Voyage With The Pirate King

He should have interrupted this heartfelt conversation but he was curious to see where it was headed. He maintained a blank expression to prompt Rui Fei to keep talking.

Seeing the aloofness written all over Ji Yao\'s face Rui Fei choked on his words. Was Ji Yao really upset about this? He had never thought about how Ji Yao would react to his confession. He guessed being upset was one of them. As long as he didn\'t react with disgust, Rui Fei would be hopeful.

Thinking he could be sincere and open up a little more he continued, "I don\'t know whe-." He couldn\'t get to finish his statement because the door was knocked with a great sense of urgency. Rui Fei wanted to continue but Ji Yao gazed at him intently as though asking, "Aren\'t you going to take care of it? You are the one closest to the door."

In truth, Ji Yao was saying internally, "Open the door, beat the shit out of that person and hurry back so you can continue selling yourself out." Of course, he wouldn\'t say that aloud otherwise he would scare this little pup.

Rui Fei ignored the gushing excitement swirling up in his body. The way Ji Yao looked at him just now was so enticing that he couldn\'t wait to express all his feelings and possibly earn the right to pursue him officially.

He hurriedly opened the door and found his tattletale uncle but he didn\'t expect him to say this first. "I was messing with you... I didn\'t say it."

Rui Fei, "....."

How on earth did his mother tolerate such a jerk for a twin brother? Rui Fei showed a fake smile that spoke volumes before turning around to face Ji Yao. "Can you excuse us..... for just a minute." Let\'s just say this uncle would never ever play such a prank on a teen stuck in the lonely bubble of unrequited love. The entire ship shook one more time and it was because of a different kind of monster, Rui Fei.

***

In the middle of vast mountainous dry land with a breeze so hot it could scorch a person\'s lungs, there were rubbles of buildings eroded due to lack of care and the harsh environment. From the ruins alone one could tell this was once a great city hosting thousands upon thousands of people.

The now graveyard port was so huge indicating the gigantic volumes of people who came to this place before the heavens turned their backs on it. The scavengers from earlier were nowhere to be seen. The ghost city was dead with no signs of life. They must have been hiding from this searing heat.

The concord members and part of the crew stood on what should have been the city official\'s mansion. Various thoughts were running through their minds as they scanned this ghost city.

Zhang Li crouched down observing this tattered black shoe that looked like it slipped off a person\'s foot as they ran. "It seems they left in a hurry," he said as he got up from the ground.

"Not all of them got out," replied Big Hei fixing the clothing covering his mouth and nose. It didn\'t help with the heat but it helped with the dust.

Just as he said that a dull sound of something falling in one of the half-ruined buildings attracted their attention. Everyone had a hand on their weapon apart from Ji Yao who wasn\'t shaken as he had fended off a lizard mutant a few hours ago, Huishe Yue who is pretty much an ancient trueblood and Rui Fei who was busy staring at Ji Yao mesmerised by the veil fluttering with the wind.

He was giddy with his thoughts running rampant. He was imagining himself going underneath that veil and stealing a kiss. How beautiful that scene would be.

He was so immersed in his lovely daydream that he didn\'t notice Ji Yao looking at him with a complicated gaze. His face might be covered in that gorgeous veil but his gaze was especially piercing that even Rui Li and Rui Yewan could feel a layer of goosebumps spread all over their bodies.

Rui Yewan elbowed him bringing him back to earth. Rui Fei who was caught in the act leering wasn\'t embarrassed at all that is until he saw that Ji Yao had been looking at him. His entire face went red not from the sun but embarrassment. Being caught ogling red handed wasn\'t a good thing at all.

Lucky for him Ji Yao looked away. Ji Yao absentmindedly felt around his pouch for the jade tile Rui Fei gave him. For that part of the evening, he was partially sober though everything after that was a blur. He still wanted to know what he did to Rui Fei in his drunken stupor but he hadn\'t had the chance to speak to him.

The noise brought him back to the present but his mind was lingering on that jade tile. While three others went to check it out he walked over to Lady Ching Sei who wasn\'t in a great mood today. That\'s because her ship suffered the most loss.

That lizard creature was busy playing ping pong with their ships and hers got the worst of it. This is why she couldn\'t get off the ship and help Ji Yao otherwise she wouldn\'t have a ship to go back to. As for Zhang Li and Lan Wu? Aquaphobic is the right word. They would be useless underwater unless they acted as bait.

Ji Yao didn\'t mind her terrible mood and asked, "What does flipping tiles mean?"

Lady Ching Sei, "..."

Ji Yao was like a kid asking what is tinder or grindr. The only difference being that the emperor has all the women hence one man versus several wives. She was caught between a rock and a hard place. It must have been that kid Rui Fei who planted such a seed in Ji Yao.

"Ahem..... it\'s a game..... a game older adults play," she said trying to pull a fast one Ji Yao but that stare had her reconsidering. "Okay fine, it\'s like an emperor having so many wives but he needs to give each one of them a fair shot so he randomly flips tiles. Does that answer your question?"

Yes, yes it did and it answered a whole bunch of questions. It answered everything and boy was his heart in a mess. If it weren\'t for the huge centipede bursting out of the sand and coming for them he would have taken Rui Fei on the side and had a long chat with him.

It was twice the size of the tallest building on earth with body segments of bright red colour and two green spots. It stood tall on its back legs as it bellowed shaking whatever was left of this entire city.

Its multiple sharp mandibles opened up with green spit and slobber spraying everywhere like an aerosol can as it roared. One good thing out of this situation was that Old Du was excited to add that centipede to his collection.. For him, Christmas came early.