Trouble Brews Again (Part Two)

"So what do you suggest?" the captain asked.

"The monster's dangerous, so we send the new captives down." The gunner leaped onto the table and turned to face the crowd. He pointed toward the captives at its edge. "They have to do it. It's the blood price for joining the crew!"

Then he changed tack. "But I say that captive should lead them."

He pointed at Xia Lun, who stood in the shadows. "He's held his own against the monster before. With him leading them, sending the captives down won't be a death sentence."

Following the line of the gunner's pale but muscular arm, people turned toward Xia Lun. Within seconds, every eye was on him.

"Who's that poor bastard?" someone in the crowd muttered.

"He's the one who crippled the monster!" someone whispered.

"Shh, keep your voice down. I saw him kill the First Mate and the others. One shot each!" another whispered.

"What? He killed the First Mate?"

The whispers swelled into a hum. Carried by the sea breeze, they seeped into the shadows and reached Xia Lun's ears.

Though everyone was watching him, Xia Lun showed no sign of nerves. He stepped slowly out of the shadows and calmly surveyed the crowd—some startled, some wary, some pitying—taking in every reaction.

After deliberately letting the silence stretch for a few seconds, he looked at the gunner.

"I'm afraid you have no authority to give me orders," he said softly.

Xia Lun's voice was barely louder than a breeze brushing past the ear, yet every word rang clear.

The gunner's throat bobbed as he swallowed.

His heart raced, and his vision narrowed. Looking into Xia Lun's dark eyes, the gunner found himself reliving the terrible slaughter in the cabin.

The smell of gunpowder, the blood, the swift killing in the dark—those blurred fragments of memory fermented under the influence of fear and imagination, turning into visions ever thicker with blood.

Truth be told, he was afraid of this killer who had struck without hesitation.

But to hide his growing fear, the gunner put on a show of indifference and shot Xia Lun a deliberately provocative glance.

To his dismay, Xia Lun did not react. He did not even raise an eyelid, as though he had never noticed the look.

At a loss, the gunner instinctively turned toward the old man who had given him the idea.

The old man rubbed the unhealed wound on the front of his neck with his palm, then stepped out of the crowd.

"Boy, he may not have the authority to order you around," the old man said. "But by the rules of this ship, the most dangerous jobs go to the newcomers."

Before Xia Lun could answer, he continued, "If you won't do it, we'll have to draw lots and pick some other poor bastard at random."

"Anyone could be picked," he added, as though the thought had only just occurred to him.

With that single sentence, unease spread through the crowd like a cold fog...

This was the old man's plan.

If the gunner had told the truth, Xia Lun was clearly one of the captain's strongest supporters. If she stayed silent, the old man could get rid of a captive who backed her and posed a serious threat in a fight, all without shedding a drop of blood. After all, they only needed one person who could sail the ship.

If the captain spoke up and insisted on protecting the captive, her decision to put everyone equally at risk would badly damage her standing. The old man could then propose settling matters by a "vote," effectively stripping her of the power to decide things alone.

Stripping the captain of that power was crucial. It would do as much as possible to prevent a reckoning: if she planned to settle scores once they reached Perilous Earth Island, the vote would already have given the others a shared position. She would struggle to rally them, and fear of the consequences would make her hesitate to act.

In short, it was a plan he could not lose by, and a few words were all he needed to put it into motion.

Such was the power of words. Sometimes they were weaker than a breeze; at other times, they were deadlier than a blade.

The old man narrowed his one remaining eye and fixed it on the captain. He did not spare Xia Lun a glance. In his eyes, the captive was beneath notice. Once those words had been spoken, Xia Lun was already a dead man in waiting.

Yet the captain's reaction puzzled him. She leisurely took out her pipe, gave the captive an odd look, then slowly drew on it.

Against the dim, murky backdrop, motes of smoke drifted through the faint glow of the ember. The tension on deck thickened.

The gunner looked from the captain to the old man and back again, anxiety plain on his pale face. He could no longer keep up his carefree act.

As the tension mounted, people began to realize that another clash was unfolding among the senior crew. Their fragile balance seemed ready to break again.

Just when the tension was stretched to its limit, Xia Lun, who had seemed little more than a bystander, suddenly spoke.

"The monster in the cabin can communicate," he said gravely. "And I'm the only one who can speak to it."

"Huh?" The gunner stared at Xia Lun for a moment, then looked at him as though he were an idiot.

The lie was far too flimsy.

But the captain spoke up after Xia Lun. "I can vouch for that. It's how the two of us got out of the cabin."

The captain's word carried weight. Absurd as her claim sounded, her position and solemn tone gave it a strange credibility.

"What?"

The old man's remaining pupil contracted sharply, and his mouth fell slightly open.

That fleshy, tumor-like thing covered in barbs and tentacles could talk?

What kind of joke was that?!

After a brief silence, the crowd erupted. Some questioned whether Xia Lun and the captain had gone mad; others wanted to know what the monster had said. Still others were too stunned to speak. The tension burst, and the deck dissolved into chaos.

"It is credible precisely because it is absurd..." the Priest murmured to himself.

"You talked to that thing?" the gunner demanded in disbelief. "You're lying!"

Xia Lun ignored the clamor. He let the news sink in for a moment, then raised a hand toward the crowd. "Tomorrow morning, I'll tell everyone what the monster and I discussed. But for now, I need time to put it all in order."

In fact, he had already decided what to say. He had put off revealing the conversation until morning to give the crowd enough time to divide into camps.

Xia Lun also intended to use his Memory Points to strengthen himself while he slept.

Time to level up and assign some points!

"You all heard Xia Lun," the captain said. "All right, my friends. Now all we need to do is wait patiently. No one else will die, and this disaster will soon be over. I promise."