Chapter 79: Yin-Yang Fish

Chen Jiao relayed the order as instructed.

The Santa Ana turned, grazing the edge of the coral ring reef.

By now, Li Kuiqi had already slipped to within fifty paces of the Santa Ana.

With his naked eye, Lin Qian could see Li Kuiqi standing at the bow, raising a ghost-head saber with one hand and pointing it at him, like a vengeful spirit demanding his life, his bearing terrifying.

Lin Qian calmly ordered, "Engage the enemy on the port side, slight port rudder, maintain the cannon firing arc."

In Li Kuiqi's eyes, he and Lin Qian were no more than twenty paces apart, and he could even see the icy expression on Lin Qian's face as he stood high on the sterncastle.

Unfortunately, Lin Qian slipped away quickly—he and the Santa Ana passed each other by.

Li Kuiqi immediately ordered his fleet to turn and give close pursuit.

He knew in his heart that these barbarians' soft-sailed ships were troublesome to trim sails, and with frequent turns, their speed was limited—this was his best chance to catch up and board.

The Santa Ana and the fleet sailed counterclockwise across the sea, constantly vying for the weather gauge, locked in a yin-yang fish spiral duel.

Generally speaking, a yin-yang fish spiral duel signified that two ships were evenly matched, neck and neck.

But that was only true when both ships had cannons.

And now, Li Kuiqi's fleet could only endure round after round of cannon fire, like an old donkey turning a millstone, circling around the grind, its eyes full of that carrot it could never quite reach.

Li Kuiqi's blazing hot blood, with each circle around the millstone and each round of bombardment, gradually cooled, extinguished, becoming colder than the rain beating down on his body.

He stood at the bow, turning back with difficulty to look—behind him... only half of the fleet remained.

If this grinding battle continued, the end would surely be being blasted into meat paste by cannon fire.

He understood that this battle could not be won.

He said with difficulty, "Pass the order: all ships scatter, find your own course and board!"

His subordinates obeyed and relayed the command to the ships behind.

Before long, the tightly clustered fleet gradually dispersed, like a great net spreading to envelop the Santa Ana.

Seeing this, Lin Qian lowered his telescope and ordered, "Course northeast, break out through the fleet!"

Chen Jiao shouted the order loudly.

The helmsman straightened the wheel, and the Santa Ana charged straight at that great net.

Without Li Kuiqi's flagship to command them, the fleet fell into chaos. Facing the Santa Ana charging head-on at them, they all scrambled to give way, and the Santa Ana actually plunged straight through.

On the gun deck, Lei Sanxiang shouted hoarsely at the top of his lungs, "Both sides engage the enemy! No need to wait for orders—fire the cannons as fast as you can!"

On both sides of the Santa Ana were nothing but enemy ships. There was almost no need to aim. The gunners mechanically loaded and fired, loaded and fired...

The entire hull of the Santa Ana was shrouded in the thick smoke of black powder explosions.

Pirate ships that managed to get close to the Santa Ana hurled grappling hooks, gripping the ropes with both hands and bracing their feet against the slippery hull, climbing toward the deck.

Most of them hadn't even reached the bow before their ropes were cut, or they were stabbed by long spears and fell into the sea.

In the end, only five or six pirates managed to board. The moment they set foot on deck, before they could even make out the layout, they were pierced into sieves by the dense forest of long spears and thrusting swords.

After the fleet and the Santa Ana passed each other in that one exchange, none of them had the courage to approach and board again.

And Li Kuiqi's flagship had vanished as well.

At this moment, Li Kuiqi was ordering his men to sail toward the northwest channel of the lagoon.

He knew that once the fleet scattered into fragments, boarding success was utterly impossible. The order he had given was merely to trade his brothers' lives for his own.

While his brothers were locked in battle with Lin Qian, he could escape through the lagoon channel.

On his flagship, he still had the thirty thousand taels of silver seized from Lin Qian, over a dozen muskets, and more than twenty subordinates.

As long as he escaped, he could rely on these to stage a comeback!

Just let Li Kuiqi live, and one day he would surely repay this grudge!

At this time, the wind and rain at sea grew stronger, and the wind direction abruptly shifted from northwest to southeast.

The headwind turned into a tailwind, and the ship's speed suddenly increased.

Li Kuiqi looked up at the heavens, letting the rain drip into his eyes, mixing with tears as they flowed down. He thought to himself, "Damned heaven, so you finally treat me well after all!"

"Big brother..." the pirate subordinate's voice trembled, "that cannon ship is catching up..."

"What?" Li Kuiqi whirled around and saw the Santa Ana cutting through the waves at its bow, sailing straight toward him.

Li Kuiqi felt his vision blur, unable to believe what he was seeing was real.

Lin Qian hadn't been held up in the slightest—he had plunged straight through the net of ships and was coming directly for him.

The Santa Ana was already fast to begin with, and now it had the perfect tailwind for soft-sail sailing.

Catching up to Li Kuiqi's flagship was only a matter of time.

A fine layer of sweat beads formed on Li Kuiqi's forehead, washed away by the rain, running into his eyes with a stinging pain.

He didn't bother to wipe the sweat away, looking northwest again. In the distance, he could see the indigo-blue seawater—the channel was close now.

He reckoned he knew this channel extremely well and could sail through it at full speed, while Lin Qian would absolutely have to lower sails and pass through with caution.

With one fast and one slow, he was fully confident he could shake off the pursuit!

As long as he reached that channel, he would live!

Meanwhile, the crowd of subordinates on his flagship, watching the Santa Ana draw ever closer, felt fear in their hearts like a tsunami breaching the dikes.

They couldn't win in a fight, couldn't catch up in a chase, and couldn't escape in a flight.

These vicious, ruthless pirates tasted the flavor of despair for the first time in their lives.

"Big brother, why don't we... surrender..." Finally, someone couldn't take it anymore, collapsing onto the deck and saying bitterly.

All the pirates felt the same way. Since someone had taken the lead, they all dared to speak up.

"Let's surrender, I don't want to die..."

"Big brother, we can't escape. Let's surrender..."

Li Kuiqi roared in anger, "Bullshit! As long as we sail there, as long as we can get into that channel, we'll live!"

"Big brother, there's no chance left..." The despairing voice of his subordinate came through.

Li Kuiqi turned around in fury, but before he could even speak, he was already stunned.

He saw that the Santa Ana was now only a little over a hundred paces away from him, its massive bow savagely plowing through the waves.

Li Kuiqi could already make out the densely packed crew members on its deck.

And that waterway that could have carried him to freedom still lay at the far end of the horizon.

Li Kuiqi's heart sank heavily to the bottom of the sea.

"Big brother! Surrender!"

Li Kuiqi's gaze slowly swept across his subordinates on the deck—every single one of them looked at him with hope in their eyes.

Unwilling to accept it, Li Kuiqi raised his ghost-head saber, then brought it down upon the deck, splitting a great hole in the planks.

"I, Li Kuiqi, will never surrender!"

At that moment, shouting came from the Santa Ana: "Surrender and live! Surrender and live! Surrender..."

On his own ship, the pirates all changed expression upon hearing these words. Everyone looked at Li Kuiqi, and for a moment no one spoke—the atmosphere was extremely strange.

"Surrender and live! Surrender and live! Surrender and live!"

As the Santa Ana drew closer and closer, the shouting from aboard grew clearer and clearer.

The pirates under Li Kuiqi silently tightened their grips on their blades.

Suddenly, one pirate charged forward with his blade raised, swinging without the slightest mercy.

Amid the wind and rain, there came a great clang—the blade was knocked flying and fell into the sea.

That pirate was cut through from chest to upper abdomen, blood gushing violently from the wound. He collapsed onto the deck, convulsed a few times, and then lay still.

Li Kuiqi was drenched in blood, which mingled with the rain and streamed down his body, making him look like a ferocious asura.

Yet the other pirates showed no fear—instead, they all raised their blades and surrounded him.

Someone charged forward with a killing shout, and the rest of the pirates followed with loud cries, like the wailing of ghosts and howling of wolves.

In an instant, flesh and blood flew across the foredeck; the clash of weapons rang without end; screams and agonized cries chilled anyone who heard them to the bone.

After the time it takes to burn one stick of incense, Li Kuiqi was gravely wounded, having become a man of blood. He leaned on his saber, kneeling half-softly at the bow, countless sword wounds on his body pouring blood without cease.

And around him, there was not a single living person left standing.

The thick, viscous blood could not be washed away no matter how the heavy rain scoured it, and it flowed through the gaps in the deck planks into the sea like little streams.

A pirate with only his upper body remaining dragged his mutilated remains across the deck, crawling, his entrails soaking in the bloody water—within a few breaths, he moved no more.

Chen Jiao muttered: "Is this even a man?"

By now, the galleon had sailed up alongside Li Kuiqi's flagship—the two ships were no more than twenty paces apart.

On the Santa Ana, all the crew stood at the ship's rail, silently watching the scene.

Lin Qian had assumed that with the pirates swarming him all at once, Li Kuiqi would surely die—he never expected the man to be so divinely valiant. Sensing something amiss, he asked Chen Jiao in a low voice: "Do we have any matchlock muskets that still work?"

Chen Jiao went to ask on the deck, and all the crew shook their heads. This sudden downpour had soaked and flooded every matchlock musket with moisture; until the barrels and flash pans were completely dried out, none could be used again.

Just at that moment, Li Kuiqi slowly rose to his feet, leaning on his saber. As he pushed himself up, even more blood seeped from the wounds around him. He seemed not to notice, staggering as he walked into the cabin.

A moment later, he staggered back out of the cabin, holding up a torch in his hand.

In Li Kuiqi's vision, heaven and earth had all turned dark red. His eyes stared fixedly at the galleon, at Lin Qian.

A towering hatred surged in his heart.

He, Li Kuiqi, had made his name at thirteen, his brute strength unmatched by any; countless souls had perished beneath his ghost-head saber. He had dominated the seas of Min and Yue for over a decade, smooth sailing all the way, never tasting defeat.

With such talent as his, he considered himself a man of his generation, destined to establish extraordinary achievements.

In his eyes, Lin Qian was nothing but a nameless nobody—what right did he have to make him lose so disgracefully?

Lin Qian—what right did he have to crush him, Li Kuiqi?

To lose like this, to float dead in the sea like a dead fish—how unwilling he was!

Two streams of bloody tears flowed from his eyes.

He had seen plenty of those chieftains and ship masters in their pitiful, spineless states before death.

Since things had come to this, he understood that lamenting was useless. He resolved to emulate the Hegemon-King of Western Chu—if he was to die, he would die spectacularly!

"Lin Qian! Cough, cough, cough..." The moment Li Kuiqi spoke, a flood of bloody water gushed from his mouth, choking him into repeated coughing.

At this time, Chen Jiao returned to Lin Qian's side and said: "Helmsman, there are still a few dry matchlock muskets left in the powder room. I've ordered someone to fetch them."

Li Kuiqi continued to roar hoarsely: "Lin Qian, this old man won't accept it! Cough, cough, cough... This old man down below..."

A gunshot rang out from the gun deck.

A burst of blood exploded from Li Kuiqi's chest. The rest of his words were forcibly lodged in his throat, and his mountain-like body toppled backward with a thunderous crash.

Lei Sanxiang's mocking voice came from the gun deck: "You motherfucking bastard! What the hell are you jabbering about!"

Yahei

Fenyuan

Pen