Chapter 5.22 (Extra)

It was so fast that it was already too late by the time Fatty’s curse fell. Poker-Face ran over, pulled his knife from his waist, threw himself directly into the water, and rushed towards the shadow.

I was only half a second slower than him. I rolled over and pushed off with my foot while grabbing my knife in my left hand and rushing into the water, stabbing the blade down. The water was dark, and the lights on the shore couldn’t reach at all. I only felt my knife penetrate into the salty layer beneath the water’s surface. Fatty yelled from behind me, “Leave that evildoer to me!” He then slammed into my back, plunging me straight into the dark lake.

When I got up again, I saw that the miner’s lamp on shore was shining on the water’s surface. It must have been the old man’s doing. I wiped the water off my face and saw a huge black shadow swimming in the waist-high water in front of me. It came close to my crotch and then quickly retreated.

Fatty shouted, “Little Brother!”

I crouched down so that Poker-Face could grip my shoulder as he jumped out of the water and stepped on Fatty’s shoulder. Fatty lifted himself up and yelled: “Up you go!”

With two people’s strength superimposed, Poker-Face sailed over my head and jumped straight into the water in front of me with a big splash. Fatty and I wobbled three or four steps before we finally regained our balance. I saw Little Brother standing in chest-deep water and shaking his hair as the waves slowly subsided.

I knew it had gotten away, so I immediately called the other two and told them to head back to shore.

As Poker-Face re-sheathed his knife and looked at the water silently, I noticed that his arm was bleeding.

The old man was utterly shocked as he stood there holding the two miner’s lamps, letting them shine on the water’s surface.

“What is it?” He asked.

I shook my head as I rummaged through my backpack for some bandages. I didn’t manage to hit it with my knife just now. I only saw the shadow in the water. The fish was very long and didn’t seem to be an ordinary fish. If anything, it was more like an eel or some other kind of creature. And its huge size had me wondering if it was a snake. But based on how it swam in the water just now, it didn’t seem to be a big snake.

Fatty took a sip of salt water, picked up his equipment, and continued moving farther up shore. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, “This fat master knows. With that thing in the water, I dare not sleep close to the lake.” He went more than ten meters away before he took out various kinds of stoves and began arranging them. It was the end of the year and the temperature was cold. We would soon get hypothermia if we didn’t change our clothes.

I gave Poker-Face a look. He must have reached that thing when he attacked it twice just now. I wanted to ask him what it felt like, but he suddenly raised his hand and threw something at me.

I caught it and held it up to the miner’s lamp. It was a copper coin about the size of a kumquat. It was all green and corroded, so I couldn’t see the words on it clearly.

“What’s this?” I asked him.

“Scales.”

I see, so this is what he tore off from the fish just now. It turns out it’s a copper coin. Is the fish’s body completely covered in these copper coins to form scales?

What’s this situation? If this fish isn’t from here naturally, then was it farmed?

We waded through the water and walked over to Fatty, who had already taken off his clothes and was starting to assemble his guns. “Damn it. Stupid ass aquatic creature also wanting to be called king. It’s not a fish, but an evil spirit. Looks like our trip has turned into exorcising evil for the people. As soon as I see it, I’ll shoot it.”

When I showed him the copper coin, he paused and looked at the old man, who was still staring at the lake. “Damn it,” He whispered. “This aquatic creature is even wearing armor. This really is an evil spirit. We didn’t run into Benbo’erba (1) did we?”

“The lake definitely isn’t so simple.” I said. “Look at what’s on this copper coin.”

There were some green hairs on the copper coin, which were a kind of algae that came from aquatic plants. It was exactly the same as the old man’s story. I thought it was strange that aquatic plants would grow on fish scales, but I figured the copper coins and scales had been merged together after so many years and these aquatic plants had been growing on the coins.

Fatty looked at the old man and motioned for me to keep quiet. We didn’t want to stimulate the old man any more than he already was. “It appears that what the old man said was true.” He whispered. “Damn it, the evildoer in the water hurt the young and innocent son who still had his life ahead of him. If it still wants to attack us, we simply can’t tolerate it. We’ll have to serve it up as fish head tofu soup.”

I didn’t think this kind of fish existed, but I was still full of doubts. I had been halfway through asking the old man the real story just now, so I had to keep going.

Poker-Face and I also took off our clothes and wrapped ourselves in space blankets. I went to check his wound and found that it was a very neat cut right on his wrist. I subconsciously worried for a brief moment that I had accidentally hurt him when I followed him out and stabbed down into the dark water. But I knew that it was impossible. I had held the knife in my left hand because that was how Black Glasses had trained me. If a person in front of me attacked on my right, then I had to slash with my left hand so it wasn’t as easy to accidentally get injured in the chaos.

I dragged the old man back and told him to get himself together and finish telling me what happened. The old man trembled a little. He might have initially thought it was unacceptable for his son to die at the hands of a fish, but after really seeing the fish, he realized that it wasn’t so simple.

“Guys, this must be what killed my son.” He silently put down the miner’s lamp. “I finally saw that thing.”

“Why didn’t you tell us directly before?” I asked him.

The old man was still trembling and not listening to me at all. But even though he was trembling, he started touching his fishing rod and assembled a harpoon.

I wanted to keep asking, but Fatty stopped me and asked me to treat Poker-Face’s wound first. Poker-Face had already disinfected it by himself so I helped him wrap it. I asked Fatty if he had ever encountered something like this before. I wasn’t afraid of the natural environment, but a wall had been built in the water and there were copper coins on the fish. It showed that this place had been built artificially, but it didn’t look like an ancient tomb. What was this place for and who built it?

Fatty loaded the bullets into his guns and said to me, “Don’t ask so many questions. Come on, you know the rules. We go in fully armed. I think the answer is just above the stone wall. Let’s go up and see what’s at the center of the lake. The old man’s in a bad state now, but rest assured, he’ll tell us everything after I give him a few bottles of wine tonight.”

<Extra 5.21> <Table of Contents><Extra 5.23>

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TN Notes:

(1) It’s a “Journey to the West” character. 1 of 2 minions of the Nine Headed Beast. It’s a catfish that stays at the top of the pagoda in the Golden Ray Monastery after a Buddhist relic is stolen. Some info here