Chapter 13

After watching the “walking Eastern silk” support the other two elderly and infirm as they left, Rick took the cigarette offered by Caesar and stuck it between his lips without lighting it. He bit down on the cigarette and let out a muffled laugh. “Captain, the expression you had when you invited him aboard was exactly the same as the one I saw last month in a Spanish bar when you invited a dancer to bed.”

“How was it?”

“Dead sexy.”

“I thought so too.” With a snort, Caesar seemed to have his interest piqued. “But don’t fall in love with me, trash. I only love creatures with tits and ass.”

“As if you’re not picky about faces.”

“Of course,” Caesar said softly, exhaling smoke. His face, half-obscured by the haze, leaned closer to his first mate as he spoke slowly, “…because it’s all the same once the lights are out.”

“Oh no no no no—stop! Even though my sexual orientation is flexible, I definitely can’t get it up looking at your face, which is professionally designed to withhold gold coins—so please, move your face away a bit, Captain.” Crazy Dog Rick raised his hands in surrender and took half a step back. Caesar let out a low chuckle, and the two men stared at each other in silence for a moment before simultaneously turning away in disgust.

Caesar: “Spit it out. Laozi doesn’t have time to waste on nonsense with you.”

“Such a dog’s temper.” Rick shrugged magnanimously. “I just wanted to remind you that the one-armed guy seems to be one of Barbarossa’s men.”

“Ah, I know.” The man narrowed his eyes, his tanned muscles glistening seductively in the sunlight. He leaned lazily against his ship like a relaxed panther, his amber eyes slightly narrowed, always fixed on one of the three departing figures. He paused for a moment before speaking slowly, “He was quick. I caught him just as he was about to jump into the sea—a smart kid, but unfortunately…”

“Unfortunately what?”

“Unfortunately, the one who caught him was me.” The man said matter-of-factly.

Rick paused and looked at his captain, his face expressionless. “Talking to you is enough to drive anyone insane, Captain. Where do you get such confidence?”

The man snorted softly, his hand gently caressing the beloved pistol at his waist. “Compared to you trash, I could close my eyes, reach out, and grab a handful of ‘confidence.'”

“Ha, I still remember the state you were in when you rowed up to us in some stolen dinghy,” Rick stroked his chin. “To see you in such a sorry state, the whole crew was so excited that night they couldn’t sleep. Bellick said he never thought he’d live to see the day he could look down on you from the deck of a big ship—”

Faced with his subordinate and friend’s mockery, Caesar chuckled. Bellick? The charge captain of the main fleet, right? Add him to the list for a little payback—no need to thank me.

“But no matter how handsome and mighty you are, it’s no excuse to let a slave go,” Rick continued. “Give me a reason, Boss, otherwise this whole business of acquiring new slaves is going to get complicated—we can’t be accused of not being fair.”

“A reason?” Caesar paused, then replied indifferently, “I saw him throw your navigator into the sea with my own eyes. I remember that peculiar navigator of yours couldn’t swim—so he sank into the ocean like a giant rock, never to resurface.”

Rick was stunned. When he realized what Caesar was saying, he immediately exploded. “What?!—And you didn’t go after him?! Laozi only had that one navigator!”

“Because I was busy retrieving my saber at the time. It got stuck.”

“Stuck where?”

“In Big Barbarossa’s spine.”

“…”

“Remember our rule? Whoever kills the navigator has to become the next navigator.”

“Ridiculous, Caesar. We don’t have such a stupid rule.”

“We do now. Add it to the charter at the end,” Caesar narrowed his eyes. “Write it down, First Mate. It’s a decision your captain just made.”

“…Sometimes I think it’s a miracle our fleet hasn’t fallen apart yet,” Rick rolled his eyes hard at his captain’s arrogance and capriciousness. “From now on, when we go out, we can proudly tell people that in ‘Black Wave Caesar’s’ fleet, the most important skill we’ve learned is ‘tolerance.’ Every morning we have to remind ourselves to be patient, so we can restrain ourselves from chopping our willful, arrogant, violent, and slightly perverted captain to pieces a hundred times a day.”

“This isn’t a ridiculous request, Rick. It’s you who asked me for a ‘walking Eastern silk’ to keep on the ship as your mascot,” Caesar replied in a businesslike tone to his subordinate’s accusation. “And I’m just trying my best to fulfill your strange request, as a reward for you cutting down Barbarossa’s first mate.”

“Bah! That one-armed guy is no mascot!”

“Tsk, he’ll become the mascot you want sooner or later—given some people’s rottenly kind-hearted nature,” Caesar chuckled. “Trust me.”

“Wait, are you saying I’m going to get a brand-new navigator? Black hair, black eyes and all?”

“Probably.”

“Fantastic,” Rick’s eyes gleamed with excitement as he said with great anticipation, “Can I play with him?”

“If you’re not afraid of him steering your fleet into a whirlpool and taking you down with him,” Caesar flicked the cigarette butt into the sea, watching the white foam waves completely extinguish the ember, and said indifferently, “then go ahead.”

…

Meanwhile, on the other side of the grand and magnificent pirate fleet, Miguel, who was blissfully unaware of the terrible things awaiting him, was having a rather unpleasant conversation.

They didn’t go straight back to Old Fante’s house, though Miguel thought the old man needed to return immediately. He carefully wiped the area around Old Fante’s eyes with a damp cloth borrowed from the dock. The clotted blood had clumped the old man’s eyelashes together, and his left eyeball trembled under the lid, twitching slightly every time the cold, damp cloth touched it.

Old Fante kept his eyes closed, making it easy to see that his eyelids had been slashed from the left temple to the right by some sharp object. The weapon had horribly punctured his right eyeball, so now his right eye was completely deflated, and no one dared to ask him to open it to see what had happened.

The reason they couldn’t go home right away was that Lake said Caesar had ordered them not to leave the dock until a final decision was made.

“I thought you’d already made your decision, Lake,” Miguel said coolly. “Fante’s in this state because of you. Give up your pirate dream. Your father needs you.”

At this moment, the burly Lake sat on a rock by the beach, clutching his hair tightly with his remaining hand. He looked utterly tormented. He glanced at Miguel, then looked away, his gaze fixed on the execution ground where a sailor was raising his saber to cleanly chop off the head of an old sailor from Barbarossa’s ship—

When the blood splattered across the ground, Miguel clearly saw Lake shudder as well.

“You’ve lost an arm,” Miguel pressed on. “You wouldn’t want to become the next Barbarossa’s old sailors, Lake. That man gave you a chance.”

“I know,” Lake’s voice was hoarse, “and I know chances like this don’t come often.”

“I respect your choice, son,” Old Fante said calmly. “I can manage on my own.”

“No, you can’t, Fante,” Miguel immediately retorted. “Right now, you can’t even walk back to your doghouse by yourself.”

“This is my family matter, Miguel,” Old Fante sat in the shade, his voice as calm as if it wasn’t his eyes that had been destroyed. But when he spoke, the words that came out almost made the black-haired young man doubt he’d heard correctly—though Lake’s equally confused and surprised gaze seemed to confirm he hadn’t misheard.

“Oh, yeah!” Miguel shoved the damp cloth into Lake’s hands and stood up. “Of course!” He paused, then switched to Chinese, “Let’s just say Laozi was meddling in someone else’s business for no reason.”

Lake opened his mouth weakly. He was used to Miguel; whenever he was angry or had something to complain about, he would mutter a string of words in a language completely foreign to those around him. Even if no one understood what he was complaining about—Lake still felt uneasy. He didn’t understand what his father was trying to do, but he at least understood that the black-haired young man, who now stood expressionless, was probably very upset.

Or rather, very disappointed in him.

I don’t want this. Lake licked his dry lips. Miguel was like a brother to him. He couldn’t let his brother be disappointed in him. Lake began to feel a dull pain from the wound where he’d lost his arm. The pain spread along his veins to his heart, and when his gaze swept over his father’s bloodied eyes, it felt as if an invisible hand was squeezing his heart tightly.

Lake’s breathing suddenly became heavy.

He started to regret why he hadn’t listened to Miguel and torn the contract Barbarossa gave him to shreds.

“I swear, I’m the one who wants to leave the most… but I’m different, Miguel,” he decided to be honest, lowering his voice. The strong man looked utterly dejected for the first time. “I have to stay on Caesar’s ship. There’s no choice.”

“Why?”

The response sounded less than enthusiastic.

Lake smiled bitterly. “Because I threw Rick’s navigator into the sea. That guy’s probably drowned by now—”

A sailor who can’t swim. Brilliant, Crazy Dog. What a delightful surprise.

“And then?”

“I have to replace him as the new navigator.”

Miguel let out a derisive snort. “Ridiculous.”

“I wish it were a joke.”

“You don’t know how to navigate.”

“Caesar said I can learn.”

Miguel: …Fuck your uncle. A navigator starting from scratch? Are you kidding me? Since when was Crazy Dog generous enough to run a free, all-expenses-paid navigation class?

“That’s how it is,” Lake said softly. “Caesar told me himself before I left.”

“Oh, then I have to ask,” Miguel raised an eyebrow, his tone dripping with sarcasm, “if he’s so fond of this inheritance system, why didn’t he generously hand over the captain’s position when everyone thought Barbarossa had taken him out?”

Lake was stunned, as if he’d been caught off guard.

“So he’s screwing you over, idiot,” Miguel rolled his eyes hard. “Take care of your father, filial son. I’ll handle the rest.”

“What are you going to do?” Lake looked up. With the light behind him, he couldn’t see the expression on Miguel’s face.

“Hmm…”

Miguel glanced at Lake, who was so honest he’d probably be scammed out of his underwear if he boarded the ship, and then at Old Fante, who was pretending not to care but was clearly listening intently… What a family of honest people.

Miguel smiled.

“You think if I put on a sincere striptease, that pervert might hand over your contract?”