146: Chapter 146 Loach in the Water

After entering the city, Li Xiuyuan followed Lu Xingyun to the local branch of the Mysterious Investigation Bureau.

Though called a branch, it was actually just a small, privately-owned restaurant.

A "Temporarily Closed" sign hung on the door.

Lu Xingyun raised his hand and knocked on the door.

A moment later, someone opened the door a crack from the inside, revealing a young face.

"Are you Senior Lu from the Jiantian Bureau?" the young man asked with a smile.

Lu Xingyun nodded. "That's right."

The door swung open.

The layout inside was no different from an ordinary small restaurant; the tables on the first floor were greasy and shiny, clearly still operating as a business on normal days.

Passing through the first floor, they went straight upstairs.

There weren't many people on the second floor—just three or five—but upon seeing Lu Xingyun and Li Xiuyuan come up, they all stood up to greet them.

They were all employees of the Mysterious Investigation Bureau, originally ordered to come here to investigate clues regarding the Guiliu Society.

Unexpectedly, an accident occurred; two colleagues were captured by those lunatics from the Guiliu Society to be used as living sacrifices, and the other party even filmed a video and sent it to them.

Lu Xingyun exchanged pleasantries with them and learned about the general situation.

Among them, the youngest girl stepped forward, her eyes slightly red, though she tried to keep her voice steady. "Senior Lu, could you help us go and bring back the bodies of those colleagues?"

"I know this request is somewhat inappropriate, but we have no other options left."

The bodies of the colleagues taken for the sacrifice had yet to be retrieved. It wasn't that they didn't want to go, but their strength did not allow it.

The strongest cultivator among them was only at the Third Realm, and the rest were newcomers who had joined the Mysterious Investigation Bureau half a year ago, with little experience and low cultivation levels.

If they had to wait for the headquarters to send reinforcements, it would take at least three or four days.

By then, it would be hard to say if the bodies of those colleagues would even still be there.

As soon as the girl finished speaking, the older Third Realm cultivator beside her spoke up. "Xiao Li, don't talk nonsense. Their bodies should be brought back by us."

Upon hearing this, the girl lowered her head, her mood somewhat dejected.

Lu Xingyun was no longer an eighteen-year-old hot-blooded youth; he would not be easily swayed by the scene before him.

He calmly pondered for a moment and asked, "Where are your colleagues' bodies?"

"They are in a mountain outside the city, right next to the Yellow River waterway," the girl said, looking up.

"The Guiliu Society might use their bodies as bait. If you are willing to wait, the reinforcements from your bureau shouldn't take three or four days to arrive; after all, the impact of this incident is severe, and perhaps the reinforcements are already on the way."

"I cannot guarantee that I will definitely be able to bring all the bodies back, but I can go and check the situation first."

"You don't need to worry too much."

Having said this, Lu Xingyun asked for the specific location of the bodies and left the second floor.

Throughout the whole process, Li Xiuyuan had barely spoken.

These matters had nothing to do with him; his purpose for traveling north had always been the Yellow River.

Moreover, given his understanding of Lu Xingyun, this person would never impulsively agree to something without thought.

"Shall we meet back here tonight?" Li Xiuyuan asked after leaving the restaurant.

Lu Xingyun nodded. "That works. You go to the Yellow River bank to check the situation first, and I'll take a trip over there."

"Don't be reckless. You are only a Fourth Realm cultivator; it's very easy to get yourself killed," Li Xiuyuan advised before leaving.

Lu Xingyun replied, "Alright, I'm definitely clear on that."

A Fourth Realm cultivator—this level of strength was highly respected everywhere one went; even in many universities, the professors only possessed Fourth Realm strength.

Despite possessing such strength, Lu Xingyun was being warned by Li Xiuyuan to be careful, and was told he was "only" a Fourth Realm cultivator. If an uninformed person heard this, they would only want to cough up blood.

After parting ways with Lu Xingyun, Li Xiuyuan came to the banks of the Yellow River alone.

His golden vertical pupils gazed at the wide waterway before him; the river water was much calmer than he had imagined.

After years of unremitting governance by this country, this great river, once filled with surging silt, had now become quite clear. At least on the surface, it was far from the roaring, ravaging Yellow River of his memory.

His Spiritual Sense, like invisible tentacles, probed into the river water.

A moment later, Li Xiuyuan frowned slightly.

Gu Xiao was right; the spiritual energy in this river was indeed extremely thin.

The situation was even more serious than Li Xiuyuan had anticipated. This Mother River that had nurtured Northern civilization now had a spiritual energy content in its water that was not even as high as Yunfeng Mountain when spiritual energy had just begun to recover over a decade ago.

At that time, Yunfeng Mountain had not yet experienced the baptism of the spiritual energy rain, and its spiritual energy was relatively barren. But at the very least, it still allowed Li Xiuyuan to feel the flow of spiritual energy.

Yet the Yellow River before him was like something drained of its vitality, leaving only an empty shell.

After a moment of thought, Li Xiuyuan leaped into the water, transforming into a streak of silver-white light as he swam toward the bottom of the riverbed.

Visibility underwater was low; silt was stirred up by the current, making everything murky. Li Xiuyuan spread out his Spiritual Sense, intending to find a Second Realm aquatic creature that had awakened its intelligence to ask about the situation.

However, he swam back and forth in this area for a long time without finding even a single Second Realm creature with awakened intelligence.

All he saw were creatures around the First Realm, their auras so weak they were almost negligible.

Just when Li Xiuyuan was about to give up on this area and search another section of the river, the edge of his Spiritual Sense finally captured a faint fluctuation.

It was an extremely feeble aura of a living being, curled up in a crevice deep within the riverbed.

The aura was full of fear and unease, like a bird startled by the mere twang of a bowstring.

The crevice was located in a depression in the riverbed, hidden by several huge boulders. Li Xiuyuan swam close, poked his dragon head forward, and looked into the crevice.

Inside, a large red carp was hiding.

The carp was two meters long, its body covered in bright red scales that shimmered with a dark red luster in the dim water, like a ball of flame soaked in water.

The moment it met Li Xiuyuan's gaze, it desperately squeezed itself into the deepest part of the crevice, its flat body pressed tightly against the silt, wishing it could dig a hole right there to escape.

"Come out." Li Xiuyuan spoke; his voice was not loud, but it carried an unquestionable pressure.

The large carp trembled even more violently, its scales rustling, but it dared not play deaf. After a long while, it stuttered out a sentence, "Grandpa, please don't kill me, please don't kill me."

The carp spoke.

After it crawled out of the crevice and came before Li Xiuyuan, Li Xiuyuan asked, "I have come to ask you, is there only one Second Realm aquatic creature in this section of the river, which is you?"

The carp blinked its eyes and answered cautiously, "Uh, there was another one not long ago, but it was caught by someone, and now only I am left."

"Have you been to other river sections?" Li Xiuyuan asked again.

It said, "I originally lived in the upstream section, where the spiritual energy content was much more abundant than here. But later, a group of people put a Loach into the river. That Loach was too fierce and swallowed many aquatic creatures. I escaped from its mouth by luck and came here."

"However, this place isn't very safe either."

"Every once in a while, that big Loach patrols the entire river section. Whenever it sees any aquatic creature that has a chance to break through to the Third Realm and gestate an inner core, it eats them in one bite."

A big Loach? Li Xiuyuan thought for a moment. Could it be an existence on the verge of transforming into a flood dragon?

But if it were such a Rising Beings, the Jiantian Bureau should have been able to detect it.

"Has it been here too?"

The large carp said, "Of course, and not just here; it has even been to the downstream sections."

"Every time it appears, its aura becomes a bit stronger. All the resources in this waterway have been eaten by it."

The large carp said this with some resentment.

Although it was only a Second Realm carp, its brain worked a bit better than other aquatic creatures. After arriving in this area, it found a place and quietly cultivated some aquatic spiritual herbs.

Those water grasses were growing well, and it was just waiting for them to mature to harvest them. Who would have thought that after that big Loach passed by, it immediately discovered those water grasses and swallowed years of its hard work in one gulp.

"Are you sure that is a Loach, and not a snake or a flood dragon?" Li Xiuyuan asked again.

The dark red fish head swayed from side to side, firm and decisive. "It is absolutely impossible for it to be a flood dragon! It must be a Loach! It is so good at burrowing into the mud; once it burrows into the riverbed, no one can catch it!"

Li Xiuyuan pondered in his heart.

A Loach—what level of cultivation could it reach?

Judging from the situation described by this carp, being able to patrol the entire river section and devour all aquatic creatures with potential, it must be at least an existence above the Fourth Realm.

If it had some fortuitous encounters, reaching the threshold of the Fifth Realm was not impossible either.

Just as he was thinking, the large carp suddenly trembled all over, its scales bristling as if it had received some signal. Its voice carried obvious panic. "Oh no, it's here. That big Loach is starting its patrol again!"

After saying this, not caring that Li Xiuyuan was still beside it, it whipped its tail violently and desperately burrowed underneath an extremely hidden boulder, quickly concealing its aura and wrapping itself in the silt.

"You should also hurry up and go ashore. After all, this water area is its territory. If you are discovered by it, it will be troublesome."

The large carp even kindly reminded Li Xiuyuan.

At this moment, Li Xiuyuan was still maintaining his human form, so the large carp only thought that Li Xiuyuan was a human with a bit of cultivation protecting him.

But Li Xiuyuan flickered his figure, his posture like a swimming fish, and also arrived under that boulder.

Seeing that he not only didn't run away but also hid inside, the large carp was so anxious its fish eyes were almost popping out. But it dared not make a sound, so it could only shrink indignantly into a corner, even using its red fish tail to sweep some silt over Li Xiuyuan.

Not long after, a tyrannical aura swept in from upstream.

That aura carried a thick scent of blood, as if it had just devoured some living being, and the smell of blood diffused along with the current.

The small crabs and shrimp that had originally been burrowing in and out of the silt on the riverbed all stopped moving the instant they perceived this aura and burrowed deep into the silt.

Li Xiuyuan's gaze pierced through the murky river water and looked upstream.

Deep in the turbulent water, a huge Loach appeared.

It was indeed a Loach, its entire body covered in jet-black, oily mucus that shimmered with an eerie luster under the dim water.

It was at least twenty meters long, its body as thick as an old urn. However, what surprised Li Xiuyuan was that the head of this Loach actually faintly possessed a few traces of a dragon's appearance.

The whiskers by its mouth were much longer than those of an ordinary Loach, and two obvious bumps were raised on its forehead. Its giant mouth opened and closed slightly, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth.

This Loach came from upstream, patrolling along the waterway; wherever it passed, the creatures in the water were all terrified into silence.

When it swam to this area, its massive form suddenly stopped.

It hovered in the water, its jet-black body swaying slightly, and those dark green eyes, carrying a cold chill, scanned every corner of the riverbed.

"Every time I pass by here, I can smell your scent."

A dull voice emanated from its mouth, rippling through the water.

"Little carp, do you really think I don't know where you are hiding?"

"I just wanted to see what level you, this unique little carp, could grow to. Therefore, every time I passed by here, I deliberately didn't kill you, just to see if you could give me some surprises."

Speaking of this, the Loach's voice paused. "But now, there isn't much time left, so I can only eat you early. Although the Second Realm is low, it's enough to fill the gaps between my teeth."

After the Loach finished speaking, a cold Spiritual Sense probed like a venomous snake, precisely locking onto the area under the boulder.

Li Xiuyuan could clearly feel that the red carp beside him was trembling violently, its fish eyes already filled with despair.

Even so, it was still trying hard to shrink its body into the silt, but all of this was futile.

However, that Spiritual Sense not only locked onto the carp, but in the instant it scanned the crevice, it discovered Li Xiuyuan.

The dark green eyes narrowed slightly, and a dull voice sounded. "I didn't expect to have an unexpected harvest?"

"You even prepared an extra snack for me?"

Before the words faded, the Loach's massive body twisted violently and plunged straight toward the riverbed.

As soon as its body touched the silt, it burrowed inside extremely smoothly; the silt didn't even have time to churn, leaving only a rapidly closing trail on the surface of the riverbed.

And the carp beside Li Xiuyuan had already given up struggling; the light in its fish eyes had dimmed, and it was trembling all over, as if it were prepared to quietly wait for death.

Li Xiuyuan felt the silt beneath him tremble slightly. Almost at the same time, a bloody maw rushed out from the silt, carrying a mouthful of grim, sharp teeth, heading straight for Li Xiuyuan's face.

That aura rushed toward him, thick enough to be nauseating.

But Li Xiuyuan merely watched the bloody maw before him, his expression calm; he did not even blink an eyelid.

A golden thread as thin as a hair flew out silently from his sleeve.

The speed of the ancient coin was incredibly fast; the Loach couldn't see what was coming at all, it only felt a sudden chill in its mouth.

Immediately after, a violent piercing pain shot through its entire head.

The golden thread pierced in from inside its mouth, penetrated its brain, and brought up a tiny line of blood that dispersed in the murky water.

The Loach's forward momentum suddenly froze, and its massive body had a moment of stagnation in the water.

In those dark green eyes, there was no longer any playful expression; instead, it was replaced by anger and deep fear.