Chapter 73 The Dragon Trapping Well of Beijing (1/2)
Wang Bugui and his two friends arrived at old street. No one was walking around in the quiet night, and they were only accompanied by gust after gust of cool wind. They were standing outside an old temple, and it looked a little creepy in the darkness of night.
”There's a Dragon Trapping Well inside? Why is it in a temple, and why is there a bridge beside us?” Wang Bugui asked, feeling perplexed as he had never heard anyone talk about this place when he was traveling in the streets of Beijing. Zhao Changge laughed and explained, ”This Dragon Trapping Well was already in the City of Beijing since the Ming Dynasty, and everyone knows about it. Don't you?”
”I didn't. From the name of the well, I presume that a dragon is being trapped inside?” Wang Bugui asked somewhat sceptically. According to his master, divine beasts from ancient historical times, such as the true dragon, immortal phoenix, Kun, Peng and qilins had already vanished from Earth a long time ago. The only qilin beast that remained behind was in the Yuxu Pure Land, and it was the only of its kind left.
”I suspect that most likely there's a dragon in the well. Let me tell you about its story to dispel your doubts,” said Zhao Changge with a laugh. He then told Wang Bugui about the tale of the well and what happened to it during the present era.
The legend began when Liu Bowen and Yao Shaoshi were building the capital city of Beijing. They chanced upon a few whirlpools that could lead to the ocean. An ancient dragon happened to reside there, and Zhu Yuanzhang seemingly angered it when he built his palace close to its home, resulting in it plotting to flood Beijing.
Zhu Yuanzhang ordered Liu Bowen to think about an emergency solution, and the advisor came up with the idea of using the 72 Land Demons Technique to assist Yao Shaoshi is suppressing the ancient dragon. Yao Shaoshi was a Dragon-Subduing Arhat who had descended from the Heavens anyway, and their combined effort caused the dragon to flee in terror to the whirlpool at Beixinqiao. Legend has it that Yao used his Gold Arhat manifestation to engage the dragon in battle, and eventually he managed to seal it in the whirlpool, thus averting the huge floods.
Yao then transformed his precious sword into a steel pillar and stuck it into the well before securing the top of the pillar with a divine chain. He then built a bridge beside the well to cover the whirlpool up. As there was no water underneath, he did not erect starlings around its base. The old dragon was naturally unwilling to be trapped for the rest of its life, and it asked Yao Shaoshi how long it would take before it could go free.
Yao Shaoshi told it that it could leave when the bridge turned old, and the dragon felt that it was reasonable; after all, it could afford to wait for a few years. It did not expect Yao Shaoshi to name it 'Beixinqiao' (note to reader: 'Xin' in Mandarin means 'New'), thus it would forever remain new.
The ancient dragon would never be freed, and it could not invoke floods again. Occassionally a few curious folks would go up for a closer look, and they claimed that there was a rumbling and rustling sound if they pulled a little of the chain away. It frightened them so much that they immediately let go of the chain for fear of releasing the dragon.
”This is so strange. Is the dragon still alive then?” Wang Bugui asked, still finding the entire story hard to believe.
Zhao Changge shook his head, expressing that he did not have the answer to his friend's question. ”Yu Wude also told me that the original events could be far more complicated than what we know now. It took more than Yao Shaoshi himself to subdue the dragon. After all, the world had entered into the era of late arts after the Qin Dynasty. What we know as the 'Dragon-Subduing Arhat who descended upon the mortal realm' was actually a Buddhist expert of the Voiding Realm.”
”The ancient dragon's strength should have been at Joint Tao Realm, and one practitioner alone would not have been able to take it on. What really happened that day was much more complicated that we could imagine. Perhaps, they fought the dragon over some magical artifact.”
Wang Bugui nodded slowly; this theory was plausible. ”After that, strange incidents kept happening. During World War Two, the Japanese did not believe that there could really be a dragon in the well. They suspected that enemy troops were hidden underneath the bridge,” Zhao Changge continued.
”They sent soldiers to tug at the chain, and they could not get to the end of it even after tugging for a few days. The growling from the well kept getting louder the more they tugged, however. Eventually, the sounds of the chain rustling and the growling from beneath the well grew very loud, and a yellow liquid and the smell of the ocean accompanied it!”
”Eventually, those damned Japanese became afraid. They stopped tugging and allowed the chain to fall back. After that, the sounds subsided.”
Zhao Changge continued explaining, ”The second incident happened during the so-called Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards didn't believe the strange tale of Beixinqiao and vowed to remove the mystical aura surrounding it. Likewise, they opened the well and pulled the chain up, only for the same phenomenon to appear. The Guards were shocked out of their wits and returned the chain back to its original position!”
”The third incident happened only five years ago. There were news reports that the Cheng Jian Group had uncovered an old well as they were excavating the foundation trench for the Beixinqiao Station of the Fifth Rail Line. The well had a diameter of 1.2 meters and it was 2 meters deep. Half of it had already collapsed, and it was situated to the northeastern side of Beixinqiao Road. Construction works avoided the old well on purpose.”
Wang Bugui's expression turned serious as he heard Zhao Changge explain. Was the dragon still alive? After all, it was now 2008, and the third incident happened only five years ago. ”Is the ancient dragon still alive?” Wang Bugui asked his friends, his eyebrows furrowed. Zhao Changge and Lyu Hao spread their palms toward the sky, indicating that they did not know.
Wang Bugui could only sigh. He was a little worried for his friends, and he felt a little uneasy. ”If the ancient dragon is still alive, can we come back safely from the well?” he thought.
That said, he was confident of being able to overcome all obstacles and defeat all of his enemies. He rubbed his fists and did not worry further. He believed that he was invincible; such was the confidence he had after 10 years of hard training.
After a short discussion, all three of them began to scale the temple walls. Their speed was incredibly fast, and they arrived at the Dragon Trapping Well in the blink of an eye. It looked very run down, as if it could collapse any time. Yet, there seemed to be an invisible force holding it together.
”Hmm? There seems to be another dimension here,” Wang Bugui said. He had unleashed his Divine Sense after arriving at the well and realized that there was something odd about this place. The aura of Taoist codes pervaded the air, just like Yuxu Pure Land.