Chapter 28
Having a Koi Sure Is Nice
A gentle breeze blew across the corner of Li Chu’s clothes as if a crow had flown over Deyun Monastery.
The air was silent.
After a moment, it was Yu Qi’an who broke the silence. “Lassie, try to remember carefully. Did your grandfather give you any hints on how to save them? Do you not know or you can’t remember?”
Yue’er opened her innocent and beautiful big eyes for a long while as she tried to sieve through the memories in her mind, but soon, she discovered that the more she searched, the lesser things there were in her mind…
“I only remember… that I sneaked out to play, and then grandpa suddenly contacted me with Telepathy, and told me a lot of things. Telling me they had been captured, and asked me to look for the young Daoist Priest. By the time I went back, everyone was gone. I don’t remember anything else,” She said sheepishly.
“It’s okay,” Yu Qi’an said with a smile. “If that’s the case. You can stay here first, and once we have clues on the whereabouts of your clansmen, we can rescue those people…uh… fish I mean. Is that okay?”
Yue’er’s eyes circled the master and disciple duo for a while and looked a little conflicted before finally nodding.
“Well, granpda did ask me to recognize you as my master.”
“Miss Yue’er…”
Li Chu wanted to say something, but Yu Qi’an tugged his sleeve as he gave the former a wink and made him turn his back.
“Being recognized by Koi as its master is a great opportunity with many benefits. Just accept it,” Yu Qi’an reminded him.
“But—” Li Chu frowned slightly, still feeling a little bad.
He always felt that all beings were equal, and he had not thought about taking a spiritual creature for a servant or something of the likes.
“The Koi’s so-called recognition as their master is not to be your slave, but to bind your luck to it.” Yu Qi’an explained. “After recognizing you as her master, she could help increase your luck, and the luckier you get, the greater the benefit it is to her cultivation. It is a win-win situation. For her grandfather to ask her to seek you out meant that he had probably seen your luck before, and thinks that you are a promising host.”
‘Ah, so that’s how it is.’ Li Chu nodded with understanding now.
He turned around and said, “Then Miss Yue’er, you will stay here for the time being. You don’t have to call me master, just call me Li Chu. From today on, as long as I get any news about your people, I will definitely go and rescue them as soon as possible.”
Yue’er blinked and said, “Okay, Master.”
For the first time, Li Chu felt how powerless words were.
“Heh, don’t blame the lassie.” Yu Qi’an laughed softly. “She hasn’t completely transformed, and while she may look human, she has not adapted to how human memorizes things. When her cultivation base grows, she will slowly get better at it.”
The intelligence of the koi was extremely rare among the generally dim aquatic races. They possessed a unique ability to change one’s luck and understood the mysteries of transformation far earlier than other spiritual creatures.
It was just that when one’s cultivation base was still low, even if a koi could transform into a human form, it was nothing but a shell, and there was still a long way to go.
Just like Yue’er before him, she could simply be regarded as a person with a fish’s brain or a fish with a human body.
For the monastery to suddenly have a new member was a major event. And just as the master and disciple were discussing where she should live from now on, they suddenly heard a commotion from the workers in the construction site.
Not long after, the foreman came over with a small box.
“Daoist Yu, Young Daoist Li, this was dug out under the base of the old wall. It should be something buried by the predecessors of the monastery, right?”
The workers hired by the Wang family were laborers from the nearby villages and were familiar with Deyun Monastery, so they did not harbour any avaricious thoughts. Moreover, under the gaze of the Three Pure Ones, none of such thoughts ever occurred.
Li Chu glanced at the box he sent over. It looked like it had seen quite some years now. The cover was damaged and covered with mud. Who knew how long it had been buried in the ground.
As he took it and opened it up, he saw it held a box full of silver inside, at least a hundred taels of silver.
“Woah.”
Both master and disciple were ecstatic.
It had been many years since Deyun Monastery was built. Many digging works had been done before, but this was the first time money was dug out.
Yu Qi’an looked kindly at little Yue’er. “Seems like the luck of our Deyun Monastery is about to change.”
“Do you like these things very much?”
Little Yue’er looked at them with her large, innocent and beautiful eyes.
“Ahem.” Yu Qi’an coughed softly and said, “A practicing cultivator naturally doesn’t view money heavily.”
Li Chu also said seriously, “Money is something external.”
“But… yeah, one should be happy if they were to pick up money,” Yu Qi’an continued.
“Right.” Li Chu said.
“Really? Then I’ll give you all these.” Yue’er reached into her flat chest and pulled out a small purse as she poured out a pile of silver and copper coins and also a few small goldfishes the size of a finger.
“How come you have so much money as an aquatic kind?”
“I’ve picked them up,” Yue’er said in an indifferent tone. “I don’t know why, every time I go ashore to play, I will always pick these things up. I think these shiny things are quite pretty, so I’ve saved them up.”
Li Chu gave her a deep look.
And then said solemnly, “Please stay in Deyun Monastery.”
…
Later in the evening.
Before Li Chu went to the haunted building of the Liu family, he had gone to take a look at little Yue’er.
She was temporarily living in the large water tank in the kitchen. The bottom of the water tank was filled with fine sand. Her slender, four-feet long body with seven-colored scales was a beautiful sight to behold.
As she saw Li Chu’s face appearing, she spat out a bunch of bubbles.
Although she could maintain her human form for a long time, there was a problem during this period—she cannot sleep.
Li Chu observed her carefully and found that the reason was that she would not sleep with her eyes closed.
The problem itself was not complicated, but to get a fish who was accustomed to sleeping with their eyes open to sleep with their eyes closed, was like trying to get a person who is used to sleeping with their eyes closed to sleep with their eyes open; and that was quite difficult.
So, they could only get her to transform back to her true form and return to the water at night.
But the water tank was still a little cramped, Li Chu thought. So, the next step in the monastery’s construction was to build a special pool for her.
It did not matter how much it would cost.
Because a koi was worth having.
Who knows how many great wealthy families had specially dug out a pond to raise kois, and the ones they raised were ordinary Fengshui fishes that were not intelligent. For an intelligent koi like little Yue’er, and a very rare seven-colored koi to boot, was something one could only wish for.
Going a step further, it was probably a lucky beast that could affect the luck of a nation.
In addition, the most urgent thing to do now was to cultivate the hobby of taking a walk. This was Yu Qi’an’s responsibility, and he would take the little girl out for a walk every day.
Playing with the fish, or so to speak.
Old people loved to do this the most.
Especially when one had money to pick up every time they went one.
Moreover, the change of luck a koi could bring not only helped them pick up money, but when Li Chu arrived at the haunted building, he found that the experience points gained from the ghosts tonight were very high!
He had only broken through level 72 yesterday, and by the end of tonight, he was already closing in on level 73.
He could not help but sigh in his heart.
‘Having a koi sure is nice.’
…
Mount Whitebone, The Barrow Cave.
Two dour faces.
Two low voices.
“I’ve organized a group of elites to fight him tonight, and the result was the same, all of them have been killed with a single slash. I suspect that that Daoist Priest did not even notice that their strength is different than before…”
“If this goes on, within two months, our King’s people will be all killed by him.”
“Can we lay low for now, and not let the ghosts from the spirit world to come out first?”
“After the spirit world lost our King’s power, the ghosts in the spirit world will die if they do not receive Yin Qi replenished for a long time.
“What should we do?”
“We can only speed up the process of breaking the seal. As long as our King returns to this world, all of our enemies will pay their debt in blood!”