Chapter Thirteen: The Fisherman’s Home

In the early morning on the Yangtze River, a gentle breeze drifted by. The sound of fishermen’s songs echoed across the water, and the first light of dawn scattered flecks of gold upon the gently rippling surface. Zhang Sanmei stood on her family’s fishing boat, struggling to haul up the net. This time, the catch seemed unusually heavy.

“Second Sister, come help me! It’s too heavy—I can’t pull it up!” Sanmei called out excitedly. Her older sister, busy sorting through the previous catch in the middle of the boat, heard her shout and hurried over. Together, the two sisters managed to drag the weighty net aboard.

There were no fish in the net—only a corpse.

Floating bodies were not uncommon on the Yangtze, and the sisters had seen their share of death. Nonetheless, their faces turned pale; no one would be in high spirits to find a dead body in their net so early in the morning.

“Let’s just throw it back. Otherwise, we might get ourselves into trouble with the law,” the second sister said, glancing with distaste at the corpse caught in their net.

“Or maybe we should bury him quietly? Rest in peace, after all. Since we fished him out, at least burying him would be a good deed,” Sanmei suggested, her voice trembling with uncertainty.

“I’ll check if there’s any money on him—if there is, it can be the burial fee.” The second sister, a bit older and with a touch of boldness, steeled herself and cautiously approached the body.

“What a pity, dying so young,” Sanmei said, suddenly appearing behind her sister before the search could even begin. The unexpected presence nearly startled the second sister out of her wits.

“Can’t you walk with a sound? It’s broad daylight—don’t scare people like that!” she scolded, half embarrassed, half angry.

“But I wasn’t being quiet!” Sanmei muttered defensively, though she dared not challenge her sister’s authority.

“Mischief, begone. No evil shall come. Mischief, begone. Retribution will find its source…” The second sister muttered nervously, trying to calm herself as she reached for the dead man’s waist. Before her hand could find anything, Sanmei suddenly shrieked, “Ah!” The second sister jolted, her patience at its end, and turned to glare at her sibling, demanding an explanation.

“The… the dead man… he moved,” Sanmei stammered.

“Don’t talk nonsense in broad daylight,” the second sister snapped back, though clearly unnerved herself. She turned to look—and saw that the corpse’s lips were indeed moving slightly. Summoning her courage, she placed her finger under the man’s nose and, after a moment, exclaimed, “He… he’s still alive!”

The Zhang sisters had fished up a living man—a noteworthy event in their little riverside village. Kindhearted as they were, they couldn’t bring themselves to throw him back into the river; they brought him home instead. Their father believed in good deeds bringing good fortune, but their mother was less than pleased. Life was already hard enough, and now there was another mouth to feed, half-dead at that. Her words were harsh, but the head of the household had made his decision, and so it was.

Liao Chen had no idea where he was or what had become of him. All around was darkness—silent, cold, as if he were sealed within an utterly lightless, isolated world. He shouted for help, paced endlessly, desperate to escape this maddening place, but nothing changed. Eventually, numbness overtook him; he stopped moving, lost all sense of time. It could have been a single day or a hundred years that passed. At last, a sound penetrated the void—overjoyed, he rushed toward the voice. The darkness gradually receded, and Liao Chen was blinded by an endless, dazzling light…

“You’re awake!” A clear, cheerful voice sounded in his ears as Liao Chen slowly opened his eyes. A pretty, slightly tanned face appeared before him, bright eyes nearly touching his nose. The faint scent unique to young girls suddenly overwhelmed him, making him, a bachelor in two lifetimes, entirely at a loss. He coughed awkwardly, his face flushing with heat—so much for experience!

“Could you… move back a bit? I can’t breathe,” he managed weakly, especially as the young woman’s figure all but filled his vision.

“You’re blushing! Ha ha ha!” She, too, seemed a little shy at first, retreating quickly, but then burst into hearty laughter at his reaction. Liao Chen could only sigh inwardly—were girls always so bold these days?

The girl, not used to being alone with a strange man, lost her nerve after laughing and dashed out, intending to fetch her father. But after a few steps, she turned back, leaning on the half-open door. “Hey! I didn’t ask your name.”

Liao Chen thought for a moment—he seemed not to have a name in this life. He couldn’t very well say his old surname, so he made something up. “My surname is Liao, given name Cheng.”

She nodded in satisfaction and left.

The Ming dynasty’s codes of propriety were strict, but such rules mostly applied within clans and to the households of the gentry. For farming folk, things were more relaxed. They, too, toiled in the fields, exposed themselves for the sake of their livelihood. Liao Chen’s timely awakening was a relief to the humble fishing family—should anything have happened to him, a lawsuit would have been a major trouble.

Days passed. Liao Chen’s dantian remained empty, his golden core dull and lifeless, as silent as death. No matter how he urged with his divine sense or tried to replenish his energy, nothing changed. His heart sank ever lower. His desperate struggle had proven futile, costing him his very foundation. The White Lotus Saintess was likely back in her own world, while he, if not for the two fisher-girls, would have long since become food for the fishes.

The Zhang family had three daughters and no sons, a source of lingering regret for Old Zhang. Fortunately, his daughters were as good as sons in many ways. The eldest was already married, leaving only the second and third daughters at home. He and his wife were getting old and would eventually need to choose one daughter to remain and marry a son-in-law to carry on the family line. But finding a suitable live-in son-in-law was no easy task. The ill-behaved would bring trouble, while the virtuous would rarely consent to such a perceived humiliation. Old Zhang’s hair had turned white with worry. This, too, was why he insisted on taking in Liao Chen, regardless of his wife’s objections—but he kept his reasons to himself, wanting to observe the stranger first.

Half a month later, Liao Chen was able to get out of bed and refused to lie around like a living corpse any longer. He forced himself up, opened the door, and was greeted by a pastoral scene. The village did not rely solely on fishing; there were fields as well. But with the vast Yangtze at their doorstep, nearly every household owned a small boat, fishing in the off-season to supplement their income. Liao Chen breathed in the damp river air and wandered along the narrow village path to the riverbank.

Boats moved up and down the Yangtze—cormorant fishermen called to their birds, and songs of casting nets mingled with the rhythm of the waves, soothing the soul.

“If not for my quest for the Way, this would be a fine place to stay,” Liao Chen thought, startled by his own sudden notion and quickly banished it. His golden core was damaged, and even his will seemed shaken.

Liao Chen stood out on the riverbank—taller than the villagers and unused to hard labor, with the bearing of someone who’d never wanted for anything. Clad in borrowed fisher clothes (his robes long since ruined), he looked nothing like a fisherman.

“Second Sister, look, he’s come to the river,” Sanmei nudged her sister, having spotted Liao Chen standing like a statue by the water.

“His health’s returned—can’t lie in bed forever, can he? He’s eaten enough for free; time he did some work,” her sister replied, busy mending nets.

“When we fished him out, he looked like a drowned dog, but now he’s rather handsome. And that air about him—he doesn’t seem like a country bumpkin. Dad says his hands and feet are soft, with no calluses—maybe he’s a scholar! Maybe he could be my brother-in-law?” Sanmei’s careless words earned her a swift rebuke, and the two sisters dissolved into laughter aboard their little boat, though they couldn’t help but glance back at the tall figure on shore from time to time.

Liao Chen was not ungrateful, but he had nothing to his name now—not even a copper coin, his only possession a pouch he couldn’t open. Even the clothes he wore belonged to Old Zhang. He decided that, though he couldn’t use magic, he still had strength and some skill at divination; fishing, at least, was within his means.

When he offered to help with the fishing, Old Zhang was delighted—at least this proved the stranger was not a freeloader.