A Prophet - Chapter 8 (Part 4)
Chapter 4 - The Fish-Summoning Technique
One month ago, at the Pearl River Estuary, on the sandy beach.
The fishermen beneath the blazing sun were listless, because during that period, whether they were beachcombing at home or heading out to sea to catch fish, everyone felt that the fish population had plummeted drastically, leaving nothing to be caught.
In that era, people did not yet understand the effect that ocean current changes had on fish species. The convergence and divergence of ocean currents could cause variations in the temperature and pollution levels of localized sea areas, and the species and quantities of fish would shift accordingly. Therefore, fishing had its peak seasons and its off-seasons, but that particular instance was an extreme off-season. For several months straight, the fishermen returned empty-handed every time they went out to sea.
The sea breeze blew gently, and children ran along the sandy beach. The little ones, oblivious to the worries of adults, sang as they ran:
The heavens tilt to the northwest,
The earth sinks to the southeast.
If you do not believe in the immortal maiden,
The seas will run dry and the rivers will be parched.
The fishermen opened their hazy, sleepy eyes.
"A-Di, come over here. Who taught you that rhyme?"
Before the words had even faded, the child shook his head and pointed behind the fishermen. The fishermen turned around one after another to look, only to find that the "Immortal Maiden Huici" had arrived.
Qiao Wumei's public identity in Southern Guangdong was that of a lay Taoist practitioner of the Maoshan Shangqing sect, commonly addressed by people as "Immortal Maiden Huici." Since the late Qing Dynasty, she had prayed for blessings and rain multiple times in Guangzhou and Guangxi, with her prayers repeatedly coming true. The prefect of Guangzhou had even personally inscribed a plaque for her, reading: "Profound in Taoist arts, delivering the common people; the common people have feeling, her merits and virtues are boundless."
Not far from the beach stood a large banyan tree with coiling, writhing branches, lush and luxuriant. Its slanted branches extended dozens of meters in all directions, making the entire tree resemble a small forest.
Qiao Wumei arrived beneath the banyan tree and hung red and yellow silk ribbons upon its branches. Her entourage then placed a low-framed incense table beneath the tree. Qiao Wumei burned three sticks of incense and muttered incantations under her breath.
Shortly thereafter, Qiao Wumei said to the fishermen: "This tree has been claimed by the Sea God. Because you all have failed to perform good deeds for too long, the Sea God has grown furious and summoned back all the fish and shrimp to demonstrate the might of the heavens!"
The fishermen hastily chimed in, "Immortal Maiden, please help us."
Qiao Wumei replied, "No one can help you; only you can help yourselves. Donate money to build a Sea God temple, offer sacrifices day after day, and keep the incense burning without interruption. That is the only way to ensure peace and safety throughout the four seasons."
With that, she turned and walked away.
The fishermen stared blankly at the incense table beneath the banyan tree, as well as the merit box placed right beside it.
At that moment, a female Abao disguised as a kind-hearted person walked over and said, "Immortal Maiden Huici never utters falsehoods. The lot of you have returned empty-handed for months now, so you might as well give it a try. I shall make a donation on everyone's behalf first."
As she spoke, she tossed some copper coins and silver dollars into the merit box and wrote the names of several fishermen in the merit ledger.
"Those who donate shall reap the benefits. The Sea God has already noted the names of you few. Set sail at the fifth watch tomorrow, and you are bound to catch fish," the female Abao declared.
At the fifth watch the following day, those few fishermen set out to sea with lingering skepticism.
They hoisted their sails, and the sea breeze rushed against their faces. Faint, dim fishing lights flickered in the distance. Scarcely had the fishermen sailed a few dozen meters into the deeper parts of the sea when they discovered a thick layer of objects floating atop the water, shimmering and connected in a single expanse. Suspecting they were experiencing hallucinations, they rubbed their eyes and ventured closer, only to discover that they were actually all fish, floating upon the water's surface with their bellies turned upward, forming a vast expanse of white under the moonlight!
The fishermen were dumbfounded! They hurriedly cast their nets—though, in truth, casting nets was entirely unnecessary; they could simply scoop the fish up directly with hand nets. At first, seeing the fish with their bellies turned up, everyone assumed they were dead fish, but once they hoisted them aboard, they discovered that every single fish could thrash and move! The fishermen were overjoyed and frantically kowtowed toward the depths of the sea.
After daylight broke, the matter spread, and the beach erupted in chaos. Several fishermen carried baskets of plump fish, grinning foolishly all the way as they walked, leaving everyone around them staring in utter shock.
Consequently, a massive wave of fishermen began frantically donating money. The merit box filled up in no time, and when several additional boxes were subsequently set out, they filled up as well.
At this juncture, the local constable contacted by Qiao Wumei stepped forward, declaring that since the Sea God had claimed the tree, the Sea God temple should be constructed right beside this grand tree. Thus, a small divine temple rose abruptly from the ground next to the banyan tree.
This incident shook the entirety of Southern Guangdong and also lured the leaders of various "secret societies" across the five southern provinces into visiting to inquire about the Tao, hoping Qiao Wumei would reveal a hint or two. Qiao Wumei merely smiled and offered no explanation.
This was a secret passed down all the way from the reign of Empress Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty.
In the year 684 AD, Wu Zetian was making intense, behind-the-scenes preparations to declare herself emperor. Whenever ancients wished to carry out monumental affairs, they had to build momentum beforehand to demonstrate where the Mandate of Heaven resided. Before Chen Sheng and Wu Guang instigated their uprising, they planted a piece of silk inside a fish's belly bearing the words: "Great Chu shall rise, Chen Sheng shall be king"; before Zhang Jue instigated his uprising, he coined the slogan: "The azure sky is dead, the yellow sky shall stand in its stead"; prior to Liu Ben claiming emperorship, there were also rumors that "a yellow vapor appears in the southwest, rising straight for several zhang, and a Son of Heaven must emerge from that direction." A genius skilled in scheming like Wu Meiniang would naturally understand the profound mysteries behind this even more deeply. Therefore, she first renamed the Eastern Capital of Luoyang to Divine Capital, and then invited immortals of all paths to perform rituals to manufacture auspicious omens. To please Wu Zetian, the Fengshui master Li Chunfeng specially cast a spell within the peony pool where Wu Zetian bathed. The moment Wu Zetian removed her clothing to bathe and her jade foot first stepped into the peony pool, fish from all around would swim over, surrounding her feet just like a hundred birds paying homage to a phoenix, startling the palace maids into crying out: "An auspicious omen! An auspicious omen!"
This spell was transmitted during the Xianqing era of the Tang Dynasty from the kingdom of Magadha in central Tianzhu. This method could gather fish from a radius of dozens of nautical miles without a sound or trace. The ancient manual recorded the formula as follows:
"Five green-shelled eggs, soaked to saturation in a dry latrine for seven days, three liang of ram meat, a ladle of refined flour, hairy mallow, wild star anise, and fennel—two qian of each. Mix and pound them together into a mud, blend with two liang of ram fat, and at the hour of Zi, scatter the mixture into the water while chanting the incantation, and all fish and shrimp within thirty li shall flock to your feet."
Green-shelled eggs were a type of chicken egg with a greenish shell, produced exclusively by a breed of black-boned chicken originating from Hubei and India.
"Soaked to saturation in a dry latrine for seven days"—a dry latrine being an ancient term for an outhouse or privy—meant taking the green-shelled eggs laid by the black-boned chickens and submerging them in a cesspool to steep for a full seven days and nights.
Ram meat refers to mutton. One had to take three liang of mutton, a ladle of flour, and two qian each of traditional Chinese medicinal herbs such as hairy mallow, mix these ingredients together, pound them into a paste, blend in some sheep fat, and at the midnight hour of Zi, scatter this paste-like concoction into the water. Upon smelling the fishy stench, the fish would swarm over.
To pull off this grand fish-summoning scheme, Qiao Wumei had expended immense effort and inquired through numerous channels to acquire the "papercraft puppetry" technique, ultimately securing this fish-summoning method at a high price from a sorcerer on the Yunnan border.
The brilliance of the Abao faction lay in their ability to draw inferences about other cases from one instance. After multiple experiments, Qiao Wumei modified the method, adding "Sleeping Saint Powder" (the equivalent of modern sleeping pills) to the various raw materials. After consuming this paste, the fish would become intoxicated, flip their bellies up, and float upon the water's surface, leaving themselves entirely at the mercy of anyone wishing to catch them!
Afterward, Qiao Wumei faced the ocean and laughed heartily: "Among all things in heaven and earth, I alone am supreme! Across the boundless earth, I dictate who rises and falls!"
Viewed from the present day, this was a method of fishing that severely disrupted the ecological balance. Following the founding of the New China, coastal and riverine fishery administration departments in the 1980s resolutely banned this cruel fishing practice.
According to established custom, this scheme had been made clear to the local underworld prior to its execution, with an agreement to allot thirty percent of the profits to them. Unexpectedly, just as Qiao Wumei was celebrating the successful execution of her scheme, someone arrived to report that the opposing side was demanding an additional twenty percent and warning Qiao Wumei not to orchestrate such large-scale operations that disrupted the state of affairs again.
Upon hearing this, Qiao Wumei's fury surged: "Pushing an inch and demanding a foot! How dare they make trouble on this lady's turf!" The reason Qiao Wumei dared to go toe-to-toe with them was because she possessed some formidable interpersonal resources within the Military Statistics Investigation Group of the National Military Council (the predecessor of the Military Statistics Bureau).
The underworld boss of the opposing faction was also a woman, known in the jianghu as Second Sister Tian. She had arrived in Southern Guangdong a year prior, claiming to be a direct descendant of the Green and Hong Gangs. With numerous factions in Southern Guangdong, upon her arrival, Second Sister Tian distributed vast quantities of gold and silver to organize underworld gangs, astonishingly managing to establish a firm foothold within a mere year!
The sea area where the fishermen fished was controlled by the underworld, and whenever fishermen went out to sea or combed the beaches, they were subjected to extortionate skimming of their profits. Sometimes they would go out for days without catching many fish, only to still have to pay protection fees upon their return. The fishermen harbored deep resentment but dared not speak out.
As a result of Qiao Wumei's recent commotion, the status of the underworld in the minds of the fishermen plummeted drastically. The fishermen felt that whenever they had troubles, they only needed to seek out Qiao Wumei since she was a living immortal, whereas the underworld was merely a group of vampires who took without giving. Consequently, when the underworld later went to collect protection fees, many fishermen refused to cooperate, brandishing fish forks and threatening to fight the underworld to the death. Because of this, Second Sister Tian refused to let the matter rest and came looking for Qiao Wumei to settle accounts.
When the ghosts of impermanence arrive, life and death hang by a single breath. The two halls had been at a deadlock for some time when, unexpectedly, Qiao Wumei suffered a sudden heart attack and perished on the spot.
There are two things in life that one cannot control: birth and death. Calculating individuals scheme every single day, exhausting their minds and draining their hearts until their cardiac load exceeds its limits. Who could say when their time might run out? When Qiao Wumei triumphantly shouted, "Across the boundless earth, I dictate who rises and falls," she surely never imagined that King Yama was standing right behind her.