When Lin Qi groggily woke, the world outside the window was pitch-black. Only the applewood logs in the fireplace blazed, giving off a cozy warmth and a soft crackle. Two large, silver-wrapped candles stood in the candelabra, but only one was lit. Its glow was just enough to illuminate the vast bedroom.
It really was enormous. The room was fifty times the size of Lin Qi's dorm at Fifth University. The grand bed he lay on, piled high with silks and satins, was even bigger than his university dorm. Heavy curtains surrounded it, embroidered all over with delicate rose patterns.
This bedroom had once belonged to Lin Qi's mother. A few years after giving birth to him, she had died of illness, her body frail. From then on, Lin Qi had claimed the room. All its furniture and decorations remained as they had been when his mother was alive. Among these familiar furnishings, Lin Qi could still find a little of the warmth and comfort that he could never get from Blackbeard.
He lay dazed for a while, curled beneath the thick goose-down quilt, then reluctantly climbed out of bed.
A small brazier sat on the bedside table, with a bowl of hangover soup warming on top. Lin Qi frowned and gulped it down. Heat surged through him, quickly driving away the alcohol. He took a deep breath and immediately felt refreshed, strength coursing through his body.
He put on the fine black robe laid out beside the bed, then crossed the thick carpet and strode to a corner of the bedroom. After rapidly knocking on the wall nearly a hundred times, Lin Qi pushed open a hidden door and walked down a passage barely three meters long. Beyond it lay a huge study.
It was hard to imagine that a study like this could exist at the heart of the Black Tiger Family's main fortress. One could imagine a granary, an oil storehouse, or an armory here, but a study seemed to have nothing to do with the Black Tiger Family. And yet it was here—and it was enormous, astonishingly so.
The circular dome soared nearly twenty meters overhead and spanned more than fifty meters across. Bookshelves lined the walls, piled with dusty books. Some were made of stone slabs, others of lead or iron. A few exceptionally rare volumes—ancient clay tablets—were protected beneath sturdy crystal covers.
The books here weren't the popular texts found on the main roads. They were all handed down from ancient times, recording all manner of nearly unbelievable, heretical ideas. Several battered clay tablets, according to their inscriptions, dated from the middle to late Era of Destruction. They told of "gods" unleashing calamities to destroy the world.
If these tablets accidentally fell into circulation, the Church would immediately send an army to raze the entire Black Tiger Family. That was why they were hidden away in this study, guarded by numerous mechanisms and traps.
Carefully avoiding the shelves where the tablets were stored, Lin Qi circled several rows of bookshelves and reached the middle of the study. A bizarrely shaped magic array had been engraved into the floor. Unlike the many-pointed star arrays popular across the Western Continent, it had a strange, archaic, and heretical style. Lin Qi stepped onto it and murmured an incantation. A blinding light burst from the array, and he vanished without a trace.
Nearly a hundred meters beneath the main fortress, in a spacious secret chamber, Blackbeard sat beside a crystal coffin, quietly gazing at the small, frail woman inside, who looked like a withered flower petal. Black hair and yellow skin—by appearance, she was a pure-blooded Easterner. Though life had left her body, she still possessed a striking, radiant beauty.
She wasn't stunning, but she was gentle and kind, the sort of woman whose warmth made anyone glad to see her and instinctively drew them close. This woman was Lin Qi's birth mother: a generous, tender soul, like a cup of warm water, who could never inspire ill will in anyone.
Lin Qi appeared in the magic array beside the coffin. He quietly gazed at his mother for a while. Her face was just as gentle and kind as he remembered. Compared with Blackbeard's hideous, black-haired face, it was truly the difference between an angel and a Magic Beast.
"Mother must have been blind to marry you!" After staring at his mother's body for a while, Lin Qi finally couldn't stop himself from mocking his father. At his mother's coffin, he didn't use the common tongue of the Western Continent. He spoke in the language of the East.
Blackbeard rolled his odd eyes and snorted. "What's wrong with me? I'm rich, upright, and always ready to help those in need. I'm loyal and righteous, a fine, upstanding man. Where are you going to find another like me?"
Rolling his eyes, Blackbeard launched into a fluent tirade in the Eastern language as well. "Back then, your maternal grandfather brought a small merchant caravan to the West. They ran into pirates at sea. If your old man hadn't drawn his sword to help the helpless, where would a little bastard like you be now?"
Lin Qi didn't hesitate to expose Blackbeard's old wound. "But weren't the pirates who attacked Grandfather's caravan members of our own family?"
Lin Qi had struck Blackbeard right in the sore spot. Blackbeard glared at him in embarrassment, then wisely sidestepped the subject. As for what had happened back then—well, it was true that the pirates who attacked Lin Qi's maternal grandfather's caravan had belonged to the Black Tiger Family. Blackbeard had simply happened to be passing by with a crew of brothers fresh from a big score. Then he spotted Lin Qi's mother on the deck and rushed to her rescue, playing the hero and saving the beauty along the way!
Naturally, he didn't want to discuss such an old disgrace with his son!
Scratching his thick beard, Blackbeard rumbled, "Still brooding over what happened between you and Arthur?"
Lin Qi picked up three sticks of pale-yellow sandalwood incense from the offering table before the crystal coffin. He lit them and placed them in the incense burner at the center of the table, then respectfully kowtowed to his mother three times. He rose, bowed deeply to her three times, and only then went over to Blackbeard. His voice was cold. "One day, I'll kill him."
Blackbeard awkwardly scratched his nose and gave a dry laugh. "He is the only son of Red-Haired Ghost, your old man's staunch ally. The old ghost was unlucky enough to run into a berserker fleet from the Five Great Linked Islands and get himself killed. As an old friend, of course I had to take in his only son!"
He let out a quiet sigh, then said gravely, "After a while, I'll send him away and let him inherit his father's territory. What do you think?"
Lin Qi rubbed his nose, still speaking in a sinister tone. "Then let's pray the gods don't let him cross my path again. Otherwise, I'll kill him!"
Seeing that Lin Qi was dead set on making things difficult for Arthur, Blackbeard could only change the subject again.
"Mm, your Iron Fist Brotherhood is pretty good, but if you want to expand it, you're going to need a lot of money, right?"
Lin Qi's eyes suddenly lit up, gleaming like gold coins.
He asked in delight, "Dad, are you going to give me some operating funds?"
Blackbeard raised an eyebrow and gave a dry laugh. "Not for free. I want a stake!"
Blackbeard pulled out a bank draft and shoved it into Lin Qi's hand.
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