Chapter 664: Chapter 446 Assassin Burned to Death
The river suddenly threw up huge waves, blocking all the arrows from the other side, and damaging their boats and crew.
Suddenly, such a fantastical event occurred, particularly curious given it happened on the river where strange things saved them.
The boatmen could only believe that an immortal was saving them.
The opponents could only think that their boat was burnt and their people injured; the river turned into an ice wall, perhaps they had encountered ghosts in the night.
As everyone on their side had blood on their hands, they simply believed it was ghosts seeking revenge.
They did not think it was an immortal deliberately saving those people and stopped them from committing more misdeeds in the darkness.
“Quick, quick, quick, put out the fire, sail away!”
There would also be an official patrol team in the river, who generally would not specifically come out for inspections unless something major happened.
It was likely they would stop at every port, and with an incident occurring here and their boat burnt, it would definitely be seen by people further ashore.
These people, also in trying to save their lives, realized that half of the boat was unusable while putting out the fire.
Their torches were oil-added, and once lit, they would definitely be hard to extinguish.
They could only use a must-use small boat to get everyone on board and abandon the burning boat.
The losses from this mission could only be passed onto the buyer.
“Let us also hurry away!”
The leader ordered his subordinates to sail quickly as the opposing side had suddenly suffered a setback, and they might attack again in the dark of night.
There was also a possibility they would continue to look for opportunities tomorrow.
Originally, during the night, their boat was sailing slowly, but after such an incident, they had to sail quickly even in the dark to shake off anyone tracking them.
The leader knocked on the door again.
Ye Shiqi came out from the space, opened the door with a worried look from the leader, yawned, pretending to know nothing, and asked what had happened?
Seeing the little master’s appearance, the leader, fearing to scare her, did not tell her what had happened and told her to continue sleeping.
Ye Shiqi continued to pretend to know nothing, nodded, closed the door, and went back to sleep in the space.
She chose not to sleep on the boat; the people from the day may come in at any time, and she could not let them enter the space and know the secret.
Not sure if it was seasickness, reading made her somewhat drowsy; it was still her special concoction of Space Water and honey water that only caused these seasick, drowsy, and nauseous feelings.
After the prepared small boat was loaded with people, they had more than ten fewer people from their original several dozen.
Those who couldn’t be saved from the fire ended up being burned alive.
The leader was unharmed, and at dawn, they disembarked at the nearest location.
There were people to meet them there, noticing they had returned in a small boat and were missing some people.
The nearing person stayed silent as the leader, furious, led his men into the carts and horses provided by those meeting them, climbed into the vehicles, and came to one of their residences.
Upon alighting from the vehicle, the leader stormed into the place, a mansion in the suburbs, quite spacious, appearing to belong to a wealthy individual.
Inside there was a garden, and unlike a typical wealthy residence, there was a training ground for horses and movements.
The leader approached a courtyard’s gate, knocking forcefully just as dawn began to break.
The person from inside quickly came out to open the gate dressed like a wealthy middle-aged man, looking as if he hadn’t slept, with his clothes neatly arranged.
Facing the furious demeanor of the visitor, it was somewhat unclear whether the other party had succeeded or not.
If Ye Shiqi saw this person, she wouldn’t recognize this buyer.
When Housekeeper Ye saw this person, he recognized the buyer as a Chief Steward from the Old Emperor’s team, a subordinate of the Prime Minister.
The leader went inside, found a stool to sit on, poured tea for himself, and drank without responding to the other party’s questions, deciding to wait and speak after drinking the water.
The other party was also patient, sitting down on a chair quietly awaiting the leader to speak.
“It’s absurd, our losses are huge this time, aren’t they?”
Upon hearing this, the other person was startled and hurriedly asked, “What happened? Was the opponent too strong?”
The leader recounted how their attack was met with resistance; while the opponent was guarded, they did not counterattack. Instead, their own bow and arrow wounded them, resulting in their ships being burned and their mission failing.
“It almost sounds like a story!”
Upon hearing what had been said, the other person felt that if it wasn’t a story, then it must really be something supernatural.
And it was a water ghost.
“Do you think I would lie to you? Just send someone to inquire, or ask my men; the ship on the river is still burning.”
The person heard the leader’s words and had his subordinates investigate, whether he believed it or not.
“This time, our losses, both people and ships, you must compensate for.”
The conditions stated by the other party left the Chief Steward no choice but to negotiate terms.
Although they had suffered losses this time, their mission was not yet complete.
They had to continue pursuing and tracking down the group of people led by Housekeeper Ye.
“As long as you compensate us for our personnel and ship losses, the mission can still proceed.”
The leader said this and then left the house to make arrangements, having suffered defeat here; the subsequent tasks had to be handed over to another group.
They would continue the pursuit on land and once again quickly track by sea.
Ye Shiqi woke up in the morning and when she appeared in the room, she always felt a foul smell on the ship, something like the scent of paint.
Her family was in the carpentry business, so the smell of paint was all too familiar to her.
The ship’s leader brought hot water, and then the sailor brought breakfast.
She could only ask this question.
“We all think the ship’s paint is too old, so we’re giving it a new coat.”
Since being ambushed the previous night, they believed they could no longer be tracked by others, and the best way was to confuse the pursuers.
By repainting the ship and making slight alterations to certain parts, they made this ship seem new to mislead the observers’ eyes.
By dawn, the highest parts had been painted, except for the section below the waterline, which remained in the original paint.
If viewed from a distance, or without close inspection, it wouldn’t be apparent that this was the same ship.
Temporarily misleading the opposition was advantageous.
After all, they still had more than ten days of sailing ahead of them.
Sailing day and night would only shorten the time a bit, as there was still a chance of encountering enemy pursuit at sea.
The leader’s precautionary approach was not new to them; they had narrowly survived similar situations in the past, and the food was transported in two batches. If one batch was intercepted, the other could still reach its destination.
The best method was to collect food in cities near the border outside, but even there they couldn’t collect much due to the high prices of the food.
Ye Shiqi merely smiled when she heard the leader’s plan; this method might be able to confuse the pursuers momentarily.
They had not seen the food being loaded on the ship yet there were already attempts to attack and kill, suggesting that the opponents had hired assassins, not merely for the cargo, but specifically for killing. Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs novel⸺fire.net
These people were too malicious.
Ye Shiqi did not feel guilty for having created an ice wall that resulted in casualties yesterday; it was her first time killing someone.
It’s not as if she had personally killed them, she had merely used sea water to create an ice wall and let them reap what they had sown.