the country, the prevalent situation in a few years would not be monogamy, but polygamy, at this rate.
If Li Xianyu could live to that time… It would be better to commit suicide instead.
After floating in the water for an hour, Great-Grandma had caught several big fish and released them.
“What did you find?” Great-Grandma quizzed her great-grandson.
“There’s a small clue.” Li Xianyu rowed toward the shore. “From the case of the dragon salamander, if there was some ferocious foreign species in this water area, the fish and creatures in this water area would sharply reduce for a period of time. They would either be eaten up or scared away. It’s obviously not the case now. There are quite a lot of fish, big and small, and the proportion is even.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that that thing may be vegetarian, or omnivorous. They don’t just chase after fish.” Li Xianyu thought and continued, “There is another possibility that the thing doesn’t live in the water. However, in this case, it seems very strange.”
No, it was a shameless act. It didn’t live in the water, but it specially dived into the water to capsize boats and break the steel plates at the bottom of boats. This was an ultimate act of shamelessness.
As they docked on the shore, they went to Old Man Zhang’s house again and asked him how many nets he wanted to cast in the river. Li Xianyu and Great-Grandma strolled around the town. They were embarrassed as they couldn’t find a hotel.
It was a 40 minute bus ride from the county. There were no migrants here at all. At most, people from nearby villages came to buy things.
Hotels couldn’t operate in this town. However, Internet cafes were blooming all over the place. There were at least two on a street. Their business looked good.
Li Xianyu and his great-grandmother went into the Internet bar and occupied two computers, scanning all the popular online games on the market.
Playing games and shopping were the only source of entertainment for Great-Grandma in this new era. It was even better to have her great-grandson accompany her. As they played the game and stomped on everyone together, conquering cities amidst the harsh winters, the game would be more interesting.
…
“This is so much better than the Internet cafes in Shanghai.” Li Xianyu was surprised by the quality of the Internet bar here.
The environment of the Internet bar was strongly nostalgic. It was surrounded by smoke, and people cursing the words: go home, you idiot, the highlands are gone. There’s a team fight here. Is the ADC a fool? Doing a one-man show. Don’t dismantle the bomb first. The enemy is still preoccupied. Use the grenade instead.
This caused Li Xianyu to think of his childhood. After school, he and his friends would sneak to the Internet bar near the school. As they were not old enough to get online, they watched the older kids play games. There was always a smell of smoke in the Internet bar. Occasionally, they saw non-mainstream girls tapping the keyboard and playing that dancing game.
The big brothers, who wore straight white jeans and had not washed their hair for several days, didn’t care what they looked like. However, when they had three dollar nutritious instant noodles on the table, five dollar cigarettes in their mouth, as well as their hands on the keyboard, they were kings.
During that era, if a great beauty like Great-Grandma appeared in the Internet bar, there would be a 100% chance that a random young kid would come and chat her up. They would even touch her if they were more daring.
However, it was not the same now. In small towns with underdeveloped economies, people would still look, but no one would chat her up anymore.
Compared with the previous generation, this generation had a precious quality: self-knowledge. Poverty gave them self-knowledge.
They gamed until 10 P.M., before they would reluctantly leave the Internet bar.
“Great-Grandma, you were really good. In the team fight just now, if you didn’t kill the two carries, we would have lost.”
“You were also very good. You tanked all the damage. If not, I wouldn’t have been able to enter.”
The two of them were inflating each others’ egos, which meant that except for them, all the other three teammates were idiots.
At ten o’clock in the evening, almost no pedestrians could be seen in the town. They left the town, trudged along the ridge of the field and came to the place where the fishing boat was parked in the daytime. The fishing boat was locked on the stake on the bank. Li Xianyu took out the key to unlock it.
Great-Grandma gently kicked the fishing boat outwards, and then floated on board.
The river surface was very quiet. It was dark. The town’s lights could be seen not so far away. On the other side was a quiet field; the end of the field were the boundless mountains.
They floated on the river for a long time. It was calm.
Li Xianyu and Great-Grandma restrained their qi flow. He even dared not to open the spiritual eye. If any monsters were hidden nearby, the spiritual eye would scare it away.
“I don’t know if the wait and see method works. According to the information provided by Old Man Zhang and the clues of Hangzhou branch, the probability of fishing boat accidents is 70%, which is very high. With my trouble… I mean with my luck, the probability of its occurrence should be 100%,” Li Xianyu whispered. He fished up the net according to the position of the buoy, and was surprised to find that the nets, which were initially intact when they were dropped, had been bitten to shreds.
“What do you think it’s up to? It’s weird that it doesn’t hurt human beings and only creates trouble.”
“Whatever. If we catch it, let’s beat it up, you can drain its essence and we can leave.”
Splash!
In the distance, there was a sound from the water. It looked like the movement of a big fish, which was very abrupt in the silent night.
“I was just about to go back to shore when I felt the oar hit something. As soon as the flashlight shone…” Old Master Zhang’s face changed color slightly. Even when he recalled that memory now, he was still frightened. “I saw a huge shadow swimming by the side of the boat, and my oar hit it. It seemed to be startled, and it sank into the water and disappeared.”
Old Man Zhang, a native of China, lived by farming and fishing. He was too familiar with this water area, but the things underwater were beyond his knowledge.
“Since half a month ago, most of the ships passing through our town have sunk. I don’t know why. There are also fishing boats in the town which capsized inexplicably. Everyone said that there was a water monkey in the river. I didn’t believe it, because everyone hadn’t seen it. It was just nonsense. However, I was scared that day. I saw something in the river.”
“I rowed hard to the shore, but I only managed to travel a few meters before a strong force underwater turned my boat over, and I fell into the water.”
“You saw the big fish?”
“It was too dark. It’s darker in the water. I couldn’t see clearly. I vaguely remember a long tail, thick, long and black.”
Li Xianyu frowned slightly. What fish’s tail was thick, long, and black?
“Is it an alligator?” asked Li Xianyu.
Old Man Zhang listened and patted his head. “It’s possible. Could crocodiles have appeared in the river? I’ve heard the news of species infestation on TV before. There used to be crocodiles here.”
He obviously didn’t associate the big fish in the water with the monster.
Great-Grandma kicked her great grandson and said, “Can you think of anything else besides crocodiles?”
Li Xianyu replied, “Giant salamanders?”
“That feeling was good. We’ll keep it alive this time,” Great-Grandma said as she rolled her eyes.
Dragon salamanders had a ferocious temperament. If this was really the case, Old Man Zhang would have already been converted into a ghost at the bottom of the river.
“What happened after?” asked Li Xianyu.
“Then, I climbed into the boat and rowed back to shore. I’ll tell you that I haven’t used a boat since that day. If it’s a crocodile, I dare not go to the river.” Old Man Zhang was still in a state of dread and hesitation.
“We still want to rent fishing boats. Don’t refuse us so fast. There is more than one family with fishing boats in the town. If you refuse, others will agree.” Li Xianyu took a stack of money out of his wallet. “Two hundred a day, I’ll give you one thousand as a deposit… Is the fishing boat big? Is this deposit enough?”
Ninety percent of the world’s problems could be solved with money. The last ten percent could be solved with more money.
Li Xianyu and his grandparents rented a fishing boat, as they wished. This was not a professional fishing boat. The small fishing boat handmade in the town could carry about eight to nine people. The old wood mixed with new wood made the boat look like it was often maintained.
“Old Master, there are a lot of mice in your town.”
As they neared the boat, a big mouse escaped from the boat. He hurriedly crossed the shallow water area and escaped into the melon field next door.
“Our town was called Cat Town a few decades ago,” Old Man Zhang said.
“Not Rat Town?”
“Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, there were rat disasters and rat-induced plagues in the town. Many people died. People who were more affluent moved away. The poor people stayed here to die. It’s said that this was caused by a rat spirit. However, one day, a cat god appeared in the town. It subdued the rat spirit. There is a temple on the mountain behind the town, dedicated to the cat god. The town had also built a temple dedicated to the cat god. Instead of worshipping heaven and earth, the town worshipped the cat god every year. They prayed to the cat god for a good harvest every year. In fact, people in the town started to raise cats to catch mice, and the rat disaster was solved slowly,” Old Man Zhang said. “However, the tale of the cat god temple was too bizarre, so we made up this legend to increase the level of persuasion.”
In traditional Chinese culture, there was also a particular code of conduct on building temples and offering sacrifices to gods. These gods must had been officially acknowledged. Otherwise, these landmarks were classified as immoral temples that housed evil gods, which could not be constructed.
“In recent years, the rat disaster has resurfaced. The town is full of rats. They ate the crops, as well as the supplies of grain inside houses. The cats are useless as well,” Old Man Zhang said. “In this era, all businesses lack ethics. Even cats lack ethics. They don’t know how to catch mice. They only know how to eat sneakily.”
They rowed into the river. The river was very wide, about 100 meters. Li Xianyu tried to open his spiritual eyes. There were no movements within the quiet river, as well as no traces of demonic auras.
Things in the river were the most difficult to deal with. For creatures on land, they would leave behind some traces. As foreign species lived in certain habitats for long periods of time, their scent would linger for a long time. However, the river was constantly flowing. Unless you saw it personally, it was difficult to find them.
The boat had its own fishing rod. Li Xianyu retrieved a few pieces of meat from his wallet and let Great-Grandma sit at the bow of the boat to fish.
“My adoptive father’s favorite pastime is fishing. He has to go fishing every other day. He dreams of going out to sea in a yacht one day. However, his salary is barely enough to feed me and Ice Shards. She’s not ambitious as well. She didn’t work after graduation and is still living off my adoptive parents. Their dream will still remain a dream. I hate fishing the most though. I don’t want to sit there for a long time and not catch any fish,” Li Xianyu said.
“I didn’t like fishing when I was young,” Great-Grandma said. “Later, I found that fishing was not bad, and it could kill time. I had all the time in the world.”
She held the rod in her hand and looked at the water. Her eyes were as mesmerising as the waves.
Here we go again.
From time to time, Great-Grandma would show the vicissitudes of life precipitated by the years on her face. Only in this way could Li Xianyu realize that she was a 150 year old antique.
Immortality should have been a happy thing. How many emperors and generals dreamt of it? Li Xianyu had harboured the same thoughts before. However, after inheriting his great-grandma, he found that living forever was not necessarily a blessing.
One couldn’t die, but one’s family and friends were all dead. When people beat time, they were still not invincible. The next hurdle waiting for them was loneliness.
Moreover, times were always changing, and people’s worldly views would not change. Great-Grandma was constantly suffering from the pain and helplessness from having her worldly views altered. According to the proportion of men and women in the country, the prevalent situation in a few years would not be monogamy, but polygamy, at this rate.
If Li Xianyu could live to that time… It would be better to commit suicide instead.
After floating in the water for an hour, Great-Grandma had caught several big fish and released them.
“What did you find?” Great-Grandma quizzed her great-grandson.
“There’s a small clue.” Li Xianyu rowed toward the shore. “From the case of the dragon salamander, if there was some ferocious foreign species in this water area, the fish and creatures in this water area would sharply reduce for a period of time. They would either be eaten up or scared away. It’s obviously not the case now. There are quite a lot of fish, big and small, and the proportion is even.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that that thing may be vegetarian, or omnivorous. They don’t just chase after fish.” Li Xianyu thought and continued, “There is another possibility that the thing doesn’t live in the water. However, in this case, it seems very strange.”
No, it was a shameless act. It didn’t live in the water, but it specially dived into the water to capsize boats and break the steel plates at the bottom of boats. This was an ultimate act of shamelessness.
As they docked on the shore, they went to Old Man Zhang’s house again and asked him how many nets he wanted to cast in the river. Li Xianyu and Great-Grandma strolled around the town. They were embarrassed as they couldn’t find a hotel.
It was a 40 minute bus ride from the county. There were no migrants here at all. At most, people from nearby villages came to buy things.
Hotels couldn’t operate in this town. However, Internet cafes were blooming all over the place. There were at least two on a street. Their business looked good.
Li Xianyu and his great-grandmother went into the Internet bar and occupied two computers, scanning all the popular online games on the market.
Playing games and shopping were the only source of entertainment for Great-Grandma in this new era. It was even better to have her great-grandson accompany her. As they played the game and stomped on everyone together, conquering cities amidst the harsh winters, the game would be more interesting.
…
“This is so much better than the Internet cafes in Shanghai.” Li Xianyu was surprised by the quality of the Internet bar here.
The environment of the Internet bar was strongly nostalgic. It was surrounded by smoke, and people cursing the words: go home, you idiot, the highlands are gone. There’s a team fight here. Is the ADC a fool? Doing a one-man show. Don’t dismantle the bomb first. The enemy is still preoccupied. Use the grenade instead.
This caused Li Xianyu to think of his childhood. After school, he and his friends would sneak to the Internet bar near the school. As they were not old enough to get online, they watched the older kids play games. There was always a smell of smoke in the Internet bar. Occasionally, they saw non-mainstream girls tapping the keyboard and playing that dancing game.
The big brothers, who wore straight white jeans and had not washed their hair for several days, didn’t care what they looked like. However, when they had three dollar nutritious instant noodles on the table, five dollar cigarettes in their mouth, as well as their hands on the keyboard, they were kings.
During that era, if a great beauty like Great-Grandma appeared in the Internet bar, there would be a 100% chance that a random young kid would come and chat her up. They would even touch her if they were more daring.
However, it was not the same now. In small towns with underdeveloped economies, people would still look, but no one would chat her up anymore.
Compared with the previous generation, this generation had a precious quality: self-knowledge. Poverty gave them self-knowledge.
They gamed until 10 P.M., before they would reluctantly leave the Internet bar.
“Great-Grandma, you were really good. In the team fight just now, if you didn’t kill the two carries, we would have lost.”
“You were also very good. You tanked all the damage. If not, I wouldn’t have been able to enter.”
The two of them were inflating each others’ egos, which meant that except for them, all the other three teammates were idiots.
At ten o’clock in the evening, almost no pedestrians could be seen in the town. They left the town, trudged along the ridge of the field and came to the place where the fishing boat was parked in the daytime. The fishing boat was locked on the stake on the bank. Li Xianyu took out the key to unlock it.
Great-Grandma gently kicked the fishing boat outwards, and then floated on board.
The river surface was very quiet. It was dark. The town’s lights could be seen not so far away. On the other side was a quiet field; the end of the field were the boundless mountains.
They floated on the river for a long time. It was calm.
Li Xianyu and Great-Grandma restrained their qi flow. He even dared not to open the spiritual eye. If any monsters were hidden nearby, the spiritual eye would scare it away.
“I don’t know if the wait and see method works. According to the information provided by Old Man Zhang and the clues of Hangzhou branch, the probability of fishing boat accidents is 70%, which is very high. With my trouble… I mean with my luck, the probability of its occurrence should be 100%,” Li Xianyu whispered. He fished up the net according to the position of the buoy, and was surprised to find that the nets, which were initially intact when they were dropped, had been bitten to shreds.
“What do you think it’s up to? It’s weird that it doesn’t hurt human beings and only creates trouble.”
“Whatever. If we catch it, let’s beat it up, you can drain its essence and we can leave.”
Splash!
In the distance, there was a sound from the water. It looked like the movement of a big fish, which was very abrupt in the silent night.
