A Vote to Decide

The yellowed sea chart was slowly spread across the brown table. A moment later, a dagger slammed into its edge.

Bang!

The dagger's hilt shook violently. A calloused hand with prominent knuckles steadied it, then slowly traced a line from one island on the chart to another nearby.

"We're here. We've entered the trade winds, so we'll have the wind at our backs for the next few days. We're down a mast, and the hull's taken some damage, so we'll be a little slower. Even so, we'll reach Perilous Earth Island in four days at most."

As Captain Geliide spoke, she looked up at the other side of the table.

It was morning. The sky was clear, the sea breeze gentle, and the blue ocean lay as still as a mirror, almost merging with the azure sky at the horizon.

But however lovely the distant view, the ragged crowd of pirates nearby, their faces set in various expressions, cast a gloomy gray over the bright scene.

The gunner, the old man, and the Priest stood at the front. Along with several other veteran sailors, they faced the captain and Xia Lun across the table.

Warm golden sunlight filtered through the clouds behind the crowd, while shadows washed over Xia Lun's and the captain's faces.

"Four more days, and this stupid venture will finally be over. Wonderful."

The gunner whistled and raised an eyebrow at Xia Lun.

"So, prisoner who speaks monster, what did it say yesterday? Let me guess. Was it 'hiss, hiss, hiss'?"

Xia Lun ignored the provocation. He glanced at his ally, the captain, who gave an almost imperceptible nod.

It was time for the next step.

Xia Lun slowly surveyed the crowd. "Perilous Earth Island. The monster said it wants to go to Perilous Earth Island."

Unlike his quiet words yesterday, his voice rang loud and clear across the deck.

The old man and the Priest both looked grim. Xia Lun could read nothing from their expressionless faces, while the gunner still wore his playful, mocking grin.

"Heh. So the monster's headed our way too." The gunner narrowed his eyes with a smile. "There's a saying on Scarlet Lantern Island: 'Even a shark is a friend if it's going your way.' Maybe we really can make friends with it."

Xia Lun glanced at the gunner, then went on. "The monster also demanded two fresh corpses every day. It attacked us yesterday to get... human flesh."

A cloud covered the sun. The light seemed to dim, and unease spread through the crowd like a summer breeze.

Xia Lun noticed the old man lick his lips nervously.

"So if we give the monster what it wants, it'll hunt freely on Perilous Earth Island?" Captain Geliide asked in a deep voice, deliberately looking shocked.

"That's right." Xia Lun turned toward the increasingly restless crowd. "It demands two fresh corpses a day, but that's only the minimum it eats. If it's free to gorge itself, no one knows how many it could—"

"That's a good thing," the gunner cut in at once. "Those high-and-mighty lords on Perilous Earth Island should've been taught a lesson long ago. They're too cowardly to brave the sea. Letting them see what the monster can do will improve our standing."

Before Xia Lun could speak, the one-eyed old man clenched his fist and shot the gunner a vicious glare.

The gunner's words died in his throat.

There's a chance to drive them apart, Xia Lun thought.

"Say whatever you want. Don't be afraid." He smiled as he fanned the flames. "The most important question right now is how we deal with the monster. Everything else can wait."

The gunner hesitated and said nothing.

"Chances to speak openly like this are rare." Xia Lun looked up at the crowd. "If any of you have something to say, now's the time."

The gunner took a deep breath and turned to face them.

"Everyone, our first priority is to stay alive and make a fortune. Don't get carried away playing hero. That's not something scumbag pirates like us should be doing." His voice trembled.

Xia Lun watched the crowd from the corner of his eye.

A few pirates gave slight nods, but more instinctively looked away.

The old man's expression did not change, though his fist was clenched so tightly that his nails had gone pale. The Priest's gaze turned cold.

The gunner pressed on. "So I don't see anything wrong with working with the monster. It's no different from us. It eats meat, we take money, but we all kill to survive."

"Everyone, there's nothing so terrible about that, morally speaking. Self-preservation is the most justified thing in the world!"

"That's right. We all have to survive," a red-haired pirate called from the crowd.

Without looking up, Xia Lun pushed back. "But the monster needs two fresh corpses every day, and we're at least four days from Perilous Earth Island. That means sacrificing eight people."

"Better than fighting the monster," the gunner said with a smile. "Isn't that right, everyone?"

As the gunner spoke, several Jump-tail Sharks leaped from the distant water, sending up spray that glittered gold in the sunlight.

But the mood on deck grew darker.

Bang! Without warning, the Priest slammed his fist onto the table, startling everyone.

The gunner turned and glared at him in open displeasure.

The Priest said nothing, but met his glare with a cold stare.

"If you have something to say, say it. Don't hit the table. We haven't got many left," Xia Lun said, fanning the flames again.

The Priest looked furious. Several times he tried to speak, but the equally grim-faced old man stopped him each time.

Xia Lun found that a pity. If the old man had let the Priest speak, the gunner's loose tongue might have shattered their alliance in a public quarrel.

By now, even the slowest crewmen had noticed the strange tension between the senior officers. A few sharper ones had begun to suspect that the remaining officers had formed an alliance in private, and that the gunner had betrayed it.

"When does the monster want its corpses?" the captain suddenly asked. She took out her Pipe and enjoyed a long puff.

"This afternoon." Xia Lun immediately understood what she meant. "We don't have much time, friends. We have 120 minutes at most to decide."

The one-eyed old man turned sharply toward Xia Lun. "Since you've reached an agreement with the monster, why don't you suggest something?"

"I've only communicated with it. I haven't reached an agreement." Xia Lun leaned forward, bracing both hands on the table. His voice was clear and strong. "Do you understand the difference?"

The old man froze for a moment, then his hard stance softened considerably. "Smooth talker. So do you have a solution or not? Dragging this out won't help."

"I do," Xia Lun said, guiding him along without haste. "But I need the captain's approval first."

Captain Geliide smiled and set down her Pipe. Then, following the plan they had agreed on beforehand, she said, "Let's do it the traditional way. For a decision this important, we'll hold a secret ballot."

"We should've voted from the start. Then a few hotheads wouldn't have been able to drag us all to our deaths over a personal grudge."

The gunner's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"If we'd voted sooner, we'd never have taken this job. Look at us now. Our flagship's sunk, our capable people are dead, and we haven't earned a penny. Hah! All we've got is a shipload of stinking whale oil and a man-eating monster. Wonderful."

Captain Geliide stopped smiling. She narrowed her eyes at the gunner, her gaze as cold as a hunting leopard's.

"A vote is exactly what I had in mind." As he spoke, Xia Lun took several yellowed sheets of paper from beneath the table. "To keep it fair, I need someone to read out the votes. Any volunteers?"

The Priest raised an eyebrow and was about to speak, but the gunner stepped in front of him. "I'll do it."

Xia Lun smiled and nodded. He looked at the gunner as though watching prey walk deeper into a trap.

"Wait." The old man's remaining eye fixed on Xia Lun's face, as if he could dig out the thoughts behind his smile. "I suggest we have someone oversee the count too. That'll stop anyone from colluding beforehand."

"Of course." Xia Lun agreed at once. "Would you do it?"

The old man frowned suspiciously, then nodded.

The sea breeze blew, white clouds drifted past, and the sunlight brightened once more.

Xia Lun picked up a stack of white paper from the table and held it up against the sun, displaying it to the crowd like a magician showing his props.

The midday sun shone through the paper, making the tiny fibers along its edges clear in the golden glow.

"These sheets have no marks. As the captain said, this is a secret ballot." He handed them to the old man. "Please check them for stains or anything else."

The old man took the sheets and inspected them one by one. After several dozen seconds, he nodded. "There are no marks. But there are twenty-three of us, and this isn't nearly enough paper."

Xia Lun took the paper back and pulled out three sheets.

"So we'll tear them up." As he spoke, he folded each sheet three times, then tore along the creases. "A vote lets every one of us express what we think without fear."

With a slight movement of his fingers, he gathered the twenty-four slips and tapped them against the table to align them.

"If you lack the courage to stand against the monster and are willing to sacrifice your friends and the strangers on Perilous Earth Island, mark a check on your ballot to let it go there."

His tone was grave as he slowly swept his gaze across the crowd.

"But allow me to add this: even if we obey the monster, we won't necessarily be safe. It needs to eat people every day. Your chance of being chosen is 38.1 percent—nearly one in two."

"What the hell are you talking about?" the gunner said impatiently. "You think you're some kind of Scholar now? Hand out the ballots."

As if he hadn't heard, Xia Lun continued. "But if we stand together, we may still have a chance. Mark a cross if you refuse to be a Slave to a man-eating monster. Many of us may die, but at least our fate will be in our own hands."

He paused, then handed the first ballot to Captain Geliide. "So, friends, let Wisdom, courage, and conscience guide our choice."

Then Xia Lun turned and walked slowly toward the crowd. Everyone watched him. He took in their varied expressions—nervousness, anticipation, disgust, and more.

"Get on with it." The gunner stepped up to Xia Lun and reached for the stack of ballots.

The moment the gunner came close, Xia Lun entered Heightened Focus.

Buzz!

The hum stretched out and faded, and time seemed to sink into a swamp. The gunner's rough movement slowed at once.

Xia Lun turned his wrist slightly, silently positioning the second ballot between the gunner's fingers.

The gunner pinched his fingers together and naturally caught the second ballot. With a slight upward push, Xia Lun let it slide into his hand.

In that instant, Xia Lun's black pupils contracted. Countless details of the ballot flashed before his eyes and fell neatly into place in his mind.

The ballot had come from the upper-left corner of the original sheet, so two of its edges were straight. The other two, torn along the creases, had tiny, barely perceptible turns like the branches of a snowflake. Along those turns, finer fibers quivered.

Time seemed to slow further. Xia Lun's pupils narrowed again, and in that fleeting glimpse, he imprinted the course of those tiny tears on his mind.

In short, he had memorized the ballot by its torn edges.

The torn edges of adjacent ballots from the same sheet matched. Because the second ballot had come from a corner, memorizing it also let him identify the two ballots that had bordered it.

And because the ballots' order after tearing corresponded exactly to their original positions, Xia Lun handed the third ballot to the old man and the eighth to the Priest.

That meant ballots two, four, and eight had been adjacent.

Using the same method, Xia Lun memorized three more corner ballots and gave them and their neighboring ballots to crewmen he suspected.

All told, he memorized twelve ballots.

To be honest, he had meant to memorize them all. But working memory had its limits, and after the fourth ballot, he abandoned that plan.

Once he had handed out the last ballot, Xia Lun left Heightened Focus.

His vision swayed slightly. Time abruptly returned to its normal pace, and voices and waves rushed back into his ears.

Xia Lun blinked. The sense of complete, orderly control, in which he had seen every minute detail, vanished. A few drops of warm blood trickled from his nose.

"Mark your choice privately, fold your ballot, and put it in the box," he said, enduring the discomfort. "We'll count them in five minutes."

As he spoke, he drew a large cross on his ballot, folded it casually, and dropped it into the Wooden Box.

Time passed quickly. Ballot after ballot went into the Wooden Box, gradually filling the once-empty container with white slips.

Five minutes flew by. As planned, Xia Lun, the old man, and the gunner stood before the ballot box.

"Heh. Let's see how many people are in a hurry to die." The gunner sneered, looking certain of victory. He turned toward the tense, restless crowd. "Well, let's count the votes."

Xia Lun lowered his gaze. His voice was as calm as the sea breeze. "Yes. Let's begin."