"The friendship between Guan Zhong and Bao Shuya? What does that mean?" Usopp asked curiously, and the others also looked at Xia Chen with curiosity.
"It means very close friends! It evolved from a story from my hometown, mainly about the deep friendship between Guan Zhong and Bao Shuya..."
Xia Chen explained in a very serious tone.
"Oh, I see!" Everyone nodded thoughtfully, then Luffy suddenly clapped his hands and asked Xia Chen with a smile:
" Xia Chen, does that mean we're also like Guan Zhong and Bao Shuya, close friends?"
(⊙o⊙)...
"This... I don't think it really counts!" Xia Chen's expression turned slightly unpleasant. He had no interest in being a troublemaker!
"Huh? Xia Chen, you don't acknowledge our friendship? You think our friendship isn't deep enough?"
Upon hearing Xia Chen's words Luffy immediately showed a disappointed expression, which gave Xia Chen a headache. He should have known better than to explain!
After thinking for a moment, Xia Chen said, "That's not what I meant. The idiom doesn't quite describe our friendship. We're more like brothers, which means..."
Finally, after Xia Chen's explanation, the matter was resolved.
After this little incident, the group unknowingly arrived at their destination.
From a distance, people could see a huge object covered by a cloth on the headland, and there were some people next to the huge object.
"Look, that's our ship. How about it? It's much bigger than your previous Going Merry!" Franky said with a smile, pointing to the object wrapped in cloth.
Wow! It's huge!
(☆▽☆)!
Luffy and his crew's eyes lit up with excitement as they looked ahead, then they dashed off in a flash.
Although we haven't seen the ship's appearance yet, judging from its size, it's at least five times larger than their previous Going Merry.
It was definitely more than five times longer than Merry, at least in terms of length, and what Franky said next confirmed this.
"The ship I built is 10,800 cm long and 7,200 cm high."
"10800cm? That's huge!" Nami's face showed surprise, then she said, "I remember Merry's total length was only 1300cm and her total height was 1100cm!"
"By that calculation, the ship's length is more than eight times that of the Merry!"
"More than eight times? That's huge!" Zoro exclaimed in surprise.
He didn't really grasp the significance when Franky mentioned the specific numbers, but now that Nami compared it to Merry, he instantly had a general idea.
Xia Chen, who was standing to the side, was also slightly surprised when he heard about the size. After all, the total length of the Thousand Sunny in the original work was only 5600cm, and this one was almost twice the size of the Thousand Sunny.
It seems having enough funds really makes a difference!
But speaking of large ships, Ark Noah, which they are about to encounter, is truly enormous!
The original text only briefly introduces Ark Noah as the Ark of the Covenant, without mentioning much more detail.
So, in order to find out more, Xia Chen planned to go to Noah himself to take a look. He refused to believe that there were no clues left on the ship.
This concerns something about Joy Boy, a man shrouded in mystery; we have to go and see what's going on!
"Everyone, let's go! Let's go see this ship that will accompany us for the rest of our journey!" Xia Chen said with a smile.
Franky had told him before that he had used Richie he gave him on this ship, and Xia Chen was a little shocked when he heard this news.
He gave Franky a whopping two billion Beli! That's almost ten times the cost of the Thousand Sunny in the original comics.
Therefore, he was actually very interested in this ship that he had spent a huge sum of money to build!
Before long, the group arrived at the ship, and even before they got close, they could hear Luffy talking to the group of people who had been standing there earlier.
"Uncle, you're saying you and Franky built this ship together?"
"That's right! Otherwise, do you think Franky could have built such a large ship all by himself in such a short time?"
"Our Galley-La Company contributed the vast majority of the effort, okay? As for Franky, it really makes no difference whether he's here or not!" a blue-haired man said with a calm smile.
"Hey, Iceburg! What kind of nonsense are you spouting? What do you mean by 'it's almost the same whether I'm here or not'? Could you have built such a fantastic ship without me?"
"What a joke! Leaving aside the fact that I did most of the core work on this ship, you couldn't have done it with just the amount of Adam Wood I got!"
"Can you come up with two billion?"
Franky spoke bluntly to the Iceburg.
" Iceburg? Isn't that the person Kokoro introduced to us before?" Nami asked curiously.
"Oh? You know Kokoro?" Iceburg asked Nami curiously.
"That's right! We met her at the Sea Train station, and we got along quite well. During our chat, when we mentioned that we were coming to get our ship repaired, she gave us your business card and said she would come to find you after arriving in Water 7!"
"So that's how it is!" Iceburg said, stroking his chin.
"Then you were captured by the Navy after arriving in Water 7, right? So it's been dragging on until now!"
"You seem to know quite a bit about this!" Nami said with a forced smile.
"Hahaha... I am the mayor of Water 7 7, so of course I am aware of what happened there. You know, you caused quite a bit of damage to Water 7 during your battle!"
"Besides, you've appeared in the newspapers countless times, you know that's not a very normal thing, is it?"
"The only thing that surprised me was Franky joining your pirate crew. But that puts my mind at ease. Otherwise, I was really worried that this idiot with a 200 million bounty would die somewhere out of nowhere!"
Iceburg said with a smile.
"Mayor Iceburg, from what you're saying, what's your relationship with Franky?" Robin asked curiously.
"He and I are fellow disciples! If it weren't for the fact that he's my junior brother, I wouldn't be working for him for free!"
"Our company built your ship and didn't get a single penny of labor costs from him! If I didn't have some savings for my funeral, I'd be starving!"
"I see!" Robin nodded thoughtfully. But at that moment, a sharp voice rang out.
"A two hundred million bounty?"
Luffy stared at the Iceburg with disbelief, as if he couldn't believe that Franky could have such a bounty.
"Um??"
"You do not know?"