Purple Pearl Pirates

Jiang Lan slapped him for quite a while, but the Evil Orca King still floated belly-up on the surface, his tongue lolling out and swaying with the waves. There was absolutely no sign that he was about to wake up.

"Doro, is he dead?" Jiang Lan felt like his head was about to split in two. "I only punched him once! How did he die?"

Doro drifted over, stretched out her tiny little hand to check the Evil Orca King's nose, then pressed her ear near the indentation left by the fist mark.

"He's still breathing. He's not dead, just unconscious."

Jiang Lan sighed in relief, but immediately grew tense again. "Then why isn't he waking up? I've been slapping him forever!"

"With the force behind that punch of yours, he'll probably be out for a while." Doro thought for a moment before answering.

Jiang Lan's expression changed. "Let's run! If he wakes up, he'll definitely fight us to the death."

"Run?" Doro tilted her head, the ribbon on her bun bobbing in the sea breeze. "Then what about the other ninety-nine punches?"

"What ninety-nine punches? This isn't the time to discuss that!" Jiang Lan scooped Doro up and stuffed her into his arms. His two short legs paddled frantically underwater, the orange flippers of his penguin onesie spinning like propellers. "Once he wakes up, we're dead! Run, quack!"

One human and one soul sped away from the Evil Spirit Orca pod at an astonishing pace, leaving behind nothing but a string of "Little Guga, Little Guga" cries and a white trail through the water.

The Evil Spirit Orcas silently watched the little monster in the penguin outfit vanish beyond the distant horizon. Not one of them dared to give chase.

"King... what do we do?" one Evil Spirit Orca asked cautiously.

The unconscious Evil Orca King answered him with an incoherent groan.

"Let's flip the King over first," another Evil Spirit Orca suggested.

A group of Evil Spirit Orcas clumsily pushed against their king's belly with their heads. It took every ounce of their strength to finally turn that enormous body right-side up.

"Are we... still going to fight the Demon Soul Great White Sharks?" the youngest Evil Spirit Orca asked weakly.

Every Evil Spirit Orca turned to look at him in unison, their expressions conveying exactly the same message.

Are you blind?

The King is already like this, so what are we fighting for?

Hurry up and take the King home to recover!

And so, the formidable Evil Spirit Orca army that had arrived brimming with murderous intent departed in utter disgrace, collectively pushing their unconscious king slowly back toward their lair.

Every sea creature they encountered along the way was shocked to discover that the normally arrogant Evil Orca King now had a fist mark on his head, his tongue hanging out as he was pushed along by his kin like a dead fish in an utterly humiliating posture.

From that day onward, fish schools within a hundred miles passed around a saying: Don't go near the waters around Sea God Island. There's a human cub in a penguin outfit there who can knock out the Evil Orca King with one punch.

Meanwhile, Jiang Lan clutched Doro and swam an unknown distance in one breath. Only when the Evil Spirit Orcas were nowhere to be seen did he slow down, surface, and gasp for air.

"Little Guga... I'm exhausted..." Jiang Lan floated on his back, the belly of his penguin onesie puffed up, making him look like a white balloon bobbing on the water. "Doro, do you think that uncle will hold a grudge against us?"

Doro shook the water from her head, her purple bead-like eyes full of speechless exasperation. "You knocked him out with one punch. What do you think?"

"Can you blame me? He told me to hit him!" Jiang Lan said indignantly. "I've lived six years and never heard such a ridiculous request! He specifically told me to hit the hardest spot! With all my strength! I was just granting his wish!"

"You granted it a little too thoroughly," Doro said with perfect accuracy.

Jiang Lan opened his mouth, only to realize he had no retort. He could only close his eyes and recover his strength by floating.

Sunlight shone on his round little belly, warm and comfortable enough that he nearly started humming.

After floating for about the time it took an incense stick to burn, Jiang Lan suddenly felt something block the sunlight above him.

Jiang Lan opened his eyes, then froze.

A large ship was stopped in front of them.

It was a typical pirate ship, its hull entirely black, with a purple skull flag hanging from the mast and snapping in the sea breeze.

Several pirates wearing purple headscarves leaned halfway over the rail on one side of the ship, staring in unison at Jiang Lan floating on the sea.

Only then did Jiang Lan realize that he probably looked rather strange right now.

A six-year-old child in a penguin onesie, holding a round white puffball in his arms, floating alone in the middle of the vast ocean. There were no adults, no ship, not even a plank of wood.

No matter how one looked at it, he resembled a survivor of a shipwreck.

"Captain! There's a child floating on the sea!" a pirate shouted toward the cabin.

The instant he finished speaking, the pirates at the bow all sucked in a sharp breath.

"What? A child? Where?"

"Over there! The one dressed like a penguin!"

"Hurry, hurry, lower a rope! What are you standing around for?"

The ship immediately erupted into chaos. Some threw down ropes, some lowered a gangplank, some ran to fetch clean towels, while others clung to the rail and craned their necks downward so hard they nearly toppled overboard.

Before Jiang Lan could react, a thick hemp rope landed precisely in front of him, the splash smacking him right in the face.

"Kid! Grab the rope! We'll pull you up!" A bearded pirate uncle sprawled over the railing, doing his best to squeeze the gentlest tone out of his rough voice. It sounded like a brown bear trying to meow. "Don't be scared! Us uncles aren't bad people!"

"We're the Purple Pearl Pirates! Respectable pirates!" another pirate hurriedly added, then scratched his head after saying it.

"Shut up! Don't scare the kid!" The bearded uncle slapped the back of that pirate's head, then turned back to Jiang Lan. His expression struggled fiercely between ferocious and kindly before finally forcing out a smile that could only be described as terrifying. "Come on, grab the rope. Uncle will pull you up!"

Jiang Lan looked at the rope before him, then at the pirates aboard the ship who were desperately trying to seem harmless despite each looking fiercer than the last.

He did not recognize this ship, but through his memories of the original story, he roughly understood what was going on.

The Purple Pearl Pirates.

Their leader was Zi Zhenzhu. When she first met Tang San, she was thirty-five years old. Her martial soul was the Sea Viper, and she possessed level sixty-eight Soul Power as an assault-type Soul Emperor.

She commanded a pirate crew of over two hundred Soul Masters. Straightforward and hot-tempered, she acted without restraint but often aided impoverished fishermen and had adopted an orphan named Jixiang.

If he remembered correctly, Zi Zhenzhu seemed to be gay?