Chapter 174: River Bottom
Chen Dong splashed at the water, trying to shoo the fish away so he could get a better look at the riverbed. But unexpectedly, the fish seemed to think he was playing with them. As his hands waved about, they danced back and forth in response.
'Well, if I can't shoo them away, so be it.' The number of large fish was truly astounding. Within minutes, two or three hundred of them, each weighing over a hundred pounds, had gathered around Chen Dong, representing a wide variety of species.
'There's always a reason for such strange behavior. What's gotten into these fish?'
Chen Dong pondered this as he continued to explore the riverbed. The deeper he dove, the stranger things became. The bottom of the river looked as if it had been newly constructed. It bore none of the usual marks of erosion from a constant current. Instead, it was paved with massive, uniform blocks of bluestone, as if they had been dug up from the earth.
Each bluestone block was nearly twice the height of a man. They were a mix of squares and rectangles, laid out haphazardly across the riverbed like giant, scattered building blocks.
It was only then that Chen Dong realized that while a hundred meters was already considered extremely deep for a river, he had now descended nearly two hundred meters before even reaching the center, and the water was still getting deeper.
This part of the river must have undergone some great upheaval. Perhaps because the river was so deep and wide, the cataclysmic changes on the riverbed had gone unnoticed.
As Chen Dong descended, the school of fish around him swelled to over a thousand. By the time he neared the center of the river, the water was three hundred meters deep. Down in the depths, the river was no longer murky, but had become eerily clear and dark. A bone-chilling cold began to seep into him.
Once he reached the center of the river, he found an abyssal chasm that stretched as far as the eye could see, running parallel to the current of the Tianjiang.
The mouth of the chasm was less than ten meters wide, but its depths were lost in a profound darkness. And it was from this chasm that Chen Dong felt the faint emanations of the curse's power.
'The source must be here!'
Time was of the essence. Chen Dong eyed the abyss and thought for a moment, deciding to return to the bank first to update Li Huiran. But just as he turned to swim back, the horrifying school of fish blocked his path, seemingly determined to stop him.
Chen Dong had no time to waste on the large fish. Circulating his True Qi, he shot through the school at incredible speed and quickly reached the bank.
The moment he emerged from the water, Li Huiran asked anxiously, "How was it? Is this the place?"
Chen Dong shook the water off himself. "The riverbed has changed dramatically. I'm almost certain the source of the curse is down there. I'm going to dive again. You go back to the car and watch Xiaoyu. If I'm not out in five hours, call my master."
Li Huiran nodded, her expression deeply worried.
Just as Chen Dong was about to dive again, he saw a figure stumbling toward them.
"Xiaoyu, what are you doing here?" Chen Dong asked.
By now, even more scales covered Xiaoyu's body; her hands and legs were completely overgrown with them. Perhaps because of this, passersby who were used to seeing oddities simply assumed it was some kind of cosplay or a new stunt by an internet celebrity. They only spared her a few extra glances, showing no real surprise. After all, there was no shortage of bizarre stunts people pulled for attention these days!
Xiaoyu muttered, "This will be enough... This will be enough... Uncle Qian, I've done my best..." Her eyes were fixed on the river, as vacant and lifeless as a fish's.
"This way, I won't have wronged Huira..."
Li Huiran reached out to pull Xiaoyu back to the car, but Xiaoyu's scales were incredibly slippery. In a flash, she twisted free and leaped straight into the river.
Li Huiran and Chen Dong were stunned. 'So this is what the curse leads to?'
Without a second thought, Chen Dong dove in right after her.
A passing old man clicked his tongue and commented, "What's with today? So many people ignoring the warnings and swimming in the river?"
"Hah! You know, it's probably some kind of event. A whole bunch of people went in wearing those fish-like outfits!"
Li Huiran hurried over to the two chatting old men. "Did a lot of people jump in? Did you see any of them come back?"
One old man thought for a moment and said, "Who knows? I've seen three or five today. Haven't seen them come back, though. This river is so big, maybe they got out somewhere else. I'm not watching the riverbank all the time..."
The other old man chimed in, "This morning I saw a whole crowd of people swimming in the river. Looked like a swim team, their uniforms were all identical. Right, just like the one that little girl was wearing—it looked like a fish!"
Just then, a convoy of more than a dozen police cars, sirens wailing, screeched to a halt by the river. Officers jumped out and began to cordon off the area, shouting to disperse the crowd, "There have been multiple jumping incidents today! Please clear the area! No one is allowed to get close!"
The two old men shuffled away, still talking. "Jumping? And here I thought they were just swimming!"
"Tell me about it. An old man my age still wants to live a couple more years. Who would be so desperate they'd jump into the river?"
"Maybe the stress is too much these days. The news is always reporting it, isn't it? The suicide rate just keeps climbing!"
Li Huiran was ushered away with the rest of the crowd. She gazed anxiously at the surface of the river, her hands clutching her phone tightly.
Chen Dong dove back into the river, chasing after Xiaoyu. Once in the water, Xiaoyu was truly like a fish in its element. She was incredibly fast, and she no longer swam like a person, but undulated from side to side like a fish. The scales on her body were growing at a frenzied pace as she swam with clear purpose toward the middle of the river—or more precisely, toward the chasm.