Chapter 56: An Unexpected Encounter; They Said Thank You

Telling Bai Xi and Bai Miao to be careful was something Bai Yu exhorted every time she left.

However, in most cases, even if she left alone to handle business, it wouldn’t be for long. They could find her whenever they needed. This time, because she had to trade with Nancy, she was gone for a bit longer.

Nevertheless, after obtaining the fabric and Warm Grass fluff from Nancy, she returned to their residence in the Magic Plane at her fastest speed.

The moment she saw Bai Xi and Bai Miao in the Magic Plane, she knew something must have happened at sea.

Before she could speak, Bai Xi opened her mouth: “Not long after you left, Eldest Sister, a ship flying a skull flag approached. There were many people on board. I saw that something wasn’t right, so I didn’t meet with them and brought Miao Miao here instead.”

“A skull flag? Why would a ship have a skull on it?” Bai Yu set down the items in her hands and immediately inquired, “Where did you hide? If we go back now, will we run into anyone?”

“The ship with the skull flag came suddenly. I didn’t dare waste time on the boat, but I considered the possibility that we might need to go back, so I hid under the stairs. If there is no one near the stairs, we shouldn’t run into anyone when we return.”

“Did they board the ship?” Bai Yu asked again.

Bai Xi nodded: “When we came here, we felt the ship rocking.”

Bai Yu frowned: “Then those people definitely harbor ill intentions. Otherwise, why would they board someone else’s ship so casually without even calling out a greeting? But we still aren’t very clear on their situation. Use a little less strength when you strike; don’t kill them all at once.”

As she spoke, she picked up two metal rods from the side and handed one to Bai Xi.

She asked again: “Can you do it?”

Bai Xi gripped the rod: “How much strength counts as ‘a little’?”

“One-tenth of your usual strength?” Bai Yu wasn’t quite sure. After saying it, she felt that might still be too much and adjusted the ratio, “As little as possible. If one hit doesn’t knock them out, hit them again. Just test it out directly on those people, alright?”

Bai Xi nodded immediately.

The two of them took Bai Miao’s hands and instructed her: “Miao Miao, after we go out in a moment, you stay here. Wait about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn before returning to the ship, okay?”

Bai Miao nodded obediently: “I know.”

With that said, the three of them held hands and returned to the ship.

There was no one near the stairs, but standing at the bottom, they could hear the sound of footsteps walking up and down. Clearly, those people really treated their ship as if it had no owner.

Bai Miao returned to the Forest Plane.

Bai Yu and Bai Xi exchanged a look, gripped their metal rods, and walked out one after the other.

Just as they reached the outside of the stairs and were about to split up, someone walked in from the cabin entrance.

The person opened his mouth to shout, but Bai Yu raised her rod and struck the back of his head with minimal force. With just this one blow, the man collapsed to the floor.

She stepped forward and reached out to check his breathing.

“Not dead yet. Xiao Xi, using our minimum strength is enough.”

“Mm. I’m going up. We can’t let people get the newly upgraded house dirty,” Bai Xi said, glancing upward before gripping her rod and heading up the stairs.

At the same time, Bai Yu held her rod and walked out of the cabin door.

The moment they moved, they were spotted by the men patrolling above and below.

Almost simultaneously, people pointed at them and spoke.

Bai Yu moved directly into action.

Bai Xi, on the other hand, frowned: “I don’t know what gibberish they’re speaking. It’s even harder to understand than the language in the Magic Plane.”

As she spoke, someone pointed a knife at her and said something to the people behind him. The group burst into loud laughter.

Bai Xi couldn’t understand their words, but she could read their lewd expressions. She immediately raised the rod in her hand, rushed to the nearest man, and brought it down in one swift strike.

The others reacted and raised their knives one after another.

But before they could do anything, Bai Xi moved like a shuttle through the group, giving each person a strike.

Having knocked them all down, she opened a window on the side of the cabin. She saw Bai Yu jumping onto the skull ship anchored alongside. There were people on that ship as well, but none were a match for Bai Yu.

Bai Xi watched for a moment then turned around, grabbed the fabric at the back of one man’s neck, and dragged him sliding down the stairs.

She then piled these men together on the deck with the ones Bai Yu had knocked out.

By this time, Bai Yu had finished dealing with the people on the neighboring ship and tossed them onto the deck as well.

“Eldest Sister, is there anything on the other ship?”

“Besides these people, there are only a few crates of cargo. There are traces of seals on the goods; they were likely stolen,” Bai Yu said, standing on the deck of the neighboring ship. “Xiao Xi, keep an eye on them. I’ll walk around some more to see what else I can find.”

Bai Xi nodded: “Alright.”

Bai Yu moved through the neighboring ship again.

This ship flying the skull flag didn’t have a three-story cabin, but the overall hull was significantly larger than their own ship, capable of holding many things.

Bai Yu had focused on the crew earlier and hadn’t looked closely. Now as she walked around, she inspected the ship inside and out. When she reached the bottom hold, she discovered a small compartment and knocked on it.

There was no sound from within.

She looked at the lock hanging on the compartment. With a surge of strength in her hand, she tore the lock off.

Then she took a half-step back, gripped her rod toward the compartment, and pulled the door open.

To her surprise, lying in the small compartment were not crew members, but three women who were barely clothed and covered in injuries.

Facing the sudden appearance of Bai Yu, the three of them only stared blankly. Their eyes were vacant, as if they had long since left this world. The two sides looked at each other for a while, yet the three women remained completely unresponsive.

Bai Yu didn’t speak either.

There were some things she wasn’t ignorant of, but she hadn’t expected such a thing to appear before her eyes.

From childhood to adulthood, she had always lived on a boat with her parents. After her parents left, although life for the three sisters was difficult, it was never hopeless. Even if they had to struggle every day, they still had the hope of being well-fed and clothed, dreaming of a day they could live a good life.

Living on a boat, the outsiders she encountered were limited. Even if she had occasionally heard of the evils of the world, it hadn’t left much of an impression on her heart.

But now, just looking at the numb gazes of the three people before her, she felt a sense of despair.

Bai Yu sighed softly, turned, and went up to the deck to speak to Bai Xi on the opposite side: “Xiao Xi, go into the house and bring three sets of my clothes. There are three women down there; it looks like they’ve been locked up the whole time.”

Bai Xi’s eyes widened suddenly. After recovering her senses, a trace of sorrow appeared in her eyes. She quickly went to the second floor and grabbed three sets of Bai Yu’s clothes.

They could only wear Bai Yu’s clothes.

Bai Yu took the clothes and went back down to the hold. She handed the clothes to the three women, who had remained in the compartment even though the door was open. Then she pointed upward, gesturing for them to change and go above deck.

Returning to the deck once more, Bai Yu looked at the unconscious men, her eyes filled with even more disgust.

Hearing Bai Yu describe the situation in the compartment below, Bai Xi spoke of what had happened earlier: “Although I couldn’t understand what they were saying, their expressions were disgusting. It’s obvious this isn’t the first time they’ve committed such crimes.”

“Which ones were upstairs just now?” Bai Yu asked her.

Bai Xi pointed out several individuals.

Bai Yu returned to their ship, went below to grab several coils of hemp rope, and handed one end to Bai Xi: “Miao Miao is still young; she shouldn’t see this kind of thing. Tie them up and throw them into the water. Don’t forget to tie them tightly.”

“Should we tie both their hands and feet?”

“If we tie their hands and feet together, they definitely won’t be able to break free, right?” Bai Yu asked.

Bai Xi observed them for a moment and nodded. “Yeah, and we can save some hemp rope that way.”

The two of them acted immediately. They quickly bound the hands and feet of several men, then picked them up and tossed them forcefully into the sea.

They didn’t throw everyone into the ocean, however. They kept a few people behind, and once Bai Miao returned from the Magic Plane, they splashed water on one of them to wake him up, attempting to communicate and assess the situation.

Unfortunately, as soon as each man woke up, they glared at the girls with ferocious expressions and shouted things they couldn’t understand.

Neither Bai Yu nor Bai Xi had ever heard the language these people spoke, but there were similar pronunciations in the books from the New Plane. Bai Miao had read them and remembered the general gist, but since the books only contained written text, no matter how hard she tried to translate, she could only make out the meaning of a few words.

None of those words were pleasant. They were nothing more than threats and bribes, but judging by their expressions, if they actually released these men, the sisters might not be the ones in trouble, but someone else certainly would be.

“Eldest Sister, it looks like these people have blood on their hands. Just like the ones before, they give off a bad vibe,” Bai Xi said, frowning.

“It’s not just a feeling,” Bai Yu noted, pointing at the blades beside the men. “Do you see that? There are dark stains on those swords. Unless I’m mistaken, that’s blood.”

Bai Xi picked up one of the swords, examined it closely, and said, “It looks just like the stains left on an axe after we slaughter a pig if it hasn’t been cleaned properly. Do we still need to keep them alive?”

“If I’d known it was like this, I would have used more strength earlier,” Bai Yu said, standing firm. “Xiao Xi, take Miao Miao into the cabin. I’ll handle these people.”

“Let’s just throw them into the water,” Bai Xi suggested.

Bai Yu nodded. “Mm.”

They couldn’t understand the Pirates, and the Pirates couldn’t understand them either. It wasn’t until Bai Yu tied one of them up, lifted him, and tossed him into the water that the others finally realized what was happening. They began to wail and cry out for mercy.

By this point, Bai Yu had no interest in listening to anything they had to say. She tightened the ropes binding their hands and feet one by one and threw them out with varying degrees of force, making them land in different spots to completely cut off any chance of them saving each other.

In this manner, Bai Yu bound the hands and feet of every single one of them and cast them into the water.

After the last person was thrown overboard, there was movement near the cabin of the skeleton ship.

Bai Yu turned around and saw the three people who had looked numb and hollow just moments ago. They were now kneeling, tears streaming down their faces as they kowtowed to her over and over, shouting something loudly.

Hearing the noise, Bai Xi came out carrying Bai Miao.

Bai Miao listened carefully and translated for the two of them. “They’re saying thank you. They’re also saying that many of their family members died at the hands of these… beasts… Now they’re saying they haven’t seen the light of the outside world for a very long time.”

Bai Yu turned her head, watching the figures bobbing up and down in the distance.

“Is dying like this too easy for them? Should I fish them back up and throw them in again?”