Chapter Twelve Changes

  "Hong brothers, you've fooled me so badly! After all the fuss, it turns out we're on the same boat, haha!" Xie Lao San's face changed faster than flipping a book, and after being stunned for a moment, he immediately welcomed me with a smile.

  I was also surprised. The Jin Hua Lun's guard on the warehouse is extremely strict, and it's almost impossible for a few old eunuchs to force their way in. To succeed, they must find an insider.

  And this traitor is none other than Xie Lao San.

  "Thanks, Third Brother, how did you also... end up doing this business?" I asked.

  Xie Lao San didn't understand my situation, and carelessly replied: "Hey, people die for money, you're almost 50 years old, just grab this great opportunity to get some retirement gold. Dig deep into your heart

  "Who wants to be a laborer for someone else their whole life?"

  When people are poor, they think of ways to change their situation, I don't know what else to say.

  The old corpse interrupted and asked in a low voice: "Save the nonsense for later. Xie Lao San, what did you just say about hijacking the ship?"

  "Ah, yes, yes, let's talk about the big thing. I'm afraid you won't believe me when I say it out loud, but I've discovered that a large group of Green Gang members have infiltrated the Jin Hua ship! They're pretending to be refugees, deceiving our sailors, but in reality, they've been planning this for a long time, eyeing the huge sum of gold and silver on board, wanting to plunder it and escape to Southeast Asia to become bandits!" Xie Lao San was so scared that his throat trembled: "I overheard them saying they're going to make their move tonight, killing all the sailors and violently hijacking the ship!"

  The three of us were shocked and amazed.

  It turned out that Xie Lao San was following the original plan, and at 12 o'clock tonight, he would be at the warehouse to distract the guards for Shi Lao's operation. Since this was a life-or-death task, Xie Lao San was struggling with his thoughts, drinking a lot of water, pacing back and forth in the corridor, and going to the toilet whenever he had nothing to do. Just as he was walking with his head down, he suddenly saw someone who shouldn't be on the ship at all.

  Hurry up!

  At a glance, Xie Lao San immediately recognized the man. It was definitely Xu Lai, the Green Gang rascal who had almost starved him to death and driven him off his own ship. The two had an irreconcilable feud, and Xie Lao San vowed that he would recognize Xu Lai's face even if it were burned to ashes.

  Xu Lai was also preoccupied, and hadn't even noticed Xie Laosan walking past. The latter thought to himself, "This good-for-nothing actually dares to sneak onto the boat, I must skin him alive." However, the infuriated Xie Laosan didn't take action immediately, instead quietly following behind Xu Lai to see which sailor had the audacity to let on board the person he had specifically forbidden from boarding.

  As a result of the investigation, Xie Lao San discovered that Xu Lai had run into several ordinary cabins one after another, and people were coming in and out of the room, behaving extremely suspiciously. When Xie Lao San recognized those passengers, he was shocked. Several of them were former Shanghai Green Gang leaders with a good reputation. One of them was even Nie Kun, also known as "Flash Gun King", who used to be Huang Jin Rong's first gunman.

  Xie Lao San immediately understood the severity of the situation and carefully eavesdropped on their conversation. Piecing together snippets of words, until ten minutes ago in the public restroom where he gathered the last piece of information, he deduced the astonishing news that this group of gangsters planned to hijack the ship.

  Xie Lao San hastily told the whole story with sweat beading on his forehead, and Shi Lao and Gui Ye Jia's faces suddenly turned extremely ugly.

  "Has this matter been told to anyone else?" Kiyotsugu asked in a low voice.

  Xie Lao San shook his head and said: "I heard it secretly and came to tell you immediately, not even Cai Lingyu's wife was notified."

  The old corpse thought for a moment and suddenly asked: "When exactly will they take action?"

  "I'm not sure, but it looks like it'll be at most another hour." Old Third Xie thought for a moment, but wasn't very certain.

  They fell silent for a moment. At the normal speed of the Golden Flower, they would arrive in Keelung by tomorrow night at the earliest. If they wanted to take action, it had to be tonight. Apparently, Xu Lai and his men were thinking along the same lines as us.

  "Perhaps this isn't a bad thing for our actions." The old man pushed his black-rimmed glasses up and stroked his white beard, deep in thought as he licked his lips.

  I don't know what kind of tricks this dead eunuch is playing.

  Next, the old corpse and we figured out a countermeasure.

  "Wait a minute, bring the tools." Oniyasha said, one hand reached to the bottom of the large black coffin and pulled out a small lock chain.

  Creak... creak... A loud noise, followed by a dull thud. The bottom board of the large black coffin fell off, revealing a large black package.

  Oniwasha unfolded the package and took out a bulletproof vest for me: "It was originally for Juzo, now it's cheap for you."

  I took the thing without hesitation, catching a glimpse of Old Third Xie's jealous gaze out of the corner of my eye, and quickly stuffed the bulletproof vest tightly. Good guy, under the bulletproof vest was also tied to a pair of protective shorts.

  "The pistol is returned to you." Oniyasha returned the revolver he had confiscated from me, and as soon as I took it back, my heart felt at ease.

  "Corpse old man, your corpse binding rope..." Guī Yè Jiāo handed the old eunuch a bundle of oily, tattered ropes with black iron hooks on both ends. It was said that this rope was used by the corpse carriers from Xiangxi to carry corpses, and the oil on it was the accumulated corpse oil over the years. The corpse old man wrapped the rope around his waist belt. "Black donkey hoof" A donkey hoof as big as a human head, dry and winded, looked like it had been there for some time. "Saltpeter... gunpowder, ah, I'll take these." Guī Yè Jiāo rummaged through the goods.

  My eyelids are jumping, pipe bombs, hand grenades, box guns... What the! Who is the pirate after all.

  These tomb raiders have made thorough preparations.

  Half an hour later, everything was in order.

  The bulletproof vest is standard issue, and at 1.8 meters tall, it's a bit tight on me, but if I wear a thin outer jacket over it, you can barely tell, except for the crotch protector which is a bit embarrassing to bulge out.

  "Thanks, Old Three," asked Corpse Old, "do the sailors have any weapons?"

  "There are thirty guns provided by the British, hidden in the British room, just to prevent unexpected accidents." said Old Third Xie.

  "Alright, no time for hesitation, let's act immediately. Remember, opportunities only come once." The old man said seriously.

  We all nodded in unison.

  "Hmph, I'm not on the same wavelength as you guys. I'll find a chance to slip away later."

  ……

  It's just the time for dinner at the restaurant, I and Gui Ye Jie, Shi Lao San separated from Xie Lao San, brought the spare key given by Xie Lao San, and secretly hid in an ordinary room. Fortunately, there was no one in the room.

  It's very crowded here, with eight beds stacked up and down, and two layers of bedding laid out in the middle aisle, leaving almost no room to put your feet. "Looks like the Jinhua Ferry is trying to make a profit by over-issuing tickets," I muttered to myself.

  The room was located at the very end of the ordinary cabin, at the farthest end of the corridor. Originally, this place was part of the cargo hold, but it had long since been converted into a passenger room. The end of the corridor was separated by an iron gate with a large iron chain lock on top.

  Through the iron gate's bars, another large iron gate spanning the ship's body can be seen. The iron gate is seamless and cast in rough iron, making it impossible to see what's inside. But we all know that behind the iron gate are the mouth-watering gold and silver coins.

  Six sailors and four foreigners, armed to the teeth, were guarding. Especially the four foreigners, with sharp eyes and straight bodies, looked like they weren't good people at first glance. After carefully investigating the outside situation, we immediately retreated back into the room.

  "It seems that yesterday's action has been detected by the British, and they have specially dispatched four British soldiers to surround us." The old corpse said in a low voice.

  "If it had gone according to plan, Old Third would have been able to lure away those four British soldiers with just a small trick." Gu Ye said with a sigh, "Alas, unfortunately yesterday's preparations were not thorough, and we didn't expect that inside there was human wax and a large pile of traps, which caught us off guard. Not only did our plan fall through, but we also lost three combatants."

  "It's precisely because it's so treacherous inside that the British are confident in sending only a few people to guard it." The old corpse's face was somewhat solemn, and with a deep breath, he turned his head towards me and said in a low voice: "Whether we'll succeed or not depends on whether your Hundred Poisons Invulnerability can withstand the poisonous smoke of the human wax."

  "Actually... you can bring a gas mask." I replied weakly.

  "You think the antidote is useful?" The old man disdainfully took out a small red pill, about the size of mouse dung, and explained: "This is called the Antidote Pill, holding it in your mouth can temporarily prevent toxins from entering, a treasure that's hard to come by. But if you hold it in your mouth for too long, it itself becomes highly toxic and deadly. This is the last bit of Antidote left, barely enough to sustain one minute. So later on, the last poisonous treasure room, only you can enter."

  I listened to the old corpse's words, feeling a bit uneasy. The ghost oni noticed my concern and encouraged me: "Dongzi, don't worry, if you die, we'll collect your body for you."

  "Get out!" I blurted out in anger.

  "Shh......" The old corpse's ears perked up, and he hastily made a silencing gesture to us.

  I hastily closed my mouth and pressed my ear against the back of the door.

  It wasn't until half a minute later that I heard the noise, and I couldn't help but admire Lao's hearing. It was a string of deliberately muffled footsteps, sounding like there were quite a few people.

  I held my breath and remained still, my hand gripping the pistol had already begun to sweat.

  Soon, a few whispers, the sound of iron chains sliding, they are opening the iron gate.