Water Veins

By the riverside.

Yuan Kong fiercely pointed a wooden stick at a plump-headed fish bound tightly with ropes, angrily demanding:

"Where did you take the old monk you attacked the other day?!"

The fish didn’t answer, only wriggling frantically.

Chu Xingchen glanced at the fish Yuan Kong was interrogating. To be honest, this fish demon... wasn’t very demonic-looking.

Unlike land-dwelling monsters that could stand, walk, and speak fluently as early as the Qi Refining stage, aquatic creatures seemed far simpler—perhaps because they were less influenced by human cultivators.

This plump-headed fish was likely a fish demon around the Qi Refining stage, but compared to an ordinary fish, it only seemed slightly larger. Its tail was still a tail, its head still a head, and at the moment, it was still blowing bubbles.

It looked rather foolish.

Judging by its condition...

Chu Xingchen doubted whether this fish could even understand human speech.

Li Xingtian acted swiftly. Before Chu Xingchen arrived, he had already dragged this fish demon out of the water and onto the shore.

Yuan Kong, understanding the situation, immediately took up his wooden stick and began interrogating it.

Meanwhile, Li Xingtian reported to Chu Xingchen:

"Something’s off with these underwater creatures. Several fish and a turtle ignored me completely, all heading in the same direction as if with a clear purpose."

"Moreover, these fish and the turtle had some kind of self-detonation method. When they realized I was trying to stop them, they charged at me and exploded. I barely managed to grab this plump-headed fish."

"Water creatures are inherently dim-witted, and few can speak human language. Judging by this fish’s appearance, it’s probably among the dumbest of its kind. Even if it were normal, we wouldn’t get anything useful from it. I just brought it up to see if there was anything unusual."

Li Xingtian didn’t lower his voice, causing Yuan Kong, who was still in the middle of his interrogation, to glance at him involuntarily before looking back at the bubble-blowing fish.

Silently, Yuan Kong tossed his wooden stick into the water.

So, it was just a stupid fish that couldn’t answer anything.

"Which direction were they heading?" Chu Xingchen asked.

Li Xingtian pointed eastward.

Chu Xingchen gave a slight nod but chose to examine the plump-headed fish first.

His divine sense swept over it, and indeed, he detected a faint, dissipating trace of peculiar spiritual energy near the fish’s head.

Without the system’s hints, this aimless search would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But with the system’s guidance, the clues became much clearer.

From the looks of it, the hidden quest was triggered only by getting involved in this matter. Chu Xingchen had merely sent Li Xingtian to investigate, and the hidden quest had activated.

Thus, it was obvious that finding Yuan Jing meant participating in this affair. It seemed Yuan Jing must have discovered something—perhaps the so-called "attack" was not what it appeared.

Chu Xingchen turned to Yuan Kong, who looked somewhat embarrassed, and teased lightly:

"Still planning to interrogate it?"

"...No."

"Should we smash its head and make fish soup to nourish your brain?"

"I’m a monk... I don’t eat meat."

"Then I’ll buy you some walnuts later."

Without teasing Yuan Kong further, the three of them headed east and soon discovered what lay in that direction—a dam.

A precarious-looking dam, battered by each flood surge, seemed on the verge of complete collapse.

Chu Xingchen’s divine sense probed the waters below and quickly detected monsters actively tearing at the dam.

So, their goal was the dam?

Chu Xingchen ordered: "Xingtian, leave this to me. Take Yuan Kong and check the other dams to see if the abbot is there—especially those near areas where people haven’t been evacuated yet."

"I remember passing by Yunze City earlier—it hasn’t been flooded yet. We’ll regroup at Yuelai Tavern there."

Li Xingtian nodded without hesitation, grabbed the still-confused Yuan Kong, and vanished in a streak of light.

Chu Xingchen gazed thoughtfully at the small monsters before him.

---

Yunze City, Yuelai Tavern.

Chu Xingchen sat by the window on the second floor, flipping through a rather antiquated book.

The city was restless. Though the floodwaters hadn’t yet arrived, the panic brought by fleeing refugees had already spread through this small town.

The local authorities had barred the starving refugees from entering the city, setting up porridge kitchens outside the walls instead.

Inside and outside the city walls, it felt like two different worlds—yet it was hard to say who was right or wrong.

Life within the city continued as usual, though more and more people were discussing whether Yunze City would be next.

After all, the rain still hadn’t stopped.

The dam those small monsters were dismantling had long since lost its purpose—the floodwaters had already submerged everything behind it.

Were they tearing it down just because they didn’t like the way it looked?

The method used to control these small monsters was peculiar. Apart from detecting a faint trace of unusual spiritual energy, there was no way to manipulate it further.

The moment it was touched, it exploded.

The blasts weren’t particularly powerful, but they were certainly annoying.

With the system’s hints, however, Chu Xingchen understood the purpose behind dismantling the dam—water veins.

Water veins were different from spiritual veins.

Spiritual veins followed clear patterns—areas rich in spiritual energy, geographical formations—all of which could be analyzed and predicted with little room for error.

Water veins, however, were far more elusive.

They couldn’t be easily summarized or predicted, shifting with the flow and volume of water, unlike the purity of spiritual veins.

Moreover, the presence of a water vein wasn’t determined by the size of the waterway.

A tiny, forgotten stream might host a water vein, while a roaring tributary of a great river might not.

Though they couldn’t be neatly categorized, some idle researchers had still devised methods to locate them.

The book Chu Xingchen was reading now detailed these very methods.

Clearly, the "fortune thief" mentioned by the system needed to complete some kind of ritual to achieve their goal, and these water veins were the key.

Rather than searching blindly, it was better to prepare a net and cut off their escape route.

But... preparing that net was proving troublesome—Chu Xingchen had never studied water veins before.

So now, he had to cram from this book.

Damn it! Even in cultivation, one had to hit the books!

And the writing was so cryptic it might as well have been advanced mathematics—clearly not meant to be understood.

After a while, Chu Xingchen closed the book and looked out into the rain.

Li Xingtian had finally returned.

By his calculations, Li Xingtian and Yuan Kong had been gone for three days. There weren’t that many dams in the vicinity, and as a Golden Core Master, Li Xingtian could have covered them all quickly.

If he hadn’t returned for three days, it likely meant they had found Yuan Jing—and had been roped into helping.

Though Li Xingtian wasn’t the type to be swayed by Yuan Jing’s smooth talk.

Seems Yuan Jing’s luck was holding. A well-deserved reward for a good man.