Beginning with the Ubume Bird Chapter 165

Chapter 165: Chapter 2 Spirit of the Duck

Behind the sails, about ten bowmen were huddled together, each wearing a fierce expression. They stared as “Tianbao” dove and rolled into the corridor, followed by the clang of swords and screams. But in the darkness, everything was indistinct.

After a while, a pair of cold eyes emerged from the darkness, sending chills down the spines of those men.

The leader was a short man with dark skin and a crossed scar on his bare chest, wearing a black cloth shirt.

“What should we do?”

“Don't panic! Tianbao didn't bring many people this time, so we'll burn his ship and make sure he dies,”

the short man gritted his teeth.

“Burn the ship?”

The sea breeze blew off Cha Xiaodao's headscarf, revealing a shiny bald head.

As he struck a match, the flame danced, and the cigarette hanging from his mouth flickered on and off.

“Shall I help you?”

Flames roared!

Corpses were strewn across the deck. Li Yan sat majestically with a large saber at his side, his feet resting on a blood-stained thick-back guillotine. This weapon was found on the ship, Li Yan had no use for it, but its fearsome appearance served to keep the ship's people in place, preventing chaos.

“Are you the ship's master?”

Li Yan's question was directed at a woman with a snakelike waist and thick makeup, who was now trembling and had a vacant look in her eyes.

Li Yan asked loudly twice before she answered with a sharp Fujian accent, stuttering:

“My husband is, but he's been shot dead with arrows, Tianbao, I really have no idea where these people came from?”

“Then you are now the ship's master. Don't panic, I just need to use your place to interrogate someone.”

Li Yan took off his red headscarf and walked towards the short man in the black cloth shirt.

The short man's arms were twisted by Li Yan until they looked like pretzels, the pain causing his face to alternate between shades of green and white. His body was covered in sunburns, and his hands were calloused, the marks of a man who spent years at sea.

“Why do you want to kill me?” Li Yan asked.

The short man's lips quivered, but he said nothing.

Li Yan had only just arrived, and in the first moments, he was still embracing an eighteen or nineteen-year-old maiden with skin as soft as lard, who cooed and called him “Master.” In the time it took him to fasten his belt, he had nearly been turned into a sieve with arrows, so it was impossible not to be angry.

However, the origins of this gang were not clear. Tianbao's head was registered with the authorities, with a bounty of two thousand diao of silver on it. Given the fierce temperament of the people at the time, it was possible that this was a group of ferocious fishermen, coveting the bounty and dreaming of wealth and promotion.

Moreover, the pirate forces were intertwined, ranging from small bands of a few dozen part-time fishers and thieves to large bands of a few thousand rampant criminals. The Five Flags Alliance could not dominate alone, and in Tianbao's memory, there were others with forces comparable to the Five Flags' power.

Demon Thief Zhang He!

Yishi Zhufen!

The big boss Cai Qian!

Treasure Ship King Lin Ajin!

And beyond that were the Phoenix Tail, Short Ox, Red Head, White Bottom gangs and others, along with the Portuguese navy that occupied Macau at the time, and the fiery East India Company. The entire coast of South China was a tumultuous dance of demons.

Considering all this, Li Yan held the short man's hair and examined him closely.

Double eyelids, a flat nose, a sharp chin, little flesh on his cheeks.

Li Yan narrowed his eyes: “Annan person?”

Cha Xiaodao, wearing a dark red mandarin jacket, came over, his face filled with surprise: “You can even recognize that.”

Li Yan patiently explained: “Part of it is facial features, and another part, well, Annan people and Annan mixed-blood are common among the South Seas pirates. When the authorities suppress pirates, those fleeing in madness often retreat to Annan to recuperate. Thus, Annan is considered a major rear base for the South Seas pirates by the government. Furthermore, it is rumored that several coups within Annan had close ties to 'Demon Thief Zhang He.'”

As he spoke, Li Yan asked in return: “Now you're also roaming as part of the Five Immortals category, aren't you? You have more access to the exploratory notes than I do, so why don't you pay more attention yourself.”

“I'm not used to it,” Cha Xiaodao replied, his curiosity piqued: “So how did you find out?”

Li Yan whispered, “I used the 'Patriarch Lv's Notes' gifted by the Jie Master; how else could I have obtained such a high status?” After a pause, he continued, “After the sacrifice, in addition to receiving a 75% enhance in naval battle expertise, I also gained a portion of Tianbao's memories. After all, as a core figure of the Five Flags Pirates, it would be too strange to suddenly not recognize even my own subordinates.”

Among the memories Li Yan gained were more details regarding the fruits, the Red Flag Gang's secret codes and passphrases, his confidants, ships, and armaments–Li Yan had a firm grasp on all. As for Tianbao's personal life, Li Yan was unacquainted…

“Annan person, can you understand Chinese? Tell me who sent you, and I'll let you go.”

The little man was tough, silent, his eyes unintentionally darting.

“Seems like you can understand.” Li Yan stood up. “So you won't talk?”

The little man remained silent.

A long, muffled horn sound spread across the deck, the sea churned, and Li Yan's eyes slanted. A red high sail peaked into view. A three-masted ship about twenty meters long approached, shaped like a duck and mounted with six 24-pound English cannons.

The ship was called Spirit of the Duck, one of over a hundred such ships possessed by the Red Flag Gang. However, cannons were rare; within the Five Flags Alliance, aside from the leaders of the Five Flags, probably only Tianbao's men had ships equipped with six 24-pound English cannons.

There were about twenty people standing on the ship, dressed in Hundred-Batten Clothing with shiny biceps exposed and braided hair wrapped around their necks. Each one looked fierce.

At the bow sat a boy, thirteen or fourteen years old, his mouth stuffed with osmanthus cakes. His eyes lit up when he saw Li Yan, and he made a mumbling sound, quickly spitting out the cakes, and shouted with a strong voice.

“Tianbao, Tianbao, stop playing around, there's trouble at home! Tianbao!”

Li Yan patted Cha Xiaodao on the shoulder: “He's one of ours.”

With a gesture, he had the boy jump over; the boy was nimble, bending over to reach for a flying rope from the deck, flicking his wrist, swinging both arms and with a motion swift and accurate as a venomous snake, the iron hook bit into the wet mast at the edge of the pleasure boat.

The boy pulled hard, his bare feet swung in the air, and he landed agilely.

“Whatta splash! It's like a multicolored rain!”

The boy exclaimed exaggeratedly.

The kid, just over a meter tall, had a large head and his skinny, straw-like body wobbled as if he was malnourished.

With his chest bare and green sharkskin around his waist and a front tooth missing, he grinned, his black tooth hole was comically conspicuous.

“Xiao Ba, what happened at home?”

“The government seized more than twenty of our ships, Madam Shi was shot, and she said if you don't return by dawn, you might as well never come back, Tianbao,” Xiao Ba dutifully replied.

“We'll leave at once.”

Li Yan grabbed a plank and laid it between the two ships, unconcerned with the blood all around, and said to Xiao Ba, “A group of people just tried to kill me, and this one here was caught in the act. You deal with him.”

“Oh.”

The boy, originally shoving a piece of cake into his mouth, looked down at the dwarf whose arms had been broken, took a few pigeon-toed steps forward dragging the Thick-back Guillotine, its blade scraping against the deck.

The little man's dead fish eyes didn't react at first, until he saw the carrot-topped child approaching and suddenly shuddered.

The guillotine, caked with flesh, was raised. The shiny blade flashed by the dwarf's face.

“It was Zhufen who…”

Chop~

The boy chopped down forcefully, splattering blood far and wide.

The guillotine split the head unevenly, a large portion remained standing while the rest slumped down, like a soy sauce shop with black and red all over.

Li Yan had already stepped onto the Spirit of the Duck's deck when he heard the sound and turned back; the dwarf was already decapitated.

Clang.

The guillotine fell to the ground.

Li Yan looked at the boy with some surprise, not scolding him for his rashness but instead asking uncertainly,

“What did he say before he died?”

The boy, licking osmanthus cake crumbs out of his fingers and with blood on his hands and chin, paused for a long while before responding uncertainly,

“He said, 'the pig's clumsy leg'?”

Cha Xiaodao activated A Fleeting Glimpse.

Xue Ba

Status: One of the eight hundred Gaoli ghosts of the Five Flags Alliance

Expertise: Naval Battle 80%

Threat Level: Red

Cha Xiaodao clicked his tongue twice, his heart tensing. The danger of this operation was perhaps beyond his expectations.

Chapter end