Immediately, the villagers all started groveling before me and weeping.

"Immortal cultivator! We have heard great things about you! Please save our village!"

"Save us!"

"Um..." I cleared my throat, groggily trying to look like a professional immortal. This was my first chance at making a name for myself! "All right, how can I help you all?"

An old man stepped forward, still groveling. "Please help us, O Great Immortal Being! Our fishing village at the foot of the Glittering Mountains is facing a severe drought, and if it isn't solved soon, everyone will die!"

Hmm...a drought. Typical natural disaster. That shouldn't be hard to solve.

An easy way for me to make myself famous?

I'll take it!

"All right! Lead the way."

----------------------------------------

The fishing village was very, well, fishy. It was called Yu Xiang Ye, and it was stuck right near an enormous lake by the foot of the Glittering Mountains.

It smelled like fish. Very, very strong fish. The smell practically knocked me over when I entered.

"So..." I asked as they led me into the village. "Where do you guys fish from? Where's this big lake your industry thrives off?"

"That's the problem," one of the old fishermen in the group answered grimly. "Our central lake, Gu Lao De Hu, is almost all dried up! All the fish are dying. Not only do we no longer have water, but everyone is losing their jobs."

Wow...that kinda sucked, for real.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

They led me straight to the lake, which was indeed...super dried up. What a crusty lake. There was a thin film of water at the bottom and some mangy, small fish sluggishly swimming around in it. The rest of it was basically a giant crater filled with fish bones.

"Wow...that's pretty nasty," I remarked.

"Yes," the old fisherman agreed. "Gu Lao De Hu has been slowly decreasing in water level for decades now, but in the last months, it has suddenly declined by enormous amounts. We don't know what to do! And everyone is starving...Please, help us, O Great Immortal! We will pay you however necessary."

"Yeah, yeah. We can talk about payment later. Let me take a look around first, okay? Something feels...fishy around here."

I grinned to myself. Get it? He he. Immortality hadn't changed my top-tier sense of humor.

Emaciated villagers started to crowd around and watch as I walked around this stinking crater of a lake, examining it.

Hmmm...

Yeah, there was definitely something super fishy going on here. There was evil energy in the air. I could sense it.

I knelt down and touched the dirt on the bank of the lake, closing my eyes. Then I activated the Temporal View technique to peer into the past of this location.

Visions veered through my mind, blurring and morphing. Nothing much — just a lot of fish dying, people freaking out around the lake, fishermen fishing, people swimming occasionally, festivals around the lake...and then, when I reached the past of this lake a couple decades ago...

My eyes shot open.

"I know what your problem is," I announced in a super professional-immortal way.

"What is it?" the villagers gasped.

"You're cursed. This fishing village — this lake, specifically — was cursed decades ago."

The old fisherman standing behind me paled. "So — he wasn't lying? That old man was really a demonic wizard?"

I raised my beautiful immortal eyebrows. "I see — so you know about this?"

He paled even more. Then he fell to his knees and groveled in the dirt again.

Why did everyone here like to grovel in the dirt so much?! Was it a form of skincare, or what? Geez.

"I never thought his words were true!" the fisherman wailed. "When that old man complained so rudely and threatened to curse our Gu Lao De Hu — I thought he was crazy! But — it seems he was telling the truth..."

"What's he talking about?" a cranky-looking old woman crowed. "What demonic wizard? What crazy man?"

I sighed dramatically. Wow...I was liking this. Being a poser — cough, acting like a super divine refined beautiful graceful immortal like I was — was definitely my style.

"Forty years ago, this lake was cursed by a demonic wizard...who thought your town was too smelly."

Silence.

"Excuse me?" the old woman shrieked. "Are you calling us smelly?"

"Ahem...Well, let me tell you exactly what happened..."

I began to recount what I had seen in my vision from the Temporal View technique.