aircannonsinc Chapter 15 Two Great Calamities
Chapter 15 Two Great Calamities
"Could you tell me in detail what this calamity-level anomaly is like?" Mu Yuan pondered for a moment and asked softly.
According to the description of the supernatural in the Water Source Book, the levels of supernatural phenomena are roughly divided into low, medium, and high.
The vengeful spirit he encountered at the beginning was of low level, while the Myriad Souls Water Corpse was of high level.
The abnormal situation is divided into C, B, and A, with the calamity level above the A level.
Zhou Gang pondered for a moment, then slowly said, "Cangjiang City has a special geographical location, and there are actually two calamity-level anomalies."
Two.
Upon hearing this, Mu Yuan's eyes narrowed slightly.
I recalled the scene when I first floated above the city, looking down on the entire Cangjiang City. The rivers were like a Bagua diagram, scattered in every corner.
Besides the tributaries that dot the city, the most important rivers are the Yangtze River and the ring river that encircles the city.
"That's right." Zhou Gang nodded. "One is between the city's ring rivers, and the other is in the Yangtze River basin."
At this point, his face fell.
At the same time, there was also a sense of relief, and it was fortunate that the two calamity-level anomalies were not of the same kind, and their relationship was even somewhat hostile, and they had never joined forces to launch an attack on Cangjiang City.
Otherwise, Cangjiang City would probably have become the first city to be submerged by water long ago.
"The one in the city's ring river is named Lady Shenyuan."
Zhou Gang lowered his tone somewhat.
"She appears to be a drowned noblewoman dressed in the robes of a late Qing dynasty official. Half of her body is rotten, the other half is still lifelike, and she has been sitting on a sunken ship at the deepest part of the city's ring river for many years."
He paused.
"Anyone who sees her face will voluntarily walk into the water within three days and drown with a smile on their face."
The air fell silent for a moment.
"Lady Shenyuan is alright; compared to the other strange occurrences, she's relatively kind," Zhou Gang continued. "She appears very rarely; since she first appeared, fewer than ten people have drowned."
"Most importantly, there are boats that can be swallowed up in the Yangtze River basin."
"Swallowing the boat?" Mu Yuan murmured, repeating the name.
"Yes, Lady Shenyuan is just an occasional disaster. Our real mortal enemy is the Ship-Swallowing Creature." Zhou Gang's voice was even deeper. "It is neither human nor beast. It is a product of the fusion of a sunken ship at the bottom of the Yangtze River and some unknown underwater creatures."
"It is over ten meters long, and a row of bone spikes on its back protrudes from the water like a reef. When fishing boats pass over it, the bone spikes silently pierce the bottom of the boat. According to records, it has destroyed as many as a hundred fishing boats."
"It seems to have a peculiar obsession with ships. This is why it repeatedly clashes with Lady Shenyuan's sunken ship."
Zhou Gang paused for a moment.
"The scariest time..."
His voice was kept to a minimum.
"It once drove the Yangtze River to create a hundred-meter-high wave, carrying countless low-level monsters, to attack a town."
"Tens of thousands of lives were lost overnight in the river."
Upon hearing this, Mu Yuan's expression changed.
Tens of thousands of lives.
This is calamity.
"If Lady Shenyuan hadn't caused the sunken ship to appear and stopped its further actions, not only a town, but an entire county would probably have been completely submerged."
As soon as Zhou Gang finished speaking, the air on the riverbank seemed to freeze.
"If possible," Zhou Gang looked at Mu Yuan, hesitating, "you'd better try to communicate with Madam Chen Yuan."
Come to think of it, Mu Yuan was the first weirdo he had ever met who was willing to talk to humans on his own initiative.
Lady Shenyuan is still unable to communicate.
Although she caused few casualties, humanity always harbors an instinctive fear of the unknown.
Only by having as much information as possible about her specific situation can I barely feel at ease.
But she can't even do the most basic communication.
"I understand." Mu Yuan nodded slightly.
"I hope you can stay rational," Zhou Gang said earnestly, looking at him. "So we can cooperate and protect this city."
Mu Yuan remained silent.
He simply nodded slightly.
Zhou Gang led Xu Meng away, step by step.
Mu Yuan watched them disappear into the night, then slowly sank into the river in the old town.
The purifying power continued to emanate, gradually making the entire kilometer-long body of water under his jurisdiction clear.
Zhou Gang's words still echoed in my mind.
Two bizarre events of catastrophic magnitude.
Especially the boat-swallowing boat.
The heinous crimes committed.
If I could find a way to kill it... I wonder how much merit I would gain.
But he knew that his current strength was insufficient.
Even if the opponent appears in his waters, with the power to suppress his aquatic energy, it would be enough to crush him.
Ultimately, it's just too weak.
Incense.
There must be more incense offerings.
At the very least, you need to improve all the skills you have acquired.
In addition, they cannot stay in the jurisdiction indefinitely.
It's time to venture out and explore, to seek out more of the bizarre.
More merit.
More incense offerings.
Mu Yuan's gaze was deep and unfathomable as he quietly sank to the bottom of the river.
Time slips away quietly.
Before I knew it, a week had passed.
Today, the old town welcomed back a long-awaited bustle.
The atmosphere was like celebrating the Chinese New Year.
After such a long period of publicity, the news of the restoration of the river in the old town spread quickly.
Many people traveled from the city center specifically to see for themselves what the once murky and smelly stagnant river has become.
In addition, the stories told by Jiang He's family were passed down by word of mouth and spread further and further.
People's curiosity about this "river god" gradually turned into reverence.
Today, this reverence has become a tangible reality.
On a vacant lot next to the main street, a temple no bigger than a courtyard stands quietly.
With its blue brick walls, gray tile roof, and slightly upturned eaves, it looks as if it grew directly from the mottled old buildings in the old city.
But the five large, gilded characters at the entrance were particularly eye-catching—[Cangjiang River God Temple]
The golden lettering gleamed warmly in the sunlight, as if it were truly glowing.
The temple was small; after all, the entire old town only housed about a hundred households.
But the scent of incense was surprisingly strong.
Offerings were laid out on the stone steps at the entrance—apples, pastries, a whole roasted chicken, a pot of sake, and several sticks of incense burning brightly, with wisps of smoke rising.
There are no statues of gods in the temple.
There was only a blue stone tablet about half a person's height, facing the entrance.
The surface of the stone tablet was polished smooth as a mirror, and a blurry human figure was carved on it—wearing a long robe, with his face indistinct, but standing with his hands behind his back, gazing into the distance, with a surging river behind him.
It is not an elaborately carved statue of a deity.
It's just a few rough strokes, but somehow it makes people feel like it's something special.
Because it was carved out by the residents of the old town, one stroke at a time, by their own hands.
Without any artist's guidance, the stone tablet was pieced together entirely from each household's imagination of the word "river god."
Some people say he should be young and handsome.
Some say he should be dignified and solemn.
After arguing for a long time, the final solution was to leave blank spaces instead of carving faces.
And so, this faceless stone tablet stood in the very center of the temple.
Strangely, the moment everyone sees this stone tablet, they instinctively feel that this is him.
The person who made the river clear again.