The Lord of Void and Real

50  Chapter 49 Exploring the River

After the agreement was settled, Shen Luo handed over the horses to Mr. and Mrs. Yu Dadan, and rowed the small boat into the river himself.

When he was about to set off, Yu Dadan did not forget to give him detailed instructions, fearing that he might encounter any accidents. Shen Luo naturally took this seriously and noted down the details of each section of the river and the matters needing attention.

The woman even provided him with clean drinking water for the boat, and brought out some pancakes and pieces of jerky from their home. She wrapped them in a hemp cloth and insisted Shen Luo take them with him on the boat.

Shen Luo, unable to refuse their kindness, laughed and accepted the package.

The awning boat drifted down the rapid river. Shen Luo stood at the bow of the boat with a bamboo pole in his hand, not to row, but to feel for the reefs in the water on either side of the boat.

Soon, the boat bypassed clusters of reeds as tall as humans, and entered a reed beach.

According to Yu Dadan's description, this section is the most turbulent in the Luan Shui River. The boat was not going too fast when it first hit the water, but as it went downstream its speed increased rapidly. This forced Shen Luo to start using the bamboo pole to feel the bottom, reducing the speed of the boat.

However, he was quite unfamiliar with rowing. Even though he was fully concentrated, he couldn't avoid bumping around in these rapids.

"Bang, bang, bang"

The boat swayed from side to side, continuously hitting hidden reefs beneath the surface of the water, scaring away the ducks and geese in the reeds on both sides, and causing water birds to take off.

When encountering some large whirlpools and hidden reefs, he had to use all his strength to push the boat aside, otherwise if it was drawn in and he was not careful, it would capsize.

Before long, Shen Luo was already sweating profusely and seeing stars, but the pressure of the water did not allow him to rest. He had no choice but to grit his teeth and keep going

All along the way, he paid special attention to the banks on both sides, checking for any narrowings in the river. However, because the reeds in the river were so tall and dense, his line of sight was affected and he couldn't see clearly. He could only judge as much as possible based on the changes in the water flow.

After all, where the river channel narrows, the speed of the water flow will also speed up.

In this way, Shen Luo drifted for seven or eight miles. Along the way, he didn't encounter any rubble beaches, but there were quite a few sandbanks in the middle of the river.

His boat ran straight into two long, narrow sandbanks.

The sandbanks were all covered with green reeds, as if they had created a natural waterway. As soon as the boat entered, its speed suddenly increased, and it shot out with a rush.

There was a muffled "bang", and the small boat suddenly shook when it rushed out of the reeds.

Shen Luo stumbled, almost falling from the bow of the boat.

He held on to the bamboo pole to steady himself, looked ahead and saw that in front of the bow, there was a rubble beach several dozen feet in diameter. Fortunately, the material of the small boat was solid, so it didn't break from the impact.

Unlike the sandbanks seen along the way, the rubble beach was full of gray-white cobblestones and mud, and the place where the bow struck had a much larger brown river reef than the other rocks.

Not only was this rock rugged and strange in shape, but only two feet of it was exposed above the water, with most of it submerged beneath the surface.

The bow of the boat, as luck would have it, was stuck in a groove of this strange rock, but fortunately, it didn't get damaged.

Shen Luo glanced at both sides of the riverbank for a moment, and found that the river bank here had narrowed quite a bit. A smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"Narrowing of the river, rubble beach, underwater river reef, it seems to be here," Shen Luo murmured.

According to Yu Yan's account, their ancestor found the Nameless Heavenly Book under a rubble beach. Now, this place seemed perfectly aligned with the description.

He originally thought that it would take a lot of searching, but it turned out that he didn't have to spend much effort at all.

Shen Luo threw the bamboo pole onto the rubble beach, bent down and tied the rope from the bow of the boat around the river reef. He tugged on it forcefully, made sure the boat wouldn't drift away with the water, and then sat down in the cabin, falling back exhausted.

After rowing the boat all the way, he was already exhausted. At this moment, he didn't even have the energy to jump off the bow to find the heavenly book, let alone get into the river to look for it.

After a long rest and eating some provisions, it was only then that Shen Luo finally caught his breath and stood up again.

He fetched a bundle of hemp rope thick as a thumb from the ship's cabin, securely tied one end around the river reef, looped the other end around his waist for a few wraps, and then jumped out of the ship and onto the rubble beach.

20:50

The rubble beach, almost elliptical, aligned with the direction of the current, ran longer east-west and slightly narrower north-south. The river reef stood at the west end of the beach. Shen Luo stood next to the stone, looking into the river.

He saw the river water dark and muddy, giving off a faint muddy smell. Nearby, white foam danced at the edge of the beach, while farther out, different-sized whirlpools floated on the river surface. He couldn't see what lay beneath the water at all.

He steadied his mind a bit, extended one leg, and cautiously started stepping towards the water.

However, the stones at the water's edge were loose, and slipped suddenly downwards with the slight exertion.

Shen Luo missed his footing and with a "plop", fell into the river.

The river here was quite deep, his whole body was submerged, and he was violently swept into a giant rock by the rushing water. He couldn't help opening his mouth, swallowing several big gulps of muddy river water.

In a panic, he struggled to turn around, grabbed onto the giant rock to climb upwards, emerged his head from the water, and took a big gulp of air, followed by violent coughing.

"Cough, cough..."

It took Shen Luo quite a while to recover. He wiped the river water from his face, his heart was still somewhat in shock.

"This place really is dangerous. But if it weren't so, the Nameless Heavenly Book wouldn't have stayed here for so long, undiscovered," Shen Luo thought, his desire for the Nameless Heavenly Book growing even stronger.

This time, he took a deep breath, pinched his nose, and boldly sank underwater, with one hand leaning on the giant stone behind, he slowly explored downward.

Once submerged, he gradually opened his eyes, only to find the water in the river was somewhat cloudy, he couldn't see much, and couldn't look far either. He could only rely on the reef to guide him, groping as far as possible towards the river bottom.

To his surprise, this river bed was quite deep, and by the time his feet touched the sand at the bottom, he was already out of breath.

Suppressing the sensation of suffocation, he tried hard to widen his eyes to look into the riverbed beneath the rubble beach. In the misty view, he seemed to see some depthless mud puddles and stone caves. He quickly extended his hand to grope around.

However, after only a little bit of exploration, breath-holding for a long time already made his head spin and his chest oppressive, forcing him to climb up slowly and return to the surface with the help of the stone.

Shen Luo gasped for air, his chest heaving heavily.

Once his breath was somewhat steady, he dove back into the water and sank towards the riverbed again.

This time, in order to stay longer at the river bottom, his descending speed was much faster. As soon as he reached the bottom, he began immediately to probe underwater.

Yet the bottom was dark and murky with sediment floating around, his eyes could help very little. Shen Luo could only fumble randomly, like a headless fly.

Not long after, his breath was exhausted, and he had to return again.

As soon as he'd recovered a bit, he eagerly dove back to the river bottom to explore the area under the rubble beach. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

After several such attempts, when Shen Luo surfaced to get some air, he was both weary and cold, his lips turning somewhat purple.

He huddled against the reef, and looked up at the sky in the west to find the sun already beginning to slant westward.

"Let's try again..."

Shen Luo's eyes focused sharply, he took another deep breath, and his whole body dove downwards, plunging down towards the riverbed again.

He had already felt around each mud pool, stone hole under the reef, he then swam past the stone, and headed down to the southern part of the rubble beach, with his palm on the riverbed probing inwards.

This time, as his right hand squeezed into a rather small hole, his fingertips suddenly touched something completely different than a stone.