Chapter 72
Chapter 72
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 72
>Chapter Title: Dragon Gate Stockade
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“This… what… is this thing?”
The moment he saw those eyes, Li Huowang felt a strange sensation. His thoughts slowed down, and everything around him grew bizarre. In that instant, he no longer felt like he was lying in the water but suspended in midair.
The silt at the lake bottom began to churn, the murky water rapidly rising. Along with the silt floated those seven grotesque, writhing eyes.
As the silt fully enveloped Li Huowang’s body, he saw an enormous, rotting ugly maw larger than a mountain peak, and from deep within that massive mouth extended dense clusters of hooked black tentacles.
“No… I can’t let this happen.” Li Huowang summoned every ounce of strength to draw the sword from behind his back.
Just as he stood and thrust it toward his own neck, the tentacles whipped around him in an instant, their sharp barbs piercing brutally into his flesh and yanking him straight into that gaping blood-red maw.
Looking at the distant roiling mud and the struggling figures in the water.
Yuan Er, standing on a small sampan, glanced anxiously at the elder he was supporting beside him.
“Great-Grandpa, let’s head back. With the River Earl here, they’re done for.”
The elder shot him a cold glare and yanked his hand away. “Back to the stockade!”
Hearing the fury in the elder’s voice, Yuan Er’s heart raced.
But there was nothing he could do now. He just shoved two fingers into his mouth and blew a retreat whistle.
The small sampans swiftly turned, weaving through the dense reed marshes.
The entire reed marsh was vast, a natural labyrinth.
But the Yuan family had been born and raised here—they knew it like the back of their hands.
After circling around for a bit, the sampans finally arrived before a small island woven entirely from reeds. This was their home.
The whole island, including the little stockade on it, was woven from reeds.
To outsiders, it looked spectacular, but Yuan Er had long grown bored of the sight. He had other worries now.
Watching his great-grandpa lean on his cane and head straight for the stockade without a word, Yuan Er gritted his teeth and hurried after him.
The other Yuan clansmen saw this and silently followed. The atmosphere in the water stockade grew oppressive.
The stockade looked small from outside, but inside it was spacious enough even for pigsties and duck pens.
Finally, Yuan Er trailed his great-grandpa into a grand hall framed by massive fish bones and woven with reeds.
Candles and incense burned inside. At the center hung a vivid ink painting of a carp leaping the dragon gate, with five pairs of memorial tablets beneath it. This was the Yuan family ancestral hall.
“Kneel to the River Earl and the ancestors!”
Yuan Er’s expression grew grave as his knees buckled, dropping him to the floor. He kowtowed three times to the tablets.
He was no longer the overbearing boat boss from the water but a wayward junior awaiting punishment.
The elder paced back and forth a few times before suddenly swinging his rattan cane viciously at Yuan Er’s back and head.
Each blow landed with crushing force. Soon, Yuan Er’s head was split open, blood streaming, his body black and blue.
Yet even then, Yuan Er clenched his teeth and didn’t dare move.
Only when the elder tired himself out, leaning on his cane and panting, did Yuan Er turn and kowtow heavily to him. “Great-Grandpa, I was wrong.”
“Tell me, what did you do wrong?” the elder demanded, glaring furiously.
“I was too reckless. I didn’t scout the seedlings properly and rashly stirred the nest. I never expected a tough one inside. Those dozens of dead brothers—including the two nieces and nephews for the sacrifice—it’s all my fault.”
“Hmph! So you do know!” The elder’s anger eased slightly.
After a moment, Yuan Er’s face twisted in conflict. His voice dripped with reluctance as he said, “But earlier, I matched the code with that Taoist, and the kid didn’t respond at all!”
“Pfft.” The cane’s tip plunged straight into Yuan Er’s left eye, bursting it outright.
“Argh!!” Yuan Er clutched his blinded eye, writhing in agony on the floor.
But after a few rolls, he ignored the pain, trembling as he knelt straight again and kowtowed to the elder.
Sighing with worry at his junior, the elder said, “Second Boy, don’t think reeling in a few seedlings makes you some hotshot looking down on heaven and earth. Our line looks like easy pickings, but keeping it going long-term ain’t simple. Eyes sharp, hands quick!”
“I was gonna hand you the family reins, but you screw up and then blame others? That temperament—I can’t trust it.”
Hearing this, Yuan Er panicked. Ignoring the pain, he blurted, “Great-Grandpa! I was wrong, I really know it now! If I misjudge another seedling, poke out my other eye—I won’t complain a bit.”
“One eye for dozens of lives? In your dreams!”
With a grim wave from the elder, two onlookers outside slipped in, trays in hand bearing all manner of bizarre white fish bones.
“You mess up, you pay the price. Rules are rules, even for us Yuans. Survive the ‘Leap the Dragon Gate,’ and it’s forgotten—the family’s yours. Fail, and I’ll give you a grand burial.”
As the twisted bone spurs pressed toward his skin, Yuan Er’s body shook uncontrollably. But the elder beside him snuffed out any thought of flight.
The curved, warped spurs sliced slowly through skin, parted muscle, and fused with bone.
Just as Yuan Er gritted his teeth to endure the coming torment.
A shout from outside saved him. “Great-Grandpa! Trouble! Come quick—the lake’s turned red!”
When the crowd swarmed to the island’s edge, they froze, speechless.
The entire reed marsh lake had turned dark red, the air thick with a foul, fishy stench.
The panicked others instinctively turned to their stockade’s pillar—their great-grandpa.
The elder’s expression shifted rapidly before he waved a hand. “Set up the altar! Light the incense!”
Soon, incense and offerings were ready. The group knelt, bowing repeatedly to the reddened waters.
When the color didn’t fade, the elder spun decisively toward several women holding children.
The kids wore brand-new clothes, their hair tied into twin horn braids with red thread.
The elder solemnly took a cinnabar-dipped red brush and lightly dotted the brows of the two children.
Unaware of anything, the pair giggled happily.
The elder stroked their heads, then sighed softly, eyes closing in reluctance. “Go on.”
Two sturdy young men snatched the wailing women’s toddlers—barely three years old—and carried them toward the lake.
But as they reached the edge, hoisting the boy and girl high.
They halted abruptly.
“Hm?” The elder squinted at the dark red water. Something was emerging.
Under everyone’s gaze, a drenched Taoist climbed ashore, head bowed. Something protruded from his neck.
Peering closer, the elder saw it was a sword entwined with water weeds.
(End of chapter)