The Dragon's Lamenting Shamanic Song [Infinite]

This novel features Chinese folk horror, witchcraft, feng shui, dragon veins, celestial phenomena, the Boundless Heaven, atmospheric creatures, and more.

Synopsis:

At the end of a fishing village stood a River God Temple. The deity enshrined inside wasn't a clay statue with a gilded body, but a living, breathing "River God."

The old folks said he was a jiao dragon who hadn't yet leaped through the Dragon Gate. He had taken human form and fed on human flesh and blood. At the slightest misstep, rivers of blood would flow. The villagers feared and revered him, offering sacrifices year after year and begging him to send rain. But the River God couldn't be bothered with them. Every year brought drought, and every year he pretended not to hear.

Until this year, when they tied up A Yu and threw him into the river.

A Yu was the guardian of the little fishing village. He'd been alone and friendless since childhood, and anyone could kick him around. The clan elders thought him useless, so they came up with a way to get rid of him. "Offer this unlucky thing to the River God in exchange for rain."

So A Yu was shoved into the pitch-black river, bound tightly to make sure he couldn't escape.

But he didn't die.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying in the temple, drenched from head to toe. A ridiculously handsome man sat beside him, with long black hair and golden eyes, studying him with interest.

"You're the offering?" The man pinched his chin and looked him over with a half-smile. "The village is trying to fool me again with something worthless."

A Yu silently got up and wiped his face. "You're not a dragon either..."

The jiao dragon found this little thing rather interesting. He seemed dim-witted, but his gaze was as unyielding as stone. At first, the dragon meant to keep A Yu as a breathing ornament until the village sent a real sacrifice. But, little by little, he found himself caring... Who could blame him, when A Yu was so good at looking after people?

Whenever the dragon frowned, A Yu brought him fish soup. Whenever he sneezed, A Yu put a coat over his shoulders. The dragon and the boy made a cozy life for themselves in the dilapidated temple.

Until one day, A Yu came over with a fresh pot of mushroom soup and a bright smile. "River God, give this a try."

The jiao dragon drank it and fell unconscious for three days and three nights.

When he awoke, he found himself trapped in a formation, with dense rows of talismans overhead and an interlocking Eight Trigrams array beneath his feet. The seemingly harmless boy was leisurely wiping down a bone knife covered in witchcraft spells.

A Yu looked at him with wide-eyed innocence. "Lord Dragon, I'm the last little shaman of Wuyin Village. I want to capture a real dragon as my betrothal gift."

The jiao dragon had already lost his human form inside the formation, dark golden scales emerging along his neck. He'd lived for over three hundred years, but this was the first time someone had completely outwitted him. "You little lunatic, what are you planning?"

"I want to marry you." A Yu set down the dragon-skinning knife as a warning. "You are a dragon, and I am a shaman. We were made for each other. Help me deal with the people who killed my entire clan, and I'll help you leap through the Dragon Gate and become a true dragon. After that, you can return to the heavens and roam free, while I stay on earth and live as a human. We'll owe each other nothing and never meet again."

Leap through the Dragon Gate? The jiao dragon smiled. "I'm a creature of the river, not a sea dragon. Do you know what it costs to help me become a dragon? They say when a jiao dragon ascends, the winds of the underworld blot out the sky, and torrential rain falls from the moon."

At the time, the jiao dragon thought he would never see that day, not even after several hundred years.

Who could have guessed that when the day finally came, the music of the shaman's rites would ring across the mountains and rivers, summoning wind and rain for him?

*Reject superstition. This novel is entirely made up.

*This novel is part of the same series as Hungry Bones and Wicked Erosion, Cleansing Bones, but you can read it without having read the first two books.

Theme: Science, democracy, self-love, and self-reliance.