After four full years of warfare, Hou Jie finally cleared the savages from the remote island. The savages who followed him earliest had now been civilized. Some clever ones could even speak Great Tang official language, wearing blue clothes and small caps as they moved through the streets and alleys of Naihe Prefecture. In the small city, there were only a sparse few vendors carrying bananas or fruits on their heads, calling out listlessly. Swarms of flies flew back and forth over the harbor, and where fish were being killed, flies had formed patches of dark clouds.

Cushions were spread on the elephant’s back. An elephant handler continuously patted the elephant’s head with his hand, directing it left or right. Whether using its trunk to roll up tree trunks or dragging a tall pile of firewood behind it, nothing could change this elegant creature’s steady pace.

The forest was continuously being cut down. There were too many trees on this island. Scenes of humans and plants competing for land could be seen everywhere. Deep in the forest, thick smoke rolled – these were the newly arrived residents burning land.

After burning, development had to proceed quickly. Otherwise, before long, plant seeds would sprout, and after a few months, things would become not much different from before.

Hou Jie sat in his family’s courtyard, looking up at the square of sky and secretly worrying. The damned rainy season was about to arrive. Every year at this time, the heavenly river burst its banks and crazily dumped rainwater down.

The rainfall here was enormous, making it impossible to tell whether it was raining or pouring water. In the stuffy, humid weather, everything would mold. The pirates in the prison would also grow moldy and hairy once the rainy season arrived. Wanting to come out alive from the dark, sunless dungeon was almost an extravagant hope.

The rule over the remote island was cruel. At least during this time period, Hou Jie believed necessary suppression methods were essential. Only death and ferocity could make those unruly men of the sea submit.

The forest of withered bones on Crab Island ensured there were no pirates in the entire bay, and the remote island’s dungeon was the death-claiming King of Hell’s palace. This was common knowledge that people making their living at sea had to have.

As long as the ocean exists, pirates will never cease – this was truly a profound truth. After Yun Ye conducted a large-scale sweep of the ocean, the sea remained calm for a little over a year. Many small bands of pirates would haul their boats ashore when the situation was tense. Once the situation eased, they would continue their old trade. There was no other reason except that the sea surface was full of various fat sheep.

Pirates on the remote island were few because it was too far away. The savages’ dugout canoes couldn’t travel far distances – they could only circle in coastal waters. Capturing savages wasn’t very useful since they couldn’t do anything. Only by capturing pirates from Great Tang, the Wa country, or even Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla exiles wandering the ocean could they be put to use. The remote island had countless tasks that needed people to do.

Naturally, Naihe Prefecture had its Naihe Bridge. After crossing Naihe Bridge, one could never return home in this life. The bridge was covered with various soul-parting songs and farewell poems. Those who committed serious crimes in their families would generally be sent here. These wealthy young masters, suddenly coming from the prosperous lands of Chang’an to this desolate wilderness, committed suicide in an endless stream.

After seeing this scene, Hou Jie strictly prohibited nobles from Chang’an from sending family criminals to the remote island again. These people had weak wills. Upon reaching the remote island, they only knew how to live in drunken stupor and dreams of death, having no use to the remote island whatsoever.

The entire island had three hundred thousand people. It sounded like a lot, but scattered across the remote island, you couldn’t see a single person’s trace for a hundred li. This island was too big. If asked what the island still lacked, Hou Jie would definitely cry out: People! It lacked usable people.

Very high-quality copper mines had no one to mine them. Gold could be panned from small streams, yet no one came to mine it. The only thing this geomantic treasure land lacked was people – usable people.

The best-built place on this island was the Yun Family’s manor. From the beginning, the people who came from the Yun Family weren’t criminals, but a group of ambitious pioneers. Moreover, these people rotated every three years. Hou Jie had never figured out why Yun Family people coming over each seemed extremely full of vigor. Even though they were very exhausted every day, they wouldn’t utter a word of complaint.

Now, on that beautiful slope, a manor built of stone had already taken initial shape and continued to rise higher every day. It was now a full three zhang high, yet those people still had no intention of stopping.

This manor was extremely huge. Rather than calling it a manor, it would be better to say it was a small city. After Hou Jie spoke with the Yun Family’s steward, he finally understood – these people were craftsmen, not Yun Family people at all. They came here purely to make money. Each had already received a settlement fee of one hundred silver coins. As long as they worked here for three years, they could take another one hundred silver coins back. Where wasn’t working just working? Moreover, with such high wages, so what if they lost their lives?

Coercion and high pressure produced no efficiency. On the contrary, only by building this place well would later arrivals not have thoughts of being abandoned. After the steward painstakingly conveyed the Marquis’s original words to Hou Jie, Hou Jie deeply regretted his foolish actions.

The more elite people were, the more purposeful training they needed. They couldn’t be allowed to hide at home enjoying others’ blood and sweat. This was what Hou Jie comprehended. The Yun Family stewards coming here were each outstanding talents. Only after spending three years on the remote island would they be assigned to various merchant fleets or industries as supervisors. Hou Jie believed the Hou Family must learn this practice.

The rain poured down as expected – no wind, only rain. The crocodiles and pythons in rivers and lakes began to emerge. Pythons seven or eight zhang long could swallow a mountain goat in one bite. During lightning and thunder, you could even see giant pythons coiled on ancient trees striving to raise their heads toward the sky. They seemed very much to hope to be struck dead by lightning.

Many people said lightning actually couldn’t kill giant pythons. They took the opportunity to break free from their skin and transform into dragons flying up to the ninth heaven. Hou Jie knew this was all nonsense. He had seen giant python corpses struck to tatters by lightning more than once.

Every rainy season was nature’s counterattack against humanity. All kinds of plants grew wildly at this time. Beds slept in for many years might sprout new shoots during a certain rainy season.

Huang Feng sat on the ship, arduously sailing through the torrential rain. Four months of sailing had long since made him one with the ship’s sailors. Seeing the rain, his first reaction was the same as everyone else’s – strip naked, grab a wooden basin, and rush onto the deck. Finally, he could take a proper bath. His body, from long drifting at sea, had long been soaked through with salt and alkali. If he didn’t take a good bath, Huang Feng felt he would sooner or later become salted meat.

At this time, who cared about missions or whether someone might establish a base overseas to plot treachery against Great Tang? This notion had completely disappeared two months after going to sea. If anyone dared to speak to him now about worries of rebellion, he would spit in that person’s face.

Only now did he discover how brilliant the words and suggestions of those ship captains at the docks were. He should have bought a book at the dock, then found a brothel to squat in for two years, and finally copied some content from the book to submit. Even if the Yun Family and Hou Family built the remote island into another Chang’an City, Huang Feng didn’t think it had any significance – it was too far away.

If Huang Feng’s eyes could penetrate those dark clouds, he would see that on a distant sea island, a woman with a scar on her face was telling a story to a five or six-year-old child.

“Legend has it that the Eight-Forked Serpent had eight heads and one tail. Its eyes were as red as ‘oxalis flowers,’ its back was covered with moss and trees, its belly was ulcerated and bleeding, rain clouds constantly floated above its head, and its body was as huge as nine mountain peaks and nine valleys. It loved drinking wine very much… Such a powerful divine beast, just because it loved drinking, was tricked by Susanoo with wine, and in the end, pitifully had its head chopped off. It could only become a demon god, crying night after night in wind and rain.”

The dialogue between mother and son was very strange. Though it was clearly a Wa country myth, this woman and child were communicating in Great Tang language. The child wore Great Tang children’s clothing. The woman, hearing the child pat his chest and promise never to steal wine again, finally showed a smile. She affectionately kissed the child’s face and let him go out to play.

She stood up and leaned against the railing, watching the busy pirates in the harbor, revealing a satisfied expression. As Queen of the Ocean, her rule was effective. Even the most savage pirate kings had to kneel on both knees when seeing her, or else extinction awaited them. The Ocean Queen was the supreme ruler of these waters.

The Turks were already ravaging nearby. The remnants of the Roman Empire were struggling to resist, but judging from their situation, it didn’t look good. Those Romans had long lost their ancestors’ courage and wisdom.

The woman, draped in gauze, strolled on the steps. This narrow sea area was simply a blessed land bestowed by heaven. Gate of Tears – what a beautiful name. It was just that the red algae blooming every year would make it turn red for a short time, so people also called it the Red Sea.

No matter what it was called, Gao Shanyangzi didn’t care, because whatever she wanted this sea area to be called, that’s what it had to be called. The narrow strait gateway was enough to keep her from worrying too much about others’ surprise attacks. Now she possessed over five hundred warships and more than thirty thousand fierce pirates. Encountering anyone, she felt she could fight.

The Romans had already extended a hand seeking aid, hoping to obtain the miraculous fire oil from her hands. This way, they could use this hellfire to resist those cruel Turks.

Gao Shanyangzi didn’t sympathize with the Romans. Only through their accelerated decline could she obtain enough pirates. Only when her forces grew to an unprecedented scale could she return to the South China Sea with her son, showing off their might. Even the brutal Yun Ye would have to give way before her enormous forces.

Only this way could her son become King of Wa. Only this way could her son become King of the Ocean.

However, she was also very clear that this was just a dream. The powerful Great Tang Empire couldn’t possibly give her this opportunity. That stubborn and proud nation couldn’t possibly bow obediently to her after losing all its warships like the Roman Empire. Yun Ye’s cunning and ferocity still constantly appeared in her dreams.

The reason she named her child Yun Hai was in hopes that if the worst happened one day, Yun Ye would spare this child for the sake of her painstaking efforts.