Dead Fish Straight Mouth—reel in and leave. It was a folk custom passed down among Baiters.
A dead fish couldn’t possibly take the bait. Only a live one would hook itself neatly onto the line like that.
Yet a dead fish’s mouth could slip right over the hook, which easily made people wonder if something underwater had deliberately hung it there.
Of course, there were rare cases where a live fish died after biting the bait, or the hook happened to land perfectly in a dead fish’s mouth. But those were uncommon, with very low odds.
No matter the reason behind it, the right thing to do when it happened was to reel in and leave, stay away from the river for a couple of days, and cleanse yourself with pomelo leaves to ward off bad luck.
But to Roland, this was no coincidence. It was an “Anomaly”!
“Anomaly” was what they called the growing number of phenomena in recent years that couldn’t be explained by conventional science—ones that even defied the known laws of physics.
The metric for measuring an Anomaly’s magnitude was “Anomaly Level.” The higher the level, the more it violated physical reality.
The Compass in Roland’s hand was a device developed by the Tech Institute Anomaly Affairs Division. It could detect the direction of even the highest Anomaly Levels.
And it was pointing right here.
This matched perfectly with the Dead Fish Straight Mouth on that fishing youth’s line!
“Dead fish, huh…” the fishing youth muttered, a hint of resigned inevitability in his voice. He reached out, removed the dead fish, and dropped it into his bucket.
Instead of following the old custom and reeling in to leave, the youth baited his hook again, preparing for the next cast.
Roland hurried forward in two quick strides and reached out to tap the young man’s shoulder. Before he could make contact, the youth turned back with an unhappy expression and made a shushing gesture.
“Shh, don’t interrupt my fishing. I just got this spot primed.”
“You hooked a dead fish,” Roland said.
“So what? A dead fish is still a fish. At least it’s not a total skunk.”
“Dead Fish Straight Mouth—reel in and leave. Haven’t you heard that one?” Roland pressed.
“Let’s just fish somewhere else. The feng shui here’s no good.”
It seemed the Anomaly was in the river itself. Better to get bystanders away first. Otherwise, if the Anomaly surfaced, he might not be able to protect the guy.
“I think the feng shui’s just fine. I actually caught a fish,” Luo Shang replied.
“Any spot where I can catch a fish is good feng shui.”
He meant it sincerely. With his luck—like some law of causality working against him—managing to hook any fish at all was already a win.
After all this time fishing in rivers, lakes, and even the sea, he usually pulled up turtles, crabs, shrimp, snakes, water macaques, human corpses, or low-grade items like spiritual treasures and spirit stones. But fish? Never.
How bizarre was that?
So today, landing a fish—even a dead one—felt like good luck to Luo Shang. Heh, not bad at all.
And so what if he didn’t reel in after a dead fish? Was he scared of breaking some taboo?
What a joke. He himself was the world’s biggest taboo. What could possibly top that?
He turned to size up the intruder. The man exuded the distinct aura of a soldier. The Entropy Increase around him was noticeably faster than a normal person’s, too. All signs pointed to him being no ordinary guy—probably one of this country’s handlers for special affairs. Luo Shang sized him up in his mind and drew his conclusion.
He had no intention of dealing with state agencies. Too much hassle. He just wanted to complete his own Fate Line in peace. Everything else could wait.
But the guy had tracked the Anomaly here anyway. Looked like Sophia had gone overboard yesterday.
Luo Shang had indeed dispersed some of her lingering death aura, but traces still haunted the area. Those remnants would turn anyone who died in the Estate over the next three years into a vengeful spirit. No surprise if the authorities had picked up on it…
Mentally pinning the blame—and his irritation at the fishing interruption—on Sophia (with plans to jack up her price later), Luo Shang started brainstorming how to brush off the man in front of him.
He wouldn’t fault the security guards for letting him in. This fellow had brushed up against the supernatural; ordinary guards couldn’t have stopped him.
Tch… what a pain. Should he just destroy the world and start over? Luo Shang wondered.
Roland had no idea what horrifying thoughts were brewing in the young man’s head. Luo Shang’s words just struck him as both amusing and exasperating.
What a classic tale about those stubborn anglers. Roland had heard the joke back at the bureau: one angler heads to a pond, baits his spot, spots a corpse nearby, but keeps fishing anyway, only calling the police after reeling in his catch.
Today, it had turned out to be real.
But now it wasn’t about whether to fish or not. There was an anomaly in the river.
This young angler’s first catch had been a dead fish. Who knew what else he might hook next? Or perhaps it wasn’t fish being caught at all—maybe something below was using the dead fish to bait the angler himself?
Both were possible, so Roland needed to convince him to leave right away.
“This river’s polluted.” Roland certainly wasn’t about to tell Luo Shang the truth.
“We detected toxic chemicals dumped upstream. It’ll affect anyone by the river, which is why you pulled up that dead fish. Please leave immediately. We’ll turn it over to the professionals.”
Roland didn’t just say the words. He flashed Luo Shang an official badge, complete with a prominent red stamp.
In the end, Luo Shang decided against destroying the world. The other man had spotted him after he’d already hooked that dead fish… and Luo Shang couldn’t bear to let it go.
Even a dead fish could be useful. Once he got home, he could have a necromancer work on it, maybe turn it into an undead pet…
Having weighed that, and hearing the man’s excuse, Luo Shang nodded. He instantly swept his divine sense over the nearby river.
To savor the random thrill of fishing, Luo Shang never scanned beforehand. This was his first real look inside the river.
Priority one: send the guy packing.
Luo Shang made up his mind. Whatever anomaly lurked in there, he’d pulverize it on the spot, restore everything to normal, and the man would leave.
As for the anomaly Roland had detected earlier? Just blame faulty equipment. One glance at the compass in his hand told Luo Shang it wasn’t all that precise—plenty of room for error.
That ought to do the trick.
The moment Luo Shang released his divine sense to scan, the young angler’s already handsome face seemed to sharpen into something even cuter before Roland’s eyes—like jumping from grainy 360p to crisp 1080p HD.
The sensation lasted only an instant, so fleeting it felt like an illusion.
Luo Shang withdrew his divine sense.
He had detected a skeleton at the riverbed, frantically chasing fish and trying to grab them.
No need to explain—Luo Shang knew exactly what had happened.
He hadn’t truly caught that dead fish himself.
The skeleton down there had snagged it and hung it on his hook.
Clumsy handling, plus the deathly aura clinging to undead creatures, had been too much for the fish. It died on the line, and Luo Shang reeled it up.
Sigh. He knew fishing couldn’t be that easy…
The skeleton must have risen from the riverbed under Sophia’s influence. When Luo Shang dispelled her deathly disturbance, he’d calibrated the aura conduction for air as the medium. The skeleton, submerged in water, had that effect diluted just enough to escape notice. Now it was free to chase fish around.
Hanging itself on the hook? Probably to curry favor. Luo Shang carried an advanced Necromancy Spell Scroll, while that skeleton soldier was the lowest-grade undead. The rank gap naturally earned its submission.
So that’s what Roland had picked up—the deathly aura on Luo Shang?
For the skeleton’s sharp instincts in baiting his hook, Luo Shang held off on destroying it. Instead, he slapped a seal over its aura, pinning it in place.
Then he reined in his own presence and spoke.
“Really? I don’t feel anything. Why don’t you check again?”
He fixed Roland with a steady gaze.
“I haven’t gotten any SMS alert. Once I do, I’ll head out.”
What a pain, Roland thought. Fine, I’ll have someone send you an official text right now. In the angler’s clear pupils, he saw nothing but sincerity.
Roland reached for his phone—and froze the next second.
The compass needle had shifted.
From pointing at Luo Shang to pointing toward the city center.
Roland: ?
Refusing to believe it, he manually nudged the needle toward the river.
Let go, and it swung back to the city.
What…? Had the compass glitched earlier, pointing the wrong way? Roland wondered.
The “anomaly” right in front of him had vanished. Now B City’s biggest one was smack in the city center. He had no idea what was going on.
Could an “anomaly” really disappear on its own? Roland had never seen anything like that. Or could that anomaly teleport?
If it was the latter, that spelled trouble…
With that thought in mind, Roland decided to head into the city. He glanced up at the young fisherman, who now had a smile playing on his lips.
“The notification just came in. The water quality around here isn’t contaminated after all, so you can keep fishing.”
“I knew it! There must’ve been some mix-up,” the young fisherman said with a grin.
“See you.” He waved farewell to Roland.
Roland didn’t linger. He turned and walked away.
Luo Shang had lost all interest in fishing and started packing up his bucket of fish.
Roland had slunk in like a thief, but now he strode out in broad daylight. The old security guard at the gate gaped in astonishment as he emerged from inside.
“Huh? How the hell did you get in there?”
Did one of the other guards let him in? If so, he must have had permission from one of the young masters living inside. With clearance like that, he could’ve just shown it to me—no need to sneak through another entrance.
The old guard scratched his head, completely baffled.
“Secret,” Roland tossed over his shoulder.
He had no time for small talk. As he pressed on in the direction the Compass indicated, his mind raced over the recent events.
Had the Compass really glitched? The academy’s model wasn’t the most precise in testing; errors weren’t impossible…
Over ten kilometers from the Su Family Estate Grounds, Roland suddenly had a flash of insight. Something didn’t add up.
When confronted with the evacuation order, the young fisherman’s first words weren’t “Got it, I’ll clear out right away” or “For real? I didn’t get any alert.”
No, he’d said, “I don’t feel anything. Why don’t you check again?”
Feel it? Why would he even think to sense it that way? You couldn’t detect toxic chemicals by gut feeling. And suggesting I check again—as if I could spot them with the naked eye? You’d need test strips or instruments for that, at minimum.
…There was only one thing I could have spotted visually.
The direction of the Compass’s spoon handle. That was plain as day to the eye.
And he’d specifically said, “I don’t feel anything.”
Did the young fisherman have some kind of intuition for this? Something even sharper than the Compass?
Roland replayed the smile that had curved the man’s lips when he’d mentioned the detection error. Suddenly, the guy seemed shrouded in mystery.
“I need to look into him…”
Meanwhile, Luo Shang sent a summons down to the skeleton at the river bottom.
“Come up.”
I could use a servant, Luo Shang mused. Someone to handle tasks I can’t do myself—or that I don’t want the people of this world knowing about.
He’d been planning to mold some clay golems, but this ready-made skeleton would do just fine.
Later, he could drape it in a layer of human skin and alter its face as needed. Perfect for discreet errands.
