Chapter Fifty-Six: Incense of Delusion Offered to the Father, Resounding Laughter of Filial Piety

Wang Cheng swam underwater all the way to the stern of the Ziying, and even if the lookout were still on duty, he would never have been discovered. With wind and waves rising again at sea, all the broadside gunports had been sealed tight, their bolts fastened, and caulked with a mixture of pine resin, hemp rope, loose fiber, and scraps of cloth to keep water from seeping in. Wang Cheng had no choice but to sneak aboard through a porthole beneath the aft deck.

He had chosen today to act precisely because the crew would be gathered on the broadest, interconnected gun deck for a banquet, making it easy for him to slip through unnoticed. In addition, his Mind’s Eye allowed him to sense every corner of the thirty-nine meter-long warship, seeing clearly where guards were posted and where gaps might be found.

Standing within the ship’s cabin, Wang Cheng could not help but be moved by the sight. Who could have imagined that the heir of the Wang family would cross paths with the Five Peaks Banner’s headquarters once more, but now as hunter and hunted?

“A bunch of Japanese, commanding a Western warship, fighting a group of boatmen sailing Fujian junks—the Age of Exploration that binds the world together grows ever stranger. Barely a century ago, the treasure fleets of Great Zhao were the unrivaled symbols of naval might sent to the West. If only the blueprints of the Seven Heavenly Workships—the pinnacle of Luban’s craft—had survived, or any ordinary treasure ship’s plans remained, we wouldn’t need to toil so desperately to master Western shipbuilding.”

Legend had it that around a hundred years ago, during the Chenghua era, to prevent the court from reorganizing the treasure fleets, Liu Daxia, a Minister of War from the gentry of Jiangnan, burned all records amassed through seven voyages to the West. The story was ancient; Wang Cheng didn’t know if it was true, or what conspiracies might lurk behind it. But the disappearance of ship blueprints, navigational charts, and star maps for crossing oceans was undeniable—they were gone without a trace.

The Water Gathering Wang clan, descendents of treasure ship builders, felt this loss most keenly; they knew the realities of the sea better than anyone, and generation after generation tried to recover those lost plans. None succeeded, and so they had to seek foreign aid. The Ziying was one of several sample ships the Five Peaks Banner had purchased for study. Wang Cheng remembered clearly that the seller was the Netherlandish East Borodo Company. They had just arrived in the Spice Islands to found a colony. Hoping to curry favor with the King of the Eastern Sea, and to one-up their former overlords, the Franks, they offered the warship at a reasonable price.

The Water Gathering line had no official shipwrights; their shipbuilders were Luban craftsmen and master carpenters. Yet, in Great Zhao, craftsmen were of low status, far beneath their Western counterparts. Even with equal skills, only the support of the elite could make things happen. The gentry lacked interest, and had little pioneering spirit. The Five Peaks Banner, born of arms dealing, was most enthusiastic, and had begun copying warships and artillery early on, making it the face of advanced production in Great Zhao.

Though no domestically built sailing warship had yet launched, the technical reserves were ready, lacking only the final push. Wang Cheng’s father had even told him of his grand plans for shipbuilding.

Combining Eastern and Western technology, he dreamed of forging a fleet of treasure ships to sweep the world, as ancient swords and magical artifacts were crafted. He had even chosen names: Ziying Ship, Mandarin Thunder Ship, Divine Wood Ship, Ice Soul Radiance Ship, and so on. Originally, these were meant to serve Great Zhao after the Wang clan’s surrender, but now all efforts had come to nothing. Today, it seemed a fair portion of their legacy had fallen into the hands of that traitor, making it a gift for others. Even to hunt down small fry like him and Han Shushu, they spared no expense.

Wang Cheng quickly suppressed his emotions, stepped outside the cabin, and prepared to kill—everyone, all at once!

“Sailing warships are indeed the deadliest weapons in naval battle, but they have one fatal weakness—the powder magazine. It’s located on the lower deck, below the waterline. In the age of solid cannonballs, hitting it by chance was nearly impossible. Even if struck, solid shot rarely set off the powder casks. But if a spark lands inside, then—boom!—everyone is blown sky-high. A scented fuse and a simple delay mechanism are enough for me to escape in time.”

He closed his eyes, a silver vertical mark glowing faintly between his brows, relying entirely on the Mind’s Eye to guide him through the dim ship, heading for the lower deck. With most of the crew at the banquet, it was easy to avoid the few scattered night watchmen.

Approaching the powder magazine, Wang Cheng could faintly hear two voices conversing in Japanese. His hand tightened on his knife, ready to silently assassinate the guards. But at the edge of his vision he noticed, almost by chance, that this sailing warship followed the traditions of Great Zhao’s shipbuilders, placing a shrine on every deck.

Great Zhao’s navy worshipped many sea gods; back when “False Hand” Zhou Sanpao rattled off names like dishes—General Divine Needle, Lord Clasped Stone, Changing Water Boy, Saint Water Cup, Direction Guardian, Lady Heavenly Consort, and so on, each with their own domain.

But here, only one was venerated: King Jinghai Wang Zeng, the original master of the Five Peaks Banner, now revered as “Prince Jing” among the sea gods. Within the Five Peaks Banner and half of Yingzhou, this was both political and spiritual correctness. Even traitors needed to keep up appearances; the upper ranks might harbor different ambitions, but the lower ranks remained loyal. No matter how complicit they were in the Wang clan’s downfall, in their undercover phase, none dared openly violate this most sensitive taboo: disrespect for Prince Jing.

So...

Wang Cheng gazed at the clay idol of his father, incense curling before it, and his eyes brightened with a new idea. If all went smoothly, he might even capture this rare sailing warship instead! Though it would require more skill and risk, the reward would make it worthwhile.

After a brief hesitation, he decided to change his plan, muttering to himself, “Father, I’ll borrow your incense for a bit.” Without a second thought, he strode forward, plucked the incense from before his father’s statue, snuffed it out, and replaced it with three sticks that looked identical. These were no ordinary incense, but the Cockcrow Five Watch Soul-Returning Incense, disguised as incense sticks!

He took out the vial of antidote and inhaled a deep breath in advance. Then, starting from the lowest deck, he replaced the incense at every shrine, bowing three times each time to show his filial piety to his father.

“Dad, eat and drink well. In the Mountain and Sea Taboo, indulge yourself, don’t scrimp for my sake.”

In all the history of the Middle Kingdom, Wang Cheng was likely the first to offer Cockcrow Five Watch Soul-Returning Incense to ghosts and gods. If Lady Heavenly Consort’s line or other water spirits saw this, the first words at New Year’s would surely be, “The Wang family’s filial piety is resounding, fellow Daoists.”

Whatever the case, by the time Wang Cheng walked up to the open-air deck from below, the scent of the Cockcrow Five Watch Soul-Returning Incense, masked by lingering regular smoke, had already spread swiftly throughout the warship.

The incense workers and sailors patrolling the decks noticed nothing amiss; they didn’t even suspect that such an audacious tactic was possible in this world.

The first to sense something odd were the two Japanese sailors guarding the powder magazine below. One suddenly twitched his nose. “Taro, do you smell something… unusual?”

The other, less sensitive, waved it off. “The air under the waterline is always stuffy, naturally foul. Maybe you caught a whiff of food from the upper deck. We’ve been aboard too long—I can’t wait to finish our mission and return home. My fiancée, Sachiko, is waiting for me to get… get…”

Before he could finish, he and his companion, who was sniffing deeply to find the source of the scent, both collapsed with a “thud, thud.”

Even as they lost consciousness, they never suspected the incense before Prince Jing’s statue nearby.