Chapter Twenty-One: Cargo Ship

  Jinhua ship extinguished all the lights, navigating in the dark sea. The only light source was left with the dark night color, the surroundings were very dark, and the visibility was low to the extreme point, but Jinhua ship did not slow down at all. Turning off the lights and sailing blindly can effectively avoid air raids during wartime, of course, there is also the concern of avoiding detection by other ships. In the absence of radar equipment on ships, this approach is extremely dangerous, and it is easy to collide with other cargo ships. Taiping ship sank after colliding with Jianye ship while navigating with most lights closed. Fortunately, Jinhua ship had already sailed out of the coastal area, where there were fewer ships, and the probability of collision with other ships was not high.

  Another hour passed and we prisoners in the cage on deck were both astonished and terrified.

  "Where are we headed? Judging by the direction of navigation, it's possible that we're on our way to Hainan or Southeast Asia." I muttered to myself, my body trembling with cold, and I let out several loud sneezes. I huddled in the corner, tightly wrapping my arms around me, using the oilcloth outside to block the chill, the sea breeze had been getting stronger since an hour ago, blowing on me like a knife, extremely cold, the thin single-layer clothing on me was completely useless.

  Others were also chilled to the bone, stomping their feet continuously in the cage to keep warm. Sherlock gazed out at the dark clouds, his nose twitching as he sensed the salty air blowing in from the sea, and furrowed his brow: "This is the prelude to a violent storm."

  His words made our hearts even heavier.

  "Damn it, troubles never come alone! I've had enough!" Xu Lai's hysterical yell suddenly rose as he jumped up and wildly shook the iron cage towards the two sailors outside, shouting: "Hey, are you calling for us? You two little red rascals, come on, give your grandpa a good show, I don't want to live anymore!"

  "What are you yelling about? Yell again and I'll blow your head off!" A sailor ran over, spat a wad of phlegm at Xu Lai's face, pulled out his pistol and pointed it at Xu Lai's head, shouting disdainfully.

  Xu Lai suddenly came to power, his face twisted, his fingers making a gun shape pointing at his own temple, his eyes rolling back, and he provocatively said: "Come on, just shoot here, one shot one hit! I used to shoot people in the head, come on if you dare!"

  "Damn it!" The sailor was furious, the muzzle of his pistol pressed tightly against Xu's forehead, and he seemed about to pull the trigger. Just then, a man beside him said in a low voice, "Don't get excited, Captain hasn't given orders to kill them."

  The sailor hesitated for a second, snorted: "Consider yourself lucky!", and used the gun butt to heavily poke Xu Lai's forehead. The latter was in pain and shouted: "Ah Na, you damn eunuch!" Suddenly, Xu Lai grabbed the sailor's collar and was about to bite his neck, which made the sailor panic. The two men struggled together, separated by the cage. At this time, Nie Kun and another sailor used a lot of effort to pull them apart. When they were separated, they still didn't forget to viciously kick each other.

  "If I hadn't dislocated my hand, I would have crushed your egg long ago!" Xu Lai refused to admit defeat. The sailor continued to scold Xu Lai as a rascal and a beast, and was dragged away by another sailor while still cursing.

  Xu Lai stopped being self-deprecating, panting heavily and sat down with Nie Kun in a place close to us.

  A few of us gathered together.

  I took a surreptitious glance at the two sailors, and once I was certain they hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, I couldn't help but ask eagerly: "The key, did you get it?"

  Xu Lai and Nie Kun shook their heads, unfortunately sighing: "I touched it, hanging on the sailor's waistband, tied with a long rope, can't take it down at once, unless there is a knife."

  "Ah..." We all let out a sigh.

  "Try again next time." I still don't want to give up.

  "Let's try again later, don't be too obvious." Sherlock suggested. We counted together and prepared to have Xu Lai bring them over in half an hour, this time with more people involved in the trouble, the more chaotic the better. Now we few people are like ants on a rope, quickly becoming a unified front.

  After calming down, I asked Sherlock, who was lying beside me, the question that had been on my mind: "Great detective, I've always wondered, as a military officer at the British Embassy in China, you smuggled national treasures out of China. I believe it's nothing to you, after all, your country is known for its thievery, and you didn't even spare the Summer Palace. But those things you saw, coffins, bronze artifacts, mud Buddhas... which one of them is a genuine antique? What do you want with these evil objects?"

  "Haha, little brother, you don't know, these old ghosts are really something. They say they have a unique taste, but actually, they're just being cheap! Nie Kun heard my words and started laughing, making fun of me. After two hours of contact, he didn't have the same dislike for me as he did at first. Laughing, he said: 'Once, some French people brought some replica art to Shanghai to exhibit, that Venus or something, not only was it naked, but it also had no arms! What's so good about it? It even made Lu Xiaoman and Zhou Xuan and those famous ladies' eyes light up. Haha, if Jingdezhen produced a ceramic with a hole in it, wouldn't they be smashed to pieces?"

  Nie Kun gave foreigners a definition of their taste, fond of incomplete and strange aesthetic quirks, antiques are the same.

  "No, no, no! Not at all~not at all~" Sherlock shook his head repeatedly: "You're talking about the French, we British want everything, huh, not that we want everything. It's a cultural difference, not, also not. The purpose of buying these antiques isn't for that..." Sherlock felt that no matter how he explained it wouldn't be clear, so he simply ignored Nie Kong's teasing and turned to me with an apologetic smile, explaining: "Actually, I stopped working for the British government a long time ago. Now I belong to an East Asian investment company, which was established ten years ago. It specializes in investments in various fields in the East Asian region. Finance, railways, shipping... we're involved in all of these. Of course, sometimes we also do some small-scale arms deals and build relationships with warlords."

  I rolled my eyes: "Still no mention of colluding with others to sell national treasures and antiques."

  "Haha, our company aside from the main business, our boss is a weirdo, he relies on his business connections in your China to secretly find a batch of specified antique goods for us, and transport them to Britain. And this time, the things on the Jin Hua ship are what the boss specifically wanted, originally planned to fly to Taiwan and then send them to Britain in batches by plane. As for the purpose, hehe, I'm just an employee, I don't have the ability to know." Sherlock explained.

  "East Asia Investment Company, boss?" I narrowed my eyes. Sherlock looked genuinely sincere, not like he was lying. I asked again: "How do you explain Tian Wenliang's case then?"

  Just as Sherlock was about to speak, I immediately interrupted him and said irritably: "Don't expect to fool me with detective game research or criminal psychology nonsense!"

  "Alright, I'll be honest, if that's what this is. Tian Wenliang, I've actually known him for a while. He was an important connection we had planted in the Nationalist government, and he often helped us by providing secret intelligence on the KMT. His sudden death, especially at such a critical time when we were secretly transporting goods off the mainland, immediately caught our attention. The boss ordered us to investigate his cause of death as soon as possible, which is why I have this autopsy report."

  After listening to Sherlock's words, I fell into deep thought. Tian Wenliang secretly selling intelligence to the British was not surprising to me. Looking at the luxury cars he usually drove, the women he played with, and his frequent visits to nightclubs, it was clear that his salary from the Intelligence Bureau (which was already a lot for me) was not enough to support his extravagant lifestyle. He didn't have the surname Song, Jiang, or Kong, so it was hard to believe he didn't have any outside income. What surprised me was that the order to escort the Golden China ship was brought by Tian Wenliang, and he was also a person from this mysterious East Asia Investment Company, which had cargo on the Golden China ship. The connection between the two was too obvious. To say it was a coincidence would be hard to believe.

  "No matter what, my previous inference was correct. Everything that happened on the Golden Flower Wheel had signs of being manipulated in secret." I thought to myself.

  It's clear that this mysterious person is likely to be a force, or several forces. To unravel the mystery, we need to investigate each of these forces one by one and uncover their goals. The Eastern Asia Investment Company represented by Sherlock is one force, the Qingbang disciples must have another behind them, the ghostly thieves are another, and Cai Lingyu also has one. Even I do! Although I'm not sure if the force I represent is actually the Secret Bureau itself.

  As I thought of this, my mind suddenly cleared up. With the intention of probing, I asked Xu Lai, who looked more straightforward, with a smile and moving his frozen butt to pretend to greet him, trying to get some useful information out of his mouth.

  They chatted about some insignificant topics, and as a seasoned policeman, he naturally knew the hobbies of thugs: gambling, women, opium, and fighting. Just as I was waiting for an opportunity to casually ask them about the mastermind behind this hijacking, a dazzlingly bright light suddenly appeared in the east.

  We suddenly became alert, a white light flashed across the sky, probably less than a nautical mile away from us, sweeping our ship's hull three times. Then, flashing on and off, it sent out signals.

  "That's great! A passing cargo ship has spotted us!" The five members of the Green Gang were overjoyed, and if they hadn't known that the other party was too far away, they would have shouted for help long ago.

  I calmed down and observed the situation, Cai Lingyu was not a thrifty lamp.

  As expected, the Jinhua wheel also lit up its signal light, blinking and sending out signals.

  "Girl, it's better if these cheap people tell the other party that nothing is going on here and let them not interfere." Nie Kun's face turned from joy to gloom.

  But after one round of signal exchange, the ship sailed straight towards us.

  As we drew closer, we saw that the other ship was a cargo vessel much smaller than ours. What was strange was that all their lights except for the signal lamp were turned off.

  "No, this ship is not here to investigate. They are in cahoots!" I exclaimed, only to see Nie Kun and the others turn pale, Sherlock also noticed something was off and spoke up: "No wonder the Golden Flower deviated from its original route, avoiding Taiwan's surveillance range, Cai Lingyu and his men had already secretly arranged for a backup ship to transfer the goods midway!"

  The freighter's speaking time had arrived at the direction of Jinhua wheel and parallel, two ships silently slowed down, approaching each other. This move immediately confirmed our speculation, only premeditation would lead to no shouting from sailors on both ships until now.

  My heart suddenly became extremely heavy. Cai Lingyu and the others were going to escape, while we, who knew the whole story, couldn't stay behind no matter what.

  Before long, Old Third led seven or eight sailors onto the deck and began quickly opening the hatch covers.

  "Thanks, Old Three! I curse your ancestors for eighteen generations!"

  "Thanks Old Three, you lick Grandpa's face, it serves you right, hahaha..."

  ……

  Several Green Gang members loudly insulted and jeered.

  Xie Lao San directed the sailors to work, without saying a word. The Green Gang disciples came more and more fiercely, fully demonstrating their professional hooliganism, scolding and cursing as they pleased.

  Xie Lao San chuckled and said, "You're really annoying." With a wave of his hand, he didn't even look at them, and with a swift motion, he shot one of the Green Gang disciples in the head. The disciple fell to the ground, his mouth still open, uttering a final "ah" before dying.

  In an instant, we fell silent.