"Brothers... you... pull me up already!"
Several deckhands, seeing this, hurriedly swam over to help, but as it turned out, the more they tried to pull Wang Xiaoqi, the deeper he sank into the water. Despite exerting all their strength, they could not move him at all, and Wang Xiaoqi's head was about to be completely submerged...
Just at that moment, Gu Shi Yi's expression darkened on the boat. Others couldn't see, but she saw that as Wang Xiaoqi surfaced, a mass of black energy, like ink drops in clear water, rapidly spread out from him, quickly turning the entire river surface around the merchant ship dark,
"This is malice!"
Gu Shi Yi frowned, turned back to her cabin, took out a Yellow Talisman that the Old Taoist Priest had left behind from her bundle, pinched one in her hand, and then returned to the side of the boat. She shook it in the wind twice, and the Yellow Talisman ignited without fire. To everyone's amazement, she threw it into the river,
"Go!"
Then, those on the boat saw the Yellow Talisman flutter in mid-air for a turn, before lightly falling onto the surface of the river. Surprisingly, the fire on the talisman did not extinguish but spread rapidly over the surface of the river. In a short while, the entire river was ablaze with a faint fire. Others couldn't see, but Gu Shi Yi saw the black energy quickly wane and shrink as the flames burned.
The deckhands attempting to save Wang Xiaoqi stood dumbfounded at this development. They saw the flames enveloping them but felt no heat at all. Gu Shi Yi shouted,
"Quickly pull up Wang Xiaoqi!"
Only then did they snap to their senses and hurried to pull Wang Xiaoqi again. This time, they easily brought him above the water,
"Huff, huff, huff..."
Wang Xiaoqi gasped for air as he surfaced, his face showing that he had narrowly escaped death. Gu Shi Yi asked,
"Wang Xiaoqi, did you see clearly under the water who was grabbing your leg?"
Wang Xiaoqi treaded water, shaking his head repeatedly,
"No... don't know... I was scared to death just now... didn't... didn't see!"
You coward! What a waste of your strong body!
Gu Shi Yi rolled her eyes and was about to speak when cries of surprise erupted from the people on the boat,
"Oh my, look... what is that?"
They saw something slowly rising to the surface of the water near where Wang Xiaoqi and the others were. The deckhands turned their heads to look, got scared and scattered in all directions. Everyone then saw a patch of red emerge from the water,
"It looks like a person..."
"It is... it's definitely a person!"
People chatted noisily, and as the figure surfaced, it became clearer. They could now see a woman in a red dress, her black hair floating on the water's surface like waterweeds. Was it her hair that had tangled Wang Xiaoqi just now?
Looking at the swollen and bloated form of the corpse, it seemed she had not recently died but had been soaked in the river for several days,
"Oh my... it really is a woman!"
The crowd screamed, and the ship owner turned pale when he saw it, complaining to Gu Shi Yi with a mournful face,
"Master Gu, what... what is going on here?"
Gu Shi Yi had already guessed much of what was happening but still kept a calm appearance,
"No matter, have them retrieve the body!"
The ship owner, having lost his ability to decide, did whatever Gu Shi Yi said and hurriedly ordered his crew to get an iron hook. The crew lowered the hook and tried to lift the woman's clothes but couldn't budge her,
"Boss, we can't pull her up!"
The ship owner didn't believe it and tried himself, and couldn't move her either. He quickly asked Gu Shi Yi again. Gu Shi Yi thought for a moment and said,
"Have them check under the boat..."
The deckhands dived under the boat and in a short time, they called out to the ship owner,
"Boss, the woman's dress is caught on our ship's rudder..."
This was indeed very peculiar; the rudder had been soaked in water for a long time and was too slippery to grip onto anything. And yet, it had caught the corner of the woman's red dress, which they couldn't dislodge underwater. It was indeed very strange!
The ship owner heard this and turned even paler,
"Doesn't that mean she... she has been following us since we left Xuancheng City?"
Gu Shi Yi nodded and commanded the crew to cut the woman's dress with a knife. With that, they hooked the body and pulled it out of the water.
"Splash..."
Once the woman's corpse was out of the water, it quickly got dragged onto the boat and was laid on the deck. Some of the more timid onlookers observed from afar, while the braver ones gathered around Gu Shi Yi.
Gu Shi Yi used a bamboo pole on the boat to lift the long hair covering the woman's face, revealing her visage,
"Wow..."
The crowd gasped. The woman's face was swollen from soaking, not to mention it also appeared to have been gnawed at by something in the riverbed, resulting in a pitted and torn surface. Both ears were missing, the nose was reduced to a hole, the cheekbones were exposed from being gnawed away, lips were gone, teeth jutted out grotesquely, and it was as horrifying and nauseating as it could be. The people recoiled in horror, covering their faces with their hands, but only Gu Shi Yi remained unfazed, turning to the ship owner, who also had his eyes covered,