43.
Sand Ghost Bay is formed by a string of coral reefs guarding an island. Because the island is like a head and the reef is like teeth, it looks hideous like a ghost skeleton from a distance, so it is named "Sand Ghost Bay" and "Shagui Bay". This place is located on the high sea in the southwest of Yunhai. Take it as your own, but the fleet you send will always be eaten up by various forces within less than a year. As the years passed, the ones who could really gain a firm foothold were the pirates who came and went freely.
Now the bloody flag is fluttering in Sand Ghost Bay, and almost all the important routes on the Yunhai Sea are in their hands. Passing merchant ships would rather spend seven or eight days to detour, rather than take a look at the branches hanging from the dense jungle dry corpse.
Of course, there are also merchant ships that dare to take this route, which are usually called black ships.
The black ships bring black goods and live in villains. The owner takes black and white, and often takes some shady business. The sailors usually dress up as pirates. The clothes of the evil Bolang merchants.
Hailian was on a black ship at this time.
After leaving the theater that day, Hai Lian took another trip to do a business with Faluko, and told the magistrate for leave when he settled the bill.
"Are you going back to sea again?"
"Well, do something for a friend."
"When can I come back? On my side..." Faluco glanced at the document in hand, "I will need you later."
"Not sure, maybe I won't be able to come back after going to sea this time." Hai Lian said bluntly, "If I don't come back next spring, you don't have to deliver letters to my house anymore."
Faluco was a little surprised: "I remember that you never took on such a job that you couldn't get out of it."
"So it was entrusted by a friend."
"Looking at it this way, this friend of yours is a friend who can confide in you."
Hailian smiled, but didn't answer.
It was late autumn when he contacted the black boat, and if he didn't set off again, it would be even more difficult to find a boat willing to go to Sand Ghost Bay in winter. Fortunately, Mercury helped him again, and the other party shook his head and sighed at him: "I told you to stay away from that Dongzhou man, and you still go to help him. If you die, you will store it in the ticket shop." I'll swallow all the money you got, and I won't leave a single coin to your sister."
"Try it?" Hailian carefully put the contact address into his arms, "Let's go."
"Get out of here." The informant puffed fiercely.
The foremast and topsails were up, and the brig, the Owl, was sailing at full speed. There was already a chill in the air, Hailian walked from the cabin to the deck, just took the thick rope thrown by the sailors, helped him tie it to the winch, and the remaining warmth was quickly taken away from his fingertips.
The sound of breaking waves was blowing into my ears with the north wind, and now my ears were cold. Hailian rubbed his fingers and went to the bow of the ship to find the captain: "About a few more days?"
The captain is a thick-haired, sturdy middle-aged man, about half of the Northern Desert blood. He held a pipe and said, "If the wind keeps blowing, we can arrive tomorrow evening. Have a sip?"
Hai Lian shook her head: "I won't smoke this."
The captain raised his eyebrows: "Young man, after finally getting ashore, why can't you think about it and run back?"
"There is no money to be made on shore, so it is better to come back and do the old job."
"If you want to make money, you might as well stay on my ship." The captain invited. Two days ago, the screws on the main mast fell off, and the other sailors said they had to drop anchor and go ashore for repairs, but this guest climbed to the top without saying a word, and screwed the screws back neatly in the swaying waves. You can't find many of them in the best shipyards in Tisu. "Sailors on our side can also get dividends. If you do well in the future, you can even share a boat with you to go out alone. Isn't it better to earn a job than to suck blood at Shagui Bay?"
"I'm not made for business, and I don't like managing people and boats." Hailian sneezed, it was too cold, "And my brothers are all in Sand Ghost Bay."
Seeing that he couldn't be persuaded, the captain had no choice but to spread his hands and turned his head to tell the helmsman not to be dazed, but just as the swear words jumped out of his throat, there was a sudden muffled sound from the sea level.
"What movement?"
"East! East! Fight!"
The sailors flocked to the deck to watch the excitement, and Hailian followed to the railing. I saw flames at the junction of the sea and the sky ahead, and the fighting was fierce. The distance between the Owl and them was too far, and when the sound of several mortar shots came, only the brig that was hit Half of it is exposed to the sea.
There are not ten or eight battles like this every day in the Yunhai Sea. Fish jumping into the sea is even rarer than this one. Hailian shook his head and was about to leave the deck in a dispirited mood when the sailor on the observation deck above his head suddenly shouted: That ship looks like the Fecona family's ship!"
"What?!" Everyone was startled. Fecona is notorious in the sea, but his flag is so powerful, whether it is the navy, fishermen, businessmen or even fellow pirates, they all hate it, but they only dare to follow behind to pick up a piece of the pie, dare to face Fecna Those who declare war on their own ships must be ready to be destroyed. Now they heard people say that Fecona's ship sank, so naturally no one dared to believe it.
"real or fake?"
"Can I read this wrong? There is such a big eagle and such a big knife on his blood red flag, who can read it wrong?"
"Hey, if you dare to hit his boat, will you still hang out in Yunhai in the future... The warship bombed it?"
"No... It's not a warship, it seems to be a pirate? But I don't know whose flag it is..."
"Tell me what pattern is on the flag." The strange guest suddenly spoke.
The sailor put down the binoculars and leaned over to look at Hailian, and then replied in a dialect of Shiliudao: "Red bottom, white ghost, and there are two praying mantises beside the ghost."
"Shuangdao Mantis." Hai Lian said, "The owner is a nicknamed green-legged insect. He is good at playing with double knives. He especially likes to collect people's fingers. He used to follow Fecna's buttocks and heels, but now he is doing well. .” He calmly explained to a group of curious sailors, but there was a faint premonition of uneasiness in his heart.
During his stay in Jiumeng City, did anything happen on Sand Ghost Bay, the "pirate paradise"
The winner is already divided in the distance, and the losers who are not buried in the shells and waves will be salvaged and tortured as toys for the winners, and those who lack arms and legs will be hung on some deserted island as wind chimes— This is the cruel law in Yunhai. The Owl was only a witness from the beginning to the end, witnessing the whole process of how the former ghost is now pulling out its teeth. The young man lowered his eyes, rubbed the knife at his waist, and couldn't help but think of the plans that the Dongzhou fox surnamed Fang told him that night in the carriage.
Is this what you expected a long time ago, Fang Tinglan
44.
As the captain said, the Owl arrived at Sand Ghost Bay at dusk the next day. The silhouette of the island under the setting sun is gentle, as if this is a harbor where travelers can stop and sleep peacefully. A few sailboats with mottled paint were parked on the simple pier, and a few sailors were cleaning the gun barrels. When they saw the Owl docked, they whistled sharply: "Is there any good cargo this time?"
The captain replied while instructing the sailors to drop anchor: "There are tobaccos produced in Qiuye Beach, and they are only sold in boxes."
The other party made a gesture of wiping his neck, indicating that he didn't want it.
The man laughed and scolded the poor man, and asked the first officer, "Where's the pirate? I want to buy him a drink."
"He just disembarked." The first officer pointed to the pier, "Going to find him?"
"That's not necessary." The captain of the black boat took a deep puff of the cigarette. The shredded tobacco of Autumn Leaf Beach is spicy and choking. Only rough people like them like it. "After passing this pier, he is not from the same world as us. .”
Hailian got off the boat early and went directly to the only tavern in Sand Ghost Bay—to say it was a tavern would be considered an exaggeration, but it was just a grass shed with a dozen tables and chairs around it, and if there was a heavy rain on the island, he would move there It operates in a deep cave, and most of the wine sold is homemade sour ale, and occasionally it also sells good wine robbed from warships. This is the intelligence distribution center for pirates. The men pour a few cups of yellow soup on the table, not only can they immediately become brothers and sisters, but also learn all the gossip secrets in the vast sea.
The bartender was an old acquaintance of Hailian's. He greeted him and poured him a full glass without Hailian opening his mouth: "We've all heard that the poisonous bee is gone?"
"what."
Obviously, it was the sour and bitter liquid that he was used to, and when it got into his throat, Hailian's tongue still missed the taste of the glass of mirror flower wine.
I should have had an extra drink.
"What's the matter? I remember that you could slip away when you met Mo Yi's warship before." The bartender moved closer.
Mentioning the contest in the cabin, Hailian was a little annoyed now, and he rolled his eyes: "The Dongzhou people's boat has never been fought."
"Dongzhou people? They know how to drive a fart boat! They would rather put two boxes of slippery satin on their boats than install a fort, and they would kill them if they didn't earn a copper." Someone next to him sneered, "Actually, you were slapped in the eyes by the warship in the south, so you have no face to talk about Dongzhou, right?"
"Believe it or not." Hailian didn't bother to explain, he took two more gulps into his mouth, and a burst of hot air rose from his lungs, only then did he feel the real feeling of stepping on land, and he was about to ask the bartender to continue After drinking a cup, his shoulders suddenly sank, he turned his head to look sideways, and the other party showed a mouthful of yellow teeth and smiled at him: "Hey, isn't this Xiao Hailian?"
Before the man finished exchanging greetings, Hai Lian immediately turned his head back, and the man's face suddenly became a little uneasy: "Is this the attitude you have when you meet friends?"
"I'm friends with trash?" Hailian sneered.
Hai Lian's voice was not too loud, just enough to be heard by all the people who were drinking, and there was a sound of suffocated laughter all around, and someone even yelled at the man: "Look, he said a year ago that he wouldn't sleep with you, You are still leaning over to get a slap in the face, Huang Fang, you should put some oil on your old face, maybe Hai Lian will agree if you are two years younger!"
The suppressed laugh turned into a laugh in an instant, Huang Fang blushed under the eyes of watching the show, his chest rose and fell a few times, and then he suddenly laughed too: "Yes, I can't compare to Huisha, young man, how young is he? The ground is dead, so of course you will stay at a young age for the rest of your life." He looked at Hailian's jaw line that was tense for a moment, and the tip of his tongue became more and more malicious, "Hailean, you are the most powerful person under his command. You are here, how could the Venomous Bee lose? Could it be that your girlfriend couldn’t get you out of bed the night before? The Venomous Bee was completely wiped out, how did you survive from the warship, right? Also rely on your ass, huh?"
Helian never said a word.
When the man spoke, his obscenity sprayed all over Hailian's neck, and the hand that was originally on his shoulder moved down a little bit, "Which one is better at serving as a soldier than you? How many people have you had sex with?" Did they pay you?"
The moment Huang Fang's fingers were about to fall to the position of the last section of his spine, Hai Lian grabbed the opponent's wrist with his backhand, he shook off the man's hand, and looked at Huang Fang again.
"Yellow teeth."
"What?" Huang Ya raised his eyebrows, "Finally not being a mute anymore?"
Hailian looked directly at him: "Didn't you just ask how I survived the enemy? I'll tell you now."
He threw a silver coin to the bartender and stood up from his chair: "Drink money."
"There is still money for tables and chairs."
As soon as the words fell, Hailian's fist landed on Huang Fang's face.
"Just live like this."