Beginning with the Ubume Bird

Chapter 182: Chapter 19: The Fountain Fight (Part 2)

“If there isn’t at least eighty thousand taels of silver worth of goods in that net, Tianbao, you can twist my head off and kick it around like a ball.”

Below the iron net, something was bobbing up and down with a clinking sound, but it was unclear what it was exactly.

Li Yan could only make out a few fish scales.

[Dragon Scale]: Apply externally after grinding into powder to increase the Awakening Degree of any inheritance by 1%.

Li Yan and Cha Xiaodao exchanged glances, both determined to have it.

The Nine-star Black Flag fluttered in the wind, and a tall man with a hawkish gaze spoke up.

“If the people of the Five Flags want to join in, no problem, let’s follow the rules and do a Quanlang duel. We’ll count you in.”

“Pah!”

Spittle flew from Lei San’s mouth, and if not for the distance between ships, he would have pointed a finger right in the face of the tall man.

“Who the hell wants to Quanlang duel with you? I’ve got more men now! I could blast you with cannons right now, believe it or not?”

The tall man grinned unpleasantly, “During Heavenly Mother Crossing the Sea, would your men dare to fire guns? I’d take my hat off to you as a real man if you did!”

“A fight with blades then! A boarding battle! Don’t you chicken out!”

The burly man looked spirited and jumped up high with excitement.

“After all, I am late…”

Li Yan drew out his words, “How about we play by the rules for this Quanlang duel?”

Li Yan wasn’t too keen on letting Lei San take the lead.

Before Lei San could speak again.

The bald man on the raft spoke up, “Look this way.”

Li Yan glanced at him.

The bald man patted his chest, “Send up one man, if he dies, throw him into the sea and send another. Until there’s no one left.”

He looked around left and right, “With about a hundred and ten people, we’ll be done by dawn.”

The space on the narrow raft was tight, with no room to maneuver; two men would take up arms and fight to the death. A few moves would determine life or death. It would be a death grind, but with over a thousand men, they could all be killed off in less than three hours.

“That settles it!”

Li Yan agreed without hesitation.

He pointed at the burly man, “Lei San, let’s do it this way. Win a round, take a share; whoever wins more, gets more. How about that?”

Lei San pursed his lips without speaking, his eyes rolling around.

“Heh, how about this then?” Li Yan saw Lei San was reluctant, and spoke.

“Let’s each take a turn, three men fighting it out! What do you say?”

“Tianbao, you’re being too polite!” Lei San’s face became serious, “We’ll do as you say, whoever wins more, gets more.”

“Excellent, Lei San, you send your men first, and big brother here will back you up.”

Li Yan’s face was full of generosity.

Lei San looked bitter and after much struggle, he managed to say, “Tianbao, I don’t mean to cheat or slip away, but just look into the sea. These arms, these legs, they’re all my brothers.”

Li Yan looked and saw that Lei San was right; there were seven or eight bodies floating on the sea, not sinking, and bubbles of blood gurgling out from the wounds. The clothing looked much like that of Lei San’s men.

“Alright then.”

Li Yan drummed his four fingers on the hilt of his sword.

On Demon Thief Zhang He’s ship, the tall man whispered to the pirate beside him, “The Red Flag Gang is also joining the fun. We might not have the upper hand this time.”

“The Five Flags rely on ships, on cannons, on morale, and on reputation. Quanlang duel? If Madam Shi were here, I might be somewhat worried, but Tianbao? He’s not up to it! It all depends on how many Gaoli ghosts they’ve brought.”

This tall man named Ruan Anming was a veteran under Zhang He, and it wasn’t his first time dealing with Tianbao.

In his memory, Tianbao was quite skilled, but just an ordinary person. Gaoli ghosts lost thirty years of life, and Madam Shi, cherishing her lover, had not cast spells on Tianbao, which was common knowledge.@@novelbin@@

“Let me do it, you’re the Dragon Head, and you definitely can’t be the first to go up.”

Cha Xiaodao said to Li Yan.

“To get off, you must fight to the last; aren’t you afraid of being ground down if you lead the charge?”

“Remember, you have a flag.”

Both thought of the same thing and smirked at each other.

Li Yan stepped forward and declared loudly, “If we of the Five Flags are to Quanlang duel, we should use our own flag. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

Without waiting for a response from either side, he took out a black Dragon Flag, pointed his toes on the deck, aimed the flag tip downwards, bent his waist, and threw his arm straight out.

The black Dragon Flag, with its whipping sound, pierced through the raft with a whizz, astonishingly making a hole clean through it!

A hushed gasp went up from the crowd.

The raft’s end shot up high, and the bald man’s arms scrambled outward, nearly falling into the sea. A cannonball’s blast would have barely matched the effect.

“This—!”

The tall man’s face changed.

Two black flags stood in opposition on the ship, the left one adorned with nine stars.

The right one bore a four-clawed black dragon flag, its beard and hair fully exposed, scales and claws fierce and imposing. A line of white characters was written along the edge.

Make thorough preparations for war, may the military might be everlasting.

The Li Clan of Liaodong Army, the Great Ming black dragon flag.

Within a hundred meters of planting the flag, it grants all allies the status “Strong Healing,” accelerating the healing of wounds and dispelling one negative status afflicting them over time.

“What flag is this? It’s not your old Red Flag Gang flag, is it?”

Ruan Anming asked.

“The precursor to the Five Flags was the Zheng family’s navy from Treasure Island, this is the genuine Great Ming Dragon Flag, what, you have a problem with it?”

Li Yan said unflinchingly.

Ruan Anming didn’t speak, which was taken as tacit agreement.

Cha Xiaodao drew out his Night Guard Twin Blades, ready to disembark.

Tap~

Bare feet stepped into the pools of blood on the flatboat, spreading red silk from the soles as the owner of those feet stamped, splattering blood everywhere.

Xue Ba.

“You little monkey, come up here. It’s not your turn to lead the charge.”

The pirate with the scorpion tattoo on his neck frowned.

Without expression, Xue Ba looked up and stuck out his tongue at the scorpion-tattooed pirate.

“How is this going to work?”

Cha Xiaodao cocked his head to the side.

Li Yan shrugged his shoulders.

Xue Ba shouldered a thick-backed long knife and, with his coat buttons undone, revealed two rows of thin ribs as his body, resembling a turnip, swayed from side to side.

The bald man spat out a loogie, uttering not a single word. His hand holding the red tassel spear thrust forward, aiming for Xue Ba’s head.

Blade and spear clashed, the blade fiercely cleaving the spearhead off.

Diving, rolling, chopping at the legs, blood sprayed everywhere.

“Ah~”

The bald man, half submerged in water, gushed blood like a broken fountain, flailing in the sea in a gruesome scene.

The air was cold. Aside from a few pirates on the Nine Stars Black Flag Ship who cursed on behalf of the bald man, not a single person made a sound.

Thud~

Another person jumped off the ship, wrapped in a blue scarf and wielding a Zhuang ethnic group’s curved saber.

The man with the blue scarf twirled his saber in the air and charged at Xue Ba.

The boy advanced, slashing straight down while the blue-scarfed man lifted his saber in an upward arc!

Clang~

Pfft~

Xue Ba stumbled backward, a wound sliced across his waist.

The body of the man with the blue scarf thudded to the ground, his head split open.

Xue Ba rotated his neck and kicked the man’s body into the water, only then noticing the blade of his saber was nicked.

Thud~

A third man disembarked.

Xue Ba wiped his saber on the hem of his coat. Realizing it was no longer usable, he tossed it aside and picked up the fallen man’s Zhuang saber.

The man did not hesitate, and while Xue Ba was bending down, he rushed forward, aiming a chop at the back of Xue Ba’s head.

Swish~

The boy pushed off with his front foot and crashed into the man’s chest, stabbing the saber upwards from his crotch to his ribs.

The man instantly lost all strength, blood spilling liberally onto the boat, as the curved saber twisted inside his abdomen, gutting him; black blood gushed from his mouth and nose. Xue Ba stepped back, letting the man topple overboard.

Xue Ba picked up the man’s saber and spit out a piece of his own flesh-bloodied lip, bitten in the fervor of the fight.

Zhang Dong’s limbs went weak at the sight. The black and red organs floating far away on the sea nearly made him vomit.

From beginning to end, there were no red-eyed curses, no jeering or whistling. With over a thousand silent observers, as one man died, another took his place. The area around the rafts was littered with corpses,

cold, insane.

This was the South Seas under the Great Ming’s century-long sea ban.

This was, the South Seas pirates.