FID – Chapter 500

Chapter 500: Successive Searches

  After staring at the girl for a while, the man reached out and wrapped her up with the quilt. He stepped on a small flower stand in the innermost part of the cabin with his feet, and the bulkhead behind the flower stand suddenly parted to both sides, revealing an extremely narrow compartment inside.

  Just enough to fit in the width of a person.

  After the bulkhead was closed again, it was completely invisible from the outside that there was a compartment inside.

  ”Second Master, the gate to exit the dock outside the city of Xuzhou is right ahead. Someone is interrogating people!” The old sailor turned his head and whispered under his breath.

  ”Continue sailing forward, as if nothing happened. There are still people waiting for you to go back home.”

  The old sailor felt a chill in his heart, and he said promptly, “I know what to do. Don’t worry, Second Maste!”

  Simultaneously as he responded, he also gave a warning wink to the crew around him.

  The Second Master voice was not too loud, but it just so happened that everyone heard every single word.

  That warning was not just a warning to the old sailors, but to all of them at the same time.

  This canal was the natural shipping route of Cao Bang, and they had no less than a hundred round trips every year. The old navigators knew exactly what kind of people were at that gate, so this sudden number of people checking around must be related to the girl they just rescued.

  From the looks of the Second Master’s mien, he has sworn to protect the lady.

  They were all living under the help of Cao Bang, and they were the confidants of the Second Master. Whoever he wanted to protect, they would naturally not expose him.

  Neither would they dare.

  Otherwise, with the power of Cao Bang, it would be absolutely impossible for them to wish to live in the future.

  Someone stopped them for a search at the gates. The old sailor lowered the speed of the ship, and as they slowly approached, he shouted, “Cao Bang, the cargo ship is passing by! I wonder what the officials are looking for? Our shipments are for the noble people in the capital. A moment of delay is something we can not afford to take.”

  The people on the dock ignored the old sailor’s words, and jumped onto the boat from a distance. “When officials conduct a search, it is to arrest criminals. All irrelevant people, come to the deck and wait. Otherwise, these officials won’t be responsible for anything that happens!”

  ”Are you going to arrest criminals? Excuse me, Mr. Official, are you from the Xuzhou government office? Dare I ask what the culprit has done and what he looks like? Please let us know as well, Mr. Official, so as to spread the warning to other boats, lest we meet the person, not knowing that he’s dangerous.” From the cabin, the man came out, his tone slow and unhurried.

  ”It turns out to be the Second Master of Cao Bang.” The person searching the boat immediately recognized the man who came out, so his aura that kept strangers at bay was much restrained. “We are also handling this case by orders. As for the details, you’d better not inquire about them, Second Master.”

  Cao Bang was very famous among the Central and Southern Regions. They controlled all the water shipments in the three prefectures of Yuzhou, Xuzhou and Yunzhou, and their network of influence was phenomenally huge.

  The second-in-command in front of him was the quickest person in Cao Bang to rise up, and his means were thus clear for all to see.

  They had better not offend him as much as possible.

  Hearing what the official said, the man didn’t embarrass him too much and nodded. “It turns out to be like this. I’ll never dare to stop an official conduct. You can go ahead and search the inside and outside of the ship, but may I request Mr. Official to move faster as well? You know that there is no room for delay for cargo ships. It is stipulated when and where we arrive. Missing the time and losing money don’t matter to us. We are just afraid that the nobles in the capital will be angry. This ship is going to deliver goods to the Liu family in the capital.”

  ”Second Master, rest assured, we’ll let you go after we’ve checked it out. You deliver goods to the Liu family all year round. Even our yamen won’t dare to delay you too long.”

  The official packed his wording nicely. During the search, he didn’t even spare the corners, and even the containers where the goods were placed were opened for inspection.

  In the end, they got nothing.

  The man nodded ever so slightly towards the official, cupped his fist in front of him, and said with a faint smile, “Mr. Official, can our ship set off now?”

  The official jumped on the pier and gestured at him to proceed. “Second master, I was on business just now. Please forgive our intrusion!”

  The man bowed towards the people at the pier, tilted his head to the old sailor behind him and ordered, “Set sail.”

  ”Yes, Second Master.”

  The ship set off, and only after a distance did the old sailor dare to look up and let out a sigh of turbidity from his chest.

  If it wasn’t for the Second Master standing in front of him just now, he might have been exposed.

  When the officials went to the cabin, cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

  The woman was in the cabin, and even though he knew where the Second Master hid her, he couldn’t help but feel frightened. He was afraid that when the officials were overturning things for the search and inspection, they would accidentally touch the mechanism. By then, everyone on the ship would have been finished.

  The ship sailed forward. It has distanced itself far away from the pier just now, but the old sailor looked back from time to time. He thought that after crossing the pass, the Second Master would move the lady out.

  After all, it would be suffocating for the girl to hide in such a narrow space for a long time. What was more, she was unconscious.

  But the Second Master seemed to have forgotten the person, and continued to read the ledger at the desk. He didn’t say a word about the girl whom he hid.

  ”Second Master…” He opened his mouth, wanting to remind him, but out of the corner of his eyes, he suddenly saw a few black shadows flying from the shore straight to this direction, and landed on the ship in the blink of an eye.

  With a bang, the sharp sword with a cold silvery glint swiped across his neck. The old sailor immediately turned pale.

  ”Search!”

  One word, gloomy and cold.

  Because of this sudden encounter, the ship stopped moving in the water.

  The men in black moved extremely fast, and acted separately. They rummaged through the cabin and deck, and finally shook their heads at the man in black holding the sword.

  He withdrew his sword. The leader of the black-clad men glanced at the man sitting in the cabin and asked, “Where is the person?”

  The man raised his head, his face downright stinky. “I don’t know who you are. The officers on the dock also stopped the ship to search for a criminal. Are you in cahoots? My cargo ship isn’t that big, you know? If it can hide people, those officials just now would have found him! If you have finished the search, please see yourself off. Don’t scare my crew. If you are not satisfied, you can search again! We, Cao Bang, have been sailing ships for many years. We have been law-abiding and have absolutely no reason to harbor a suspect! “

  The old sailor knelt down and cried, “My lords, we are just a cargo ship. I really don’t know who you are searching for. We are only transporting cloth. Please be merciful, my lords, please be merciful!”

  The man in black ignored the old sailor who knelt down and begged for mercy. His deep and chilly gaze fixed on the person in the cabin, but the other party stared right back at him without dodging. On the contrary, his face became more and more ugly, and his forbearance seemed to explode at any moment.

  ”Go!”

  The aura of death as the men in black retreated scattered and vanished into thin air.

  The old sailor was as white as a sheet, and could no longer support himself after a long time.

  Those people really scared him to death.

  Fortunately, the Second Master did not take the woman out. Otherwise, that sword would have been without eyes.

  What kind of people did such a young girl provoke, causing the officials and the men in black to search for her successively?

  In the cabin, the man’s tense back slowly relaxed. He opened the cabin and closed his eyes, letting out a long pent up breath.