Chapter 80: Brown Sugar Ginger Water
Lin Qian didn’t care about Li Kuiqi’s life or death; his eyes were fixed dead on that torch.
The torch fell onto the stern cabin floor, and a burst of sparks suddenly shot up around it.
Lin Qian’s pupils contracted.
At this moment, Bai Qing leaped down from the ship’s rail, diving into the water like a swimming fish.
Lin Qian roared loudly: “Stop her!”
Bai Langzai threw down his weapon and leaped into the water.
Neither of them resurfaced.
“Boom!”
Li Kuiqi’s ship suddenly let out a massive explosion; the stern of the ship exploded open, igniting a raging inferno.
Amid the smoke and dust, countless silver glints splashed toward the surrounding sea areas, accompanied by the sound of pebbles falling into the water all around.
“Clink! Clink!”
Several silver specks also fell onto the Santa Ana’s deck, smashing several small pits into the deck. Everyone crowded close to take a look.
They were all newly minted ten-tael horseshoe silvers.
At the breach in the stern of Li Kuiqi’s ship, several crates of silver ingots were pouring into the water like a waterfall, plopping one after another.
Lin Qian scanned the sea surface all around but saw no sign of the siblings.
Just as he was growing anxious in his heart, suddenly two heads popped up from the sea surface beside the ship.
The crew hurriedly lowered the rope ladder, and the siblings climbed aboard.
Bai Qing walked up to Lin Qian apologetically and said: “Helmsman, I was one step too late and couldn’t save that ship.”
“Who told you to jump down!” Lin Qian lifted his foot and kicked her.
Then he roared again: “Bai Langzai, come here!”
Bai Langzai stepped forward and was also kicked to the ground by Lin Qian.
“From now on, keep an eye on your sister. If she acts on her own again, I’ll whip you!”
Bai Langzai stood up and acknowledged it. Although he had taken a kick, a warm current surged in his heart.
Chen Jiao looked at the silver waterfall and said: “Helmsman, what about those silvers?”
Lin Qian asked Bai Qing: “How deep is the water below?”
Bai Qing was stunned, then said bitterly: “About ten or more fathoms…”
Lin Qian mentally converted it: equivalent to over thirty meters, the limit for pearl commoners’ diving. Sending people to salvage would be trading lives for silver.
The lives of his subordinates weren’t that cheap.
Lin Qian thus said softly: “Forget it, leave it.”
“Helmsman…” Bai Qing felt a shock in her chest and looked at Lin Qian in disbelief.
Underwater, that was over ten thousand taels of silver, worth nearly a hundred high-grade south pearls!
In her short half-lifetime, she had seen plenty of imperial court officials and eunuchs, but no one could resist this temptation.
Lin Qian was the only one she had seen who placed the lives of pearl commoners before pearls.
At the Naozhou Pearl Farm, she had personally heard Lin Qian swear a venomous oath to Mazu and the Third Granny.
Those bold words of “no more corvee labor forever, no more mean registration forever, no more distinction between Tanka people and shore folk” still echoed in her ears to this day.
But having seen too much insidious deception and betrayal of friends for glory, she only half-believed those words.
She desperately completed the tasks Lin Qian assigned her, even jumping into the sea to save the ship at the risk of being blown up.
Actually, it was just to repay the favor.
Lin Qian had avenged their mother’s murder for her and her brother.
Bai Qing acknowledged this favor in her heart, feeling that even if it cost her life, she had to repay it.
Even if Lin Qian had just now ordered the pearl commoners to dive and salvage the silver, she wouldn’t have frowned at all.
But Lin Qian had instead said “forget it.”
If the pearl farm eunuch had said “forget it,” her mother wouldn’t have died.
If the imperial court had said “forget it,” her father, her other brothers and sisters, and millions of Tanka people and pearl commoners wouldn’t have died.
Thinking of this, Bai Qing felt her eyes grow hot, her chest felt blocked, unable to make a sound, and she only stammered: “Helmsman, I…”
Her voice was as fine as a mosquito’s hum; Lin Qian didn’t hear it.
Lin Qian looked at the distant ship through the telescope; the heavy rain had extinguished the flames on the ship, and the sea surface was filled with the charred smell of wood charcoal.
In fact, not much gunpowder had been set on the ship; only the stern cabin was severely damaged, the cargo hold not heavily so. Thanks to the watertight compartment design, the ship wouldn’t sink for a while.
Lin Qian estimated there were still over twenty thousand taels left, and Li Kuiqi’s head had some value too. So he sent crew members in a small boat to retrieve the silver, and by the way, cut off Li Kuiqi’s head and take that ogre-head saber.
As for the silver on the seabed, though Lin Qian said he didn’t want it, in reality, once he had free hands, he would still send ships with drag nets to salvage it; after all, even a mosquito’s leg is meat.
But right now, compared to these sesame seeds, there was real treasure waiting for him in the lagoon.
That was the remaining fifty-plus ships in Li Kuiqi’s fleet.
The pirates on these ships were completely demoralized, steering their ships aimlessly like headless flies in the lagoon.
If it were in open seas, they could have scattered and fled.
Unfortunately, the encircling coral reef had become a prison for these ships.
And the only exit was behind the Santa Ana.
Lin Qian ordered the ships to anchor in front of the exit channel, then everyone to go into the cabins to avoid the rain, leaving only a few lookouts on the deck.
Once the pirates in the lagoon were tired from running and thoroughly despaired, they would naturally come to surrender.
Lin Qian had long observed that in Li Kuiqi’s fleet, Haicang Ships, Cangshan Ships, and Bird Ships were the majority types.
One Haicang Ship cost nearly a thousand taels to build, one Cangshan Ship nearly six hundred taels, one Bird Ship two hundred taels.
This was just the construction cost; the selling price was even more astonishingly high.
Moreover, Great Ming sea ships had extremely long construction periods: a Haicang Ship took nearly ten months at fastest, a Cangshan Ship five or six months, and one had to find shipwrights, ropemakers, wood, and build shipyards and dry docks on the spot.
Capturing these fifty ships directly would save an unknown amount of time and cost, and avoid countless troubles.
By this calculation, this expedition to exterminate Li Kuiqi had only lost ten thousand taels worth of firearms, gunpowder, and cannonballs—a huge profit!
Thinking of this, Lin Qian put away the telescope and prepared to return to the cabin with the others.
Just as he turned, he saw Bai Qing and her brother still standing in the rain.
Lin Qian was a bit puzzled and asked: “Why not go back to the cabin to avoid the rain?”
Bai Qing: “Helmsman, I…”
Lin Qian was puzzled in his heart; Bai Qing was usually more straightforward in speech and action than men—why was she hemming and hawing today?
But now that the overall situation was settled, whatever she had to say could wait.
So Lin Qian waved his hand and said as he walked: “Go back to the cabin first, dry yourselves off. Whatever it is, we can talk at dinner time. Bai Langzai, notify Chen Bo to cook, and brew some brown sugar ginger water.”
After speaking, Lin Qian walked down the stern deck, pushed open the door, and entered the captain’s cabin.
He closed the door, blocking out the wind and waves, and only then felt chilled all over.
Now the autumn rain was icy cold; it wasn’t the season for bathing in the rain.
Lin Qian changed out of his soaked clothes, wiped his body dry with a dry towel, put on a set of dry clothes, and lay down on the walnut four-poster double bed.
After lying down for a while, someone knocked on the captain’s cabin door.
“Come in.” Lin Qian sat up from the bed.
A crew member came in carrying a food box, placed it on the dining table and opened it; inside was a bowl of steaming brown sugar ginger water.
That crew member took out the brown sugar ginger water, placed it on the table, and said: “Chen Bo cooked a pot and told me to first deliver it to the helmsman and the several overseers.”
“Thanks for the trouble.”
After the crew member left, Lin Qian carried the brown sugar ginger water to the window.
Outside the window, torrential rain poured down; rainwater streamed down the window like little brooks. The sky and sea surface were all gray-black, with muffled thunder rumbling from time to time.
And at this moment, with his body dry and comfortable, smelling the aroma of the brown sugar ginger water, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of coziness.
Lin Qian blew away the heat from the brown sugar ginger water, took a sip—sweet, scalding hot, and spicy. After swallowing, a wave of warmth entered his stomach, and his whole body felt warm.
Lin Qian moved closer to the window to observe the sea surface beside the ship; the waves were no more than about one meter, and the Santa Ana only rocked gently.
With the current wind force, the waves in the outer seas should be between two and three meters.
The coral reef’s wind-and-wave sheltering ability was indeed formidable; no wonder a ship city could be built in the lagoon.
Lin Qian looked further into the distance and saw that most fragments of the ship city had already sunk, with only scattered parts floating on the sea surface.
In the distance, one could still see the shadows of Li Kuiqi’s fleet ships fleeing all over the sea.
