Lu Chen, a programmer laid off by a major tech company, went from a code-grinding corporate drone to his old home by the river overnight, where he stumbled upon the bizarre death by drowning of his grandfather. At the funeral, a red-paper River God notice knocked at his door in the dead of night. A river corpse-bearer smashed through his window, rain fell without pause for months, and blood-red words appeared on the walls. Only then did he learn that, for generations, the Lu family had been burdened by a deadly debt owed to the river, made three hundred years ago. And he was the last heir.
A pair of River God Eyes awakened within him, able to see the resentment of monsters and secrets hidden beneath the river. The logical mind he had once used to write code became his greatest weapon for unraveling water-demon mysteries, breaking formations, and finding artifacts. To survive, and to uncover the truth behind his father's tragic death, Lu Chen was forced to take up the family's ancestral river-subduing arts. Following an old corpse diver across treacherous shoals and perilous waters, he narrowly escaped death amid ghostly weddings, attacks by water-walking corpses, and a demon's nest beneath the river, all while searching for eight river-subduing artifacts scattered along the great river.
Old Chen gave his life in a heroic sacrifice. A young Daoist woman fought by Lu Chen's side, while a river dolphin spirit pet secretly watched over him. Riverside villages and towns fell one after another; traitors plotted against him, evil cultivators fought to seize the artifacts, and monsters ran rampant. Jiang Kui, the Darkwater Nether Lord, had been suppressed three hundred years ago by the Lu family's ancestor, who used human bodies as stakes. Now it was breaking through its seal, seeking to devour all the river's resentment and drown the mortal world.
From a down-on-his-luck young man forced to shoulder an inherited debt to the guardian standing alone against danger to the entire river, Lu Chen used a programmer's cool logic and the bloodline of a river-subduing heir to gradually uncover the full truth behind his ancestors' secrets, his father's death, and the river's curse amid eerie folk customs and towering waves.
Three hundred years of cause and effect, settled in a single day. A river plagued by demons, subdued at the cost of one's life.
He wasn't born a hero. He was just an ordinary man who didn't want to lose again.
This time, he would protect this river, protect
