Chapter 532: Seventh on the Heavenly Ranking

Chapter 532: The Seventh on the Heavenly List

The sea breeze gently brushed by, and Zhao Changhe lay leisurely on the deck, gazing at the blue sky and white clouds. He pulled out his gourd and took small sips of wine.

Though his journey was fraught with military haste and unpredictable storms ahead, he found a rare sense of ease in this voyage—perhaps the greatest difference from the past.

It was a pity that he couldn’t travel with Chichi.

She had set sail directly from the Langya port, openly heading out to sea. Zhao Changhe couldn’t take that route; he had to go south to Ningbo.

Their reasons for sailing were different. Though their destinations might be the same, Zhao Changhe preferred to observe the secrets and movements of the sea clans from the sidelines. If he were with Chichi, they’d be exposed to the sea clans’ gaze, making it harder to act and revealing that the Four Symbols Sect and he were in cahoots—a bad deal.

Better to have one in the open and one in the shadows, offering far more flexibility. The only regret was missing out on a shameless, carefree life at sea with Chichi.

What Zhao Changhe didn’t know was that Xia Chichi was still copying texts even during the voyage, and she hadn’t finished yet… Perhaps the Venerable One agreed with Xia Longyuan’s assessment of her “lack of calm” and was deliberately tempering her, trying to make her more composed.

As for the Tang family’s ship, it had a legitimate reason to set sail.

In the recent proposal to abolish the canal system in favor of maritime transport, Tang Wanzhuang had opposed it due to the inopportune timing, but most of the Tang family supported it. Even Tang Buqi, for once, didn’t follow his aunt’s lead, because it benefited the family. Who cared about timing or the greater good? Not everyone was like his aunt, obsessed with loyalty to the throne and serving the nation. They were a noble clan, after all.

Then Tang Buqi got beaten by his aunt and sent back to Suzhou.

Maritime transport hadn’t yet begun due to the canal guild’s rebellion, but the Tang family had long been experimenting with foreign trade on a small scale. Among their ventures was a tiny country called Penglai on the Sea Sky Island, with which they’d had limited exchanges.

This time, Tang Buqi returned to Suzhou and immediately began organizing a new voyage to Penglai. He thought his aunt would be angry, but instead, her letter said: “Changhe wants to go to sea. Arrange it.”

Tang Buqi’s mind was flooded with curses. He didn’t know what to say.

You opposed opening the seas, but now that your Zhao Changhe wants to sail, you suddenly don’t oppose it. And we’re suddenly useful, aren’t we? So you can show off to your lover, saying, “I’ve already arranged it,” right?

By the time Zhao Changhe came to ask for a ship, Tang Buqi’s face was sour, and he couldn’t be bothered to speak to him.

Lying on the deck, Zhao Changhe recalled Tang Buqi’s sulky, proud expression and still felt like laughing.

“Master Zhao, the sun is about to set. The wind picks up at night—better to go below deck,” called the Tang family’s captain, Tang En, as he emerged from the cabin.

Tang En was a name that, in a Chinese fantasy story, could easily belong to a protagonist, and it seemed fitting in a great voyage setting. He was a lifelong servant of the Tang family, with over twenty years of maritime experience, and had even been to Sea Sky Island. This voyage, under the guise of legitimate trade, served a similar purpose to Li Si’an’s earlier journey: to conceal Zhao Changhe’s presence.

Zhao Changhe laughed. “If the ship can brave the wind and waves, so can I. I didn’t expect the Tang family’s ships to be this impressive.”

This was a true ocean-going vessel. Zhao Changhe wasn’t an expert on tonnage or such, but it was enormous and steady, inspiring confidence. Behind it followed a smaller fleet. The profits from a single voyage must be immense—no wonder Tang Buqi had stopped listening to his aunt.

Tang En said, “It’s a stroke of luck. Last year, this *Gusu* wasn’t even finished. It had its trial run earlier this year, and now it’s officially in service.”

Zhao Changhe asked, “How do you navigate? With a compass?”

“It’s more complicated than that… The tools mainly involve a celestial ruler and a compass needle, used together to measure the altitude of stars. We also need to observe astronomy, wind direction, tides… Without at least ten years of experience on a ship, you wouldn’t dare sail blindly. At most, you’d hug the coast.”

Zhao Changhe nodded and sighed. “Every trade has its own mysteries.”

What he really meant wasn’t the gap between martial arts and navigation, but the realization that, as a former liberal arts student, he couldn’t show off in this age of great voyages. The natives’ navigational experience and scientific knowledge could easily outshine him.

And the Tang family wasn’t even the best in this field—the Wang family might be stronger.

Come to think of it, his own thinking had long ceased to be modern. Blindman had recently lectured him on dialectical materialism… Even regarding this voyage, his mind was full of medicinal herbs, materials, martial arts, and secret realms, while Tang En and his crew were after spices, resins, gold, silver, exotic goods, and new crop seeds. Their thought processes were no longer aligned.

In an era where martial arts were revered by all, civilization was still advancing inexorably. It was just that his perspective had focused too little on this, and he’d been assimilated by martial arts thinking.

Zhao Changhe felt a bit embarrassed. After all, he used to read the *Spring and Autumn Annals*…

Trying to salvage his martial arts mindset, he asked, “Are there pirates?”

“Not many in the early days, but occasionally. In recent years, they’ve been increasing, though they don’t appear near the coast—mostly around distant islands.” Tang En pointed behind them. “We have a fleet of thousands, with countless strong bows and crossbows. No need to fear.”

Zhao Changhe keenly sensed something off. “Why have they been increasing in recent years? Has the frequency of your maritime trade gone up? Or are more fishermen venturing far out?”

“Not us. I don’t know about others.” Tang En said, “Maritime trade is profitable, but not everyone can do it. The ships themselves are a barrier. One wreck, and you lose not just your investment but your life. If anyone has increased their maritime trade, it must be the Wang family. They might have amassed enough wealth to rival a nation, which is why they dared to rebel…”

Indeed, the Wang family’s rebellion likely had economic factors. He hadn’t thought much about that before.

Zhao Changhe mused, “In other words, the pirates are mainly causing trouble for the Wang family? Could there be a targeted organization?”

“We really don’t know,” Tang En said. “The young lady once analyzed that if there is an organization, it could only be that person…”

A name surfaced in Zhao Changhe’s mind.

The seventh on the Heavenly List, the Dragon King Hai Pinglan.

With a name and title like that, he seemed destined for a life at sea, but he’d actually made his name in the Central Plains, with no connection to the ocean.

He’d once been third on the Heavenly List and the king of a southern separatist regime, earning the title “Dragon King” from river battles on the Yangtze, not from being a sea dragon. Later, he was defeated by Xia Longyuan, who was then seventh on the list. Not only did they swap places, dropping Hai Pinglan to seventh, but his kingdom was destroyed, and he fled alone, disappearing without a trace…

After Xia Longyuan rose to third, he successively challenged the second-ranked Tiemuer and the first-ranked Grand Shaman Bo, beating them down to second and third, ascending to the top. His subsequent cultivation grew even more monstrous, and he began to battle the grassland barbarian gods—that came later.

In the process of unifying the realm, Xia Longyuan was the absolute protagonist of a power fantasy.

Hai Pinglan became a footnote in Xia Longyuan’s glorious rise, vanishing without a trace for over thirty years, as if he’d never existed. If not for the fact that the Chaos Chronicle hadn’t removed his name, people would have thought him dead.

If he had fled overseas and gone into hiding, it would make sense. With his strength, becoming the head of a massive pirate organization wouldn’t be surprising. But the question was: shouldn’t he be cooperating with the Wang family to oppose Xia, rather than hindering them?

This guess might not be true.

In fact, among the overseas intelligence reports of the Demon Suppression Bureau, there was another speculation: that the country of Penglai might have been founded by Hai Pinglan.

One guess said he was a king; another said he was a pirate—quite a gap.

During her last voyage, Xia Chichi had also tried to investigate this man but found nothing. The king of Penglai was said to be surnamed Yuan, seemingly unrelated to Hai Pinglan. Of course, if Hai Pinglan had deliberately changed his name to avoid Xia Longyuan’s notice, it wouldn’t be strange.

Zhao Changhe was curious. These overseas beings—whether pirates, the various small island nations, or the sea clans and merfolk—hadn’t been listed in the Chaos Chronicle at all… Even the Miao frontier had an Earthly List, but overseas, not even a Hidden Dragon had been seen.

He felt it couldn’t be that their cultivation was truly low. More likely, the Chaos Chronicle had omitted them for some reason.

He wondered what the martial arts of overseas experts were like.

Just as he was pondering, the sun dipped below the horizon. Half a lingering sun still peeked above the sea’s edge, casting a brilliant glow across the distant waters.

Several sails appeared on the horizon, and a fleet of ships came riding the waves.

Tang En’s expression shifted dramatically. “How are there pirates here too?”