Volume One – The Hundred Coffin Mound Chapter Four – The Drought Demon of Water and Land

It was said that Daoist Qianshan was an orthodox sorcerer of Maoshan, and in his time, he alone repelled hundreds of water corpses. Yet few people know of this event, for almost all who did perished in that very catastrophe, with only a handful surviving.

The story took place when Daoist Qianshan was thirty-two years old, during the autumn—a season known for its heavy rains. On that day, Daoist Qianshan happened to pass through a village. As he entered, clad in a gray Daoist robe, the villagers began to whisper among themselves. Parched, Qianshan sought water from a farmer. Just then, an elderly man, hunched and leaning on a cane, approached. The old man, over seventy years of age, addressed Qianshan, “Master Daoist, our village has been beset by relentless rain. This rain is strange—unending, sometimes for four or five days at a time. Our people suffer greatly; even the livestock have been washed away. Would you read our fortune, and see if you can reveal the cause?”

Moved by the elder’s words, Qianshan agreed to divine their fate. As a disciple of Maoshan, he carried the proper instruments—three coins known as the Three Treasures of Mysterious Heaven, used to determine fortune or calamity. When the last coin landed, Qianshan’s face changed dramatically. The coins revealed: great misfortune, a hundred deaths, and minor misfortune.

The great misfortune meant that this very night, disaster would strike the village. The hundred deaths signified that over a hundred villagers would die, and even Qianshan himself could not avert the calamity. Yet the last coin, indicating only minor misfortune, left him puzzled. How could such a sign follow the others?

While Qianshan pondered, the village elder and the gathered people, seeing his grave expression, grew anxious and pressed him for answers. Rising, Qianshan gazed solemnly toward the west side of the village and spoke in a low voice, “It seems that something wishes to annihilate this village. The omen is one of great misfortune.” He sighed softly. “Since I have come here today, it seems fate has led me to a trial. I only wonder how many lives I can save this night.”

The village elder bowed slightly before Qianshan. “Master, what exactly does this great misfortune mean?” Qianshan looked down at the stooped, white-haired man. “Did nearly a hundred people perish in the great river before your village?” The elder pondered, then nodded. “Yes, if you count the dead over the years, nearly a hundred have drowned in the Shangyun River.” On hearing this, Qianshan drew a deep breath and said solemnly, “That explains it. There were no traces of rain on my way here, but the muddy ground began only at your village. The thing in the river is targeting you.”

The elder asked, “What is it?” Qianshan replied, “A water drought demon.”

The villagers fell into shocked silence; many had heard tales of such creatures. Wherever a water drought demon appeared, torrential rains followed. If the demon’s powers were strong, it would nurture the corpses of drowned men within the river, making them its servants—fierce water corpses, their bodies swollen from years beneath the water, yet still swift and lethal.

Where the water drought demon went, the river would rage. The water corpses would drag people under, suffocating them, and the demon would turn the dead into more water corpses.

So, that evening, Qianshan instructed the villagers to construct a high altar, gather cinnabar and yellow talismans, and began carving symbols into the earth before the altar. He inscribed a Maoshan formation specifically designed to dispel evil, then sat and waited.

That night, as Qianshan had foreseen, the downpour began in earnest. The formation withstood the rain, unaffected. The water of the Shangyun River grew wilder, thunder rolled, and lightning flashed. The river burst its banks, flooding toward the village, mingled with piercing, inhuman shrieks.

Qianshan’s heart trembled—not out of fear for the water drought demon and its hundred corpses, but for the villagers. There was no time to summon help or make further preparations; the formation had been hastily set and he could not be sure it would hold.

The river surged, lightning heralding doom. Water encircled the village. With a thunderous crash, a house at the edge was swallowed whole. Qianshan could do nothing—the formation’s reach did not extend so far. He could only watch as the flood consumed the home.

Cries of terror rang out—the villagers inside, resting at the time, screamed as one house after another collapsed. The entire village echoed with wails and lamentation, but the screams were brief, cut off in seconds, for the water corpses seized the living the moment the walls fell.

Beyond the floodwaters, a dark figure stood atop the raging river. As this shadow saw the villagers die, it began to laugh—a laughter tinged with weeping, as if vengeance of centuries had at last been fulfilled.

Qianshan rose from the altar, gazing at the figure standing upon the water, and called out, “Water drought demon, why do you slaughter these innocent villagers? Are you not afraid that when your ghostly form reaches its limit, the underworld will come for you?”