Blackbeard Invests

Lin Qi woke up groggily. Outside the window, it was pitch black. Only the applewood logs in the fireplace were burning fiercely, emitting warmth and crackling sounds. Two large silver-wrapped candles stood on the candelabra; only one was lit, its flame just enough to illuminate the enormous bedroom.

It was indeed enormous. This bedroom was fifty times the size of Lin Qi's dormitory at Fifth University. The large bed, covered in silk and satin where Lin Qi lay, was even larger than his university dorm. Thick gauze curtains embroidered with delicate rose patterns surrounded it.

This bedroom originally belonged to Lin Qi's mother. Just a few years after giving birth to Lin Qi, his mother passed away due to frailty. Since then, the bedroom had been occupied by Lin Qi, and all the furniture and decorations remained as they were when his mother was alive. Amidst these familiar furnishings, Lin Qi could still find a sliver of warmth and comfort that he could never get from Blackbeard.

Curled up in the thick down comforter, he drifted for a while before reluctantly getting up.

On the bedside table, a small warmer held a hangover soup. Frowning, Lin Qi downed the soup in one gulp. A rolling heat spread through his body, quickly dispelling the alcohol. Lin Qi took a deep breath, feeling instantly invigorated and full of strength.

He put on a set of well-tailored black robes placed by the bed and, treading on the thick carpet, quickly walked to a corner of the bedroom. He tapped the wall nearly a hundred times before pushing open a hidden door. After walking through a short corridor, no more than three meters long, he entered a massive study.

It was hard to imagine such a study existing in the core of the Black Tiger Family's main keep. One could imagine granaries, oil depots, and armories, but a study seemed entirely out of place for the Black Tiger Family. Yet, it existed, and this study was incredibly, astonishingly large.

A circular dome nearly twenty meters high, with a diameter of over fifty meters, stretched upwards. Along the surrounding walls stood rows of bookshelves, piled high with dusty books. Some books were made of stone slabs, others of lead or iron plates. Even rarer were ancient clay tablets, meticulously protected within crystal cases.

The books in this study were not the popular texts found on the mainland. They were ancient tomes, passed down from antiquity, containing all sorts of unbelievable 'heretical theories.' Here lay several broken clay tablets. According to their inscriptions, they dated back to the late Destruction Era, recounting the tale of how 'Deities' brought disaster and destroyed the world.

If such clay tablet scriptures were to fall into the wrong hands, the Church would immediately dispatch an army to raze the entire Black Tiger Family to the ground. Therefore, these clay tablets were now safely hidden within this study, protected by numerous mechanisms and traps.

Carefully avoiding the bookshelf holding those clay tablets, Lin Qi circled several rows of shelves and arrived at the center of the study. The floor here was inscribed with a strangely shaped magic array. This array was vastly different from the popular multi-pointed star magic circles of the Western Continent, possessing an evil, ancient, and heretical style. Lin Qi stepped onto the array, softly chanted an incantation, and the array emitted a bright light. Lin Qi's body instantly vanished without a trace.

Nearly a hundred meters deep beneath the main keep, in a spacious secret chamber, Blackbeard sat beside a crystal coffin, quietly gazing at the small, frail woman within, who looked like a withered flower petal. With black hair and yellow skin, she appeared to be a pure-blooded Easterner by her looks. Though life had left her body, she still possessed a breathtaking radiance.

She wasn't stunningly beautiful, but gentle and kind, bringing joy and an instinctive sense of closeness to all who saw her. This woman was Lin Qi's birth mother, a benevolent, tender woman, like a cup of warm water that inspired no ill will in anyone.

Lin Qi materialized from the magic array beside the coffin. He quietly observed his mother in the coffin for a while. Her face was still the gentle and approachable one from his memories. Compared to Blackbeard's ferocious, ugly, hairy face, it was truly a comparison between an angel and a beast.

"Mother, you must have been blind to marry him!" After staring at his mother's corpse in a daze, Lin Qi finally couldn't help but mock his father. Before his mother's coffin, Lin Qi spoke not in the common tongue of the Western Continent, but in the Eastern language.

Blackbeard rolled his eyes and snorted, "What's wrong with me? Wealthy, upright, righteous, chivalrous—where else can you find such a fine man as myself?"

Tilting his head, Blackbeard also chided in fluent Eastern: "Your maternal grandfather came to the West with a small merchant fleet back then. They ran into pirates at sea. If I, your father, hadn't drawn my sword to help when I saw injustice, where would a scoundrel like you be?"

Lin Qi unceremoniously exposed Blackbeard's sore spot: "But the pirates who robbed Grandpa's merchant fleet, weren't they your family's subordinates?"

Hitting Blackbeard's weak point with a single blow, Blackbeard glared at Lin Qi in embarrassment and wisely skirted the topic. That incident from years ago, indeed, the pirates who robbed Lin Qi's maternal grandfather's merchant fleet were subordinates of the Black Tiger Family. Blackbeard just happened to be passing by with his brothers after completing a big deal. He suddenly saw Lin Qi's mother on deck and rushed to help, coincidentally playing the hero to save the beauty!

Such old scandals were naturally not to be discussed with his son!

Scratching his thick beard, Blackbeard rumbled, "Still thinking about you and Arthur?"

Lin Qi picked up three pale yellow sandalwood incense sticks from the offering table in front of the crystal coffin. After lighting them, he inserted them into the incense burner in the center of the table, then respectfully kowtowed three times to his mother. Standing up, he bowed deeply three times to his mother. Only then did Lin Qi walk over to Blackbeard and say coldly, "Sooner or later, I will kill him!"

Blackbeard awkwardly scratched his nose and chuckled dryly, "He is, after all, the only son of Old Man Redbeard, my sworn ally. The old ghost had bad luck and was wiped out by the Berserker Fleet of the Five Island Chain. As an old brother, of course, I had to adopt his only son!"

With a sigh, Blackbeard said in a deep voice, "After a while, I'll send him away to inherit his own father's territory. What do you think?"

Lin Qi touched his nose and still said sinisterly, "Then, let's pray the gods don't let him encounter me in the future, or I will kill him!"

Seeing that Lin Qi was determined to make things difficult for Arthur, Blackbeard could only change the subject again.

"Hmm, your Iron Fist Brotherhood is not bad, but if you want to develop it further, you're short on funds, right?"

Lin Qi's eyes suddenly lit up, shining as brightly as gold coins.

He exclaimed in surprise, "Dad, are you going to give me operating funds?"

Blackbeard raised an eyebrow and chuckled, "It's not a gift. I want to invest!"

Taking out a bank draft, Blackbeard stuffed it into Lin Qi's hand.