"Sigh, isn't it just that I don't want to watch anyone else throw their life away?"
*Else?* The leader sitting at the bow raised an eyebrow at the voice coming from behind them.
Waters prone to trouble were indeed an ideal habitat for spider demons.
Further ahead, there were no more boats. Even the wind grew heavy, and the sea was empty save for birds passing overhead.
Sensing something, the leader suddenly tightened his grip on his saber. "Something's coming!"
Two breaths later, the hull jolted violently, as if slamming into a submerged reef.
A subordinate reached out with an oar to probe, but struck no rock. Instead, a massive force surged through the wood, threatening to drag him into the sea!
Seeing him lurch forward on the verge of falling overboard, the leader reacted swiftly, thrusting out a palm to seize him by the shoulder and haul him back.
The small boat rocked violently.
"Let go!" Sitting in the skiff, they had no leverage, and the monster beneath the water possessed monstrous strength. If they held on any longer, the boat would capsize.
The subordinate let go, and the oar was snatched away.
Fortunately, there were two spare oars in the boat.
As the rocking subsided, two dark forms finally surfaced thirty feet away.
They looked like serpents with bodies as thick as water barrels, yet eerily possessed four arms apiece.
They emerged simultaneously on either side of the boat, their dead-fish stares sending chills down the spine. In the hands of one yin hui was the very oar it had just seized.
"So these are yin hui?" Their appearance matched the boatman's description, but in person they exuded a far heavier sense of dread. "They look like a pack-dwelling species too."
The two yin hui did not advance to attack, merely glaring at the three men aboard the skiff.
"This is a warning. Go any further, and they won't be so polite," the leader remarked, stroking his chin. "These creatures are oddly well-mannered."
The subordinate asked for instructions: "Master Yu, do we press forward or turn back?"
This was merely their first scouting run; there was no need to pick a fight with these monsters in the middle of the open sea.
"Turn back." Master Yu waved a hand toward the yin hui holding the oar. "Return the oar to me, and we'll leave right now."
He repeated it several times, but the creature simply cocked its head and stared, offering no response.
Master Yu muttered, "Limited intelligence."
The subordinate took up a wooden oar and rowed cautiously. Because he rowed in reverse, the yin hui did not attack, though they remained watching like tigers eyeing their prey.
Master Yu handed the compass to the white bird on his shoulder. "Go on. Meet up at Blade Harbor."
The white bird spread its wings, spiraled into the sky twice, and then veered toward the islands to the south.
The yin hui only glanced up at it initially, flicked their tongues, and paid it no further mind.
They only cared about what swam in the water; the sky was not their domain.
Without looking back, Master Yu led his two subordinates along their return route, the two yin hui shadowing them from behind.
Only when they left the waters of Longji Island and returned to the main shipping channel did the yin hui dive beneath the surface and vanish.
*Farewell, and don't come back.*
Master Yu pondered. "Earlier, the boatman said only designated people can set foot on Longji Island?"
"Yes."
"Yet these monsters possess little wit. How does he control them?"
"Pack-dwelling monsters usually answer to a far more powerful leader."
Master Yu hummed in thought and had the boat change course, attempting to approach Longji Island from the other side.
As a result, they were intercepted by another pair of yin hui.
These two were even larger and visibly more irascible, constantly flicking their tongues with undisguised malice.
With the probe thwarted, the boat returned to Blade Harbor.
Carrying the Tracking Bee compass in its talons, Master Yu's white bird paused in tree branches every short distance to check the bee needle's direction.
It flew past Longji Island, past Alfalfa Island, and finally circled twice over Pansi Island to lock in the position before settling on a treetop near the rocky shore.
Sea birds were never in short supply over the ocean; gulls, herons, and wild cranes wandered the shores of Pansi Island as well, making a single white bird utterly unremarkable.
The compass displayed both the target's bearing and distance simultaneously.
The needle now pointed due north, less than a hundred and twenty feet away!
The white bird peered down to see a vast expanse of rift valleys.
Seen from above, the rock walls loomed menacingly, riddled with countless ravines and caves. The sea wind whistled through the apertures in the stone faces.
Aside from that, the forested mountains were silent, with not a single living creature in sight.
The white bird was in no hurry. Every now and then, it hopped to a different branch to continue watching, lest it be noticed.
It had shadowed Master Yu in tracking the Burrow Spider Queen for a long time, and knew burrow spiders preferred hiding in caves and did not necessarily travel in swarms during normal hours.
After an hour passed with the rift valley quiet as before, movement finally stirred outside.
Two spiders climbed back into the valley, carrying squirming white cocoons on their backs.
Most spiders could not drag heavy loads the way ants could, but burrow spiders could, and they preferred carrying captured prey atop their bumpy, ridged backs.
Judging by the shape and size of the cocoons, one prey might be a guinea pig, while the other seemed to be a bird.
As long as it was living flesh, burrow spiders ate it; they were not picky eaters.
Just then, an alarm went off in the white bird's mind, and it abruptly took flight.
From behind, two strands of spider silk shot forth silently, nearly brushing its tail feathers.
Had it not dodged in time, the white bird would have ended up the third captured prey!
Flapping its wings, it looked back, only to discover a burrow spider the size of a coconut perched on the very branch it had just occupied.
This kind of spider could shift colors to blend seamlessly into its surroundings.
Seeing its prey escape, the burrow spider raised its chelicerae in frustration.
The white bird dared not fly low any longer. It noticed faint, ghostly silhouettes of spiders lurking throughout the surrounding trees. Evidently, after months of skirmishes between both sides, Zhu Erniang had tightened the perimeter around her lair.
Still, the white bird had gathered plenty of information. Circling twice in the sky, it flew toward Blade Harbor.
This island was the burrow spiders' new nest! That was the most critical piece of intelligence.
***
At dusk, Master Yu met with his men at the Yellowfish Tavern on the docks of Blade Harbor.
The group sent to gather information had also returned, bearing preliminary intelligence:
Not long ago, Bailie had sold the Yangshan Archipelago to an outsider named Island Master He.
Island Master He had subdued both the pirates and the yin hui in succession.
Some pirates bragged about Island Master He's prowess, claiming they had seen with their own eyes that the yin hui treated him with great deference, and had seen a giant demon at his side catching yin hui as effortlessly as catching fish.
The Beijia men were intensely curious about what this demon that caught yin hui like fish looked like, but once the pirates had downed too much cheap wine, their stories grew hopelessly muddled.
Evidently, it was not something they had truly seen with their own eyes.
Furthermore, the Yangshan Archipelago was recruiting hands in large numbers to cope with the ongoing palm oil harvest season.
During their discussion, the white bird slipped through the window and hopped back onto Master Yu's shoulder.
"Found it! Found it! On an island south of Longji Island. It covers several hundred qing, but there isn't three feet of flat land—nothing but sinkholes and precipices. Nobody lives on the island, and there are no roads. The burrow spider colony is nesting right in a great rift valley at the southeast corner of the island."
"I hadn't scouted for three quarters of an hour before I was spotted. The colony is extraordinarily alert."
Master Yu asked, "Did you see the Spider Queen?"
"No."
"Those waters are blockaded by yin hui; one cannot reach the island by sea," Master Yu murmured. "How did the burrow spider colony get up there? Did they receive permission from the master of the Yangshan Archipelago?"
Yet during their inquiries around Blade Harbor, no one had heard of any monsters living on the islands aside from the yin hui.
In other words, Zhu Erniang's presence was kept strictly secret.
Perhaps only that Island Master He knew the reason why.
"What is this island master's background?"
"All that's known is he came by boat from the west. At first, he had few followers, yet he established himself here."
"The Burrow Spider Queen truly knows how to pick a spot. This island is easy to defend and difficult to attack." Out in the middle of the sea, conducting reconnaissance or harassment would be fraught with difficulty for their party. Not to mention, yin hui blockaded the sea routes, barring outsiders from approaching anywhere south of Longji Island.
It was a formidable position.
"Keep digging into Island Master He's origins." With the strait separating Blade Harbor and the Yangshan Archipelago, the news reaching here was already second-hand. Master Yu singled out two subordinates. "Isn't the archipelago hiring? Go earn yourselves some wages."
"Understood."
By infiltrating the workforce, they could map out the archipelago's boat schedules and perhaps find a way to reach Longji Island or the southern isles.
Master Yu pondered for a moment longer. "It will be difficult to use force this time. The crux likely lies with Island Master He."
If the Burrow Spider Queen had only moved onto the island with permission, why had Island Master He permitted it?
"Came by boat from the west?" he murmured to himself. "No one knows his background? What about the Lu family of Bailie who sold him the islands—do they not know either?"
***
Each autumn rain brought a deeper chill.
After four or five downpours over three days, the people on the island all donned heavier coats.
Walking across Centipede Island, He Lingchuan felt a twinge of wistfulness. Blackwater City would see goose-feather snow fall as early as October, and the capital of the Yuan Kingdom grew cold enough to make one stomp one's feet; yet here, the summer heat had only just faded, ushering in the coolest, most pleasant season of the year.
He Lingchuan threw himself into the intense construction efforts, inspecting one or two islands each day to oversee work procedures and progress.
Business was like that. Having a boss watching on-site versus having no boss around yielded entirely different levels of efficiency.
The other islands could only be left to the Mount Rong disciples to patrol.
At times like these, He Lingchuan keenly felt his shortage of trusted confidants, finding himself stretched thin whenever matters needed handling.
After all, this was no longer the time when he fought alone.
He walked along a newly cleared forest road. Just past several rows of tidy bamboo huts, several massive workshops came into view. Hiring vast numbers of people to work on the Yangshan Archipelago naturally required providing room and board. In the early stages, merely preparing dwellings, sheds, furniture, and daily necessities had kept all the craftsmen and pirates running in circles.
After more than a month of hard work, the entire system had been smoothly launched and was running with increasing efficiency.
The area was bustling with people. Following a brief period of adjustment, clear divisions of labor had been established for harvesting, transport, washing, steaming, pressing, filtering, and bottling.
Centipede Island had four such living and workshop zones, and across the fourteen Yangshan islands there were eighty-six in total. Though headcounts varied, the daily output of palm oil was considerable, and designated personnel were assigned to quality control, conducting random spot checks.
Every day, new laborers and craftsmen joined the Yangshan Archipelago—at least forty to fifty, and at most over two hundred, arriving in an endless stream.
He Lingchuan felt fortunate that he had brought Ding Zuodong with him across the sea. Otherwise, he would have had no idea to whom he could entrust such endless, nagging troubles.
Chapter 941