Since the third year of Jingde, Song Zhenzong took the name of "the place where the ancestors initiated the emperor's industry", and promoted Songzhou to Yingtianfu, which has since become one of the "four capitals" of the Northern Song Dynasty, and it is also an important political, economic and military town at that time.

In the seventh year of Dazhong Xiangfu, Yingtianfu was promoted to "Nanjing" (now Shangqiu, Henan) again, built three temples, palaces, etc., and governed five prefectures, twelve states and eighty-one counties. Nanjing is connected to Hongze Lake by digging a canal, and a densely populated and prosperous area lined with shops has been formed along the canal, with a total of 50,000 households and a population of more than 150,000. Outside the city of Nanjing, two more water and land bridges are built, where the lights are bright every night, and the sound of music is heard for several miles.

Out of Nanjing, take the canal and waterway to the east, about 700 miles to Hongze Lake. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, Hongze Lake was only a group of lakes composed of a number of small lakes, including Fuling Lake, Pocaulan Stream, Nidun Lake, Wanjia Lake, etc. Among them, the broken cauldron stream is famous for the Taoist ancestor Lao Tzu who practiced here. Throughout the ages, many Taoist disciples have come here to travel, and see the blue waves at the foot of Lupu Mountain, the mountains and rivers are beautiful, the lake is abundant, and the tranquil life is quite unforgettable.

This day is the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, the fifth and ninth solar terms, the lake has been frozen, and it is a good time to fish in the lake. But in the safe harbor, the large and small ships are all anchored and closed, no one goes out of the boat, most of the houses on the shore are closed, and there are few pedestrians, and there is a withered scene. The largest restaurant in the area of the broken cauldron stream, to count the "Hongxi Building", a three-storey wooden attic, with more than 20 elegant seats, and there are thirty or forty scattered seats in the hall on the first floor, just after the New Year, it should be full of friends here, lively and noisy, but today I don't know why, close to the evening, the diners are only three or three twos, and there is no prosperity in the past.

On the southeast corner of the hall, more than a dozen merchants waiting for the ferry gathered, one by one, their heads drooped, and sighed around a small stove.

A chubby middle-aged merchant said in a Huaiyang dialect: "Come on, if you continue like this, you won't be able to sail until the Year of the Monkey and the Horse Moon?" ”

Another young man who looked like a porter said: "There are still people in this water, which bold man dares to go to the boat?"

Another person said: "That thing has been here for more than half a year, seeing that no one dares to catch fresh fish and live shrimp all over the lake, the government has cut off the waterway in order to prevent that thing from going to Yingtianfu with the canal. ”

A short and fat old man said: "A few days ago, on Chinese New Year's Eve, the lake had just thawed, and the old Bao of Bao Ji Fishing Company went down to the lake to fish in the dark, and the next morning he was found dead floating to the shore, his belly was opened, and he ate only a skin bag. ”

The porter said: "Not only that, but some people were swallowed whole by the pickpocket, and in the end they spit out only a skeleton, you say that it is not scary." ”

The old man said: "It's not because the door was suddenly opened a few years ago, when the sky was a vision, many people rushed to see it, who knew that the pickpocket crawled out of the door, and ate a lot of people watching the excitement one after another." Alas, unjustly, why are demons and monsters rampant in a good year, I don't know what the reason is!"

Everyone sighed and sighed, complaining that some unknown monsters had recently appeared in the lake, with infinite strength, overturning fishing boats, eating fishermen, and many fishermen were poisoned. But in the end, there are very few people who have seen what that thing looks like.

In the southwest corner of the hall, a slightly fat middle-aged man and a young man were sleeping on the table, and there were still some leftovers on the table, half a pot of soju. Xiao Er cautiously walked over, trying to wake up one of them, but although the two of them were snoring one after another, when someone approached, they both woke up. The middle-aged man asked, "The store is coming to us?"

Xiao Er sneered and said: "The two guest officers are already on this day, if there is nothing to do, can you settle the wine and food money first, and the small one can give an explanation to the shopkeeper." ”

"Ah, I forgot, too, the knot. The middle-aged man said, took out a piece of silver from his arms, tossed it in his hand, touched the weight of four or five coins, and handed it to Xiao Er: "I will reward you for the excess." ”

When the little second saw that he had made a generous move, he was overjoyed, and took the silver and went happily. The middle-aged man patted the young man beside him: "Senior brother, junior brother, don't sleep, this day is about to pass." ”

The young man looked up at the sunset outside the window, took out a parchment roll from his arms, opened it and looked at it carefully, and said: "According to the date written above, the third person should appear on the fifth day of the first lunar month, in this broken cauldron area, called Yuwenxi." It stands to reason that yes, why is it that the day has almost passed, and it hasn't appeared yet?"

The middle-aged man said, "This name sounds like a woman, but I don't know what kind of person it is?"

The two of them were talking, when suddenly someone outside the restaurant shouted loudly: "Quickly retreat, retreat, come, come." ”

All the people in the hall stood up and looked out the door, and saw a ripple of water on the surface of the broken cauldron lake coming quickly towards the shore, and the ripple turned into the haven and disappeared, and the water shook violently, and the fishing boat swayed back and forth. The people on the shore hurriedly ran back, and some of them ran in a hurry, and fell down, got up and tried to run again, when suddenly a black shadow in the water pounced on the man and crushed the man to the ground.

Coming ashore from the water was a huge black fish, but this black fish was bigger than an adult, full of fangs, and the four pelvic fins had four sharp claws, each of which had four pointed toes, webbed between the toes, and made a "whoosh" sound.

The man who was knocked down was so frightened that he screamed, and tried to stand up, but was crushed by the strange fish. Seeing that the strange fish was about to bite down with its mouth full of fangs, a hovering black shadow flew over like lightning in mid-air, and in just one moment, the head of the strange fish was cut off, and a stream of black blood spurted out, and the body of the fish fell to the side. The black shadow swirled and flew back into the restaurant.

It turned out that the middle-aged man in the southwest corner of the hall used a boomerang to kill the strange fish and save the man's life. It's just that this shot was so fast that almost everyone present didn't pay attention to it.

The man escaped death, looked around, didn't know who came to the rescue, and didn't know who to thank, just knelt on the ground and kowtowed in all directions, chanting "Thank you Guanyin Bodhisattva for saving suffering, thank you for saving your life."

Before he could finish kowtowing and get up, suddenly a larger strange fish burst out of the water, more than twice as large as the previous one, and before he jumped to the shore and swallowed the man into his mouth, turned around and jumped into the lake and disappeared.

Everyone present opened their mouths in shock, too frightened to speak.

"I'm going to save people!"

I heard someone stop drinking, and then flew out of the restaurant, and stepped to the lake with an arrow and pulled out a double knife and jumped into the water, it was the middle-aged man who had just used a boomerang to save people. At the same time, the young men who had come with him also came to the shore.

I saw the water surface churning for a while, like boiling a pot, and for a while the huge tail of the strange fish was thrown out of the water, and the waves that hit it could be two stories high, and for a while, the middle-aged man poked his head out and took a deep breath, and dived down again.

After repeating this several times, the amplitude of the strange fish's churning was noticeably reduced, and after a while, the water gradually returned to calm. Then a stream of black water flooded up, and a string of bubbles gushed out, and the black fish floated up to the surface of the water with its belly turned over, and a long cut was made in its belly. Everyone was far away, staring intently at the surface of the water, for fear that the strange fish would turn over and do evil again.

After a while, the middle-aged man dragged a man covered in black water to the surface, who was the one who had just been swallowed by a strange fish. Seeing that the man was rescued, the onlookers on the shore all burst into thunderous cheers. The middle-aged man helped the man to the shore, at this time in the cold spring season, the temperature was still low, the man came up from the water, frozen so that his teeth chattered, a family member rushed forward to help him, and saw that his whole body was intact, but there was some more sticky liquid, quickly wiped it clean, wrapped his clothes again, and thanked the middle-aged man for his kindness.

This chubby middle-aged man is the fat man Zhuge Lengxin, and the young man who is traveling with him is Wu Shijiu.

The two of them came out of Zhaojinggong Temple in Chang'an, and repeatedly read the picture book of "Hell in Disguise", and found that the second spiritual gate had been opened once in Xingzhou City, Xixia, and the second psychic messenger turned out to be Li Yuanhao, the prince of Xiping. But the fat man knew that Li Yuanhao took the lead in fighting the giant beast Qiqi who came out of the spiritual gate that day, and finally fell into the spiritual gate and disappeared, and there is no news so far. How could this second psychic messenger be him?

The two of them were puzzled, and Wu Shijiu suggested skipping this section first and continuing to look for the third psychic messenger. Seeing that the picture book marked that a third psychic messenger appeared in the area of Hongze Lake, named Yu Wenxi, the two decided to wait here first. Who knew that it was getting late, but he encountered a strange fish in the lake and hurt people, the fat man was proficient in water, jumped into the lake and killed the strange fish, broke his belly, and rescued the swallower back to the shore.

At this time, someone in the crowd of onlookers said, "When did this strange fish add to this lake?"

"yes, why haven't you seen it before?"

"Fortunately, it was eliminated by the two heroes, otherwise it would be a disaster, and another disaster would have arisen again. ”

Wu Shijiu listened and hurriedly asked, "Isn't it this kind of fish that hurt people before?"

Several people shook their heads one after another, and they all said, "It was a huge anaconda that ate people before, much bigger than this strange fish." ”

Wu Shijiu inquired in detail about the shape of the anaconda, and couldn't help but gasp, and said to the fat man: "Listening to their description, that anaconda seems to be a willow." ”

As they spoke, the people slowly dispersed. The fat man whispered: "Xiangliu, didn't you say that in the desert outside Xingzhou City, you have killed a Xiangliu?"

"That's right, I thought there might be only one such weird beast in the whole world. Who knows that this is also divided into male and female?" Wu Shijiu said, remembering that there seems to be no record of the male and female bodies of Xiangliu in the "Hug Xuan Heart Sutra".

I heard an old voice say: "Xiangliu is not a dioecious, but a hermaphrodite, which can transform its gender and lay eggs on its own." ”