Feng Zhiyong’s battles were extremely arduous. Due to Yun Ye’s standing by with folded arms, the entire ship’s damage was alarming. The sails were already tattered and riddled with smoke and fire stains, the ram was also damaged, and two of the warship’s strike poles had been destroyed. Fortunately, there were no more major personnel losses—just many injured. This showed that his ship-handling techniques were becoming increasingly skilled.
Feng Zhiyong, that elegant noble family young master, had thoroughly transformed into a crude, rough sea-hardened man. His hair, half burned away, had simply been chopped off with a knife, leaving only a short stub. His trouser legs had been torn off at the knee, and both sleeves had disappeared somewhere. Barefoot, with a face full of beard, he could rapidly climb to the highest mast and skillfully tie various knots. His two dark, tanned arms seemed to contain infinite strength.
Though their numbers had decreased, their combat effectiveness didn’t decline but rather increased. From initially one ship dealing with one ship, to later one ship handling two enemy ships, now one ship could easily deal with three ships. Official military warships, after all, couldn’t be compared to those cobbled-together vessels of the pirates, especially since the Lingnan Navy’s warships were famously sturdy.
Yun Ye lay on the Princess, watching Feng Zhiyong’s performance with nothing better to do. Smiling, he said to Dongyu, who had returned to report on the battle: “Let’s give them a replacement ship. Let’s see if they can display their maximum combat effectiveness when the warship is intact.”
Seeing Dongyu shake his head like a rattle-drum, he asked: “Don’t they want to use a new ship?” Dongyu nodded again. Yun Ye thought for a moment and laughed. This was a chronic ailment of seafaring people—after fighting on one ship for a long time, they didn’t like other ships. Even if it was exactly the same, they wouldn’t like it. They always felt it wasn’t as handy as their original broken ship. These Feng family people had already begun to develop feelings for their ship.
“Then let’s dock at Hangzhou to repair this ship. Going back all tattered like this wouldn’t look too good.” Dongyu shook his head again, babbling on for a long string of words. This way, Yun Ye couldn’t understand.
“My lord, Dongyu says Feng Zhiyong doesn’t want to dock. He wants to keep fighting like this all the way to Guangzhou. They want to show you that the Feng family people aren’t pushovers and will continue fighting with this ship.” After Gou Zi finished speaking, Dongyu nodded again.
Yun Ye put down the book in his hand and said: “Then let him be. Not docking is fine too. We can return to Guangzhou earlier. I don’t know how my wife and the others are doing. I haven’t seen the children in a long while either—I wonder if they can still remember what I look like.”
While Yun Ye’s warship rushed about on the sea, in the distant South Sea there were also three naked people lying on a raft, eyes staring blankly at the sky. Qiu Ran Ke had completely transformed into a hairy man—the eyebrows and beard on his face could no longer be distinguished from each other. Hu Tonghai was the same—both men looked like savages. That Wa woman, on the other hand, had become even more voluptuous. It was just that after over a year without wearing clothes, her body had also turned bronze-colored.
With Hu Tonghai’s help, Qiu Ran Ke had finally rushed out of the circular current and reached the open sea. The coconuts on the raft were constantly decreasing. They had been drifting at sea for seven days now and hadn’t seen a single ship. If this continued, the three of them had no way to survive.
“Master, if there’s nothing to eat, you two should eat me.” The Wa woman said excitedly to Qiu Ran Ke lying to the side. Over a year’s time, she could already speak some simple Great Tang speech.
“Yaoji, don’t say such things. There are fish in the sea—we can spear fish with the javelin and eat them. We cannot eat people. We’d rather die than eat people. I, Qiu Ran Ke, can rob and kill, but I don’t eat people. Once you eat people, you fall into the Nine Dark Demon Path and can never be human again. Don’t worry. We three are all people abandoned by heaven. What we need to do now is survive. With us two here, there will always be a bite of food for you.”
Hu Tonghai cackled with laughter and said: “Watching you two enjoy spring nights together, I thought a little baby would be born soon. It’s been over a year and yet Yaoji’s belly shows no movement. Which of you has the problem?”
Yaoji also looked at Qiu Ran Ke with puzzlement—she too found this very strange. Qiu Ran Ke laughed dryly and said: “What the hell do you two know? Even if we were to have a child, now isn’t the time. This old master has a method I learned at Daming Temple that can lock the essence gate, so naturally there won’t be children. Old Hu, you’re getting on in years—you should learn this skill. It’s the supreme method for prolonging life, never transmitted outside the Buddhist school.”
Hu Tonghai raised his body and looked at Qiu Ran Ke, saying: “How could a monk temple have such a sinister skill? Could it be that Daming Temple is also a den of debauchery? I heard the monks there were quite decent—who would have thought.”
“Bullshit! Master Daoist’s Buddhist teachings are profound—how could he do such lowly, base things? This is a supreme method created by a great monk through studying Buddhist teachings to extend his lifespan. It has nothing to do with matters between men and women.”
Hu Tonghai, who was listening to Qiu Ran Ke speak, suddenly reached out and scooped up a piece of wood from the sea. After examining it left and right, he said to Qiu Ran Ke: “There’s a ship nearby. This piece of wood should be from the galley. I just sniffed it—there’s still smoke and fire smell. This means this ship is very close to here. Now there’s an east wind, our raft is light, and the sail on the raft is also large. Our speed will definitely be faster than that ship. Zhongjian, we need to seize the ship. The critical responsibility will fall on you.”
Qiu Ran Ke squinted his eyes and said: “When the time comes, Yaoji stays on the raft and lets those people bring Yaoji onto the ship. We’ll hide under the raft and take the opportunity to board. I don’t believe the sea is full of ruthless characters like Yun Ye everywhere.”
When the sun was setting in the west, the raft had already caught up with that ship. Yaoji stood on the raft waving her hands and shouting loudly at the people on the ship. Qiu Ran Ke and Hu Tonghai had already hidden beneath the raft.
This was a ship with pointed ends at both bow and stern—a Hu ship. Many Arab sailors with wrapped heads were all leaning on the ship’s rail looking at the naked Yaoji. Before long, the large ship lowered a small boat that circled the raft once. Seeing no danger, the sailors jumped onto the raft and, laughing and joking, carried Yaoji, who was crouching on the raft hugging her chest, onto the small boat. During this, they inevitably groped her up and down.
At this time, Qiu Ran Ke and Hu Tonghai had already swum to the other side of the Hu ship. Climbing up the hanging ropes, they reached the deck. Hu Tonghai took two hand forks from a leather pouch and hid them behind his elbows. Exchanging a glance with Qiu Ran Ke, they headed straight for the seemingly empty inner cabin. Qiu Ran Ke held his axe in hand but wasn’t in a hurry to use it. Extending his palm as large as a palm-leaf fan, he grabbed a large man’s throat. With a slight exertion of force, he crushed the fellow’s Adam’s apple, then gently placed him on the deck. His footsteps were very light, but his strikes were extremely vicious. Before long, he had already strangled five Arabs to death.
Yaoji was carried onto the ship, and everyone extended their hands toward her. Yaoji showed no fear but smiled instead, thrusting her full bosom out even higher. Only she saw Qiu Ran Ke continuously killing people. At this time, suffering a bit of indignity herself was nothing.
A miserable scream came from the ship’s cabin, finally making the sailors on deck turn their heads. Qiu Ran Ke swung the axe in his hand, slashing open the throats of two sailors. Finally, reversing the axe, he smashed it into a sailor who had just drawn his scimitar.
The fallen Yaoji rolled and crawled to hide behind a large wooden barrel, hands clasped together, imitating Qiu Ran Ke’s Buddhist prayer gestures and constantly praying.
Having seen blood, Qiu Ran Ke immediately became a hundred times more spirited. Axe in right hand, scimitar in left, he stirred up a wild storm among the Arabs. Killing from the middle of the deck to the bow, the deck was already flowing with rivers of blood. Treading barefoot on the slippery blood stains, the axe in his right hand flew up and heavily embedded itself in the back of an Arab’s head as he was about to drill into the cabin.
Seeing no more enemies on deck, he tossed the scimitar to Yaoji. He himself pulled the axe from the back of the Arab’s head. Crouching low, he entered the cabin. After entering, he discovered Hu Tonghai had already fallen into a bitter struggle. Four fierce Arabs were surrounding and attacking Hu Tonghai. This fellow’s back had been slashed by a scimitar, creating a grievous wound with flesh curling up on both sides. But he tightly clenched his teeth and forcibly persisted, fearing to disturb Qiu Ran Ke’s concentration. Seeing Qiu Ran Ke enter, he was overjoyed. With an angry roar, he no longer conserved his strength. His two hand forks frantically stabbed toward the large man opposite him—completely trading life for life.
Qiu Ran Ke’s axe passed by Hu Tonghai’s ear and chopped into the forehead of a large man who had just rushed up. He dropped his scimitar and shouted, wanting to pull out the axe, but came up empty. Qiu Ran Ke had already taken the first step and retrieved the axe. Qiu Ran Ke found that using the axe from Yun Ye’s household felt extremely handy.
Chopping aside a scimitar slashing from the side, Qiu Ran Ke protected Hu Tonghai behind him. Suddenly throwing a punch, he smashed it into the neck of the large man preparing to pursue and kill Hu Tonghai. With a crack, the entire neck bone was broken by one punch, the head folding back powerlessly. He simply chopped the axe into a pillar, rolled his body, and drilled into the embrace of the last large man. His two hands changed from fists to claws, grasping the large man’s ribs. With a coordinated exertion of both arms, he forcibly pulled out two ribs from the large man’s body. His large foot stomped on the fallen man’s chest, and a fountain of blood spurted up. There was no more fighting in the cabin.
Yaoji, holding a scimitar, poked her head in to watch Qiu Ran Ke fight. Her eyes were full of worship. This was a hero. She believed such a man was a real man. Thinking of those thin, weak men in Wa, she drove Wa and those men together out of her mind.
Hu Tonghai leaned his shoulder against a pillar, gasping for breath. Blood from his back flowed ceaselessly. Yaoji found needle and thread from a cabin room to the side and quickly sewed up Hu Tonghai’s curled flesh with thread. Qiu Ran Ke saw Hu Tonghai nod toward him, indicating he was fine. So he picked up the axe and continued searching the ship for Arabs.
Qiu Ran Ke didn’t plan to leave anyone alive. The three of them were outnumbered and weak. At this time, taking prisoners—if they were calculated against by prisoners, none of the three would have a life to live.
This ship wasn’t large. Qiu Ran Ke counted—altogether there were only about thirty people on the ship. But the captain hadn’t been found. Yaoji, who was looking for food, suddenly cried out in alarm. An Arab with a grizzled beard, gripping Yaoji’s neck, stood up from a wooden barrel. In his hand was an exquisite dagger placed at Yaoji’s throat.
Qiu Ran Ke laughed. This way, no one was missing. Hu Tonghai’s fork somehow came to his hand. Without seeing his arm rise, that hand fork pierced through the Arab’s head. The bright, sharp spike protruded from the back of his skull.