Chapter 10: The Little Monkey and The Giant Fish I

The pond was around nine meters in diameter, surrounded by a chilly slate of smooth, even ice. The waters within, glowing like a sky-blue gel, sparkly to the point of looking sacred, drew the eyes.

It seemed that the Jade Imps were not as impressed by them as Yun Jieshi. His deep sight allowed him to note all its unique qualities from a distance. It indeed was a pond. It wasn't all that deep and from what he could gather, there was nothing within it.

What were the Jade Imps here for then?

The creatures moved cautiously on the smooth ice around it.

It took a lot of careful delicate steps for them to not slip and fall. They quickly countered this challenge, however, in a manner that confirmed that they had dealt with it at least once before.

'So that's what the sacks were for. Well, some of them, I guess,' Yun Jieshi thought. The Jade Imps with the sacks drew handfuls of what looked like coarse black sand from them and scattered it over the ice. With that, it became easier for the group to move on the ice without much worry.

Yun Jieshi, still feeling the tingle in his fingers, began scaling the tree he had been hiding behind. He wanted a quasi-aerial view of what these red abominations were about to do. He sensed that something interesting was about to happen.

His practiced skill in using the Bonding Touch allowed him to climb while barely making any noise. Quick and steady was the key, before the ice forming from his fingers hardened significantly, making it hard to pull away.

By the time Yun Jieshi was looking down from a height of nearly fifteen meters, perched on a sturdy branch, the Jade Imps had finished their preparations. Four of them had scaled up trees like Yun Jieshi, but not to ridiculous heights. They had their bows drawn, some adjusting them and some fixing the fletching on their arrows. One, curiously enough, was holding a rope that looked as though it was made of dark hair.

'Just what do they intend to do?' Yun Jieshi thought while throwing a Shuang Finger in his mouth. The cold, sweet taste caused his insides to dance.

The rest of the Jade Imps went up to the pond, cautious, and started scooping up handfuls of the water and drinking it. No. They simply filled their mouths with it. Yun Jieshi saw all their cheeks swell. After judging a few strides' distance away from the pond, they circled it, tipped their heads upwards, and did the last thing Yun Jieshi could have ever imagined.

They danced.

They opened their mouth, gurgled the water in their mouths loudly, and hopped on one foot, then on the other, and the other. They made sure to stomp on the ice as hard as they could. Trial and error must have taught them just how much of their shenanigans the ice could bear.

Yun Jieshi watched, stunned. What were they doing? Were they trying to summon something?

The Jade Imps danced for five minutes without pause. The echoes of their silly gurgling in the dim night seemed so out of place and after a while, Yun Jieshi thought they drew in an ominous pressure from around them all.

He was only half right.

It happened when the little monkey least expected it.

The surface of the pond broke abruptly and a large figure jumped out. It had thick, blue-grey scales the size of standard wash bins and ten tails that looked like streams of lights, pulled to great widths by Immortal hands. All ten of its bodies connected to a single, giant head whipped at the air violently, cocking up a fierce wind that blasted away some of the Jade Imps.

…but not before the giant, bus-sized fish, quick as lightning, gobbled up four of them with its gaping mouth.

The fish was back in the pond before anyone was any the wiser. The Jade Imps scrambled away and Yun Jieshi almost fell from his branch.

"What in the…!" he cried, his face white as a sheet. He belatedly clapped a hand over his mouth. Thankfully, no one had heard.

The winds cocked up by the giant fish along with the sound of the water in the pond bearing its immense weight as it fell back in, had masked pretty much every other conceivable sound.

The Jade Imps retreated to a safe distance. A majority of them looked terrified, but the rest were merely wary.

Yun Jieshi couldn't understand what possessed them to poke at something so huge and deadly.

But wait!

Where did that fish come from?

Yun Jieshi was looking beyond the blue surface of the water and he couldn't see a shadow of a living thing swimming in the pond at all!

It made no sense.

Yun Jieshi reeled. 'Wasn't that a… Heluo fish?'

It was the only fish he had read about with ten bodies and one head. But the characteristics he knew of the fish… didn't seem to match what he had just seen. Or did they?

'Where I am, really?' the little monkey asked himself, terrified.

But this mystery Yun Jieshi struggled with was overshadowed by his confusion at seeing the Jade Imps rally towards the pond again.

They approached, slowly, warily, until they had encircled the body of water. One of them, a rather frail-looking Imp was nudged closer to the water. The others must have wanted him to confirm if the giant fish was still close by – somehow. This particular Imp clearly didn't like this forced mission, but a few beatings forced it to relent.

Two solid minutes passed as it waited by the edge of the water, its hands around its head before the others judged that it was safe. And then, like before, the Imps scooped up water in their mouths and began doing their funny dance while gurgling.

'Again?' Yun Jieshi wondered. What was the merit in this?

More than half an hour passed before any sort of change occurred.

The sky-blue waters of the pond broke again, but this time, it wasn't a bus-sized fish that came out. A carp with dull yellow scales and a dubious expression on its face made more pronounced by its gaping mouth and missing whisker, leaped high, and somersaulted nearly ten meters into the air.

The Jade Imps shrieked.

The three of them waiting in the trees had been ready. They aimed and loosened their arrows quickly, impaling the fish from two directions. The fish squirmed violently. A pulse of some vapor spilled from it, slapping the surroundings, but the Jade Imps were undeterred. Before the carp could fall back into the water, the Imps with the rope of hair had caught it in a loop and pulled it over. Its peers shrieked with joy.

Yun Jieshi could imagine why. Even though it was nowhere near the size of the fish from earlier, the carp was still as large as the average human. The Imps stabbed it several times until it was dead, and while two of them began peeling away its scales and gutting it, the rest continued to do the dance around the pond.

'This is… fishing?' Yun Jieshi thought to himself with a shake of his head.

But as disturbed as he was, he had to give the Imps credit. They were brave and they were strangely competent with the preparation of the fishes. They caught more carp and a few fish that looked like mackerel, only, they were about thrice the size and with more than double the usual number of fins.

The expert work of the Jade Imps left Yun Jieshi craving fish. He gulped. His body must have wanted to know what fish in general tasted like too. It reacted viscerally. The passion from it lessened a peg when Yun Jieshi remembered that note his father, Yun Muyang, had left him in the fridge.

I'd love it if you joined me for tomato and egg stir fry tonight. No meat.

Somehow, that stung his very soul.

The Jade Imps finished their work without further incidents. They packed their fishes in the sacks. It seemed they had come unprepared for the massive haul for the day. The sacks they had prepared weren't enough. They emptied the sand from one of the other sacks for extra space.

Overjoyed, they excitedly helped each other carry the stuffed sacks. The last sack, filled with coarse sand was left behind in the wake of their hooting and shrieking.

Yun Jieshi envied the Imps.

He watched as they left. Before, he might have wanted to follow them, but now… he was tempted to fish. He craved that distinct taste.

'No, I'll be applying for death.' He quickly shut off his greed. He might not be as lucky as the Imps. There was a better plan he could pursue before, perhaps, chasing after the Imps. 'I should get that sack. I can carry my Shuang Fingers in it.'

Waiting a few more minutes for caution's sake, Yun Jieshi climbed down the tree and focused his eyes on the pond. He checked the ripples on its surface. Rather than looking for a giant fish swimming in the pond, it was probably the best way to predict the fish's patterns.

He started towards the pond.

He would just grab the sack and go.

Grab the sack and go.

Grab the sack and… go.

Yun Jieshi bit his lips and stood completely still. His heart pounded.

The waters of the pond rippled violently. A great shadow was rising. It was no human-sized carp or mackerel.

It was the big fish!