Chapter 291 |
“Last night, when he spoke, it seemed like he called this thing ‘incense offering’?”
Moon-Biting Dragon tilted her head, pondering, not quite understanding what incense offering was. But since it was obtained for her by that person, it must be something good.
She could feel that this mysterious energy called incense offering had a very powerful force.
If used for hunting, it might be very effective.
It’s just that there’s too little of the incense offering right now.
She thought regretfully.
However, at this moment, the Moon-Biting Dragon at the bottom of the river suddenly shivered, hearing a woman’s voice.
“…I pray to the River God, please ensure my husband returns safely.”
“If my husband can return home safely, I, your devotee, am willing to offer incense and candles every day and sacrifice a sheep to fulfill my vow.”
But she was clearly underwater. How could someone be talking to her?
Moon-Biting Dragon looked around in panic but found only the quiet flow of the river water wtih no woman in sight.
Yet the woman’s voice continued to rise, now with a hint of sobbing.
“…I beg the River God to have mercy, my husband has always been honest and upright. He went on a long journey to collect debts for his employer but encountered a storm on the way and fell into the river, his whereabouts unknown.”
“I beg the River God to be compassionate and ensure my husband returns safely.”
“My husband’s name is Ji Bochang, a resident of Tianwan Village in Baizhou Prefecture…”
The woman’s low sobbing kept resounding, and Moon-Biting Dragon finally realized where the voice was coming from.
It was coming from the distant River God Temple.
When she focused her senses, her soul seemed to return to the River God Temple, standing on the temple’s table, she saw the kneeling woman below.
As the woman cried in sorrow, Moon-Biting Dragon felt as if she had formed some profound connection with the river she was in.
At that moment, her body seemed to merge with the waters of the Yushui River, feeling the river’s currents ebb and flow within her senses.
In this mysterious sensation, she vaguely felt the location of the man named Ji Bochang.
He was near a river bend far downstream of the Yushui River.
“…Another mortal who wants to treat me like a maid.”
She listened to the woman’s plea, instinctively feeling some aversion.
She was not someone to be ordered around by just anyone!
But as the woman continued to speak, crying more sorrowfully, Moon-Biting Dragon couldn’t help but become irritated.
“Do all mortal females cry so much? It’s so annoying!”
With a thought, she forcibly blocked out the woman’s crying.
In an instant, the sounds from the River God Temple could no longer enter her mind.
This subconscious blocking was almost an instinctive action, as natural as eating or drinking, something she knew how to do without being taught.
With the noise gone, she immediately dove back into the water to continue hunting evil creatures, no longer paying attention to the woman’s crying.
But after attacking two water monkeys, she let the prey escape both times.
She should have easily hunted such small creatures now that she had grown in size.
There was no way she should have missed.
The hunting-failed Moon-Biting Dragon was somewhat angry.
She inexplicably thought of the woman’s crying again…
“Ah, so annoying!”
The Moon-Biting Dragon at the bottom of the river suddenly thrashed her body and swam towards the downstream river bend.
She could faintly sense that the mortal named Ji Bochang was nearby.
This mysterious sensation was profound, and Moon-Biting Dragon swam with the current for a long time before reaching that river bend.
The place was secluded with dense forests, without even a path, completely wild.
Moon-Biting Dragon climbed onto the shore, following that mysterious sensation to the reeds by the riverbank, where she saw a man with a pale face lying motionless in the reeds, with only a faint breath remaining.
“Is this the husband of that mortal female?”
Moon-Biting Dragon leaned over Ji Bochang, looked at him carefully, then tilted her head in confusion.
“Right, what exactly is a husband…”
She didn’t quite understand, but it must be someone important.
Otherwise, the mortal wouldn’t be crying so sadly.
Moon-Biting Dragon stretched out her claw, grabbed the unconscious man, and dragged him like a little chick back into the river.
The ten-zhang-long Flood Dragon moved swiftly in the water, the currents around her claws parting, preventing the unconscious man in her grasp from drowning.
In this way, she swam upstream against the current, reaching the River God Temple outside Baizhou City.
At this time, outside the River God Temple, a crowd of onlookers had gathered.
“I heard that after last night, the clay statue of the god in the temple changed!”
“Yes! I just went in and saw it. The River God has shown its divine presence!”
“The statue now looks lifelike, as if the River God himself has descended!”
“Tsk… it seems that Lu Yuanwai’s piety has moved the River God.”
This newly built River God Temple was just a small temple by the river.
There were no walls, no courtyards, just a solitary little house with a statue of the River God inside.
Now, because of the tale of the River God’s divine presence spreading, many curious people from the city rushed to see it.
The small River God Temple was surrounded by people, inside and out.
Everyone took turns entering to admire the lifelike and magnificent statue of the River God.
Each person who came out was amazed, which made the onlookers outside even more curious and eager to see for themselves.
But at that moment, the water of the nearby Yushui River suddenly churned.
Following that, a figure floated up from the water, carried by the current towards the shore.
This miraculous and bizarre scene immediately caught the attention of the spectators outside the River God Temple.
“Hey! Wait! Look! Someone’s coming up from the river!”
“Isn’t that a dead body? It’s not moving…”
When the unconscious man was carried by the current to the shore, the crowd immediately gathered around.
After realizing the man was still breathing, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s not a corpse, it’s alive.”
“But who is this? How did he float up from the water?”
People were filled with curiosity.
Yet amidst the crowd, suddenly there came a cry of extreme joy from a woman.
“My husband! It’s my husband!”
The woman, staggering, pushed through the crowd and knelt beside the unconscious man.
After frantically checking that her husband was not dead, she immediately turned around and knelt joyfully towards the temple of the river god, knocking her head on the ground in gratitude.
“Thank you, River God, for your mercy! Thank you, River God!”
“From now on, I will offer daily worship to you!”
The woman’s cries of joy left the onlookers exchanging puzzled glances.
But soon, someone recognized the unconscious man as Ji Bochang, the man from Tianwan Village who had gone missing in a storm.
“Is it really Ji Bochang who was lost at sea? He’s actually alive?”
The overjoyed woman happily shared with the people around her that she had prayed in the temple that morning, and in the afternoon, her husband had floated down the river to her.
It was a miracle from the River God!
Instantly, the crowd dispersed, all rushing to buy incense.
“The River God has really shown a miracle! I want to ask the River God for its blessing!”
“I want to ask the River God for its blessing too!”
The Moon-Biting Dragon, having long since left the waters of Baizhou City, was lurking at the bottom of the river, preparing to ambush a water monkey ahead.
Suddenly, a surge of intense, mysterious energy flooded into her body.
This energy, known as the power of incense offerings, poured into her incessantly, crazily accumulating inside her.
And in her ears, suddenly there were many noisy and chaotic voices of mortals.
“May the River God bless my success in the school exams…”
“May the River God bless my mother-in-law to drop dead tonight…”
“May the River God…”
The sudden influx of a massive amount of incense offering power, along with those noisy and irritating mortal voices, completely bewildered the Moon-Biting Dragon.
She stayed stunned in the water, momentarily forgetting about the water monkey not far away.
“What… what is going on?”