With the matter of secrecy settled, Lu Guizhou remembered what An Youyu had just said about his original method no longer yielding progress.
"Youyu, besides your force no longer growing, is there anything wrong when you circulate your breath?"
"Nothing," An Youyu said. "I came today hoping to find some old Salamander Swim registers so I can reference other people's swimming methods and see if I can continue cultivating forward."
Lu Guizhou felt a bit relieved to hear that his breath circulation was fine.
"It's good to look through a few."
"However, since your wild method was groped out on your own, don't rush to test new registers on your body the moment you get them. No matter how urgent things are for the commune, we can't let you risk your fish aperture."
"I understand," An Youyu replied, then asked, "Is there anyone in Seven-Masts Anchorage who deals in old Salamander Swim registers?"
"Salamander Swim..."
Lu Guizhou thought for a moment and shook his head. "To be honest, I've never heard of anyone."
"Among the twenty-eight communes, you're the only one walking the Salamander Swim right now. The paths each family is willing to spend fish materials to nurture are still the five paths: Dragon Gallop, Sky Ray, Shark Maiden, Turtle Bearer, and Gluttonous Whale."
"Salamander Swim is the best for endurance, but it suffers in direct combat, and it lacks registers down the line. How many fish materials does it cost to support a single person? Every family has to weigh those accounts."
Tie Liangzi chimed in, "Forget Salamander Swim—even complete registers for the Five Common Paths are rare on the market."
"When the fish recipe and swimming method match properly, that's the family heirloom left for descendants. Who would be willing to sell that?"
"Most of those out there are hand-copied transcripts."
"This one missed two lines in transcription, that one left out a stance drawing. After passing through several hands, even the seller might not know how much is missing."
"Worse are the unscrupulous ones who make things up and dare to sell them as ancestral registers. They run off with your money, ruin your cultivation, and then turn around and blame your poor comprehension!"
"Old Tie, have you read many?" An Youyu asked.
"In his shop, ruined registers outnumber good iron," Old Chaotou chuckled. "That old cabinet of his is nearly bursting."
"Bah, loose pages and scattered copies—how much could they be worth? Some boat captains owed repair fees and used those as collateral," Tie Liangzi said. "When I have spare time, I flip through a couple pages just to pass the time."
"There was one where the first few pages properly taught breath circulation, but turning further—good grief—it started teaching bed techniques..."
Old Chaotou had just opened his mouth to grin when Tie Liangzi caught him.
"You're laughing, but weren't those pages borrowed by you?"
"I borrowed them, but that book was missing pages! Right at the crucial moment, the rest was gone."
"What, do I have to complete the rest for you?"
Lu Guizhou's lips twitched slightly as he jerked his chin toward the commune monument.
"Speaking of missing parts, our commune monument's 《Floating Spring Ray Register》 wasn't fully passed down either."
"It has both the fish recipe and the swimming method, but key details like how to discern medicinal properties during aperture unsealing or how to adjust that breath are missing quite a lot."
"When I teach the kids, I can only explain step by step how I unsealed my aperture back then. But with the exact same recipe, if another person follows my method, it might not work for them."
"The fish materials are gathered, the tide season is right, yet missing that single breath means it won't connect. Panic doesn't help—once fifteen minutes pass, the medicinal properties dissipate."
"That's no lie. I was only thirteen or fourteen back then, the prime age for aperture unsealing," Old Chaotou said. "The commune squeezed funds from the public ledger to gather that set of unsealing fish materials for me, but in the end, I failed to unseal my aperture at all."
Lu Guizhou also mentioned that several fish-swimming methods among the twenty-eight communes required pairing with specialties from their own fishing grounds, and those fish materials were supplied only to their own people.
Even if an outsider obtained a true method and wanted to continue practicing, they would first have to register residency.
Many were willing to join those float-communes precisely because they provided access to both techniques and fish materials.
An Youyu nodded.
However, what he wanted right now was not a complete fish register that he could directly follow.
"Incomplete ones are fine as long as their origins can be verified," An Youyu said. "I'll first look at the stances and breath circulation of predecessors on the same path to see if there's anything I can borrow. Once I have a clear grasp, I'll test it out."
Speaking of which, he suddenly remembered the old cabinet Old Chaotou had mentioned earlier.
Didn't Tie Liangzi have a cabinet crammed with loose pages and scattered copies?
An Youyu turned toward him.
"Old Tie, can you lend me those old registers to look through?"
"Sure, of course I can," Tie Liangzi agreed quickly, then added, "When do you need them? I'll have to tidy up the cabinet first."
Those few books teaching bedroom maneuvers definitely had to be shoved back down to the bottom.
"After I come back from a trip out to sea."
"Out to sea? What for?"
"To get into the water and practice, and catch some fish while I'm at it. My force has grown, but I haven't gotten the hang of using it smoothly yet."
"Alright, practice first and pick them up when you're back."
"Then I'll trouble you, Old Tie." An Youyu turned to Lu Guizhou. "Chief, I'd also like to borrow the Clown."
"Go ahead and use it," Lu Guizhou said. "I'll call someone to go with you to the Clown Fishing Ground to handle the sails and lines so you can free your hands to practice."
An Youyu paused briefly.
He had only said he was going out to sea to practice, and the chief assumed he was heading to the Clown Fishing Ground.
It was hardly surprising.
After waking up, Ning Cang had taken him to that fishing ground, and during the commune hall discussion on strategy, they had agreed he should practice his swimming skills there. It would take less than half an hour for the Clown to get there.
However, his true destination for this trip was Ghost Hollow.
He did not correct him.
Whether the hollow had Tiger-Head Mushrooms was still uncertain; he would explore it first before saying anything.
"There's no need, I can manage on my own. A wild method has no fixed pattern, so I want to find a quiet stretch of water and try things out slowly on my own."
"That works too. With your current force, I'm not worried about you in our own fishing ground," Lu Guizhou said.
Ferocious fish were rare in the Clown Fishing Ground to begin with, and with the Wither Tide currently underway, the sea was even emptier than usual. Lu Guizhou merely gave him a few reminders and sent him to Luo Dadou to pick up sailing gear.
An Youyu agreed, bade farewell to everyone, and stepped out of the commune hall.
The Clown was already the fastest ship in the commune. According to the location on the old map, even with favorable winds, reaching the waters of Ghost Hollow would take a day.
A round trip would take at least two days.
Today was already the third day after the drawing.
With only four days remaining to deliver the medicine, and leaving margin for verification, he would have at most one day to descend into the hollow to search ships and look for the medicine.
Time waited for no one.
Before long, An Youyu piloted the Clown and sailed out through the float-commune's water gate.
Rate on N.U.
