Casting Nets to Catch a Husband

Chapter 104: Confrontation

Babao had already called out to Liu Yanping and the others. Lu Chengxiao and Liu Yanan were also quick to act, turning back to the cabin to fetch bows, arrows, and knives, wrapping them in cloth. There were two bows: one belonged to Lu Chengxiao himself, and the other was a gift from Yang Cunxu when they departed from Yuanzhou. As for the knife, it was borrowed from the escort bureau by Lin Huaigeng.

They didn’t go looking for trouble, but they weren’t afraid of it either. Fear wouldn’t be of any use. All six of them stood at the edge of the boat, gripping their weapons tightly, watching intently in the direction of the sound.

The boatmen were also called out. Although they were accustomed to traveling on the river, encountering bandits was always a reason for fear. Grabbing clubs, they came out sweating, but when they saw that each of the six passengers on their boat had a weapon in hand, they were stunned for a moment. However, their courage was bolstered, and they felt a bit steadier.

Soon, the sound in the water grew louder. By the dim moonlight, several people could be seen struggling to swim towards them in the river. In the distance, two small boats were hastily rowing towards them, each carrying four masked men armed with knives.

Upon seeing a merchant ship stopped here, the pirates on the water hesitated. Seeing the glint of knives reflected by the moonlight in the hands of Lu Chengxiao and the others, they became even more cautious. They signaled their rowing companions to stop.

The two men struggling in the water shouted, “Help! Help!”

While on the other side, the pirates on one boat remained stationary while the other two rowed hastily back. Lu Chengxiao and the others could tell from this situation that these pirates were not just limited to these two small boats; there were probably more accomplices nearby.

The leader of the boat quickly spoke, “We’re just passing through. We’ll turn around and leave.”

The two men in the water panicked, one of them urgently said, “Please, don’t leave us. Brother, saving a life is more meritorious than building a seven-story pagoda. There are only about a dozen of them. If you save me, I promise to repay you generously in the future!”

At this moment, nobody cared about promises of repayment. The boatmen wished they could turn the boat around and leave immediately.

The observing pirates also quickly calculated. The man in the water was right; there were indeed only about a dozen of them, and there were about ten people on the merchant ship. They weren’t afraid of the boatmen, but those few young men holding knives and arrows made them extremely wary.

Upon hearing the boatmen’s clear stance of not interfering, the pirates dared not pursue them immediately. They stared at the few people holding knives and arrows, testing the waters. They threatened, “This is a personal matter. If you don’t interfere, you can leave now. But if you do…”

The unfinished threat was more chilling than a direct one.

Lin Huaigeng and the others looked at Lu Chengxiao and Liu Yanping, but neither of them spoke. The two men who had swum to their boat urgently said, “It’s not a personal matter. They’re murderers and thieves. Brother, save me!”

With the three sides at a standstill, two more boats arrived. They were the companions who had gone back to report, and indeed, there were about a dozen of them if these were all their reinforcements.

The leader among them seemed to have heard the conversation and stared at Lu Chengxiao and the others, smiling as he asked the boat’s leader, “What cargo is on this ship?”

His tone was nothing like that of his subordinates earlier. He didn’t seem to be wary of the weapons in Lu Chengxiao and the others’ hands at all.

Lu Chengxiao snorted disdainfully, directly pointing his fully drawn bow at the leader, smiling as he replied, “Interested? You can come up and take a look.”

“You’re quite bold for your age,” the leader said with a sudden change in demeanor, his killing intent evident. With a swift motion, he threw a flying knife.

Almost in the instant the knife flew out, Lu Chengxiao’s arrow shot out as well. With a clang, the flying knife was knocked down, and the force of the knife caused the arrow to veer off course, both falling into the river. Lu Chengxiao quickly prepared another arrow.

For a moment, the scene was silent, and the masked leader’s expression changed.

Originally, he had come closer to see a group of eighteen or nineteen-year-old boys, thinking they were just a bunch of hotshots. He wanted to test their abilities. If they didn’t have any skills, he would take the cargo from the two boats tonight. But now it seemed like they were indeed quite capable.

“You’ve got some skills, but do you understand that two fists are no match for four hands? You can fight, but can everyone on your boat fight? Today, I’m having a great haul, so I won’t bother with you. I’ll give you the time it takes to drink a cup of tea to leave quickly, and we won’t cross paths.”

Liu Yanan chuckled lightly. Just now, seeing Lu Chengxiao’s arrow, he felt a bit itchy for action himself. He thought they should fight if they had to. However, he understood that although Lu Chengxiao was about the same age as himself, he was much better at handling situations. On this journey away from home, he still had to listen to his elder brother and Lu Chengxiao. Therefore, he remained silent and observed the actions of Liu Yanping and Lu Chengxiao.

But his light laughter caught the attention of the pirate leader. He couldn’t help but tense up. Could it be that these people were all skilled fighters?

He felt a bit more apprehensive.

The man in the water, upon seeing Lu Chengxiao’s skill, felt a glimmer of hope for survival. He was afraid that Lu Chengxiao and his companions would indeed turn around and leave them behind. He hurriedly called out for help, “Brother, if you leave, my servant and I won’t survive for long. Save us, and it will be a good deed for you.”

Only now did Lu Chengxiao glance at him, just once, before quickly shifting his gaze back to the pirate leader. He said, “Take his cargo, spare his life. You’re all masked; there’s no need to be ruthless, right?”

The leader narrowed his eyes. “Do you want to meddle in our affairs?”

Lu Chengxiao smiled. “It’s not meddling; I’m just advising you to spare lives when you can. It won’t hinder your prosperity. Isn’t it unnecessary to create unnecessary bloodshed? You’re bandits now, but do you want your descendants to be bandits too? Isn’t it better to leave some good karma for future generations?”

This made the pirates hesitate. While they were accustomed to bloodshed, they still cared about certain things.

The man in the water was also quick-witted and hurriedly said, “Yes, yes, let me go, and I’ll give you all the tea as compensation. It’s worth two or three thousand taels. You can sell it in the black market for at least one thousand taels. Consider it the price for my life. Please spare us.”

This statement caused the group of pirates to fall silent for a moment. The man quickly added, “That tea is of the finest quality. If you take the ship far away and sell it in the black market, you can easily get back more than one thousand taels. Consider it the ransom for our lives.”

Upon hearing that the tea could fetch over one thousand taels in the black market, several pirates’ hearts skipped a beat.

With their strength, they wouldn’t dare to rob a large merchant ship. They usually targeted medium-sized merchant ships, and they had followed this man because they saw him being generous and his ship being of medium size, with not many crew members. That’s why they had followed him.

Realizing that their presence was clearly unwanted despite the boat’s crew explicitly stating they wouldn’t interfere, and that the arrows were consistently pointed at them, they realized there was no point in continuing the confrontation. It was logical to leave under the cover of night. Therefore, the leader said, “Alright, take these two with you. We’ll part ways. But if you follow us, don’t blame us for being impolite.”

This was their way of letting the two servants go.

After saying this, he looked at Lu Chengxiao, who nodded in agreement. “Okay.”

Turning to the boatmen, they threw down a rope and pulled the two men out of the water. Once they were on Lu Chengxiao’s boat, the group of pirates had already rowed far away.

The two servants, drenched like drowned rats, looked rather young. The one dressed in luxurious clothes seemed to be around twenty-five or twenty-six years old, while the servant was about the same age. Both of them had knife wounds on their bodies, invisible underwater but visible once they surfaced.

With this, Lu Chengxiao’s last bit of worry faded away. Originally, he had been concerned that the two men seeking help might be a ploy by the pirates. However, their injuries seemed genuine, and it was quite ruthless of them to use such a tactic.

The boatmen had already turned the boat around, and the young man who had been rescued nodded to Lu Chengxiao’s group and said, “Cao Jinnian of Jinan Prefecture would like to thank several benefactors for saving their lives.”

The young servant beside him also bowed.

Lu Chengxiao and Liu Yanping didn’t dare to accept such gestures and quickly helped them up. “There’s no need for that. It just happened that we were here. Besides, those weren’t our pirates, and we really didn’t dare to interfere with such matters.”

Liu Yanan went back to the cabin to fetch some medicine for the injuries, while Liu Yanping asked Cao Jinnian, “What exactly happened? How many casualties were there on your ship?”

It was their first time going out for business, and encountering such a situation was indeed somewhat distressing.

Babao had already gone in and taken out two pieces of cloth, handing them to Cao Jinnian’s servants to wipe the water off their faces.

Cao Jinnian took the towel but couldn’t bring himself to wipe his face. Instead, he burst into tears. This tall and sturdy young man in his mid-twenties covered his eyes and sobbed, tears mixing with the water dripping from his fingertips.

It turned out that this trip was Cao Jinnian’s first time venturing out for business. He was transporting tea from Fujian back to Jinan, hoping to buy some silk on the way back. However, before he could purchase the silk, he was intercepted by a group of river pirates.

“On the ship were my family’s steward, as well as several other servants and employees I hired from Fujian. Now they’re all gone, and so is the ship.”

It was the backbone of many families that had been broken on that ship.

Everyone on the ship fell silent. The profits from trading were significant, but so were the risks. People like Cao Jinnian, if they hadn’t encountered Lu Chengxiao’s boat, would have become ghosts at the bottom of the river.

The excitement of the past few days, when they had earned a considerable sum of money, had now turned into a heavy heart for everyone. Liu Yanping asked Cao Jinnian, “What are your plans, Brother Cao?”

Facing such a major change, Cao Jinnian was momentarily at a loss, then said, “Those people should have left overnight. Gentlemen, please drop me off at the dock ahead. I’ll have to find someone to help salvage the other people on the ship. They suffered this disaster because of me, so I must send them back home and find a way to settle their families.”

As he spoke, tears continued to stream down his face, and the servant behind him began to sob aloud.

Liu Yanan came out with a bundle of things and opened it. Inside were medicine and clean strips of cloth. “Let’s treat the wounds first.”

Cao Jinnian wiped his tears, thanked Liu Yanan, and didn’t mind undressing in front of the men in the cabin. He applied medicine to the wounds on his back, with the servant assisting him.

After both of them had their wounds bandaged, Cao Jinnian took out a money pouch from his pocket and pulled out a bundle of banknotes wrapped in oil paper. Inside were several one hundred-ounce banknotes. Cao Jinnian took five for himself and pushed the rest onto the table. “Most of this money is for settling the families of the crew members. The remaining eight hundred ounces will be considered my token of gratitude. I won’t count saving lives as something that can be repaid with money. This is just a gesture of goodwill. Please leave your names and hometowns, and I will repay you in the future.”

Eight hundred ounces was a fortune that small households dared not even dream of, but none of the six men in the cabin showed any interest. Lu Chengxiao shook his head and pushed the oiled cloth containing the banknotes back, saying, “Brother Cao, keep this money and use it to buy some more tea leaves or silk to take back. Losing several thousand taels’ worth of goods in a robbery must have been a great loss for you. We only helped incidentally and don’t expect any repayment.”

Cao Jinnian repeatedly thanked them, but Lu Chengxiao and the others remained unmoved. Cao Jinnian could only take back the banknotes and ask Lu Chengxiao and the others again, “Can you at least tell me your names and hometowns? Since you’ve helped me so much, I’d like to know who you are. Otherwise, I won’t even know who to be grateful to in the future, and how could I feel at ease?”

Cao Jinnian seemed like a decent person, but Lu Chengxiao and Liu Yanping didn’t want to disclose too much about themselves while away from home. They didn’t expect any detailed repayment. They just gave their names without mentioning their hometowns.

Cao Jinnian understood and made a mental note of Lu and Liu’s names, then elaborated on his family background, saying, “My family operates several tea businesses in Jinan Prefecture. If you ever want to do business in tea, just come to me in Jinan Prefecture. Even if you’re not in this line of work, if you need any help, I will do my best.”

Lu Chengxiao and the others smiled. Soon, they were back at the dock. Cao Jinnian’s servants thanked Lu Chengxiao’s group again before going ashore. Before parting ways, Liu Yanping reminded Cao Jinnian, “When traveling, it’s best not to flaunt your wealth. Brother Cao, you might want to change into some plainer clothes.”

Only then did Cao Jinnian realize that he was adorned with rings and jade ornaments, all of them valuable items. He felt embarrassed and realized that he wasn’t as cautious as these young men. Perhaps it was his flashy attire that attracted the thieves.

Thinking of the many lives lost for no reason and the sudden loss, he felt a pang of sadness. He thanked Liu Yanping and bid farewell before leaving.

Lu Chengxiao and the others didn’t want to stay long either. They discussed with the boatman and changed their route, taking a different waterway to continue their return journey. Along the way, they became increasingly cautious and vigilant, not daring to relax in the slightest.

After ten days of travel, they finally arrived smoothly at the boundary of Hongdu Prefecture.

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