The Republic's Last Jianghu Occultist

Chapter 22: The sunken ship

After the sunken ship was salvaged, it was left on the bank of this stretch of canal. Cui Jiuyang and the others now stood on its deck, surrounded by the fishy stench of the water.

The blazing sun had hung overhead for several days, drying the waterlogged wreck until it was only half damp. As the stench filled their nostrils, the wooden deck creaked beneath their feet with a teeth-grating sound.

The wreck was no small vessel. Meng Da explained that it could carry over a thousand shi of cargo, measuring a full fifteen zhang long and three zhang two chi wide.

If the entire shipload of white sugar had been converted into silver, it would have been enough for an ordinary family in Jining City to buy a house and land, live comfortably for the rest of their lives, and still send their children to school.

Instead, the fish and shrimp in the canal had gotten a sweet treat.

Everyone had their own feelings about that remark.

Cui Jiuyang did not care about that. White sugar? A bag cost one yuan fifty. You could buy it at any supermarket.

It was only a luxury because productivity was so low in this era.

That thought suddenly reminded him... he had not eaten anything sweet in ages. He was actually starting to crave it.

I'll get some sugary pastries when we get back to town. Fifth Master Yang has plenty of money anyway.

Right now, he was more concerned about something else.

The moment Cui Jiuyang entered the cabin, he felt a wave of icy cold.

It was not the coolness of stepping into shade on a summer day, but a chill that seeped out from deep inside his bones.

Cui Jiuyang glanced at the others. Clearly, they too had sensed something unusual.

The Ninth Lady hugged her arms and instinctively raised her nuo mask to her chest, as though ready to put it on at any moment.

Spirit Medium Wei's expression shifted uneasily, while Mama Liu rubbed the goose bumps rising on her arms.

Old Man Xiang seemed unaffected. All he could think about was getting to Lake Taibai, so he said, "Let's split up and see if we can find anything unusual."

Without waiting for an answer, he took out a compass and followed its needle into the hold.

Cui Jiuyang stayed where he was, and, surprisingly, so did everyone else. Only Meng Da gestured for Meng Er to follow, rather than let the old man go down alone.

Spirit Medium Wei had her own considerations, Mama Liu already had twenty-five silver dollars in hand, and the Ninth Lady could not use her nuo mask lightly. They decided to follow Cui Jiuyang and see what happened.

Without a word, Cui Jiuyang seemed to have acquired the authority Old Man Xiang had been trying so hard to claim.

There were two levels of cargo holds beneath the deck. Old Man Xiang certainly did not shirk the work: he went straight to the bottom level, completely ignoring the myna on his shoulder as it clamped its beak onto his earlobe and tugged desperately toward the exit.

Cui Jiuyang said, "Granny Wei and Mama Liu seem to be longtime partners. You two check the first level below deck. The Ninth Lady and I will stay up here."

Spirit Medium Wei and Mama Liu went down without another word, leaving the Ninth Lady feeling rather awkward...

What's with this man? Splitting us up and deciding who goes with whom without even asking what I think?

Still, when Cui Jiuyang headed straight for the forward cabin, the Ninth Lady followed. Looking at his back, she inexplicably felt that this Mr. Cui was very...

Relaxed.

She had sensed it back at the association hall. That had been Fifth Master Yang, a man so powerful that if he so much as coughed, half of Jining City would have to take medicine.

Yet right in front of such a formidable figure, Cui Jiuyang had... spoken to her so flippantly, and even performed an illusion.

He was just as blunt and direct with dangerous men like Meng Da and Meng Er, showing no concern at all.

Perhaps he was simply one of those capable people who took pride in their talents and refused to bow or scrape.

Yet he put on no airs. He could strike up a conversation with anyone. Earlier, when they had taken rickshaws to the docks, hers had followed right behind his.

She had heard him clearly. Cui Jiuyang had chatted at length with the rickshaw puller, asking how much he earned each day, how he fed his family, and where to find good breakfast stalls or cheap meat eateries.

The rickshaw puller had answered respectfully, saying, "Anyone can see you're an educated gentleman, sir. What would you want with a cheap meat eatery?"

And what had he said? "To eat the full five-blessings offal platter, of course. What else would I go there for, to study?"

The rickshaw puller had laughed so hard he choked on the wind.

Even in her little nuo opera troupe, any performer important enough to carry a show and earn a share of the takings refused to eat at those places.

They were filthy and chaotic, filled with porters and dockworkers. Offal always came with heavy drinking, and too much drink could easily lead to fights.

While she was thinking about all this, Cui Jiuyang suddenly shouted.

"Ninth Lady! What are you thinking about? You're drooling!"

Startled, she hurriedly wiped the corner of her mouth. When she realized she had been tricked, she glared at Cui Jiuyang.

Cui Jiuyang laughed and pointed to a spot on the wooden wall of the forward cabin. "Ninth Lady, look here."

She stepped closer and looked carefully. There were some... fine cracks in the wall, seemingly spreading from the inside out.

The marks were fresh... the splintered wood inside the cracks was still clean, without the slightest trace of grime.

But that proved nothing. Salvaging a wreck from the riverbed was bound to cause some damage. She turned toward Cui Jiuyang, her eyes full of questions.

Cui Jiuyang had not figured out what it was either, so he reached out and cleared away the splinters still clinging to the cracks.

As he worked, a shape slowly emerged, and his expression gradually darkened.

Tracing the outlines of the fine cracks with a finger, Cui Jiuyang asked, "Does it look like... a chrysanthemum?"

The Ninth Lady examined it carefully. "A little."

Cui Jiuyang was already certain. A little? It looked exactly fucking like one!

This is a goddamn Sixteen-Petal Eight-Layer Outer Chrysanthemum!

The Japanese imperial emblem!

The sudden appearance of that emblem forced Cui Jiuyang to realize once again that he was living a hundred years in the past.

... The shock of what lay before his eyes struck his mind, yet brought with it a sense of unreality across time.

Have I run into the Japanese?

Having grown up under the red flag, the word "Japan" struck him far harder than it would anyone from this era!

To people living now, Japan was merely one of the foreign powers. But Cui Jiuyang knew...

Their vicious ambitions were right here before his eyes!!!

What were the Japanese doing on this ship?

They were definitely up to no good!

The Ninth Lady asked, "Why would someone carve a chrysanthemum here? Besides, it doesn't really look carved... it's more like... these chrysanthemum-shaped cracks grew out of the wooden wall on their own."

Meng Da, who had remained outside the forward cabin watching everything inside, spoke up. "Ninth Lady, this forward cabin is usually where the boatmen discuss business. They're all grown men. Why would any of them carve flowers into a wall?"

As the three of them spoke, a startled cry suddenly came from below deck. It sounded like Spirit Medium Wei. "Ow! What is this thing?"

Cui Jiuyang ran straight to the hatch and descended to the first level. There, he saw Mama Liu holding a condensed sphere of water, with a black beetle trapped inside, darting frantically back and forth.

Seeing Cui Jiuyang and the Ninth Lady come down, Spirit Medium Wei, who was lying on the floor clutching her arm, cried, "Mr. Cui, that damn bug bit me!"

Chapter 23: Father and son

They went over to examine the wound on Spirit Medium Wei's arm.

To their surprise, the thumb-sized beetle had torn away a piece of flesh as large as a fingernail in a single bite.

Even more astonishingly, although it was a bite wound, it looked scorched, as though burned by fire...

"It's only ordinary fire poison." After examining Spirit Medium Wei's wound carefully, the Ninth Lady took a porcelain bottle from her pocket, tipped out a black pill, crushed it, and applied it to the wound. Then she wrapped it with a plain white embroidered handkerchief.

Spirit Medium Wei thanked her over and over, praising the Ninth Lady for being as kind as she was beautiful.

Seeing that the old medium was not seriously hurt, Cui Jiuyang walked over to Mama Liu and studied the beetle inside the sphere of water.

It looked little different from an ordinary beetle, except for one thing-a ring of dark red, flame-like markings around its abdomen.

After being submerged for so long, the beetle had drowned and stopped moving. Mama Liu dispersed the sphere of water.

"Mr. Cui, the two of us came below deck and checked the holds one by one. When we reached this one, a streak of fire suddenly shot out. Granny Wei couldn't react in time, and it..." Mama Liu still sounded shaken.

Before she could finish, Old Man Xiang's wails rose from the level below. "Oh, what am I going to do..."

Everyone rushed down and found the old man and Meng Er in the innermost cargo hold. Old Man Xiang sat on the floor, sobbing bitterly, his myna clutched tightly in his arms.

The myna's eyes were closed, and it lay motionless. A scorch-like wound marked its neck. It was already dead.

Meng Er crouched beside him, trying to offer comfort. But he was a young man, and a rough martial artist at that. He had no idea how to console a sobbing old man and could only fumble helplessly.

Nearby, a crushed fire-marked beetle lay stuck to the floor. Beneath its corpse, a ring of the ship's planking had been burned black...

There were no fire-breathing beetles in this world. If there were... someone utterly rotten must have raised them.

Who in Jining City was utterly rotten?

Before, Cui Jiuyang would not have dared say. Now, he was certain it had to be the Japanese.

Although he still did not know who these Japanese people were, where they were, or what exactly they intended to do, Cui Jiuyang was already rather... eager to meet them.

Of course, the feeling was mutual. These Japanese people wanted to meet them too.

In the meeting room of the Fuxiang Commercial Association, Miss Abe was examining the things Lu Zhongqian had prepared for them in advance.

Togo stepped out briefly, then returned and quietly handed Miss Abe a note: Something unusual at the wreck. Two Red-Flow Beetles extinguished.

Miss Abe lightly turned the ring on her left index finger twice. She gave no reply, merely nodding.

Master Lu, seated opposite her, could not explain why, but he felt that Miss Abe had changed somehow.

She seemed... sinister.

After leaving the wreck, Old Man Xiang boarded the reed-leaf fast boat with the myna's body in his arms. Tears filled his eyes, and he said nothing.

No one knew how to comfort him, and a heavy silence settled over them.

Apart from Cui Jiuyang, everyone had heard at least something of the story of Old Man Xiang and his myna.