No one on the ship wants to die, and no one will jump off the ship for strangers. If they want to lighten the burden, the only way is for a few powerful people to take action at the same time and knock everyone around them off the ship.
When Xue Wuchang looked at me with a cold gaze, blood-colored Qi had already flowed out from between his two palms. Since he had already planned to take action, I naturally couldn't just sit there and wait for death. In just a moment, I raised my Xuanming Qi to its peak.
Gu Piaoran suddenly shouted, "Don't move! As long as the Qianlong is shaken, it will immediately deviate from its direction! If you don't want to die, just leave it to fate..."
Before Gu Piaoran finished speaking, a sharp friction sound came from the bottom of the Qianlong. The sound was like someone scraping the bottom of the ship with a sharp knife, but the sound was countless times louder.
The sound of friction was like someone cutting a knife into our hearts. Everyone's body suddenly tensed up unconsciously. Some people even shrank their necks unconsciously and covered their ears with their hands.
The next moment, the Qianlong fell diagonally into the sea like a kite falling from the sky. No one on the boat could control their bodies, and they all rushed towards the bow.
I was originally confronting Xue Wuchang, but now I suddenly fell backwards, which meant that all my weaknesses were exposed to the opponent's palms. Xue Wuchang also pounced on me at the right time.
"Open—" I watched as Xue Wuchang turned his palm into a claw and grabbed my chest, and then I also attacked with a palm, meeting his hands. The moment our palms collided, Xue Wuchang flew upside down, and I fell straight to the bow. The aftermath of our palms swept in all directions, knocking away many people before stopping.
At the same time, the Qianlong also fell into the water. When the water splashed around the hull and burst into the cabin, Xue Wuchang and I stood up at the same time and looked at each other with murderous eyes.
The palm strike just now was evenly matched. I didn't use my full strength, and Xue Wuchang should have held back. However, judging from the overall strength, Xue Wuchang, who rushed over with more than 30 people, had the upper hand.
When Xue Wuchang and I moved together and were about to attack again, Gu Piaoran stood between us like a ghost and said, "You two, we have entered a secret place on the sea. It is full of dangers. If you two insist on killing each other, you will inevitably implicate others. If you two have decided to die here together, you can attack now."
Xue Wuchang and I took a breath at the same time and slowly retreated to the sides of the cabin. Gu Piaoran nodded with satisfaction and said, "It should not be peaceful from here to the shore. I will talk to you two in detail after we go ashore, but before we go ashore, I hope both of you can maintain due restraint."
Xue Wuchang snorted coldly and turned away, while I turned and looked out the window. The sea outside the Qianlong was like a maze surrounded by upright reefs. Everywhere I looked, there were reefs that pierced the clouds like pillars of heaven. The Qianlong was moving slowly forward in the seemingly stable water, slowly moving all the way to the depths of the reef.
When the bow of the Qianlong was about to go around a rock pillar and turn southeast, I saw a figure sticking out from behind the stone pillar. The man held the pillar with his hands, half of his body stuck out from behind the reef, grinned at us with a sly smile, and slowly stretched out his torn hand, waving at us repeatedly as if he was scratching something.
"There's a ghost!" Someone shouted, and then someone raised a gun and pointed it at the figure on the pillar. Gu Piaoran shouted, "Put down your guns, and don't act rashly!"
I couldn't help but feel absurd. Everyone on the ship was a sorcerer, and they were used to seeing ghosts, not to mention demons. How could Gu Piaoran be so angry when he saw a ghost
As soon as Gu Piaoran finished speaking, we heard the sound of iron chains falling all around us. When I turned around, I saw that almost every rock pillar had a few rusty chains hanging down, and each iron chain had a ghost hanging on it. If you don't look carefully, or if the person coming in is not a sorcerer, you can easily mistake those ghosts for living people.
Some of the ghosts were hung in the air with iron hooks piercing their shoulders, some were chained through their shoulder blades and locked tightly to the pillars, and some were hung upside down in the air with hooks piercing their ankles...
What was even more strange was that the ghosts were not hung in the same position. Some were only one or two feet above the water surface; some were tied tightly to the top of the stone pillar; and some had their feet hanging almost at the same level as the top of our boat, which was in a position that was neither high nor low among these ghosts.
I had just taken a few glances when I heard a heart-wrenching scream from the sky. When I looked up, the sunlight from the clouds was shining on a ghost.
The evil ghost, who was chained to the pillar with his face up, was burned to pieces in the sunlight. The human skin that had been turned up from his body was like a yellow paper with curled flowers, with sparks and wisps of thick smoke standing on the surface of the corpse, and soon a weak flame was rolled up and fell on the ghost, and in the blink of an eye, a blazing fire was set on the ghost.
The ghost's flesh flew around in the flames, soon revealing the black bones inside, and his screams spread throughout the entire sea.
I couldn't help but gasp. The ghost's skin and flesh were fake, but his bones were real. Someone had processed his bones in a special way. The purpose of fixing the human bones on the top of the rock was to imprison the other's soul together. As long as the human bones were not broken, the soul would not be scattered. In this way, the soul of the corpse would be exposed to the sun for years and months, and repeatedly endure the pain of being burned by fire.
But aren't ghosts most afraid of sunlight? If they are exposed to the sun like this, it won't take long for their souls to be shattered. What methods did those people use to keep the ghosts alive
As I was thinking, I heard a scream from the side of the ship. When I turned around, I saw a sailor with a chain flying from nowhere around his neck. He held the chain tightly with both hands and shouted for help: "Save me! Save me—"
"Don't rescue him!" After Gu Piaoran raised his hand to block several sailors who rushed forward to rescue the man, the man was also pulled into the air by the iron chain and fell into the water with a scream.
After I jumped out of the cabin, I heard a scream from under the boat. When I looked down, the sailor had been pierced through both ankles by two iron hooks, and was hung upside down in the air. The iron hook extending from the stone pillar stopped only when he was about one meter above the water.
A moment later, a sea fish nearly a foot long suddenly jumped out from the bottom of the sea and bit the man's face in mid-air.
Although I couldn't recognize what species the fish was, I clearly saw the fish's knife-like teeth bite into the man's cheek, then flap its tail left and right, twist its body desperately, and tear a piece of flesh from his face before leaping into the sea.
Soon after the blood dripped from the man's face into the sea, a large school of fish gathered around him. Looking at the bottom of the sea, there were flapping fish tails and jumping water everywhere. The man was so scared that he screamed: "Mr. Gu, save me, save me - for my service..."
Before the man finished speaking, countless strange fish jumped out of the water one after another, biting him one by one. After a while, except for his feet, the man's entire body was covered with strange fish swaying and jumping around. From a distance, he looked like a fish skewer hanging in the air.
He could no longer shout, but the sound of sea fish falling into the water continued to be heard. Every time a sea fish fell into the water, blood would spurt out of the man's body, and there would be a pool of blood in the sea water.
After a short moment, there was only a bloody skeleton in the air. The scary thing was that the strange fish bit off the other's flesh but did not hurt his internal organs. The man was still able to move his eyes and ask for help from the people on the boat. But no one on the boat dared to act rashly.
Finally, one of the sailors couldn't stand it anymore and raised his gun to aim at the man's heart. Gu Piaoran rushed over, grabbed the gun barrel, and pushed the man's gun into the air. The man's gun that was supposed to be fired into the sea was also pushed into the air by him. The man looked at Gu Piaoran at a loss: "Mr. Gu, why are you..."
Gu Piaoran shook his head and said, "I know you want to help him and give him a quick death, but you can't do that here. If I'm not mistaken, the Wang Qing who was dragged away by the rope should have been a pirate before. This is Pirate Rock. If you save him, you will only get yourself into trouble."
I whispered to Ye Jin, "What is Pirate Rock?"
Ye Jin pointed to the pillar-like reef and said, "That's called Pirate Rock. People on the sea say that this kind of pillar is the execution ground specially reserved by God for pirates. Whenever a pirate is captured, except for those who are extremely evil and need to be brought back to the court for execution, they are all taken to Pirate Rock and hung alive on the pillar to feed the fish and birds. After they die, their ghosts are left on the reef to be exposed to the sun until they are reduced to ashes."
Ye Jin said: "Pirate Rock is a form of private punishment, but it has also been tacitly approved by the court, so no one will come to collect the pirates' bodies. However, the Pirate Rock in this place is a bit weird!"
The pirate rocks here are really weird because they can catch people themselves and can even tell who are the pirates among us.
I couldn't help but squint my eyes and look at Gu Piaoran.
Gu Piaoran didn't seem to notice that I was looking at him. "I told you a long time ago that people who used to be pirates should not follow me in. How did Wang Qing get here? Can anyone tell me?"
When Gu Piaoran was furious, all the sailors under his command were silent, and no one was willing to say a word. Gu Piaoran was furious: "You don't say anything, do you want to die with him?" (To be continued)