Over the years, a rumor has been widely spread among people who make a living by the water in the Chunmu River section on the edge of Chunhui Prefecture, saying that if someone falls into the water and is in critical condition, there is a high chance that the Chunmu River God will come to rescue them.
Unlike many people who just listened to the story, the man on the pleasure boat was named Li Jinlai. He knew that many of the rumors were likely true, and he had already found three people who had fallen into the water to verify the facts.
One is a drunk who fell into the water from a flower boat, one is a woman who accidentally fell into the water while washing rice, and the other is a child from a village outside the city who went to the river with his friends to play with homemade lanterns.
These three people could not swim or for some reason they could not swim even if they knew how to swim. They must have been choked after falling into the water, but at the critical moment, a faint green light flowed in the water, which carried them to the shore and saved their lives.
Among them, the child who fell into the water was the most bizarre. According to the child, they ran out of the village to play on the river beach outside the village. When they were releasing homemade lanterns, they saw a very delicate lantern on the river. It looked like it was carved out of wood patterns, and the candle on it had been extinguished. Compared with the thatched paper lanterns made by the children, it was like a phoenix and a crow.
The children immediately tried their best to get the lantern from the river a little further away. The lantern kept floating along the river, and the children kept chasing it. Finally, they came to a section of the river very high above the shore. The lantern stopped on a piece of water grass, and the children wanted to fish it out there.
As a result, one child stepped on the protruding stones on the shore wall, pulled his friend's hand and leaned down to grab the lantern. As soon as he grabbed the lantern, he felt a pulling force, which directly caused him to fall into the water, and his friends on the shore were almost dragged down.
Then the child felt his feet entangled by water plants, and the entanglement was very deep. Although he could swim, he choked on a lot of saliva. When he opened his eyes under water, he saw a scary figure with long hair and a swollen body. The frightened child was so panicked that he could only paddle around.
At this time, a green light approached underwater, and then the bottom of the water vibrated. The child felt his ankle pushed and something seemed to sit under his buttocks. He floated directly to the surface and was sent to the shore. He crawled up to the shore by himself and was pulled by his friends.
The villagers, especially the elders, firmly believed that the children must have encountered a water god, or a water ghost, and that the green light must have been the river god of Chunmu River coming to save them. Fortunately, the children's parents respected the river god.
Afterwards, the three of them all believed that it was the Chunmu River God who saved them, so they either went themselves or were brought along by their parents to the River God Temple with offerings to express their gratitude.
Of course, Li Jinlai did not just ask these three people, he also asked many more people who fell into the river. Many of them were rescued by luck or by boatmen who were good at swimming. There is no telling how many people fall into the Chunmu River every year. After all, only a small number of them truly claimed to be saved by the river god.
The three people had a consistent statement, that is, they all saw the underwater green light in a daze, and all three of them saw it when there were few people around, or at least when there was no one around who could provide strong assistance.
However, the man was almost certain that the one who saved these people was not the River God of Chunmu River, or at least not the River God himself, but a magical fish in the river.
Last autumn, Li Jinlai went to the wedding banquet of the wealthy Wei family in Anda County, Qinglu Prefecture, where he was a relative. He saw that the family had a wooden sculpture of a carp in the ancestral hall. After asking carefully, he found out that it was not a carp but a black carp, but they did not say why they were offering it.
Later, at the dinner table, an elder from the Wei family who was closer to him told him a story. He said that their second master had encountered a strange thing more than ten or twenty years ago. He fell into the water after getting drunk and was rescued by a magical fish in the Chunmu River. Later, he met an immortal in the fog on the way to play.
The elder did not say much about the details of the encounter with the immortal, or maybe he was not clear about it, but he did clearly talk about the incident of the divine fish saving people. Since then, it is said that it was because of the immortal's guidance that the Wei family enshrined this green fish statue in the ancestral hall.
Li Jinlai knew very well that the Wei family in Anda County had been doing well over the years and had a lot of wealth. After hearing this, he felt that the Wei family's prosperity must be related to this.
It so happened that Li Jinlai happened to hear about several cases of people being rescued from drowning in Chunmu River in Chunhui Prefecture. He became very interested in it and spent some time to inquire about it. He became more and more certain that what he heard from the Wei family was true, and he became more and more interested.
Li Jinlai knew that a very powerful wizard had settled in Chunhui Mansion. It was said that even the dignitaries in the capital had to be in awe of this wizard. Li Jinlai had asked the wizard for a way to become rich and powerful before, but the wizard said that he was a cultivator practicing Taoism and could not help him.
But this time, Li Jinlai visited the wizard with "sincerity" again, told him the matter of the magical fish, and begged him again. The wizard finally relented and gave him a talisman for his "sincerity", and also gave him some detailed instructions.
So Li Jinlai, who could swim, designed this scene on the river at night in the hope that the magical fish would come to rescue him.
…
"Help... Is there anyone here to help? Someone has fallen into the water...!"
The woman's scream could be heard far away in the quiet Chunmu River at night, and the man in the water was struggling very hard. In fact, the man was struggling with all his strength and even drank several mouthfuls of water.
Although it is the beginning of spring, the weather is still very cold and people are wearing thick clothes. The man did not expect that entering the water with clothes on would be so restrictive, as if a piece of iron was weighing him down.
The river water was also very cold. The man, who was a good swimmer, had already drunk several gulps of water. He was so cold that he shivered even when he spoke.
"Quick, keep shouting, quick..."
"Okay, come quickly, help me...!"
The woman shouted with all her might, and even in the distance, a boat with a lantern hanging on it turned around and headed in this direction, but it still seemed very far away.
“Swish… Snap… Snap…”
The man's hands and feet were frozen stiff and he paddled hard in the water. His clothes were as heavy as iron.
"Cough cough cough... Ugh..."
He drank several sips of water, but after such a short while, the man's spirit and physical strength could no longer hold out.
"No, I can't... I have to go up, I, I have to go up!"
The man paddled hard and swam close to the pleasure boat beside him, then stretched out his hand to grab the side of the boat. However, his physical strength did not allow him to jump to a certain height in the water, and the side of the pleasure boat was not very low. He could not grab the side of the boat and could only touch the side of the boat bottom.
"Xiaoyu, hurry up, pull me up!"
The man in the water was very anxious. His head was floating in the water. He kept waving his hands to get on the boat, but each movement in the water consumed more of his already precious energy.
"Ah? Grab my hand, grab it!"
The woman on the boat also began to get anxious. She could see that something was wrong with the man, but she was very afraid of water. She huddled by the side of the boat with one hand stretched out and the other hand tightly holding onto the side of the boat. Their hands touched several times but then slipped away.
"Use the boat pole! Use the boat pole!"
The man was very anxious, and the woman became more and more panicked. She grabbed a bamboo pole on the side and struggled for a long time before adjusting the direction and handing it over. However, she was almost dragged into the water by the man who thought he was grabbing a life-saving straw. She was so scared that she quickly let go of the oar.
The man, who had just come out of the water, fell back into the water with a "plop" and choked on the water several times. His physical strength was almost at freezing point.
I wanted to hold on to the bamboo pole but it didn't have enough buoyancy.
"Hurry, throw some tables, chairs and stools down, I, I am almost dying..."
The man was really panicking now, but he didn't have enough strength to utter a complete sentence.
The woman on the boat was more panicked than the man under the boat. After hearing this, she quickly ran back to the cabin of the houseboat, looked around, found a stool and moved it up.
Hurrying to the side of the boat, the man swam in the water with much less energy than before, but when he saw the woman coming out with a wooden stool, he felt some hope again. At this moment, there was no time to think about the magic fish; the wooden stool was his life-saver.
"Hurry, throw it to me..."
The woman then quickly threw the wooden stool into the water, but...
With a "bang...", the wooden stool hit Li Jinlai's forehead. His eyes turned white and he sank straight into the water.
"Ah——Mr. Li! Mr. Li——someone come and help me——"
The woman on the boat screamed in fear, and the sound was several levels louder than before.
The moment Li Jinlai was hit by the stool, the thought in his mind was "My life is over!"
However, not long after he sank into the water, a green light swam past him, and then lifted him up slowly to the surface.
The man had already passed out, and the woman on the boat was obviously unable to pull up a man whose clothes were soaked with water, so with a "bang...", the man was thrown directly onto the pleasure boat amid a loud splash.
"Mr. Li, Mr. Li!"
The woman looked at the ripples on the water which were gradually calming down, and ran to the man in panic, pushing and slapping him.
"Cough... cough cough..."
Li Jinlai spat out a few mouthfuls of water, and he was obviously not awake yet. He just curled up and shivered instinctively.
Ji Yuan, Bai Qi and the old turtle in the water were all looking in that direction, watching the big blue fish underwater swimming back after rescuing the man.
"Haha, it's just a farce."
Ji Yuan said lightly.