Chapter 4438 — Crude Imitation?

So at this moment, the thirty-two ships out at sea were in truth sealed, isolated spaces. Contestants could relax and boldly conceal their cargo, with no fear of prying eyes from outsiders—only this could guarantee the competition's fairness.

The time of one short stick of incense was neither long nor short, and amid the crowd's waiting it passed swiftly. One after another the thirty-two contestants came before Hai Wuliang, queued up, and stood still.

"Very good—everyone is punctual." Hai Wuliang smiled after finishing the roll call, then turned to the people already in position behind him. "Leaders of the 'bandits,' let us begin!"

A burst of laughter ran through the crowd. The "bandit crew," made up of the five great escort agencies and the various merchant guilds, at once set off with Hai Wuliang at its head, sweeping grandly toward Ship Number One.

Watching this, Qi Wenmo's mouth twitched again in spite of himself. It was plain that the "bandit crew" would search in order starting from Number One—which meant his own Number Thirty would be third from last.

At first glance this seemed to matter little; it was merely a place somewhat further back in the order. But in fact, the later a ship's number, the more it stood to lose!

For the "bandit crew" was likewise searching the ships for cargo. However much the ships differed in model, their general layout was much the same, and each additional ship the crew searched was bound to sharpen their skill a notch.

After practicing on the first twenty-nine ships, by the time they reached the thirtieth they would long since have every possible hiding place aboard fixed clear in their minds. If the cargo were hidden in roughly the same spots as before, the earlier ships had cost a full stick of incense to crack; but by the later ones, a single glance might be enough.

Because of his marvelous showing in the first two rounds, Qi Wenmo had still harbored no small hope for Wei Zhao—but at this sight, his heart chilled by no small measure.

"If we truly lose this round, we can only blame our luck," Qi Wenmo said with a bitter smile to Wei Zhao. There was no help for it—who had told them to draw Number Thirty?

"Not necessarily. The greatest knack in hiding something is not cunning but surprise. So long as you can defy expectation, it makes no difference how professional or practiced the searchers are." Wei Zhao smiled faintly.

"Oh?" Seeing Wei Zhao so confident, Qi Wenmo could not help but perk up. Lowering his voice, he asked, "Brother Ling, where have you hidden it, that you are so sure?"

"Are you certain you want to hear, Brother Qi?" Wei Zhao smiled and glanced meaningfully at their surroundings.

"Uh—then never mind, another time, another time." Only then did Qi Wenmo catch on. With so many people about, even a whisper would be overheard; if his own curiosity ruined the grand scheme, regret would come too late.

Time slipped away drop by drop. The "bandit crew" searched in order from Ship Number One on down. Each agency managed to hold out for a different length of time, yet all broadly shared one tendency: the later an agency's number, the shorter it tended to last.

As for where each agency had hidden its cargo—that was a true riot of variety. Some hung it from the cargo-hold beams, some tucked it between deck levels, some perched it atop the masts. In short, whether a place would occur to an ordinary mind or never in a lifetime, any odd corner of the ship might yield a cache.

When all twenty-nine agencies had had their turn, the most unexpected hiding place of all belonged to the Four Seas Escort Agency, which had drawn Ship Number Three—and its result, naturally, was the best.

The "bandit crew" turned the whole vessel inside out, top to bottom, until they had nearly taken it apart plank by plank, and still found nothing. The great majority had already given up; in the end it was Qi Mingyuan, refusing to let it go, who after endless pains finally uncovered the answer.

It turned out that this escort of the Four Seas Escort Agency had not, like the escorts of the other agencies, tucked the cargo into this or that nook aboard the ship. He had taken a different path entirely: in a reef not far from the vessel he had chiseled out a hole, forced the cargo inside, and taken care to restore the reef to its original look.

Such an out-of-the-blue method—had Qi Mingyuan not heard someone mutter that it might have been thrown into the sea, and drawn inspiration from it—even he could never have found it.

By the rules of the contest, the cargo could not be thrown into the sea, but nothing had ever said it could only be hidden aboard ship and not in the reefs alongside. So the trick was entirely permissible.

Yet for all its ingenuity, the Four Seas Escort Agency still failed to earn full marks, for Qi Mingyuan's flash of insight came just as they were near the end of the third stick of incense, and they fell short at the final moment. The time counted as two sticks of incense only, and they received seventy points!

At this result Hai Wuliang ground his teeth in fury. Everyone else had already given up; had that bastard Qi Mingyuan not made trouble, his Four Seas Escort Agency's full marks would have been a certainty.

But thanks to Qi Mingyuan's meddling, not only had their score shrunk by a full thirty points, the more crucial loss was the chance to accept a challenge. With his brilliant hiding scheme, he had stood a fine chance of scoring two hundred; now it had been whittled down to seventy. Anyone in his shoes would have exploded.

"Just you wait—in this round your Skysupport Escort Agency won't get a single point!" Hai Wuliang was so furious his teeth clenched. With a venomous look he led the crowd aboard Ship Number Thirty. In his view, so small a vessel, and placed so far back in the order—hide it however well you liked, a single stick of incense would surely be enough to turn it out.

After practicing on twenty-nine agencies before, these "bandit crew" men could now count themselves half experts at finding cargo. The moment they boarded they made for every nook and cranny that might conceal a cache, each with his own clear assignment, far more practiced than at the outset.

At the sight, Qi Mingyuan's heart could not help but sink. He himself, of course, was only putting on a show and would not search in earnest—but Hai Wuliang's lot were going about it so expertly, and the ship was so uncommonly small. Never mind missing him; even if ten of them were absent, the rest could easily turn out the cargo.

Yet after the whole company had searched the ship from top to bottom, not one of them found the treasure chest.

"Don't tell me this one's been hidden in the reef too?" The crowd exchanged looks. Strange as the idea was, if the Four Seas Escort Agency could think of it, then this man of the Skysupport Escort Agency might well have thought of it as well.

"Hmph—crude imitation, nothing worth a second glance!" Hai Wuliang gave a cold snort, then abruptly flung out a surge of forceful true qi that sheared half the surrounding reef away. Now whether there was a hole in the rock was plain at a glance, and no hiding place could avail. (To be continued)