novelraw Chapter 108: The Chief Senior Brother of the Inner Hall
Chapter 108: The Chief Senior Brother of the Inner Hall
The black fish spirit had never anticipated that this seemingly feeble prey would suddenly erupt with such terrifying power. With no guard up whatsoever, it had its internal organs shattered on the spot by Li Qiuchen's Burning Blood Heart-Crushing Palm.
As everyone knows, a fish keeps its organs right behind its mouth, with nothing but flesh beyond that. You could stick two chopsticks in and scoop the whole lot out clean.
The creature's life force was already spent. It continued to thrash on pure reflex, its consciousness growing dim, and in those last fading moments it felt the hand still inside its mouth turn over and press against the roof of its upper jaw. A sharp wooden spike drove straight up into its brain, snapped off, and then took root and began to grow.
This was the Soul-Pulling Technique.
The awareness in its mind vanished rapidly. All it sensed was a new consciousness taking its place, beginning to control its body, and guiding it back into the river with the retreating floodwater in a fluid, entirely natural-looking motion.
On the bank, Li Qiuchen sank to the ground, cradling his bloodied arm, looking thoroughly wretched.
He only looked wretched. On the other side, things were genuinely far worse.
When the floodwater receded, Xu Qing and Young Master Liu had both collapsed, spitting blood and unconscious. The senior female student who had come to help was gone entirely.
More than fifty people had set out. The flood had swept away over ten of them.
Five inner hall disciples, including that senior student, were nowhere to be found. Most of the rest had swallowed enough water to leave them helpless and unable to put up any resistance.Bai Ke climbed ashore with the two children in his arms, took one look at the scene, and stood there in a daze.
How had it come to this?
Was it because he... had stuck his nose in where it didn't belong?
He looked around in bewilderment, then noticed Li Qiuchen lying in a muddy hollow, laboriously raising one hand to beckon him over.
"This..."
"Help."
Li Qiuchen pointed weakly at the horses that had scattered in the distance. "Take the fastest one... back to the county school... find a teacher..."
"Understood!"
The river had already returned to calm, and the scene was beyond his ability to manage alone. Bai Ke gritted his teeth, stamped his foot, and ran.
"Waaah..."
Hu Caiyi, who had been scared half out of her wits, finally came back to herself and burst into loud, heaving sobs.
Her crying set off the other students, who broke down weeping as well.
"Are you alright?"
Tang Xiaoxue walked over with her small pickaxe on her shoulder and fixed Li Qiuchen with a searching look.
Only she knew that Li Qiuchen was nowhere near this fragile.
Back during the New Year, she and Li Qiuchen had worked in perfect sync and taken down a whole gang of bandits together.
What was one big black fish spirit?
"Xuexue!"
Before Li Qiuchen could say anything, Hu Caiyi threw herself at Tang Xiaoxue and clung to her. "I was so scared!"
"You were eating fish quite happily just a moment ago. Why would you be frightened of a fish?"
"How can you even compare the two!"
Li Qiuchen pressed his bleeding arm to his chest and stood up. "Let's set that aside for now. Both of you find somewhere safe, away from the riverbank, and don't move out of my sight. I'm going to check on the others."
The scene was complete chaos. The two young masters who had organized the outing were both unconscious, and every other person still on their feet had gone completely blank.
Li Qiuchen directed those still capable of moving to gather the injured together and get them away from the riverbank, while splitting his attention to keep a hold on the great black fish in the river.
The Soul-Pulling Technique was not mind-reading.
He had no ability to simply reach into the black fish spirit's head and pull out the information he wanted.
What was strange, though, was that after lying on the riverbed for some time, no one had come looking for this fish.
What was this, had its companions abandoned it?
With that question in mind, Li Qiuchen guided the black fish spirit slowly down toward the bottom of the river.
The water was murky, and he couldn't make out anything at a distance.
He swept back and forth twice before finally finding, in a secluded corner, a wooden structure that looked to be of considerable age.
From the outside it resembled half a sunken ship, or perhaps a temple.
Even from a distance, a rank, fishy stench drifted out from within. Li Qiuchen prudently chose to withdraw immediately rather than go any closer.
Treasure inside?
The Old Blind One was blind, not brainless. Would it really leave anything good sitting around for someone else to find?
That said, one couldn't entirely rule out other possibilities. Perhaps there was something in there like a spirit tool that had been used to suppress the Old Blind One back in the day. Even if it was damaged, it might still have some use.
The strokes of fortune that ancient cultivators spent their lives seeking out were exactly this kind of thing.
At its core, it was all gambling.
Win the bet and a bicycle becomes a motorcycle. Lose the bet and eighteen years later you're a hero starting fresh.
Li Qiuchen had no interest in gambling.
With such a fine future ahead of him, with all those books in the Hongwen Hall waiting to be read, who had time to gamble on something like this?
After a brief survey of the riverbed turned up no further useful leads, Li Qiuchen guided the black fish spirit into a hidden patch of reeds and kept it out of sight.
The Dragon Scale River was genuinely far from the county town, somewhere around fifty or sixty li.
It was not until the dead of night that reinforcements from the county school finally arrived.
The first to reach the scene was a Foundation Establishment cultivator, accompanied by over ten students at the Qi Refining realm.
All of them were strangers. Li Qiuchen didn't recognize a single face.
The upper-year students of the county school rarely had anything to do with newcomers like them in ordinary times, and students above the Qi Refining realm were seldom seen at all. Xu Qing had been something of an exception in terms of visibility.
But just because you couldn't see them didn't mean they weren't there.
As the only person who had kept order at the scene, Li Qiuchen was brought before the Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Someone nearby made the introduction, "This is our inner hall's chief senior brother, Murong Feng."
Li Qiuchen's heart sank.
Even from a distance he had seen the dense Medicine Master's Blessing radiating from this person.
Those who carried the Medicine Master's Blessing could sense each other's presence, like two oil lamps lit in the darkness, plain and unmistakable.
But you couldn't truly be certain whether he was a bad person or not.
The Medicine Master's Blessing was a deeply mysterious thing.
It didn't come to you simply because you believed, nor did it withhold itself because you didn't. It was like a natural phenomenon, the way some people were born with six fingers and others were allergic to peanuts. There was no logic to appeal to.
All one could say was that those carrying the Medicine Master's Blessing had a high likelihood of straying from the right path. Not a certainty, but a high likelihood.
Li Qiuchen's heart churned with unease as he quietly readied himself to explode into action and make a run for it at any moment.
Murong Feng, however, showed no surprise or unease whatsoever. He asked directly, "Tell me exactly what happened, from beginning to end."
Li Qiuchen drew a deep breath, forced himself to stay composed, and gave a full and honest account of everything he had witnessed.
"The Old Blind One?"
Murong Feng frowned and asked the person beside him, "Is there a figure like that in the Dragon Scale River?"
"I haven't heard of one, though going by this account, there apparently is."
"The Bai family simply had a quiet year and it dares to come crawling out and cause trouble? Since when did the Li family of the Dragon Scale River have such a temper?"
"Personal grievances are..."
"It openly abducted inner hall disciples of the county school. What personal grievances?"
Murong Feng gave his orders without any hurry. "Junior Brother Han, take the two children and make inquiries along the banks. Find out exactly what their family did."
"Junior Brother Zhou, go pay a visit to the River Lord here and ask for an explanation."
"Junior Sister Qi, please take charge of caring for the injured disciples. Once they wake, send them back to the county school first. And as for you..."
His gaze settled on Li Qiuchen. "Junior Brother Li, come with me. I have a few questions for you."
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