No one knew where all these people had come from. Cradling a resolve to die, they crowded onto the old dock as the sky gradually brightened.

Row after row, arranged strictly by rank, they made for a rather intimidating sight.

By the time Little Zai and the others had all come out on deck and looked toward the shore in the dim dawn light, it truly resembled a scene of judgment from hell — a row of mourning hemp robes for every row of coffins.

Too many people had come; the shore couldn’t hold them all, so they crowded up the mountain path in continuing rows behind.

Little Zai and Zaishi were no ordinary men — standing on the deck, a mere glance told them from the aura alone that this endless line of people, whose end couldn’t even be seen, were all third-rate martial arts hacks he wouldn’t normally bother looking at twice.

They were the sort who ran mediocre martial arts halls, delivered low-grade escort jobs, or carried birdcages for wealthy men’s estate guards… Aside from a few old men at the front — oh, and one old woman who looked like she’d crawled straight out of hell, who at least had some presence and could be called a real figure — the rest were nothing but a rabble unfit to be seen in public.

The Tiger Down the Mountain had run into several hundred old rats that lived off scraps and rotten meat in the mud below — how, how was he even supposed to take a bite of that?

Could it really be that a righteous clan with hundreds of years of standing was now being threatened by a mob of highway robbers? By existences that didn’t even qualify as proper opponents, who wanted to climb onto their shoulders and stand directly before them, pretending to be men of righteousness?

They weren’t even fit to carry his shoes.

Could Little Zai kill them? Yes. Never mind their numbers — even Zaishi alone could handle it. It wasn’t a matter of whether they could win the fight. It was that the moment their feet touched that stretch of dock today, the moment they exchanged blows with these low-ranking martial artists, the reputation of the Nine Provinces Domain would fall to the ground for good, never to be picked back up.

They weren’t on the same level. Even engaging them in combat would be a disgrace.

This was the toad planting itself in their path — I can’t beat you, so I’m here to disgust you.

What could the Nine Provinces Domain do?

Little Zai simply stood in silence, watching. The people on the shore waited in silence as well.

Everything around was still. As more torches were lit, the blaze grew larger, and amid the crackling and popping there even seemed to be the sound of a fire dragon.

Little Zai showed no reaction, but Zaishi, whose temper ran shorter, felt so insulted that his inner breath grew turbulent — a mouthful of blood rose to his throat, and he forced it back down.

Old Fang, furious, said to Little Zai: “Sacred Master, just let this humble one go clash with them and ask what they mean by this!”

Little Zai shook his head slightly. “No need.”

Not worth it.

Old Fang, feeling wronged, said: “But we can’t just keep going like this either. Now that we can’t land and change course, we’ll have to head toward Jindian — but isn’t that getting farther and farther away? Any other place would be fine to talk about, but Jindian — whose territory is that? That’s the Tan family’s turf, and it’s already chaotic over there, so…”

His eyes suddenly lit up. He walked closer and lowered his voice: “Sacred Master, why don’t we do this — we… we leave here first, and then, then quietly find a chance to slip ashore…”

“Shut your mouth!”

Zaishi, furious, scolded Old Fang: “Every generation of Sacred Masters and Elders of the Nine Provinces Domain has acted openly and honorably. What do you mean by ‘quietly’? How would we even do that quietly? If we dare retreat today, where would that leave the Domain’s reputation!”

They seemed to have forgotten — this trip to Yandu had never been aboveboard to begin with. They had even kidnapped a “young man with no strength to truss a chicken.”

Old Fang, deeply troubled and pushed to his limit, no longer minded speaking bluntly: “Then what do we do? We can’t dare dock along this whole stretch. Never mind food on our ship — even the salt is about to run out. The boatmen with any real strength left still need salt to keep pulling. Otherwise, even if we want to go around half of Daliang to reach Jindian, we still need to keep the boat moving, don’t we?”

He hesitated, then added: “Sacred Master? Otherwise… we fight our way through.”

Little Zai didn’t want to look at this muddled fool any longer. He flicked his sleeve and said: “Fight through, and it’s exactly what they want — they came here hoping to be absolved of blame. If we fight, we hand them exactly what they wished for.”

He finished and turned to walk to the higher deck. Passing by the cabin door, these few men saw the young noble and that girl from White Stone Mountain who understood nothing of the world, leaning close together by the window, both smiling as they looked toward the shore.

As if nothing at all were happening.

Old Fang, with a stomach full of anger and nowhere to vent it, snapped bitterly at the two girls: “What time is it, and you two are still carrying on like it’s nothing? Someone, take, take the two young nobles down to keep out of the way. In case blades and swords go astray in a moment and someone gets hurt, we won’t be able to explain it later.”

He finished, clasped his hands behind his back, and walked off imitating Little Zai’s gait.

Xiaodeng and Xiaoqiu exchanged glances, and with looks of difficulty, went to She Wanlin’s side and bowed to him in courtesy.

She Wanlin laughed lightly: “This really is an undeserved disaster. From the way your master spoke, is this trouble I brought on myself?”

Chou Gu, however, was rather eager to watch the excitement. She left She Wanlin without a second thought, and with a face full of gleeful anticipation, ran off to find her good big nephew on the red boat so they could watch together.

Before leaving, she even pinched She Wanlin’s cheek and said: “Behave yourself. Later, whatever I eat, I’ll come back and tell you all about it.”

She Wanlin, looking utterly miserable, grabbed her hand and pleaded: “Chou Chou, don’t go. Stay down here and keep me company for a while, won’t you?”

Chou Gu gave him a mocking smile. Thinking of the coffins on the shore, and those people, beneath the shock she also felt some anger at An’er.

Her mother had said that this time, An’er really had gone too far and lost his footing. But her father had said, who hasn’t had a moment of youthful recklessness… in this world, everyone has to commit at least one reckless act in their youth, just to have something to regret for the rest of their life.

Chou Gu didn’t understand what her father meant — she just felt that An’er was too hateful.

So she teased with a laugh: “No. You brought this on yourself.”

With that, she swaggered off.

Throughout this journey, the Nine Provinces Domain let her come and go freely. They had already caused a great disaster, and didn’t dare detain the little aunt from White Stone Mountain and provoke enmity with the physicians of the realm.

But the physicians of the realm didn’t dare provoke enmity with the Nine Provinces Domain either — Little Zai had already gone all in on this scheme, and when it came to the inheritance of the Chef’s lineage, if it truly came to blows, whose child’s death would even count as a fair trade?

If the fish died and the net tore, no one would come out unscathed.

And so, these past two days Chou Gu had been drifting between the tower boat and the red boat, leaving only She Wanlin, the fake hostage, to suffer — stuck accompanying the people on the tower boat, eating bland, salt-starved meals day after day, his heart full of envy for Chou Gu, while Chou Gu wouldn’t dote on him, and his own brother wouldn’t dote on him either.

Everyone was genuinely angry with him — they wouldn’t even bring him so much as a leaf of vegetable.

She Wanlin stood there looking foolish.

Xiaoqiu and Xiaodeng, at a loss, could only bow to him again in courtesy, their faces full of pleading.

Ah, it seemed he really wouldn’t get to watch the excitement after all. He spread his hands with some regret, shuffled his shoes, and went with the two girls down to the lower cabin.

Above the water, land and river sides remained locked in silent standoff. Beneath the mast, the people of the Nine Provinces Domain looked out at the distant Fenglan Mountains, utterly at a loss.

Just as the tension held, one of Old Fang’s disciples suddenly shouted: “Master, look at the river!”

Everyone turned and saw, far off on the river surface, a dark mass of ships approaching, their sails growing larger and more numerous as they neared, with a momentum vast enough to blot out the sky.

Little Zai clenched his fist inside his sleeve, thinking — now who was this?

He didn’t have to wait long. Those ships soon arrived not far from the tower boat.

By now the sky had fully brightened, and up close it became clear these were treasure ships no smaller than the tower boat — a dark mass numbering no fewer than thirty or forty vessels.

In truth, “treasure ships” was merely their own claim — these were pirate ships from the western seas.

Once Little Zai got a clear look at these ships, he understood at once who these people were and why they had come.

Thinking of the consequences, his expression darkened further as he exchanged a look with Zaishi. Zaishi drew a sharp breath and made a subtle cutting gesture with his hand.

Little Zai sighed softly, blinked, and clasped his hands behind his back again to watch.

Since this was a matter concerning the waterways, Water Miss, unfamiliar with the situation and not recognizing the newcomers, was the first to come out from the red boat. Seeing their aggressive approach, she meant to go sound them out first — but just as she opened her mouth, the lead treasure ship, without slowing at all, rammed straight into her little red boat.

Water Miss was shocked. Without wasting words, she immediately ordered Yu Niang to row hard and dodge.

But it happened too fast — the red boat was positioned directly in front of the tower boat, and here in the dock waters, though the surface was wide, the more than thirty pirate ships came straight on in three parallel columns. Before they even drew close, the lead ship had already flipped the poor little red boat over.

Water Miss reacted quickly, reaching out to grab the two little girls beside her and leaping into the air. At the same time, Bai Ruyi and Chou Gu and the others scrambled — some saving people, some jumping into the water. Chou Gu, furious, even hurled two handfuls of powder at the tower boat.

But this girl, still new to the martial world and not one to think things through, didn’t account for the fact that the dozens of ships bearing down had the wind and current at their backs with sails full, while she was fighting against the wind. Her two handfuls of powder amounted to nothing from such a small hand — it surely did the enemy no harm at all. Meanwhile, her poor towering nephew, fearing she’d be swept away, grabbed her and plunged straight into the water in a panic, and she passed out cold.

The martial artists on shore watched dumbfounded, and when they saw people falling into the water, they began shouting and hollering.

Aboard the red boat, there were many young girls, and this whole scene of bright reds and greens tumbling into the water stirred some who couldn’t hold back — along with those with a genuine sense of chivalry — into throwing the fine coffins they’d brought into the water, shouting: “Hey — girls, hurry, hurry, get into the coffins, get into the coffins…”

The dock descended into complete chaos.

Little Zai, furious, saw the enemy ships still charging toward the tower boat and rose into the air, striking again and again toward the treasure ships. But powerful as he was, he was no Huo Qiqian who walked the crooked path.

His was a body of flesh and blood — a half-sage body, formidable within the martial world, but even so, he could only manage to snap the masts of a few lead ships clean off with a dozen or so strikes on his chosen targets.

With cracks and snaps of breaking masts, the great treasure ships, seeing how formidable he was, finally slowed and came to a stop.

After another flurry of activity, the people on the red boat ended up standing on seventeen or eighteen coffins.

The coffins floated on the water. Water Miss’s heart was seething with fury; she meant to go argue with the people on the treasure ships, but Bai Ruyi grabbed her, shaking his head slightly and saying quietly: “Miss, don’t let your heart burn over this. Let the crane and clam fight it out — we’ll just watch the show for now. Why should we go be pawns for the Nine Provinces Domain?”

Water Miss drew a breath, her teeth grinding audibly. “But if something happens to the young noble, how will we answer to Her Ladyship?”

“He won’t die!” Bai Ruyi said with some irritation, then turned to look at the dozen or so coffins, thought of the family back home sighing with worry — of the anxious mother — and simply sat himself down in a coffin, took a swig from his wine gourd, and said in a wild, reckless tone: “I’d like to see which of them dares hurt him!”

Water Miss hesitated, but in the end asked: “With something this serious, does the imperial court really not intend to step in?”

So many days now, and only these pitiful martial artists were desperately trying to block the way, risking their lives. They’d passed through so many prefectures, so many docks — the court certainly wasn’t lacking a navy — so why hadn’t there been the slightest movement?

Bai Ruyi sniffed, and in the end sighed. “Miss, as things stand now, this is for the best. If they really did come… that would actually be worse.”

Water Miss looked at his exquisitely handsome half-face, and after a long moment asked cautiously: “This old woman has spent her years drifting the waterways — news from land rarely reaches me clearly. From the way you speak, young sir, is there something behind this that can’t be spoken of?”

“It’s not that it can’t be spoken of.” Bai Ruyi waved a hand indifferently. “The truth is, it’s been ten years, and the one seated up there wants to gauge just how much weight this Daliang carries in the hearts of the realm — and in the hearts of the martial world.”

Bai Ruyi looked at the martial artists on shore, hollering and shouting as they tried to save people, and the corner of his mouth curled. “Rest easy, Miss. This result, in the end, isn’t bad at all.”

A trace of sorrow flickered through Water Miss’s eyes; in the end she nodded and sighed. “This mortal world is all suffering. Men are meat on the chopping block — even with such heavy taxes, why is it so hard just to ask for a little peace?”

Meanwhile, back on the tower boat, Little Zai’s feet touched down on deck. After a long moment, he heard someone across the water burst into wild laughter: “Ha! No wonder — the half-sage of the Nine Provinces Domain! Little Zai, what fine skill!”

Everyone turned toward the sound and saw, standing at the head of the largest ship, a group of dark-skinned, powerfully built men.

The one speaking at the front looked to be in his thirties or forties, dressed in shark-skin diving gear. His features were hard to make out clearly, marred as they were by deep scars crisscrossing his face. Once he finished laughing, he glared fiercely at the people of the Nine Provinces Domain.

Little Zai remained perfectly composed, still carrying that air of unbothered ease as though ready to ascend as an immortal at any moment. He looked the man up and down a few times before asking: “West Sea — Zhang Jinfang. What is he to you?”

The man’s chest burned with resentment; he raised his fierce brows and sneered coldly: “He is my grandfather.”

Little Zai asked again: “And Zhang Tianjuan?”

The man answered again: “My father!”

Little Zai nodded. “No wonder. So you’ve come today for revenge?”

The man laughed coldly. “You guessed right. Give me your life.”

Little Zai shook his head, as if in negotiation. “Is there room to talk?”

The man’s face was full of contempt. He first spat into the river, then screamed toward the shore: “Let the friends of the martial world hear this clearly! Today is not against the imperial court, not against the friends of the local waterways, not against heaven, not against earth — we are here only against this treacherous, faithless Nine Provinces Domain! I am Zhang Teng, King of the West Sea! My family has lived off the West Sea waters for a dozen generations…”

Below on the boat, Bai Ruyi, not knowing who this “King of the West Sea” was, looked to Water Miss.

Water Miss’s face turned pale with anger. “This bunch of loach who muddy the inland waters — letting them trample their way in like this. Tomorrow I’ll see what face they have left to ask this old woman for the water toll…”

She finished, sat herself down inside a coffin, then her expression suddenly changed. She reached into the coffin and pulled out an oil-paper package, unwrapped it, and inside was — a half-eaten smoked chicken?

Something must have come to mind, because Water Miss suddenly burst out laughing.

Bai Ruyi asked, curious: “Elder?”

Water Miss’s face held a look somewhere between laughing and not. She took a bite of the smoked chicken, chewed a few times, glanced at the treasure ships, then at the tower boat behind her, and said: “Forget it. This old body’s turf is small, and these people are all from great and wealthy houses — none of us can afford to provoke them. Might as well know our place and wait it out. This is going to be quite the show.”

On the treasure ship, the man was still shouting himself hoarse: “…Ten years ago! My father! My grandfather! Received a letter from the Nine Provinces Domain begging for help, saying their sect was in dire trouble — that the court was about to wipe them out! Back then the Chef wrote with such heartfelt sincerity, so bleak and desperate, saying he wanted to flee overseas, wanted to give the Nine Provinces Domain a chance to survive a little longer, asking us sea folk, who’d never had any dealings with your inner circle, to lend a hand!

“And what did we do? We went, of course! My father! My grandfather! Out of respect for generations of the Nine Provinces Domain being men of benevolence and honor, personally led the fleet from the sea all the way to this Yiyuan Prefecture dock!”

He stepped forward a few paces, hopped up onto the bow, and looked around before shouting again: “That’s right! This is the place! We’d agreed to meet here to pick up the people! But who could have known! My father! My grandfather! They should have lived to a hundred, surrounded by children and grandchildren… Friends of the martial world know we rarely come inland since our standing isn’t exactly respectable — but who could have known, back then a dozen-plus great treasure ships sailed out, taking my old man, my grandfather, taking half my entire clan’s brothers out with them — and from then on, these people were gone! Gone!”

He finished, seething with rage, his expression twisting in anguish, and screamed at Little Zai with heartbreak: “Where are they?! Huh?!”

A gust of river wind blew past. Little Zai said flatly: “We never came. They were wiped out by the imperial navy.”

This matter was absolutely without justification on the Nine Provinces Domain’s part. Back then he had shut himself away in the mountains, uninvolved in worldly affairs, rarely overseeing the Chef’s dealings — and by the time the bitter consequences arrived, it was already too late to undo.

Wrong was wrong. He accepted it. Even if death came today, he would accept that too.

Back then, the Chef had exploited far more than just these few from the West Sea — at the time he’d put out several false leads, only choosing one to escape the encirclement — but in the end, it had still ended in utter defeat, nearly having their entire foundation overturned by a man named Chen Dasheng.

Thinking of this, Little Zai looked down at the deck beneath his feet, puzzled — that Chen Dasheng, so formidable in skill, why did his eldest son have no strength to truss a chicken?

He had no way of knowing that the strangest thing in this world was this very lineage of Huo Qiqian’s — never mind reading his aura, even in genuine combat, deliberately misaligned, their inner pathways rarely showed on the surface of the flesh.

The man called Zhang Shunteng hadn’t expected Little Zai to admit to it so readily. His teeth clenched audibly, and this time he didn’t shout — instead he muttered low: “Do you know how many more widows and orphans our Great Fortune Island now has?”

Hundreds of lives, traded for nothing more than his cold, flat acknowledgment.

He didn’t accept that reckoning. He’d already staked everything coming here — the young noble of Yandu wasn’t even a consideration for him anymore. There was no point in further words, so he simply turned on his heel and walked straight off, waving his hand.

Just as swiftly, the great treasure ships, through some unspoken signal, began slowly spreading apart.

Little Zai sighed and said to those beside him: “So be it. Get the innocent ones down into the hold first, out of harm’s way.”

Old Fang, startled, stamped his foot and hurried off regardless.

Below deck, inside a coffin, Bai Ruyi also sensed something was wrong. He immediately stood and shouted toward the shore: “Everyone on shore, hurry, take cover! Take cover…”

Even as he shouted, a massive creaking sound of bowstrings being drawn came from the treasure ships, and the vessels shifted from bow-facing to broadside.

Bai Ruyi finished shouting, then searched the shore for the now-nowhere-to-be-seen Sikuo and cried out: “Monk! Monk! Someone! Come save people, quickly…”

A single Buddhist chant rang out, and Sikuo’s voice came, sounding rather troubled: “Amitabha. My late master always said this humble monk was a fool. Saving people is only right and proper, but this little monk only has two hands — with so many people, who am I to save first…”

Bai Ruyi, both furious and amused, cursed toward the shore: “Save your nonsense — first get our people ashore and settled!”

No sooner had he finished than he saw two figures, one tall and one short, leap from the coffins into the water together, kicking through the water in an awkward, floundering way, and hauling Chou Gu on their backs as they scrambled ashore.

Their main trade was as physicians — this much, at least, they could manage.

The moment these two set foot on land, another chant rose from the shore, and a force gently drew the coffins carrying the young women slowly toward shore.

But before the coffins had moved more than a few feet, Water Miss suddenly leapt up and struck a palm strike toward the shore.

In an instant, water and mud sprayed everywhere along the bank, and the young girls were sent tumbling back into the river.

Water Miss shouted sharply at them: “All of you, get down!” With that, she dropped back into her coffin and added to those around her: “We just crawled out of hell into the water — even if it kills us, we’re not going into your mortal realm.”

Bai Ruyi froze, and was about to argue further when countless powerful gusts erupted from the great treasure ships — dozens of massive crossbow bolts, somewhat smaller than siege ballista bolts, came flying toward the tower boat and the shore.

The veins at Little Zai’s temples bulged. He reached out, grabbed the tower boat’s sail, and tore it free with ease. Leaping into the air, he spun it like a juggler’s cloth, deflecting the incoming bolts.

Truly worthy of being Little Zai of the Nine Provinces Domain — against such a terrifying barrage, bolts capable of piercing several feet of solid wooden gate, he managed with skillful force to spin them all away and send them flying — straight toward the shore instead.

He held no small resentment toward the people on shore either.

In an instant, the shore erupted in screaming — some dodging, some cursing — and in the split second that followed, several of the senior local martial artists at the front sprang into action. Though they managed to knock away some of the bolts, mules and horses were still struck down, collapsing bloodied onto the ground…

By contrast, though the shore was thrown into panic, the members of the Red Sleeve Sect in the water — who should have been the most terrified — seemed strangely at a loss for what to do.

The coffins floated on the water’s surface, sent high, then gently carried ashore — had it not been for the ships ramming and capsizing them earlier, they now seemed… safe.

Bai Ruyi looked at the tower boat, then at Water Miss, who looked utterly bedraggled as though she’d been through a life-and-death struggle.

Water Miss’s makeup was smeared now, her hair undone. She looked around and said: “Should — should we hide behind the tower boat?”

Bai Ruyi thought it over and said dryly: “Then… let’s hide.”

Even as they spoke, the massive bowstrings on the treasure ships began creaking again…

The tower boat rocked violently. Down in the hold, She Wanlin had no idea what was happening above. He sat numbly in a spot with no daylight, only candlelight, in a daze.

At first the boat had been steady, but then it wasn’t anymore — like a naughty child who’d caught an autumn cricket, sealed it in a bamboo tube, and, too cruel to kill it outright, kept shaking it by his ear, testing again and again whether it still had breath left in it…

Rocked side to side, Xiaoqiu and Xiaodeng screamed heart-wrenchingly, then eventually stopped screaming altogether… and, no longer minding him at all, threw open the door and ran off on their own?

The neighboring cabin was chaotic too — the boatmen at the oars seemed thoroughly panicked, someone was shouting curses, someone else was cracking a whip to drive them to row harder… the ship grew more and more unstable.

From side-to-side rocking, it occasionally turned into violent up-and-down heaving.

Unsteady as the ship was, She Wanlin seemed stuck to the cabin floorboards beneath him, swaying along with it, occasionally shifting position to keep worrying, thinking to himself — well, this has really blown up now. Once he got back, how many beatings would it take before he could escape this one?

Just as he was fretting, a pair of hands gripped the cabin doorframe, and someone staggered unsteadily into the room.

She Wanlin blinked. He saw Old Chou come in grinning, carrying two sets of diving gear under his arm. The man even asked: “Little Prince, can you swim?”

Ha ha… so no more “young miss” act this time?

She Wanlin’s mouth twitched as he shook his head.

With that, Old Chou raised a fist the size of a bronze bowl and said: “Well then — my apologies!”