Chapter 80: Brown Sugar Ginger Water

Lin Qian didn't care whether Li Kuiqi lived or died—his eyes were fixed dead on that torch.

The moment the torch hit the deck, sparks burst up all around it.

Lin Qian's pupils contracted.

Just then, Bai Qing leaped over the gunwale and dove into the water like a fish.

Lin Qian roared: "Stop her!"

Bailangzai tossed his weapon aside and dove in after her.

Neither of them surfaced again.

Li Kuiqi's flagship suddenly let out a thunderous boom—its stern blew apart and erupted in roaring flames.

Through the smoke and dust, ten thousand points of silver light sprayed across the surrounding sea, followed by the clatter of stones splashing into the water.

"Clink! Clink!"

A few silver spots also landed on the Santa Ana's deck, gouging several small dents into the planking. The crew crowded around to look.

They were all newly cast ten-tael horseshoe ingots.

At the gash in the flagship's stern, several more chests of silver ingots poured down like a waterfall, crackling and splashing into the sea.

Lin Qian scanned the water's surface in every direction but saw no sign of the brother and sister.

Just as anxiety was mounting in his heart, two heads suddenly popped up from the sea beside the ship.

The crew hurriedly lowered a rope ladder, and the siblings climbed aboard.

Bai Qing walked up to Lin Qian and said apologetically: "Helmsman, I was a step too late—I couldn't save that ship."

"Who told you to jump down?!" Lin Qian kicked out at her.

Then he roared again: "Bailangzai, get over here!"

Bailangzai came forward and was also knocked to the deck by a kick from Lin Qian.

"Keep an eye on your sister from now on—if she acts on her own again, I'll take the whip to you!"

Bailangzai got up and acknowledged the order. Though he'd taken a kick, warmth surged through his heart.

Chen Jiao stared at the waterfall of silver and said: "Helmsman, what about all that silver?"

Lin Qian asked Bai Qing: "How deep is the water down there?"

Bai Qing was taken aback, then said in a dry voice: "About ten-odd zhang..."

Lin Qian did the conversion in his head—that was over thirty meters, the absolute limit for pearl divers. Sending men down to salvage would mean trading lives for silver.

His men's lives weren't that cheap.

Lin Qian said softly: "Forget it. Leave it."

"Helmsman..." Bai Qing felt her chest jolt as she stared at Lin Qian in disbelief.

Down there was over ten thousand taels of silver—worth close to a hundred top-grade southern pearls!

In all her short life, she'd seen plenty of high court officials and plenty of court eunuchs—not one of them could resist such temptation.

Lin Qian was the only person she'd ever met who put the lives of pearl divers before the pearls themselves.

At the Naozhou pearl grounds, she'd heard with her own ears Lin Qian swear a solemn oath to Mazu and Third Granny.

Those bold words—"no more forced labor, no more base registry, no more dividing Tanka from shore folk"—still echoed in her ears to this day.

But she'd seen too much treachery and deceit, seen too many men sell their friends for glory—those words, she'd only half believed.

She'd thrown herself into completing every task Lin Qian assigned, even risking death by explosion to dive into the sea and save the ship.

In truth, it was only to repay a debt of gratitude.

Lin Qian had avenged the murder of her mother.

Bai Qing acknowledged that debt in her heart, and felt that even if it cost her life, she had to repay it.

Even if Lin Qian had just ordered the pearl divers into the sea to salvage the silver, she wouldn't have frowned for a moment.

But Lin Qian had simply said "forget it."

If the eunuch at the pearl grounds could have said "forget it," her mother wouldn't have died.

If the court could have said "forget it," her father, her other brothers and sisters, and countless thousands of Tanka and pearl divers wouldn't have died.

At that thought, Bai Qing felt her eyes burn and her chest tighten as if something were lodged there. She couldn't make a sound, only stammering: "Helmsman, I..."

Her voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz—Lin Qian didn't hear it.

Lin Qian looked through his telescope at the distant flagship. The heavy rain had already extinguished the flames aboard, and the sea air was thick with the acrid smell of charred wood.

In fact, there hadn't been much gunpowder aboard—only the sterncastle was badly damaged, while the cargo hold had suffered little. Thanks to the watertight bulkhead design, the flagship wouldn't sink anytime soon.

Lin Qian estimated the remainder at over twenty thousand taels, and Li Kuiqi's head was worth something too. He sent crewmen out in a small boat to haul the silver aboard, and to cut off Li Kuiqi's head and retrieve that ghost-head saber as well.

As for the silver at the bottom of the sea, Lin Qian said he didn't want it—but in truth, once he had a free hand, he'd still send a ship with a drag net to salvage it. After all, even a mosquito's leg is still meat.

But for now, compared to these crumbs, there was a real treasure waiting for him in the lagoon.

Namely, the fifty-odd ships remaining from Li Kuiqi's fleet.

The pirates aboard those ships had lost all morale, buzzing around the lagoon like headless flies.

Out in open water, they could have scattered and fled in every direction.

But alas, the ring of coral reefs had become a cage for these ships.

And the only exit lay behind the Santa Ana.

Lin Qian ordered the ship to anchor before the exit channel, then sent everyone below deck to shelter from the rain, leaving only a few lookouts on deck.

Once the pirates in the lagoon had tired themselves out and fallen into complete despair, they would naturally come to surrender.

Lin Qian had observed long ago that Li Kuiqi's fleet was composed mostly of three ship types: Haicang ships, Cangshan ships, and bird ships.

A Haicang ship cost nearly a thousand taels to build, a Cangshan ship nearly six hundred, and a bird ship two hundred.

And that was just the construction cost—the market price was even more astonishing.

Moreover, the construction cycle for Ming dynasty sea vessels was extremely long—the fastest a Haicang ship could be built was nearly ten months, and a Cangshan ship still took five or six months. On top of that, one had to find shipwrights, caulkers, and timber on the spot, and set up new shipyards and dry docks.

Capturing these fifty ships outright—who knew how much time and cost it would save, how many headaches it would spare them.

Calculated that way, this campaign to wipe out Li Kuiqi had cost only ten thousand taels' worth of firearms and gunpowder ammunition—a huge profit!

Thinking this, Lin Qian put away his telescope and prepared to head back to the cabin with the others.

Just as he turned around, he saw Bai Qing and her younger brother still standing in the rain.

Somewhat puzzled, Lin Qian asked, "Why not go back to the cabin to get out of the rain?"

Bai Qing: "Helmsman, I..."

Lin Qian was inwardly baffled—Bai Qing was usually even more brisk and decisive in speech and action than a man; why was she hemming and hawing today?

But the situation was settled now, so whatever she had to say could be said slowly.

So Lin Qian waved a hand and said as he walked, "Let's head back to the cabin first, get yourselves dried off. If there's anything to say, we'll talk at mealtime. Bailangzai, tell Uncle Chen to cook some rice and brew some brown sugar ginger water."

With that, Lin Qian stepped down from the stern deck and pushed open the door to the captain's cabin.

Closing the door and shutting out the wind and waves, only then did he feel how chilled his whole body was.

The autumn rain was icy now—not the season for bathing out in the rain anymore.

Lin Qian changed out of his soaked clothes, dried himself thoroughly with a dry towel, put on a fresh set of dry clothes, and lay down on the walnut double four-poster bed.

After lying there a while, someone knocked on the captain's cabin door.

"Come in." Lin Qian sat up from the bed.

A crewman came in carrying a food box, set it on the dining table, and opened it—inside was a bowl of steaming brown sugar ginger water.

The crewman took out the brown sugar ginger water, set it on the table, and said, "Uncle Chen brewed a whole pot and told me to bring some to the helmsman and the various officers first."

"Much obliged."

After the crewman left, Lin Qian carried the brown sugar ginger water over to the window.

Outside the window, the rain was still pouring in torrents, water streaming down the glass in rivulets. Both sky and sea were a grayish black, and from time to time muffled thunderclaps burst overhead.

And here he was, dry and comfortable all over, catching the scent of the brown sugar ginger water—he couldn't help but feel a sense of ease.

Lin Qian blew on the steam rising from the brown sugar ginger water and took a sip—sweet, scalding, and spicy all at once. As he swallowed, a current of warmth pooled in his belly, and his whole body began to feel warm.

Lin Qian moved a little closer to the window and observed the sea beside the ship. The swells were only about a meter high, and the Santa Ana was rocking only gently.

With the current wind strength, the swells out in the open sea should be between two and three meters.

The coral atoll's ability to break wind and waves was indeed formidable—no wonder a ship-city could be built within the lagoon.

Lin Qian looked further into the distance and saw that most of the ship-city's wreckage had already sunk, with only scattered fragments still floating on the surface.

In the far distance, he could still make out the shadows of Li Kuiqi's fleet scattering in flight across the sea.

Yahei

Pink Round

Pen