Chapter 101

Just as Miguel was feeling somewhat at a loss, the not-so-sturdy door of his house was once again kicked open from the outside—a rhythm that felt all too familiar. Miguel looked up, stunned, and stared at the doorway. For a moment, he thought he had traveled back in time to the Wind Fury.

A tall figure stepped in through the door. His hair was tied into a neat ponytail at the back of his head, and his ears were adorned with a chaotic assortment of gemstone earrings. At his waist hung a gun that looked all too familiar—Miguel was certain he had seen it in Caesar’s drawer. That drawer contained only one key, the symbol of the Wind Fury’s captain.

Although he knew the newcomer couldn’t possibly be Caesar, when he caught sight of the similar silhouette, his heart couldn’t help but skip a beat.

Then, for some reason, he felt an indescribable bitterness, as if he couldn’t reconcile the dissonance in his heart.

The sky was gradually darkening, and the dim room was unlit by any kerosene lamps. The newcomer’s figure was completely swallowed by the shadows. He strode over to Miguel and Leoza, and with just one hand, effortlessly lifted Leoza away from Miguel like a chick. His voice was gruff, clearly indicating he had been drinking heavily—

“Hey, you little runt,” Rick cursed without any courtesy, “don’t push your luck. You disappeared the moment we docked, and sure enough, you came here to find the mascot first… Do I need to remind you again, even though this is already the thirty-second time this month—Miguel belongs to Caesar, got it? They’re practically ready to exchange vows in a chapel—do you understand what that means? So what you’re desperately clinging to is the captain’s wife of the Wind Fury, and as the first mate and acting captain of the Wind Fury, I hereby represent the moon tonight to eliminate—what the hell, are you crying? Are you actually crying?! How disgusting—ugh, I can see your snot!”

Miguel: “Uh…”

Leoza sneered, wiping away his tears and firing back: “The captain’s gone to guard the gates! What captain’s wife are you talking about?”

Rick kicked the red-haired boy, who was still trying to cling to Miguel, and sneered: “Do you even know why we’re here in Djerba Island?”

Miguel: “About that…”

Leoza: “How should I know why you’re here? I came to propose to Miguel! Why are you here? To cause trouble?”

Rick: “Propose? Don’t make me laugh. You’re not even fully grown yet—what are you proposing? To have Miguel raise you like a son?”

Leoza: “What did you say!! Do you want to die? You wanna compare who’s bigger down there?!”

Miguel: “Hey—”

And then, for the third time that night, the door was violently kicked open against its will.

What flew in was a chubby bird… no, a woman who looked like a startled bird. She was wailing, as if determined to out-cry Leoza in a contest of who could sound more like a ghost tonight. The girl, holding up her signature dirty skirt, rushed into Miguel’s arms. Miguel instinctively glanced at Rick’s expression and indeed saw a vein popping on his forehead, as if he was about to explode at any moment. The girl in his arms, with her messy hair that clearly hadn’t been properly cared for in a long time, sobbed and sniffled for a while, not making any sense. A jumble of words in various languages spilled out of her mouth, and Miguel only caught a few, including the Chinese swear words including “fuck”, and “sorry.”

“Girls shouldn’t swear,” Miguel said helplessly, reaching out to pat Zhizhi’s head. “Even if you’re a centuries-old granny who just looks like a girl on the surface.”

Zhizhi: “Screw you, wuwuwu—”

Miguel sighed with a bitter smile: “What’s going on tonight? I thought the world had forgotten about me, but now everyone’s suddenly remembering me?”

…

Miguel’s words were utterly unreasonable and inhumane. In fact, Rick and the others had rushed to Djerba Island as soon as they emerged from the Fountain of Youth.

In the Mediterranean, just like when Big Dog had been in trouble, news about the Wind Fury, whether good or bad, always spread quickly. The news that the Wind Fury had found the Fountain of Youth and the changes in the fleet’s captaincy had blown across the Mediterranean coast like a sea breeze. Most of the rumors were true, including everything about the Fountain of Youth—

Having met all the conditions, they had successfully opened the gates to the Land of Dusk on the first full moon.

Just like all the lost treasure maps and legends recorded, the Land of Dusk was indeed filled with gold and jewels. The people living there were unlike any other race in the world. They wore crowns studded with gemstones, their hair long and trailing on the ground, their skin pale without a trace of blood, and each of them was incredibly beautiful, with purple lips and ears that resembled the spines of seahorses.

They spoke many languages but had never ventured out into the outside world.

In the Land of Dusk, the opulent city was as bustling as a mirage. At the center of the city, a fountain sprayed liquid gold, and when a gourd was used to scoop up the water, it would immediately solidify into solid gold blocks—around the pool, the ground was paved with massive gold bricks. The people there sang and danced every night, with girls performing all sorts of graceful dances, and men playing instruments the pirates had never seen before—carefree and joyous. They were hospitable to outsiders, even gifting them countless jewels and gold without condition, asking only that the pirates sit down and tell them stories of the outside world.

This suited them perfectly.

There was no profession more worldly than pirates and prostitutes.

They spent three days and three nights there, filling the bilge of every ship with gold and jewels.

However, as Leoza had said, only Caesar had entered the Fountain of Youth in the end. The rest of the crew waited outside. Some loyal crew members had thought about following Caesar into the Fountain, but they were waved off by a strange old man guarding the entrance.

“That old man had the lower body of a sea serpent,” Rick said, propping his chin up as he tried to recall the situation at the time. “Even though his hair was white, he was still incredibly strong. I’ve never seen any record of such a creature in any maritime log.”

“That old man only let Caesar enter the Fountain of Youth,” Zhizhi said, gripping Miguel’s wrist tightly. Her eyes were wide, and she looked deeply apologetic. “Everyone else could only frantically move the gold while waiting for him to come out.”

The crew of the Wind Fury spent three days and three nights moving the treasures.

And they spent three days and three nights waiting for their captain.

The frenzy for gold and jewels began to fade by the second day. All the crew members couldn’t help but glance at the hourglass every now and then to see how much time had passed. In the end, selecting jewels and moving them became the pirates’ last way to pass the time and distract themselves.

But in the end, they still didn’t wait for Caesar.

“He’s in the Land of Dawn.”

That was the last thing the old man guarding the Fountain, with the lower body of a sea serpent, said to the crew of the Wind Fury.

“—So we’ve come to get you.”

Rick sat at the table and downed the small beer Miguel had poured for him in one gulp. The pale yellow liquid flowed down his Adam’s apple like a little stream, eventually trickling into his collar. Miguel was momentarily stunned, surprised to notice that Rick seemed to have lost a lot of weight recently.

Was he worried about Big Dog? Miguel wondered, then inexplicably thought of the mermaid… or was it just overindulgence?

“Say something, why are you staring at me like an idiot? Do you think I can conjure up a Caesar for you?” Rick frowned, clearly dissatisfied with Miguel’s lack of immediate enthusiasm.

Miguel: “Where is the Land of Dawn?”

Zhizhi shrugged: “That’s why we’re here—”

As she spoke, the girl slammed her hand on Miguel’s rickety table, then glanced sideways at Leoza. The red-haired boy pouted unhappily, then reluctantly took the miraculous compass from his waist. He glanced at the compass, then at Miguel, and finally tossed the compass into Zhizhi’s hands.

“Good boy,” Zhizhi said indifferently, as if praising a dog, then carefully pulled out a familiar wooden box from under her skirt. Miguel recognized it—it was the Sinan Fish, but…

Miguel: “I won’t ask why you pulled that out from under your skirt—that’s too embarrassing.”

Zhizhi: “Thanks, I’m sure you don’t want to know the answer either.”

Miguel: “…”

Zhizhi opened the wooden box and tossed Leoza’s compass inside.

Miguel leaned over and was surprised to find… nothing happened.

The little fish was still swimming happily, circling around the box without a care in the world.

As if oblivious to the disappointment on the black-haired young man’s face, Zhizhi smiled and beckoned to Miguel: “You’ll be the head.”

Miguel: “…?”

Zhizhi: “Lend me some blood—heart’s blood—don’t worry, I’m not going to stab you in the chest, I’m not that cruel. Stick out your tongue, bite down, don’t let your drool fall out. I’ll count to three, and when I reach three, I’ll do it. 1—”

Miguel: “Ah!”

Zhizhi: “Don’t flinch! Come back, drip the blood in, don’t waste it—”

Miguel: “What kind of mountain are you talking about?!”

Zhizhi: “I was afraid you’d instinctively pull your tongue back—ugh, big tongue, get out of the way, stop complaining so much.”

The girl carefully cradled the wooden box with Miguel’s blood in her hands, spun it around a few times, then walked to the window. The sky outside was just right, and the crescent moon peeked out from behind the clouds, clearly reflected in the wooden box in her hands—miraculously, the moonlight seemed to awaken the little fish, which had been swimming around aimlessly. It floated to the surface, gently breaking the moon’s reflection in the water, then poked at the solidified drop of blood. The blood no longer floated on the surface but sank, and the little fish pushed the blood, which in turn pushed the compass at the bottom of the box, trembling as it pointed in a certain direction.

“Done,” Zhizhi handed the wooden box to Miguel. “It only works when the moon is out. Follow this direction, and we’ll find the Land of Dawn.”

Rick, standing to the side with his arms crossed, added expressionlessly: “So now all we have to do is take you back to the Wind Fury and go rescue the boss together.”

Miguel’s heart skipped a beat for a moment, his emotions so stirred that he was about to jump up. But soon, he realized he had to face a cruel reality. The black-haired young man looked helpless: “…I’ve been exiled, Rick. Once exiled, you can never return to the Wind Fury. That’s a rule set by the nitpicky captain himself. Now he’s learning what it’s like to hoist himself with his own petard—I can’t even play the hero and save the beauty. I can’t exactly swim to the Land of Dawn.”

“You think I don’t know the ship’s rules Caesar set?” Rick said with disdain.

“What do you mean, ‘you think’? You clearly don’t,” Miguel replied calmly.

Rick: “…”

Three seconds later, Rick reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment. With the confidence of slapping down a stack of cash, the red-haired first mate slapped the parchment right in front of Miguel’s nose. Miguel was momentarily stunned, then had to admit, with some trepidation, that the parchment looked all too familiar—he had seen it half a year ago—

“Caesar gave me the key to his chest just so I could take this out,” Rick said expressionlessly, tossing the parchment in front of Miguel. “Take a look for yourself.”

Miguel wasn’t in a hurry to take it. Instead, he instinctively glanced at the gun hanging at Rick’s waist.

Rick: “…Cough, this is just borrowed for now!”

Miguel: “…That’s illegal appropriation of someone else’s estate.”

Rick: “Shut up! Just read the parchment!”

Miguel rolled his eyes and unfolded the parchment—

It was written in German, a long string of text. Half a year ago, Miguel wouldn’t have understood a single punctuation mark. But now, he could roughly make out some of it—

“No matter life, death, or old age?… Hanging, exile, and some kind of illness? What is this, Caesar, what is this, the Wind Fury?”

“Roughly” was indeed just a rough understanding, no more than that.

Under Zhizhi’s accusatory gaze, which blamed her pig teammate for embarrassing her, Rick rolled his eyes and snatched the parchment back from Miguel. He unfolded it, holding it up like a priest announcing the entrance of the bride and groom into the chapel, cleared his throat, and read aloud—

“[Whether in life or death, whether in the vigor of youth or the white hair of old age, whether by hanging, whether by exile, whether afflicted by the Black Death from hell, I pledge my life to Caesar Lukdel Elijah Hoff, I pledge my life to the Wind Fury, and I entrust my soul entirely. From this moment until eternity, I shall remain true to my oath.]” After reading, Rick pursed his lips and stuffed the parchment back into Miguel’s hands.

“Yeah, that’s disgustingly sappy. What was Caesar thinking when he wrote this terrifying thing… Here, take it, you can even frame it if you want. Your signature’s at the bottom.”

Miguel’s head was buzzing.

He numbly unfolded the parchment again and found the familiar handwriting in the bottom right corner—

It was as if he had returned to that night, in the best tavern room on Djerba Island, how he had been half-threatened, half-cajoled into holding the quill—the handwriting on the parchment hadn’t faded, clearly well-preserved.

There, written in a flamboyant, cursive script, were three Chinese characters.

Luo Chenzhou.

I pledge my life to Caesar Lukdel Elijah Hoff.

Whether in life or death, whether in the vigor of youth or the white hair of old age, whether by hanging, whether by exile, whether afflicted by the Black Death from hell.

From this moment until eternity, I shall remain true to my oath.