Chapter 91: Folk Water Monster (2)

Translator: Larbre Studio Editor: Larbre Studio

Ghosts? I’m afraid it’s not as simple as ghosts. Li Xianyu nodded. “I believe it.”

Huang Yicong was stunned instead. “You really believe in them?”

Of course I do, I have a lot of dealings with vengeful spirits. I just dealt with one in the restaurant… Li Xianyu snarked in his heart but smiled. “Things that I haven’t seen don’t necessarily exist, but why should I say they definitely don’t exist? So there’s no need to argue about if there’s ghosts in the world. After all, no one has ever seen them.”

Realization dawned on Huang Yicong as he nodded. “Actually I don’t know whether that thing was a ghost or not… My old home is in Chongming, the last stop of the Yangtze River that flows into the sea. The Yangtze River has very few tributaries scattered in Chongming. It just happens to have a river passing through my village.”

It was a summer night, when the stars were shining in the night sky. The gentle moonlight shone on the fields, into the woods. Every child who grew up in the countryside, would remember the calls of insects and silent nights in the rural village, years from now.

However, Huang Yicong did not want to recall his childhood in the countryside, and that night he went out with his companions to fish eel. For some reason, their harvest was poor, and the flashlight was on for half a day without catching an eel at all. There weren’t even water snakes in the field.

“Why don’t we go to the river and see?” a companion suggested.

“There are water ghosts by the river. You can’t go at night.” Huang Yicong was too timid to go as a child.

“Those are lies that the adults tell us,” his companion said. “Last time when my father and I were guarding the melon fields, it was so hot at night that I slept on the grave beside the melon fields.”

If they could not fish for eel tonight, there would be no braised eel with soy sauce tomorrow. Men have a special liking to eels and this proved the same for boys Huang Yicong did not resist the lure of the eel, and followed as his companion crossed the field banks to the river.

The tributaries of the Yangtze River were far clearer than they are now. The surface of the river was not wide and the waters were calm. The moonlight shone on the calm river, and it was deep and quiet. However, it exuded a chilling aura that young children did not realize.

They have been searching around the river for half a day, and the eels, which usually had their heads raised high, seems to be particularly weak today. There were none, which did not make sense. There was no industrial pollution in the river at that time, and in the hot summer there was bound to be eels triumphantly raising their heads.

They didn’t know why there were no fish at all, let alone eels. The river was particularly calm today.

“Why don’t we look for a cage?” After scratching his head, his companion came up with a terrible idea.

During the day, the villagers would throw shrimp cages and nets in the river, and the next morning they would come to collect the nets so that they could reap whatever they could. They could still serve a few plates of seafood without any problems.

It was not morally wrong to steal other’s fishing nets and shrimp cages, as everyone did it.

“You stole mine today. I’ll steal yours tomorrow.”

The only problem is that one’s eyes had to be sharp enough to find where the fish line was hidden. The river was connected to the Yangtze River and the sea, and it was not easy to find a fishing net and shrimp cage.

After searching for a long time, they couldn’t find anything. Huang Yicong was instinctively afraid of the river and urged his companion to return.

In order to prevent children from swimming in the river without permission, adults always scared children into saying there were water monkeys, water ghosts and so on.

“Found it.” Suddenly, his companion cheered, as he spotted a fishing line tied to a rock in the grass beside the river. He tried to pull the line up with all his might. “Come here to help too.”

Huang Yicong was also very happy to find the fishing net, which meant that they wouldn’t return empty-handed today. He just hoped there would be some good rewards in it.

The fishing net was pulled up but it was empty.

“Hey, the net is torn.” His companion scattered the net and crouched down to check it. The net seemed to have been bitten by something and there was not a single fish in it.

“I– we should go.” Huang Yicong was a little afraid of the fact that the net was not old but actually solid. This was fresh water and they were not in the sea. The creatures of fresh water would never be able to fight against creatures that live in salty water. So what could tear the net?

The river was especially quiet today, and even the eels didn’t dare to raise their heads. Did it mean something terrible qas in the river?

“No, I’ll look for more again. If I don’t bring home anything today. Dad’s going to reprimand me,” his companion said.

“I’m going to poop there, you can look for it yourself,” Huang Yicong replied.

“Don’t sneak back!” His companion shouted at his back.

When Huang Yicong returned, he couldn’t see his companion anywhere. He finally found his companion dozens of meters away, where he had already entered the river. His knees were submerged and there seemed to be a figure across from him.

The figure was half out of the water and the two seemed to be talking.

Seeing this scene, Huang Yicong was terrified. The river was deep, and the figure is estimated to be several meters tall. If it was standing inside the water, how tall must it be?

With the bright moonlight, Huang Yicong had a clear view of the figure. There was a clear distinction between it from humans, with a bald head and hair on the edges. It seemed to be handing something to his companion, his hands sticking out of the water. His giant palm had a thick web of fins between his fingers.

Huang Yicong cried out in terror. The thing dived into the water in a panic.

“That thing must be a water monkey.” Even after so many years, Huang Yicong said he still had a lingering fear of recalling what happened.

“What happened afterwards?” Li Xianyu continued to ask. There must be a follow-up to the story. If it ended like this, he wouldn’t have remembered it for so many years. Judging from the current situation, the figure was back to look for Huang Yicong.

“I pulled my friend out of the water, and he looked stunned and his eyes were empty. It was like he had lost his soul and followed me home in a daze. The next day, his soul-wandering situation spread through the village. His parents took him to a doctor and invited a half-immortal to summon his spirit back. They didn’t work. The village said his soul was taken by a river ghost.”

“On the third night, I was sleeping at home and suddenly heard someone shouting my name by the window. I opened the window and saw him standing outside my window and smiling at me.”

“I asked him why he came to my house at such a late time, and he said he had something to give me. He was normal then and seemed to have recovered. He gave it to me and left.” Speaking of which, Huang Yicong turned and his face was as pale as a piece of paper. “By morning, I heard the news of his death. His death was extremely tragic. An unknown creature ripped his chest apart and ate his organs. There was blood all over his bed. Strangely, his parents didn’t hear anything that night. Nor did he scream. The police found a sticky liquid by his bed that has a pungent odor, but could not say what it was. Until now, the case has not been solved.”

Li Xianyu lit up a cigarette and frowned. “How does that thing look like, do you still remember?”

Huang Yicong recalled carefully. “It looked very small, like a person. Its head was bald, and the sides of it was covered with hair. It was dark, and I couldn’t see it very clearly, but I just remembered that its skin seemed black. His eyes. His eyes were red and seemed to glow.”

Huang Yicong’s face twisted. “It’s a water monkey, very much like the water monkey everyone was describing.”

Raging Demonic Blood! Li Xianyu thought of this term inexplicably. After his resurrection, he quietly went to the Lightning King to see the video of his great-grandmother’s rampage.

The video showed Great-Grandma floating in the middle of the air, her eyes shining scarlet, as if a demoness had descended upon earth.

Lightning King told him that it was a genetic anomaly amongst demon descendants, known as Raging Demonic Blood.

This anomaly would occur in demon descendants under two circumstances. First, they were ready to gamble with their life. For example, when one consumed the drug “Real Man for Five Seconds”, the demonic blood would rage. Second, the demon descendants were blood-thirtsy.

These monsters devoured flesh for a long time, and their body functions remained in a hunting state. Thus, their demonic blood kept raging.

From this, it could be inferred that the figure suspected of being a water monkey was by no means good news.

“What did your friend give you?” Li Xianyu asked.

“It’s a ring,” Huang Yicong said and took off the ring he had always been wearing on his neck. More accurately, it was a jade ring.

So this is it… Li Xianyu was no stranger to it. When he entered school, Huang Yicong had been wearing it all the time. Everyone lived together for nearly three years and they knew the size of each other’s dicks, let alone a ring.

The ring looked very common and looked like a piece of inferior stock sold in markets. Even if it was really jade, it was worthless.

Without this story, Li Xianyu would not have noticed it.

“So, did you guess it too?” Li Xianyu took the ring and fiddled with it carefully. “It came back to get this from you.”

“My friend’s death may have been because he didn’t have the ring in his possession when the creature tried to find it. That might be why it ate my friend.” With his head bowed, Huang Yicong fondled the jade ring with his finger. “I’ve always worn it. It’s a keepsake left to me by my friend. I have never told this to anyone, they won’t believe anyway.”

But why did it let your friend keep the ring? Instead of asking this question, Li Xianyu looked worriedly at his gaunt-looking, dull-eyed roommate, and asked solemnly, “What have you encountered these days?”

“I don’t know if it’s an illusion or a dream, someone was talking to me and saying to give him back the object. When I woke up the next day, I was fine.”

What fine? You look like your friend.

“When did this happen?”

“It has been two days.”

Li Xianyu looked at him in silence. “If I recall correctly, your friend died on the third day.”

Huang Yicong shook and his face turned deathly pale.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep