Chapter 4427 — Nearly Wiped Out

Bang! Sailboat No. 1 abruptly shifted course and accelerated, driving straight into the flank of Sailboat No. 5 with the terrifying air of a man who would either kill you or kill himself trying.

In other respects he might be lacking, but when it came to ramming ships, Wang Baitiao's skill was absolutely peerless. He had once made his living at it—not only during his pirate days, but even after he joined the Four Seas Escort Agency as an escort, he had sunk no small number of other vessels, only by then the targets had become pirates.

Wei Zhao had barely found his footing, and this blow nearly cost him dearly; thanks to the jade pendant's timely warning, he managed at the last moment to adjust the boat's position. Otherwise, given the ferocity of the charge, had the flank truly been struck, the ship would not merely have been cut in two—capsizing was a certainty.

Even so, Wei Zhao's Sailboat No. 5 was forcibly knocked off the safe route, nearly slamming headlong into a hidden reef not far off, and the outcome needed no imagining.

With Wei Zhao's somewhat unpolished seamanship, merely holding the course steady in such circumstances was already remarkable—yet Wang Baitiao had no intention of letting him off so easily. If once would not do, then twice; if twice would not do, then three times.

Given their respective positions, Wang Baitiao held absolute initiative on his side; Wei Zhao, out in front, had not even the chance to strike back, and could only suffer his battering.

Bang! The hull shuddered again. Because he had been prepared this time, it was not quite so catching-him-off-guard as before, though it was hardly any more pleasant.

"Tired of living!" A murderous chill flashed in Wei Zhao's eyes. Anyone else in his position would by now have settled on the only answer—speed up and shake off the pursuer. But on this utterly unfamiliar and peril-ridden sea route, raising speed at any cost was no different from courting death.

In fact, this was precisely what Wang Baitiao was counting on. In his eyes, Sailboat No. 5 had only two choices: be rammed and sunk by him, or speed up to escape him—and either way, death was unavoidable.

What he did not know was that Wei Zhao in fact had a third choice—simply leap across onto his ship. And kill Wang Baitiao!

For Wei Zhao, killing a Golden Core expert was about as simple a matter as could be. Once it was done, if his Sailboat No. 5 remained intact, he would leap back and carry on with the race; if it had come to grief, then he would simply take Sailboat No. 1 and sail home in it.

After all, the race judged the man, not the boat. So long as Wei Zhao returned safely, the Sky-Supporting Escort Agency would still score.

Here Wang Baitiao was still gloating, believing he had driven Wei Zhao into a dead end, never suspecting that it was he himself who stood before the gates of hell—the moment Wei Zhao made his move, he would be reporting to the King of Hell.

Full of confidence, Wang Baitiao launched his third ramming charge, and just as it seemed the blow would land, he saw Sailboat No. 5 ahead suddenly swing its sail—it had changed course, heading straight off to the right.

"Trying to run?!" Wang Baitiao's eyelid twitched, and he instinctively made to chase—then suddenly started in alarm. By the safe route he had scouted earlier, this was the point where one absolutely had to turn left!

Going right was not entirely impossible, but when he had scouted it, even a small boat had barely been able to get through, let alone a large sailboat like this—there was no chance of passing safely. The left, by contrast, was far more open.

"Hmph—well, since you're dead either way, I'll let you off and leave you to fend for yourself." Wang Baitiao cursed and grumbled with considerable regret, then swung his bow to the left. After all, he could hardly sink Wei Zhao at the cost of burying himself alongside him.

Picturing Wei Zhao's miserable end—ship wrecked, man dead—and humming a tune in high spirits, Wang Baitiao's mood recovered fully. But before long, when the outline of a small boat off to the diagonal ahead slowly sharpened through the sea fog, his good cheer vanished in an instant, and his face turned unspeakably grim.

That boat's tonnage was tiny, scarcely a tenth of Wang Baitiao's sailboat, with room for barely five men. In a head-on clash, Wang Baitiao could simply have crushed it flat—but lend Wang Baitiao a hundred guts and he would never dare.

For the black skull flag flying from that little boat was one he knew all too well. These were pirates, damn it!

By the rules of the race, at random points along the sea route, fixed-position pirates were inserted by airdrop from flying spirit beasts. Since the coordinates were provided by the five judges individually and then randomly shuffled, even the Four Seas Escort Agency had no way to predict them in advance—and for Wang Baitiao, this was the sole unknown factor.

He had never dreamed that after such meticulous preparation, he would in the end run straight into the fixed pirates. Man proposes, heaven disposes—was this damn well fate?

Before Wang Baitiao could react further, the fixed pirates over there were already charging ferociously toward him.

Wang Baitiao's vision went black, and he spat out a great mouthful of blood in fury—for he suddenly recalled that Sailboat No. 5's turn to the right had been very abrupt. On so perilous a sea route, even in flight one could not turn so rashly. Looking at it now, it seemed it had been no mere desperate gamble, but something deeply calculated indeed...

Though a Golden Core expert, Wang Baitiao had never believed that anyone in this world truly possessed the power to foresee the future; he had always thought such tales were inflated. But today, he finally believed it—only he had believed too late...

At the Mo Leng docks, the whole crowd was craning their necks in anticipation. Though the heads of the various escort agencies held out little hope, each still nursed a sliver of wishful thinking—even if those sent out were all the old, the weak, the sick, and the crippled, what if they happened to stumble into heaven-defying luck?

The others were one thing—a bit of wishful thinking would not make them too nervous—but Qi Wenmo here was truly frantic. He had to keep his eyes fixed on the distance for any returning ships, and every so often glance at how much of the long incense had burned, while also watching the mother-and-child jade tablet array to see whether the No. 5 jade tablet was still intact. A single pair of eyes was simply not enough.

Not long after the competitors set out, the sliver of hope in the hearts of the escort agency heads was utterly shattered. At the mother-and-child jade tablet array, trouble came in an unbroken stream: of the thirty-two jade tablets in all, they cracked one after another with resounding bangs—in less than the time it took half a stick of incense to burn, a full thirty of the thirty-two had shattered!

In the span of half a stick of incense, they had been nearly wiped out. Such a staggering casualty rate was enough to make one's hair stand on end. The escorts of the various agencies keeping watch at the docks could not help but secretly congratulate themselves—thank goodness they had held firm and not gone up! (A heaven-sent giveaway event—cool phones waiting for you! Follow the Qi~Dian/official account (add a friend on WeChat, add the official account and enter it) and join right away! Everyone wins—follow the WeChat official account now!)