Inner Demons Chapter 213: The Demons of Dongting Lake

The strangeness of the situation was beyond his wildest imagination. He had originally thought the old man's words, "My children sunk the boat," were a taphor. Perhaps they referred to soone under his command who had rebelled, defeated him, and exiled him. But now, Lady Hong's words had confird it—the event had actually happened!

He could no longer remain calm; his curiosity flared intensely. He felt that ever since he t the old man, his emotions had been fluctuating more and more violently. He knew this curiosity might not be a good thing, that it wasn't his usual style, but he just...

He couldn't hold back. He wanted to leave imdiately.

He summoned the demonic wind and soared into the sky. In a flash, his body transford into a three-hundred-foot-long dragon. He then sped like a whirlwind directly toward the southern shore of Dongting Lake.

Before, it had taken him four or five days to circle Dongting Lake. But now, with a general destination in mind and traveling in such a shocking form, his speed was incomparable to before. He left Jun Mountain in the morning and by noon, he could already see the southern shore.

Kun Wuzi, a cultivator of the Great Accomplishnt Profound Realm, had sealed off the thousand-mile Dongting Lake with a thin layer of mist, preventing Li Yunxin from seeing anything beyond it, leaving him with only a patch of blue sky.

He had previously tried to use his divine powers and Daoist Arts to break through this misty barrier, but it was all in vain.

At least in terms of spells, a Profound Realm Taoist priest truly possessed an advantage that a True Realm cultivator could not resist.

However, when Li Yunxin was nearing the southern shore and had transford back into his human form to fly through the sky, he suddenly noticed that the thin layer of mist was gone from the southern shore.

He saw it clearly—there was a small pier in the distance, but it had been destroyed by the previous tidal wave, with only a few rotten wooden stumps remaining. However, the road leading to the pier was still intact, and people were moving about on it.

This place was no longer within Weicheng Prefecture, or even Hezhong Prefecture, to which Wei River Prefecture belonged. But it was still a prefecture of the Great Qing Dynasty, and the customs were similar. Li Yunxin could tell at a glance... they were holding a funeral.

He had seen such a practice outside Weicheng before—setting up a stage every few miles and hiring an opera troupe to perform, regardless of whether anyone was listening.

Right now, there was a stage on the road leading to the small pier, and there were quite a few people there.

Li Yunxin temporarily set aside the question of how the misty barrier had disappeared. He simply concealed his figure and flew down to a spot within ten feet of the southern shore. He tried to walk outward, but the gentle yet firm force of the barrier pushed him back. So he stood quietly at the end of the road, watching the people in front of the stage.

Lady Hong had said that the old man was indeed Old Man Su and that he lived in Su Town. And Li Yunxin knew about this Su Town.

Weicheng Prefecture was the capital of Hezhong Prefecture. And the southern shore of Dongting Lake belonged to Henan Prefecture—but this "He," or river, did not refer to the Wei River, but the Nan River.

The Nan River was not a tributary of the Wei River. Although its channel was not as wide and its water volu was not as abundant as the Wei River, it was a long river that ran east to west across the Great Qing Dynasty. The mountains along its banks were not as majestic and beautiful as the Wei River's, and the hydrology and water conditions were not as complex and ever-changing. However, these factors happened to et the needs of "people."

In this era, there were no terribly large ships, and even a slow-flowing Nan River could satisfy the comrcial needs of the Great Qing Dynasty from east to west. If one were to truly talk about the lifeline of the Great Qing Dynasty's transportation, it would be the Nan River, not the Wei River.

Li Yunxin had long since learned about the prefectures along Dongting Lake and therefore knew that the capital of Henan Prefecture was Huicheng Prefecture—when he first t Old Daoist Liu on the road and encountered the people from the Qiao Family Escort Agency, they were returning to Weicheng from Huicheng.

In reality, traveling by water was much faster than by land. However, the rchant who entrusted the escort back then probably felt that sailing on Dongting Lake, with water all around and no people in sight, was ultimately not as secure as being on solid ground, and thus entrusted Qiao Duanhong. This also led to Li Yunxin eting them and coming to Weicheng, which caused the Qiao family to encounter those swordsn and be wiped out. It also forced Li Yunxin to do many things in Weicheng later on...

And many people had died in Weicheng.

Now, whether it was the Daoist Orthodoxy, the Sword Sect, the demons, or Li Yunxin, everyone felt that they had their own reasons and were forced to do what they did.

But no one asked who the tens of thousands of people who died had offended, losing their lives for nothing. It was a pity that heroes drew their swords and the common people suffered for ten years.

However, these were just fleeting thoughts in Li Yunxin's mind. If he were a genuine young man, or a kind-hearted middle-aged man, he might reflect on these feelings and try to make so changes.

But he was not a real young man, nor was he a kind-hearted middle-aged man. In his previous world, he could be called insidious and black-bellied, and in this world, he could be called a human demon and a hero. He selectively amplified certain emotions and suppressed others, which was the complete opposite of Old Man Su.

Now, he stood at the pier, recalling what he had previously learned about Su Town, which was under the jurisdiction of Huicheng Prefecture, the capital of Henan.

The reason he had paid special attention to Su Town was that the power and size of the clans in the town were terrifying. Su Town was the second most prosperous place in Huicheng Prefecture after Huicheng itself. Although it was called a town, it was three tis more prosperous than so remote prefectural cities. The town's population was sixty thousand, but only a few hundred people were not surnad Su.

The edicts of the Huicheng magistrate were useless in this town. The one who truly held power, it was said, was the clan leader of the Su family in Su Town.

He used to find this kind of thing interesting—a clan leader who could contend with a local magistrate. He also knew that such things were common in ancient tis, but he had only heard about them before. Now, although he was still hearing about it, he could see a living example, so he paid more attention.

And now, if Lady Hong was right...

The Su Town clan leader he had been interested in before—was he that terrifyingly cunning Master Su?

In Lady Hong's account, Master Su was a dissolute wastrel with no real ability.

In Li Yunxin's eyes, Master Su was a mysterious and powerful alien with great divine powers and Daoist Arts.

These two impressions could not be reconciled no matter what.

And after Li Yunxin stood by the lake, quietly observing and listening for a while, his confusion did not diminish...

It grew even stronger.

According to the people on the shore, the head of the Su family in Su Town had a disaster overnight.

Clan leader Master Su had died, and his two children who managed the family affairs had also died.

The cause of death was this—a few days ago, it was Master Su's birthday. His children, knowing the old man loved to travel, took the family's pleasure boat out onto Dongting Lake to celebrate his birthday.

On the boat were not only these three people, but also the heads and managers of the various branches of the Su family—almost all the leaders of Su Town were on that one ship.

Then, the heavens "unleashed a torrential downpour." The people who were speaking were not very knowledgeable, and they only knew how to use the word "torrential" to describe the column of water that Kun Wuzi had created, which ran from the heavens to the earth.

Everyone knew that the people on that boat had no chance of survival.

And after they died, their bodies were not found, so they should have been salvaged from the lake. But now Dongting Lake was also sealed off. The pleasure boat had departed from this pier, so they could only hold a morial service at this pier. The people now managing Su Town had all gathered here these past few days, as there were simply too many matters to discuss. One must know that Su Town was not just a town—it was also a vast economic entity with businesses all over the country.

Handling these matters after almost all the top brass were wiped out was no easier than governing a small country.

And people didn't know how to explain the column of water that day. They also didn't know how to explain why Dongting, which had been fine for thousands of years, could now only be watched and not entered. After the initial shock and fear, so people found a reason—

There were branches of the Daoist Orthodoxy and the Sword Sect in Huicheng. Any city magistrate knew to build good relationships with those Taoist priests and treat them as honored guests. So, so people said that the Huicheng Prefect hated the Su family for not being under his control and coveted their property, so he used a lot of money to persuade the cultivators in the city to use their divine powers to kill the Su family.

People didn't know what kind of cultivation level was needed to pull off such a feat, nor did they know the depth of the cultivation of those cultivators in the city. But as long as they knew those people were "Immortals," this reasoning and logic beca self-consistent in their minds.

Lady Hong's statent was confird.

It was just that she had spoken of it lightly at the ti, but in reality, Old Man Su's importance was far greater than she had made it out to be.

But it was understandable—why would the daughter of the Lord of Dongting care about anyone's gold, silver, or property?

Over the past tens of thousands of years, who knows how many ships have sunk in Dongting Lake—digging up just one would be enough to be as rich as a country.

Li Yunxin listened from noon until night. So people were far away and their words were unclear, but he could piece together the words from the fragnted sentences of others. He spent three hours organizing and morizing everything people were saying near the pier. When he could no longer find any valuable information, he took advantage of the setting sun to dive into the lake water.

He tried to go back to the deep-water island where he first t Old Man Su and search for any possible bodies in the water.

But this was no easy task. A small pond might be dead water—it would stay still if there was no wind. But a large lake like Dongting could almost be considered a small ocean. Uneven temperatures and densities created many large and small undercurrents at the bottom of the water. On the surface, it might be sparkling, but under the water, there could be a vortex. The undercurrents at the bottom of the lake were crisscrossed, and after all these days, even if the bodies hadn't been eaten, who knows where they would have been swept to.

Li Yunxin manifested his God-Devil Dharma Body and stood at the bottom of the lake for a while, realizing that he needed to find so help to accomplish this task.

In this world, the immortals in people's minds were similar to the immortals in the minds of people in his old world—they cast spells and divine powers without needing any reason. One mont they might determine a person's life and death, help them change their luck, and move mountains and rivers, and the next mont they might haggle with a mortal over a al.

—They were just tools for people to express their wishes, a romanticized symbolic image.

But neither Li Yunxin nor the Lord of Dongting could simply wave a hand and have Dongting obediently deliver what they wanted to them.

The Lord of Dongting once had shrimp soldiers and crab generals, so it was likely that Young Master Nine would also have a few assistants. But with Young Master Nine's personality, even if he had them, they probably scattered after his death. And as for the Lord of Dongting's Dongting...

Li Yunxin felt that it definitely would not only have him and Lady Hong as demons. In such a vast body of water, it would be a tall tale to say there were no smaller demons subdued by the Lord of Dongting.

And he had ignored those demons before because he didn't know if they were chess pieces left behind by the Lord of Dongting.

Since the Lord of Dongting had a way to go out and find the Divine Dragon after the barrier was activated, it was possible he also had a way to remotely control so water demons and have them gather information from Li Yunxin.

But now that he needed them, he would use them.

He was a magnanimous person—he didn't need to care about the ones who went to report him, as it was not a big deal anyway. As for the ones who acted up in front of him, he would just kill them—

It was not a big deal either.

He suddenly widened his eyes in the water, and countless tiny undercurrents imdiately ford around him. When he was on land, he could swallow and spit out clouds and rain, creating wind and storms, and in this water, he could also stir up undercurrents—this was a newly acquired instinct, an innate ability of the Dragon Clan.

Those fine currents then carried his dragon aura, spreading in all directions. It announced to the demons possibly hidden in various places in Dongting Lake—a great demon of the Dragon Clan had co to Dongting, was declaring his existence and territory, and at the sa ti, was issuing a command to gather.

In this sense, it was indeed no different from the wild beasts that marked their territory with scent.

And this was one of the reasons why Li Yunxin had previously disliked doing this.

However, after a quarter of an hour, he did not see any "people."

Li Yunxin let out a light breath, realizing that another unexpected situation might have occurred.

He would not overestimate the loyalty and courage of the demons. The great demons in the lake might not want to pay attention to him, but the smaller demons wouldn't have such courage. Although the Lord of Dongting was not in the lake, even if he was an impostor, he was still a great demon of the True Realm and a real threat to their existence at the mont.

Yet now, not even a small fry showed up.

But he waited for another hour. The fine undercurrents went even further, and he finally saw the fourth intelligent being in this lake.

The one who ca was a "rmaid"—in terms of form, he had to be described this way.

This demon had a human body and a fish tail. It seed that his transformation had just reached a critical mont, but because he lacked the necessary cultivation, he could not make any further progress and was stuck in this awkward state.

His demonic aura was very heavy. He let it out a few miles away, as if he was afraid that people wouldn't know he was a demon.

It was said that great demons would restrain their demonic aura, and only those with insufficient cultivation would let it out—and it was not actively let out, it was a manifestation of the leakage of their demonic aura and Spiritual Power.

He had a man's face with a round, smiling expression, a fat arm and belly. But his lower fish tail was long and slender and reddish-colored, and the two parts together looked truly strange.

This demon seed shy, and he lingered in the undercurrents for a while before hiding behind a large rock full of water plants near Li Yunxin, secretly watching him.

Li Yunxin had sensed him long ago, but he had no interest in making friends or winning him over; he only wanted a ssage.

So he asked without turning his head, "Why are you the only one who has co?"