Chapter Fifty-Eight: Seizing the Ship! Wang Cheng’s New Flagship!

Apart from the widely-circulated "Eight Wave-Cleaving Blades" along the southeast coast, the most common external martial art among the Water Collectors was the "Yaksha Staff Technique."

Cui Sheng, hailing from the Five Peaks Banner, naturally practiced this as well.

Abiding by the principle of "three parts staff, seven parts spear," this method emphasized swift and forceful attacks, particularly the initial strike. Facing Wang Cheng's ferocious blade, Cui took advantage of his staff’s superior length and met offense with offense.

His stance was the "Splitting Cangwu" form.

The staff crashed down with the force to split mountains and scatter the moon—its power no less than that of a great spear. The head of the staff erupted with force, scattering the snowflakes within a ten-foot radius around Cui Sheng.

The spars offered little room to maneuver, and with the iron staff being much longer than the Chiweng Blade, Wang Cheng had no choice but to pull back his strike midway. He gripped his blade with both hands, angled it across his body, and sidestepped to deflect the force.

He used the defensive stance of the Eight Wave-Cleaving Blades: "Blade Across the Ridge."

Sinking into a half-crouch, he successfully blocked the blow. Relying on the "Eye in Mind," which amplified his bodily control, he redirected much of the staff's tremendous force through his legs into the spar below.

With a thunderous crack, the heavy spar, suspended by rigging, vibrated like a great serpent.

Cui Sheng, rooted firm, barely wavered before planting a foot atop his staff, preparing to use his full strength to knock Wang Cheng down.

This was the "Stepping Dragon" form.

But before the force could reach him, Wang Cheng seized the tremor of the main spar, grasped a cable, and in a flash leaped up to the higher spar.

"Stop!" Cui Sheng shouted, pursuing without hesitation. At this moment, all he wanted was to devour this boy who, with every act of defiance, seared his heart with rage.

The spars might have been narrow, but there were four tiers—main, upper, top, and extreme top—and the two men darted and tumbled across them like nimble monkeys. Even as snow swirled thickly at sea, they moved as if on solid ground.

Wang Cheng was a reserve officer of the water crew, born for this life. Cui Sheng, too, had an ancestral master known as Lu Ban, and on these all-wooden sailing warships, he enjoyed natural advantages.

Above the spars, figures flickered, the clash of metal and bursts of sparks merging into a single cacophony.

"Damn it! How can this brat's bladework be so strong?" Cui Sheng had never expected that he, a dignified seventh-rank officer, would be matched blow for blow by an eighth-rank talisman student.

No—it had to be that the boy was deliberately fighting defensively, waiting for the deck below to resolve the suppression spell, so they could all turn on him together.

He didn’t need to win—he only needed to stall until the deck's battle was decided, ensuring victory.

Realizing this, Cui Sheng immediately withdrew, determined to unleash all he had and end the fight quickly.

He grabbed the talisman "Wind Lion," and once more blew into it with all his might. Immediately, those lion-headed, human-bodied, vividly colored phantoms whipped up a ghostly wind and rushed at Wang Cheng.

A wailing gale swept forth...

Wang Cheng retreated to the far side of the topmost spar, the Chiweng Blade in his hand flickering with fierce, radiant light, echoing the three fires of fortune, prosperity, and longevity above his head and on his shoulders.

With pure yang life-fire, he incinerated the evil spirits!

Then, amid the wind and snow, a thousand blade-lights exploded, shredding both the drifting snowflakes and the ghostly phantoms pouncing through the wind, sending up vast clouds of steaming mist.

Yet, it seemed Wang Cheng had only just broken through to pure yang life-fire, his stamina quickly waning. Forced to retreat step by step along the narrow spar, he teetered on the edge—one misstep from such a height would mean certain death.

Cui Sheng, seeing his chance, pressed forward relentlessly—unaware that his own dim shadow had begun to writhe beneath his feet.

The shadow twisted, suddenly opening a pair of oily green eyes. Serpentine patterns slithered across it, swiftly weaving into a robe both resplendent and sinister—a prince’s royal mantle.

It was Wang Cheng’s malevolent shade, the "Heir Apparent who Patrols on Heaven’s Behalf"!

Having reached pure yang life-fire, this evil shade had grown even stronger, and the murderous rules anchored by the folk ritual of sending off the King Boat were manifesting their power.

Shadows rippled like water, reflecting deep within a black-as-ink "Prince Wang Cheng."

Then, the evil shade stretched out a hand—just as, during the King Boat ritual, the malevolent spirits drag the living beneath the waves—and seized Cui Sheng’s calf, yanking him hard.

Cui Sheng knew that an eighth-rank talisman user could only use a handful of talismans and lacked true spirit power; he was wholly unprepared for such a trick.

He missed his step and plummeted from the spar, dropping dozens of meters toward the deck.

But the ghostly wind, abandoning its assault on Wang Cheng, surged after Cui Sheng. Phantom arms, now much thinner, grasped his limbs and shoulders, lowering him gently.

After a moment’s panic, Cui Sheng regained his composure and sneered at Wang Cheng, who stood motionless at the end of the spar:

"Foolish boy! Did you think you could kill me by making me fall? I can fly—I won’t die from a fall! Mud-legged peasant, you have no idea how vast the world is! I’ll go down first and slaughter all your men!"

But Wang Cheng only grinned, drew a shining copper ox from his robe, and blew into it with force.

The Great Ghost Slayer erupted into hundreds of crimson threads, instantly enshrouding Cui Sheng and the ghostly phantoms hidden in the wind.

With a searing hiss, the lion-headed spirits, wracked with agony, abandoned their master and scrambled back into the "Wind Lion."

Cui Sheng, meanwhile, crashed to the deck like a stone, his shriek echoing through the wind and snow.

A thunderous boom followed.

The solid teak deck withstood the tremendous impact unscathed, but Cui Sheng was smashed to a pulp on the spot. Only the "Wind Lion" talisman, dangling from his chest by a leather cord, remained intact.

Wang Cheng swung down from the spar on a cable, lunging at Cui Sheng’s corpse to scavenge whatever intelligence he could while the body was still warm.

Given his current cultivation, the Rare Commodity could barely see through a living seventh-rank officer, but with death, opportunity arose.

[...Obsession: Carry out the order of Sun Xiong, "Mountain-Bearing General," one of the Twenty-Four Commanders on the Zi Ying, coordinate with the traitor to capture Han Shushu of the Han family, assassinate Wang Fugui of the Mountain-Sea Society...]

As for whether any higher authorities existed above these core-level Twenty-Four Commanders, Cui Sheng knew nothing.

If Wang Cheng could reach the Five Peaks Banner’s main base on Yingzhou, perhaps he could use this thread—General Sun Xiong—to trace the source step by step.

But returning now was out of the question.

Next, the evil shade reached out again, intending to seize Cui Sheng’s soul and take it back for his master Shen Yuting to interrogate.

Suddenly, a bluish curse-fire erupted from the corpse’s chest, spreading over Cui Sheng’s body the instant he died. It was the backlash of the Suppression Curse, melting his flesh and bones into a puddle of black water—leaving not even a trace of soul behind.

Wang Cheng hastily backed away, suspecting this was a safeguard planted ahead of time by their secret adversary.

They had suffered a loss in the last ritual contest with Shen Yuting; this time they were prepared, determined to destroy any clue that could lead back to them, ensuring their family would not be implicated.

Were it not for the Rare Commodity’s ability to pierce the heart, such ruthless measures could have wiped out all evidence, leaving the killer with nothing.

In the end, aside from the name of one of the Twenty-Four Commanders, Wang Cheng received only a consolation prize: a random strange art acquired through the "Profitless Trade."

But as he eagerly examined his spoils, his face turned yellow with dismay:

"The ‘Beauty Disrobing Technique’?

Carve a one-inch wooden figure, cut a short robe from yellow paper, dab the figure’s middle finger with rooster’s blood, then prick your own thumb and smear its blood on the ancestral incense tablet... Recite the spell: ‘With golden blade and red gauze, ten who see me, nine are vexed; beauty disrobes...’ Cough, cough... What is this filth? I can’t understand a word!"

He skimmed the main text and glanced at the notes.

This strange art came from a secret Daoist manual, the "Secret Instructions on Human Affairs from the Inner Hem." Besides "Beauty Disrobing," the complete version included a series of companion arts: Inviting the Dancing Fairy, Tea to Stir Spring Passions, Unlooked-for Arrival, Beauty Returning, Causing Women’s Yearning, and so on.

It could be used in any of the seventy-two lunar seasons, on any gender, so long as the subject had human vitality.

But anyone reckless enough to use it in public would likely be hunted down and killed by every female officer present.

Beware! Beware!

Wang Cheng thought he would never use such an art in his life—nor would he sell it to anyone else—and promptly dismissed it from his mind.

By then, all the Tanka sailors who had dealt with the revived corpses had gathered around, their faces alight with irrepressible excitement.

"Boss! Everyone on deck is dead—this sailing warship now belongs to the Blue-Garbed Gang!"

"This is our new flagship! Let’s see who dares bully the Tanka again, who dares speak to us with contempt!"

"Long live the Boss!"

"Loyalty!"

Amidst the wildest cheers, Wang Cheng was hoisted high by his own crew.