Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 76: Two Sides to Understanding

“Wait a minute, let me turn the fish over…”

One of the scholars saw that one side of the steamed fish on the plate had been eaten, and hurried to flip it over,¹ but the words he used made the boatman and his son very unhappy.

“What nonsense! Turning the fish over? It’s turning it ‘right,’ scholar, the word you have just spoken is unlucky for those who make a living on the water!”

The tone of the old boatman’s explanation was obviously a little unhappy, but the scholar immediately figured out the connection and quickly apologized.

“Oh, hey, me and my big mouth!² Don’t blame me, boatman, don’t blame me. I don’t understand the language of people living on the water, so I’ll punish myself by drinking a glass of wine!”

“Haha, scholar, you are just greedy! Let me take the fish spine away, no need to move it, just eat it like this!”

In the cabin, there was constant noise and laughter, mixed with the clear giggles of a child laughing. Occasionally, someone would eat fish too quickly and get a bone stuck in their throat, and the old boatman would come to their rescue with chopsticks.

The fisherman’s rice wine was not too strong and tasted good. In addition, there was plenty of fish and meat to go along with it tonight. It was the first time that everyone had come together, so they finished the meal in half an hour and but were not tired.

“Dad, I need to go to the bathroom!”

At this moment, the young boatman felt a tightness in his lower abdomen and wanted to urinate.

“Go ahead, go ahead, just aim a little farther, okay?”

“Sure!”

The young boatman agreed, put down his chopsticks, and left the cabin.

Although he had drank a lot of rice wine, its alcohol content was not high. In addition, the young man had a good physique due to working on the boat, so he did not feel dizzy when walking.

He stood steadily by the mast, close to the side of the ship, untied his belt, relaxed his body, and a line of water rushed into the river.

“Haah…”

He felt comfortable after relieving himself. However, as he was tying his belt on his trousers, the young boatman suddenly heard the splashing of water in the river on the other side of the boat. He turned his head to take a look, and saw ripples on the surface of the water to that side.

“Splash…”

The sound of water splashing came again, this time from the bow.

The boatman approached the bow of the boat nervously and stood on tiptoe to look around, but he still didn’t see anything other than the ripples on the water. He felt a little fearful and hurried back into the cabin.

The group inside was still eating and drinking, and the few people who saw the young boatman running back with with a bad expression on his face were confused as to what was going on.

“Dad… there seems to be a water lord…”³

The young man lowered his voice and spoke to the old boatman. “When I was peeing just now, it felt like the splashed underwater near the boat were too abnormal, which seems like some of the situations I’ve heard in the rumors.”

The old boatman’s expression suddenly became serious when he heard those words. He looked at the others and didn’t say anything. Then he grabbed a wine glass and walked out of the cabin.

Everyone was a little confused as to what was going on, but the old grandfather seemed to have thought of something, and pulled his grandson back to prevent him from going out to watch the fun.

In this world, there were warriors at the peak of the martial arts world who were looking to make a breakthrough, and there were people obsessed with searching for immortality, but very few had ever met gods or immortals. In truth, however, the strange terrifying stories of ghosts and monsters actually did not occur too far away from ordinary people.

Some people would have encountered them without even realizing it. Some maintained reverence through word of mouth, and some died inexplicably without anyone ever realizing it.

To put it bluntly, it was just a matter of seeking different things. Evil spirits coveted human bodies, souls, flesh, and yang energy, and ordinary people were very afraid of them; on the other hand, mortals’ pursuit of immortality and the gods was ultimately biased towards selfish desires, which was opposite the aims of those beings. Even if cultivators had desires similar to those who sought them, most would not bring themselves to get involved.

Even the City Gods, no matter how busy they were, would hear so many stories of greed, selfishness, and dirty deeds in the temple each year. They would be so fed up with them and so annoyed that they would not care about involving themselves unless it were necessary.

Also, the difference in each party’s perception of time was too great. Setting aside immortal cultivators and gods, even monsters and demons often had been practicing for many years. In addition, information did not circulate easily. The world was so large, but few knew much about it. There were few things that happened that were widely circulated, and even fewer that could be traced back after the event had occurred. Instead, local anecdotes and folk traditions were passed down orally in villages.

In the area around ​​Xiaoshun River and Chunmu River, the people who had been sailing on ships for many years had more or less all heard of or even encountered strange things on the water. The so-called “Water Lord” was a respectful name for water spirits.

Although the other people in the black canvas cabin on the boat were a little confused at first, they soon vaguely understood. They watched the old boatman carry the wine to the side of the boat and reach out to pour the wine into the river.

“If you don’t offend me, I won’t offend you. I’ll give you a glass of wine as a token of my respect. Water Lord, Water Lord, please take your leave!”

He poured the glass of wine and muttered a few words. Although he couldn’t see anything with the naked eye, he seemed to be able to see ripples on the water surface.

“Okay, let’s continue eating. As long as we don’t go into the water, we’ll be fine. When we come back, we can all go to the River God Temple of Chunmu River to pay our respects.”

Although no one saw what happened just now, it still gave some people goosebumps, and they all went back inside the cabin. Only Ji Yuan stayed at the entrance of the black canvas tent and squinted at the river.

A man like Li Daniu was strong qi, blood, and vital fire. He could probably swim even if there were a water ghost. Ordinary water ghosts couldn’t do anything to him. However, if he couldn’t swim, then if he encountered a water ghost then he would most likely sink to the bottom and drown, even if he could be saved.

But Ji Yuan knew very well that the creature under the water was not a monster, but rather a big greedy black carp.

“Haha, others are relieving themselves off the side of the boat, and you’re still here to beg for a drink?”

Ji Yuan said with a smile, and ripples appeared on the water surface again. The big black carp swam away.

‘If only all spirits were this cute! ’

. . .

In the early morning, the boat’s passengers woke up to the occasional slight shaking of the boat, and found that it was already dawn. Ji Yuan had long been sitting quietly at the bow, while the old boatman had woken up before dawn and set sail once more. He would have breakfast, then take a nap and let his son take over.

Ji Yuan didn’t have a book in his hand at the moment, but instead held another white jade slip in his sleeve, which was the fragment of Spirit Binding manuscript given to him by Qiu Feng.

The so-called magical method of binding the spirit had two meanings. One was for the practitioner himself to concentrate his mind to assist in his practice. The other meaning was even more powerful, in Ji Yuan’s opinion, in that it could actually “bind the spirit.”

In his previous life, when he had read Journey to the West, Sun Wukong had asked, “Where is the old God of the Land?” and the Land God had appeared to greet him.⁴ This was the meaning of the second aspect of the concept of spirit binding.

However, this kind of thing was also very taboo. People who had this ability must use it in accordance to the actual situation and occasion. To put it simply, if Ji Yuan truly learned all of the skills of Spirit Binding right now, then stood on the boat and wanted the River God of the Chunmu River to come greet him…

Yes, he would have successfully committed the ultimate act of seeking death. He estimated that the River God’s body would not be affected at all. Instead, he would become angry and send a big wave to beat Ji Yuan to death.

What were the occasions for which this skill was truly suitable?

For example, some mountains, rivers, lakes or other beautiful places often gave birth to some magical creatures. Through talent and efforts, they would more or less have a connection the the earth and water veins. They would barely be regarded as gods, ones who had not officially been enthroned, and would be worshipped in land temples in small villages.

“Mr. Ji, come and have some rice porridge!”

The young boatman shouted from the cabin, interrupting Ji Yuan’s thoughts.

“Coming!”

After a response, Ji Yuan brushed himself off and stood up to go have breakfast together.

With a bowl of white porridge and a handful of black mustard greens on top, Ji Yuan walked out side the cabin again, holding his bowl and chopsticks. He stood there to let he breeze help cool the porridge, blowing on the surface of the bowl and scraping the porridge with his chopsticks to eat.⁵ Even though the boat occasionally shook, his body remained stable.

With the help of the southeast wind, the small boat Ji Yuan was riding was slowly overtaking the large ship due to its lighter hull. At the moment, the two ships were only a dozen zhang⁶ apart.

Many people on the large ship looked at the small boat and saw several passengers on the boat drinking porridge from their bowls, as the people on the boat also looked at the large ship.

A young man in white was lying on the side of the ship, staring at the small river boat in a daze. He saw the gentleman in gray standing against the wind and looking out over to where he lay. If he were not holding a bowl, the man would have formed a natural harmony with the boat and the river.

1. If you have a large fish, you have the spinal cord and ribs in the center going from the top of the fish down to the bottom; the parts you eat are to either side, so when it’s lying down on the plate half of the fish is above the spine – which they’ve eaten – and the other half is beneath the spine, so you have to flip the fish over to get to it. ↩︎
2. Lit: “look at my mouth” ↩︎
3. 水 (shuǐ): water/river, 公 (gōng): highest order of nobility/honorable (gentlemen) ↩︎
4. Don’t quote me on this exact line translation, feel free to go look up Journey to the West and read it yourself! It’s quite good. Lots of story arcs, some character development, Sun Wukong kicking a**, dragons, strong female characters, etc. Or you can watch these fantastic summary videos by Overly Sarcastic Productions 😀 ↩︎
5. T/n: please tell me how you eat porridge with chopsticks… T_T ↩︎
6. ~10 dozen feet (~120ft), a little over three dozen meters (~40m) ↩︎