Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 227: Flooding

As the sword light dissipated, Flood Dragon Mo lay on the ground, gasping for breath. Although his breathing was worse than before, he clearly felt a sense of relief.

The City God’s mentality was just as relaxed as that of the flood dragon on the ground. Although the events just now were very strange, in the end, Mr. Ji was by his side. The feeling of relief from having someone tall to hold up the sky when it fell¹ was not only something experienced by the common people.

Looking around the valley of Shuanggongqiao Village, most of the people in the houses had fainted from the dragon’s roar and the sharp piercing screams they had heard at close range. Many of them had blood oozing from their ears.

However, City God Li had acted just in time now, and a rainbow light instantly covered a large area. Most people would be fine. At most, they would suffer some temporary deafness after waking up, and it would not affect their future lives for too long. Of course, short-term panic was inevitable.

Ji Yuan still kept his supernatural eyes open with all his strength, carefully observing the black dragon’s body. At the same time, he also swept his gaze towards the sky, not daring to let his guard down for the time being.

Although his Dharma Eyes were quite miraculous, as the number of things he came to understand and came into contact with grew, the more Ji Yuan understood that some things could not be intuitively discerned even with his supernatural eyes fully open.

Strictly speaking, it was quite difficult to find a way to completely hide from him in this world, but one could hide their clues very well. This so-called insight was also relative; even with the Dharma Eyes, he needed to be extremely careful. He couldn’t rule out the possibility that something had escaped his sight.

After a long time, Ji Yuan breathed a sigh of relief. He figured everything should be fine for the time being.

“Alright, Flood Dragon Mo, are you able to talk about it now?”

As the black dragon gasped for breath, streams of white vapor gushed out its mouth. Otherwise, the water essence pouring out of its body gradually stopped.

He had originally wanted to use his dragon claws to support himself to stand up, but after struggling for a while, he didn’t have the strength to do so. He could only reluctantly move his dragon head towards Ji Yuan.

“Thank you… Thank you, Mr. Ji, for saving me… Otherwise, even if I, Mo Rong, had died… I’m afraid I would have no peace!”

Mo Jiao’s eyes swiveled, and his gaze swept around. His sight obviously roamed over the surrounding villages, and then over Li Baotian, the City God of Lishun Prefecture, before returning to Ji Yuan.

“Mr. Ji, I hope you might still invite the Dragon Lord to come. My dragon tendons have been pulled out, and my energy has almost dissipated. I don’t have much time left. But I won’t feel at ease unless I tell the Dragon King in person what weighs on my heart.”

City God Li Baotian frowned and spoke in surprise.

“Not even Mr. Ji can handle it?”

Flood Dragon Mo flicked his whiskers, eyes tired.

“Mr. Ji’s words are Edicts that can bind evil, so he is naturally quite powerful… But I still trust the Dragon Lord more… Mr. Ji, I hope you can forgive me!”

As the dragon spoke, he exhaled a fishy stench.

“Haah…hooh…haah…”

After speaking a few words, Flood Dragon Mo seemed to have expended a lot of energy and was out of breath.

“Okay, I will send a letter to the Tongtian River immediately!”

Ji Yuan didn’t mind. He had never been that petty. After all, this was a monster, so it was normal for him not to trust Ji Yuan. After all, he was not one of the dragon’s family members or relatives from the Tongtian River, nor was he like the River God of the Chunmu River who relied on him. Moreover, this was a dragon, and he would have his pride even when dying.

Without any hesitation, Ji Yuan pointed his sword at the sky. The Green Vine Sword soared into the air, breaking through the dark clouds in a few strikes of lightning. It flew straight up, faster and faster, before finally escaping into the strong wind and flying towards the Capital Prefecture.

“Mr. Ji, it may not be appropriate for Flood Dragon Mo’s body to stay in this village. Please, use your spiritual powers to transport him to Guangdong Lake.”

Considering the impact the falling dragon would have on the mortals, City God Li hoped that Ji Yuan could move the giant flood dragon, which was over dozens of zhang long, to Guangdong Lake, which was over thirty li away.

The “transportation” that the City God mentioned naturally did not refer to physically moving the body, but rather a type of technique, collectively known as the Transportation Technique. Among the different Transportation Techniques were methods of commanding ghosts and gods to move, as well as transformation methods of absorbing spiritual energy. Each subcategory had its own advantages and limitations.

But… Ji Yuan’s eyes widened as he looked at this huge creature with a dark body and dense scales. How could someone like him move this?

But truly wasn’t appropriate for the flood dragon to remain here like this. Once the rain stopped, it would definitely attract onlookers. Moreover, the dragon’s aura and power were so great that if the people observed it for too long, it might scare the timid ones to death.

Thinking of rain, Ji Yuan subconsciously looked at the sky, and thought that this heavy downpour might be of some use.

Without saying much, he flipped his left and right hands alternately, slid his sleeves back, and waved his hands in the air. Under the control of Ji Yuan’s spiritual energy, a large amount of spiritual energy was released along with the technique. At the same time, a chess piece appeared inside his sleeve.

Although Ji Yuan’s Dantian was not large, and the boundary of his spiritual power was not very expansive, the red Qi in his inner world’s alchemy furnace was very powerful. His biggest advantage was that it recovered quickly. As long as the spiritual energy maintained an acceptable rate of consumption, as it was now, he practically had an endless supply of the flow.

As Ji Yuan performed his technique, large tracts of rain began to gather nearby. In many places, they even had the sense that the downpour had dropped from heavy to moderate, or even light, rain.

“Crash shhh… shhhhh…”

City God Li noticed that the water beneath his feet was rising higher and higher. He looked at the houses in the surrounding villages and saw that their base had already flooded. However, although the water level was almost as high as the door, it did not flood into the interior of the houses.

‘What an exquisite water control ability! ’

Unless they had been worshiped as a land god from the very beginning, city gods and other ghosts and gods relied almost solely on the power of incense and faith to practice. They were more adept at using ghost techniques, or “Yin” techniques, and had great limitations in using techniques of the Five Elements. After all, they lacked a physical body. Even if they had succeeded in forging a golden body, they would obviously not practice any five-element techniques as their signature skill. However, that didn’t mean that the City God was unable to distinguish high achievements in such techniques.

As the saying went, just a small glimpse could reveal the larger picture; although it was only one aspect, it was enough for Li Baotian, the City God of Lishun Prefecture, to imagine the ability of a figure like Mr. Ji to use various imperial techniques.

“Crash shhh shhhh… Crash shh shhhh…”

As the water level rose higher and higher, the entire body of the black dragon was soon submerged.

The heavy rain was still falling, but it seemed as though the entire front half of Shuanggongqiao Village had been submerged in a large lake. The waves surged at the entrance to the village, but had no impact on the houses.

Ji Yuan actually used a rather tricky method, because he didn’t know that many techniques; for a long time he only knew a small fire-control technique a minor water-avoidance technique, so he had concerned himself primarily with fine control of techniques for the longest time.

The existence of the sound of the Edicts also allowed him to use various techniques smoothly. Additionally, he pulled out a chess piece and held it in his left sleeve, continuously absorbing the surrounding spiritual energy and the water essence that the black dragon had previously leaked, reducing the loss of his spiritual energy and increasing his efficiency. In this manner, he could control the water at his current level.

However, Ji Yuan quickly discovered a problem at this time. He looked back at the black flood dragon submerged in the water.

‘It seems…it won’t float in the water, but rather sink…’

The body of the flood dragon was too dense and very heavy. It was like a pile of black iron dozens of feet long, motionless in the water.

This was very embarrassing. With Ji Yuan’s current ability to control water, relying on the continuous recovery of Qi to use his spiritual energy, it wasn’t too difficult for him to create waves. However, if he needed the power of a tsunami, this would exceed the limit of his spiritual energy consumption.

To use the words of his previous life, the water could flow continuously, but it lacked a strong explosive power.

Fortunately, this embarrassment didn’t last long. After a few breaths, Flood Dragon Mo, who was originally in a dazed state, seemed to have regained some vitality, and was clearly in better spirits after feeling himself immersed in the water.

Mo Rong could feel the gentleness of the water flow, and he could also feel the abundant spiritual energy and water essence contained in the currents. He could feel his physical strength slowly recovering, and even the pain in his body was significantly alleviated.

“Thank you, Mr. Ji!”

Mo Jiao’s two dragon whiskers danced up and down in the water. A pair of amber dragon eyes opened again, and its four dragon claws slowly kicked backwards. Its entire body twisted in the water like a snake, pushing away waves in the current.

“Crash…”

A large amount of turbid water rose from the newly-created “big lake,” and a huge black dragon swam to the bottom.

Ji Yuan let out a sigh of relief. At the same time, he controlled the wind to continue blowing, causing the water to flow and form a gentle cresting wave, flowing all the way back towards Guangdong Lake.

The village was 30 li away from Guangdong Lake, quite an ordinary distance. For City God Li Baotian, Ji Yuan, or Mo Jiao, this distance couldn’t even be considered a walk. Now, it was a small “Long March.”²

The City God of Lishun Prefecture was still a little puzzled at first. Mr. Ji used such a an exquisite water control technique to help the dying black flood dragon swim back to Guangdong Lake. The amount of energy and spiritual power spent in the process was incalculable. It would be far more convenient to directly transport the dragon to Guangdong Lake.

But slowly, City God Li understood the deeper meaning. Flood Dragon Mo went from struggling in the waves to gradually swimming smoothly. Its energy and spirit had recovered, and water essence was no longer simply leaking out. In particular, the recovery of its “spirit” was an incredibly rare achievement.

‘As his legends say, Mr. Ji respects and values every person who is determined to seek the Tao and practice diligently.’

The City God concluded that because the black flood dragon was swimming at this moment, he had not only recovered some of his physical strength, but also a kind of confidence, going from not being able to stand up to being able to swim on his own. His heart was strong, as was his spirit, which could at least help him hold on for a while longer.

Shuanggongqiao Village was actually surrounded by a small creek, with an arch bridge in front and one at the back of the village, hence its name.³ At this moment, Ji Yuan was controlling the water around the flood dragon, and the two sides worked together to control the waves to pass the arch bridge at the front of the village. Then they entered the river gully.

However, the gully was too small to accommodate the dragon, so waves of water six to seven zhang high still followed it, spreading more than 10 zhang to either size of the gully. To some extent, it seemed as if a mighty wall of water was constantly advancing.

The creek was connected Guangdong Lake. The journey of more than 30 li would pass through some villages and towns. Some people in the surrounding towns saw large waves of water to either side of the gully in the heavy rain, rushing towards their side of the river. Many people shouted in panic.

“It’s flooding… it’s flooding!”

“It’s a flood!”

“Oh my goodness, how did the water in the creek get so high?”

But the panic only lasted for a short while, and soon people discovered that this tidal wave of flooding just rolled forwards along the small gully, as if a god had suddenly poured water out of a bucket. It did not cause much impact to the placed where people lived to either side of the riverbank. The little layer of water that rolled over them didn’t even come to above their ankles.

At the same time, there were also some living on higher ground, watching this strange flood from a distance. They could see that the center was turbid, and it looked as though some huge monster was stirring the water and advancing.

From Shuanggongqiao Village to Guangdong Lake, the whole journey of over 30 li took more than an hour. The total amount of spiritual energy Ji Yuan consumed was irrelevant; more important was the intense consumption of his mental energy. Even the way he gathered spiritual energy and collected the water essence scattered by the dragon while carefully controlling the “large wave” to move forward was incredible.

After the flood receded, the gully had been widened several times, and its shape in many places resembled the tracks of a winding snake. At the starting point, Shuanggouqiao Village, there was a thick and deep mark of something crawling on the ground in the large valley field, extending all the way to the gully.

T/n: There’s something deeply funny about JY describing their movements as a “Long March” with the connotations of guerilla warfare and intense strategizing, and then JY and the dragon just bulldozing down the creek with a giant wall of water (I’m thinking Interstellar mega wave style), and people going “yep, this is normal”

1. i.e. having someone more experienced/skilled take the lead
2. 长征 (Chángzhēng): expedition/long journey BUT SPECIFICALLY refers to the “Long March,” a military retreat by the Chinese Red Army (Chinese Communist Party) from advancing Nationalist forces (Kuomintang Party) during the Chinese Civil War in 1934-1935. The retreat took over a year, employing guerilla tactics to avoid blockades and ambushes and brought a lot of prestige to the Communist Party. In this case, they’re using the example in the story to allude to prolonged use of stealth tactics to avoid mundane notice as they move a ginormous dragon 15km/~10miles
3. Refer back to the prev. chapter’s footnotes for the name explanation