The Corpse Divers of Sanjiang

I'm Jin Shui, a corpse retriever at Sanjiangkou. I keep watch over the seven-story black pagoda by the river, obeying the ancestral iron rule of “never retrieve these three kinds of bodies,” and have spent ten years drifting in a small boat. Ten years ago, my father followed the rule of “save the living first, retrieve the dead later” and drowned in the river. His body was never found. I took up the family's jujube-wood retrieval hook, making a living while searching for my father, never daring to cross the forbidden line. Then, one stormy night, I ventured into the dangerous Black Fish Bay to search for a child who had fallen into the water, and made an exception by retrieving a woman in red. The half of a lotus-patterned ink jade pendant at her waist fit perfectly with the other half my father had worn close to his body when he disappeared. The first thing she asked about was the broken dragon-slaying stone in the black pagoda's underground chamber. She even revealed the century-old secret that the pagoda's keepers had concealed for generations. From that moment on, Sanjiang's peace was shattered. A century-old stone archway resurfaced from the riverbed. A Ming Dynasty patrol officer's seal was carried back by a giant turtle. The bandit chief's surviving followers secretly blew up the riverbank in revenge. When floodwaters surrounded the city, leaks sprang up everywhere, while a life-saving ancient spring lay hidden in the mountain streams during a severe drought... One strange event after another unfolded, all of them connected to the underground chamber beneath the black pagoda and the truth behind my father's disappearance. I led the corpse-retrieval team through dangerous currents, fought ruthless bandits, plugged the leaks, and searched for the ancient spring. I went from a river corpse retriever looking out only for himself to a guardian protecting an entire county. The four great families turned over a new leaf, the villagers stood united, and everyone worked with their own hands to reinforce the riverbank and survive the lean years. They turned impoverished Sanjiangkou into a peaceful, prosperous place everyone longed to call home. Only at the very end did he understand that the “treasure hidden in the river” the old Taoist spoke of was never gold, silver, or ancient riches, but...