Chapter 687 — Fishing the Sun on a Hook, and Binding It Again

The youth and the girl followed behind the Old Angler, while the two red fish chattered away at them both, and Shen Mu soon learned that these two fish had not been caught by the Old Angler at all — he had raised them from fry.

These two fish had long since become deities; they simply could not be bothered to take human form, and preferred to lie in the basket on their master's back.

"He has never caught a single fish!"

The two red fish were smug. One of them said, "Because whenever he fishes, we scare all the other fish away. And him calling himself the peerless master angler, a hundred casts and a hundred hits, never a hook cast in vain!"

The two red fish laughed, "Keh keh keh," exceedingly pleased with themselves.

Yan Jingjing laughed happily too; the girl had never come across anything so amusing.

Shen Mu said with a smile, "Little Sister Jing, you ought to smile more often. You look lovely when you smile."

Yan Jingjing shook her head. "The clansfolk of the Dawn Spring never smile at me; they are terribly solemn, and there is no one and nothing worth laughing at. Last time, when I slipped away with you to Jingping, that was truly joyful."

She was speaking of something more than four years past, when Shen Mu, to repay a vow, had come with Xue Hu'er and Ling Yuxiu to the Dawn Spring, fished a sun out of the spring, and freed Yan Jingjing; then he had made off with the girl, taking the girls to the Heavenly Sage Academy to see Granny Zhu.

But then came the invasion of the gods of the High Heavens, and the bloody battle at the God-Severing Mountains; Yan Jingjing took part in the fighting, and afterwards returned to the Dawn Spring. In the four years since, the girl had presumably held to her post as the Sun Guardian of the Dawn Spring, and rarely had time to go out.

Shen Mu was burdened with endless affairs and seldom came to the Dawn Spring; only Yu Zhaoqing, Ling Yuxiu, Xue Hu'er and a few others would drop by now and then.

"Still no pure-yang spirit body found to take your place?"

Shen Mu asked, "A pure-yang spirit body can pilot the Dawn Boat without the boat draining its blood and qi and wearing away its lifespan. Surely there are other pure-yang spirit bodies among the Sun-Herders?"

Yan Jingjing shook her head. "There are none. Grandpa Clan Chief says my bloodline is rather high, so perhaps I might give birth to a pure-yang spirit body — only there is no suitable partner, and I cannot produce one on my own."

The two red fish, which a moment ago had chattered without end, now fell silent, staring at the two of them with bright, unblinking eyes, their mouths agape, so that even the opening and closing of their gills made no sound.

The two fish were wildly excited, and in their agitation pressed their fins together.

Shen Mu thought for a moment, then smiled. "Whoever heard of a pure-yang spirit body being born just because you say so? The Clan Chief must be teasing you. The Emperor of Jingping has already ordered a census taken throughout Taihuang Heaven; perhaps a few pure-yang and pure-yin spirit bodies can be found."

"There's no hope for him."

The two fish let their fins go slack and dropped from the rim of the basket to its bottom, lying there stiff as boards. The female fish whispered, "He'll be a bachelor all his life, won't he?"

Seeing the girl look a little downcast, Shen Mu suddenly tickled her armpits and laughed. "Cheer up! I'm certain I can find you a pure-yang spirit body!"

Yan Jingjing was ticklish; she burst into giggles and fled, and Shen Mu chased after her and went on tickling. She laughed until tears ran down her face, then struck back and tickled him in return. The boy and girl ran madly round and round the Old Angler, peals of laughter ringing out without pause.

Yan Jingjing laughed until she had no strength left; her body went limp and she tumbled into the emerald grass, waving her arms and kicking her legs about like a cat afraid of being tickled. Shen Mu could not bring himself to tickle her further, and lay down as well.

The two of them lay in the grass. Shen Mu propped his chin on one hand and gazed at the girl beside him; under his gaze her cheeks flushed red and her heart pounded, and she set her hands and feet down meekly, not daring to move a muscle.

"The mood's turned ambiguous..." The two fish in the basket quietly poked their heads out again and peered toward the grass.

Yan Jingjing grew more and more flustered, and said in a voice as faint as a mosquito's: "We're almost at the Dawn Spring..."

"Yes!"

Shen Mu scrambled up in a fluster, pulled the girl to her feet, and hurried after the Old Angler.

The two fish sank back to the bottom of the basket. The male fish said listlessly, "He'll be a bachelor all his life. There's no hope for him."

When they reached the Dawn Spring, the Sun-Herding Clan Chief hurried out to welcome them. The Old Angler did not know him, nor he the Old Angler, and Shen Mu and Yan Jingjing hastily made the introductions.

When the Sun-Herding Clan Chief heard that this was another Heavenly Master, he was filled with astonishment and doubt: "The Heavenly Masters of the Kaihuang era — one cuts firewood, one fishes. How are they both so common? There's not the least sense of lofty eminence about them."

The Old Angler came to the well, set down his little folding stool, smoothed out his fishing line, and said, "How many suns do you want?"

The Clan Chief said hastily, "We don't yet know how many Dawn Boats Jingping can build, and with only the boats and no Sun Guardian, I fear such treasure ships cannot be piloted at all."

The Old Angler thought it over and said, "I'll fish up a few suns and tether them for you, to be used when you have need of them."

The Clan Chief was struck dumb, and stammered, "Tether... suns..."

The Old Angler paid him no more heed. He lowered line and hook into the Dawn Spring, and the two little red fish leaped from his basket. One of them opened its mouth, took the hook between its jaws, and swam off into the depths of the spring, drawing the line behind it, while the other little red fish swam to and fro in the dazzling well, seemingly not feeling the heat in the slightest.

Shen Mu had long since grown numb to it. Two little red fish that could leap and frolic out of water and speak in human tongues were already shocking enough to stagger the world; that one of them could take a hook in its mouth and swim into the unimaginable heat of the Dawn Spring was more staggering still.

And yet the Desolate Ruins seemed to be full of such world-staggering things. In the Surging River, big fish often leaped ashore and went racing off on their legs, faster than an ordinary divine-power cultivator.

In years of drought, the fish of the Desolate Ruins would even summon clouds and call down rain, riding wind and storm to move house, shifting from dried-up pools to other places rich in water.

He stood at the well and looked down. The little red fish was swimming deeper into the Dawn Spring with hook and line, but its body was growing larger and larger — several hundred zhang long at the very least — and its speed was increasing as well. Soon it came to where the god-made suns lay in heaps upon heaps; there it spat out the hook and used it to snag one of the suns.

The Old Angler reeled in. After a moment, a sun of astonishing size was hauled up.

Behind the Old Angler there suddenly appeared an immeasurably vast primordial spirit. It spread its arms, took the god-made sun in both hands and began to knead it, and the sun was rubbed smaller and smaller.

Before long the sun had been kneaded into a ball the size of a watermelon. The Old Angler tied it with a fine cord and hung it beside the well, then went on fishing.

The Clan Chief's face went blank. Before long the seemingly unremarkable Old Angler had fished up another sun, and did the same with it, tethering it beside the well.