“Just a pirate.”
The pale silhouette cast a soft glow over the tense hall.
A sickly girl, delicate and frail, seemed utterly out of place amid the severity of the atmosphere.
And yet—she didn’t seem to notice at all.
“Who… are you?”
Wu Ma and Lu Sheng looked at the girl in unison.
Wu Ma had assumed the voice belonged to Princess Wu Yi, after all, it sounded just like her.
But upon closer inspection, the girl’s face was clearly not the Princess’s.
As for Lu Sheng, he was still a bit dazed.
Wasn’t this the girl he had picked up earlier that day while passing through the jungle?
“Don’t worry about who I am… let’s get to business.”
“Oh?”
The girl looked no older than fifteen or sixteen.
So young neither Wu Ma nor Lu Sheng believed she’d have anything particularly insightful to say.
Yet her sudden appearance had inexplicably defused the tense standoff.
Given that, they figured they might as well hear her out.
“Right now,” the girl asked in a soft, breathy voice, “how many pirate groups pose a real threat to Donghuang’s merchant ships and expeditions?”
“Mainly three major pirate factions.”
“Name their leaders.”
“First is Fersis Drake from the Plains Continent. He’s entrenched on the western coast of Borneo, completely blockading the western sea routes and cutting off Donghuang’s westbound shipping lanes.”
“Drake?”
Wu Yi murmured with a nostalgic smile.
“So he completed his circumnavigation?”
“He did. After that, he got himself a privateering license… and turned pirate.”
“Mmh~”
Wu Yi hummed lightly, tapping her chin with a finger, as though seriously pondering the situation.
“Drake… his mastery of the sea makes him a tough opponent.”
That much was obvious.
It sounded like empty talk coming from such a sickly girl.
But then she quietly added, “But he also has a fatal flaw.”
The sight of this little girl solemnly analyzing such a notorious figure almost made Lu Sheng chuckle.
Still, he held it in.
Feigning politeness, he asked, “And you know this so-called fatal flaw that even his enemies don’t?”
“He’s too greedy.”
“Hm?”
“Drake is cunning and slippery. He never fights head-on in naval battles—very hard to pin down. But he always wants more loot. Because he wasn’t born into nobility, he has to amass incredible achievements just to gain the Queen’s favor and elevate his status into the aristocracy.”
The girl spoke calmly and fluidly, as if she were a seasoned strategist.
Lu Sheng stroked his beard and furrowed his brows—something felt off.
This girl wasn’t just making things up!
Drake was notorious for his underhanded tricks.
That much was true.
But the girl’s claim about Drake being obsessed with gaining the Queen’s favor was new, critical intelligence that even he, the city lord, hadn’t heard before.
“To deal with Drake, just dangle a big enough bait. He’ll bite eventually. As for the details… figure it out yourself.”
“And why should I trust your intel?”
Lu Sheng pressed.
If her information was true, it was enormous.
A mere personality flaw could be the crack that brought down an empire, small leaks, after all, sink great ships.
“Don’t ask how I know. Next one.”
Wu Yi leaned weakly into the chair, tilting her head with practiced languor.
Lu Sheng shoved his shock down for now and went on:
“Next is the so-called ‘Band of Righteous Thieves’— Black Sam. He’s based in the Caribbean. Doesn’t kill, but robs people clean. He’s a real headache too.”
“Black Sam? Sam Bellamy?”
Wu Yi asked softly.
“…Yes!”
Lu Sheng rarely felt truly shaken but the girl had just called Black Sam by his real name.
Most only knew the name “Black Sam.”
Very few knew who he actually was.
“Sam should only be in his twenties by now,” Wu Yi sifted through her memory.
“Hot-tempered since childhood. Acts rashly, charges in headfirst—storm or no storm, he doesn’t care. That kind of young man can’t stand being provoked. That’s all I’ll say. As for how to deal with him… you should know better than me.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Stop asking. Next.”
Wu Yi’s fingers tapped the armrest in a steady rhythm.
“Uh… and then there’s Hayreddin Barbarossa,” Lu Sheng continued.
“They call him Redbeard. He once plundered even the Pope’s ships, and his forces are strong enough to rival the Knights of Saint John.”
“Hayreddin, huh? What about his brother?” Wu Yi smiled faintly.
“His brother… is dead.”
“A shame,” Wu Yi mused for three seconds. “Hayreddin has no real weaknesses. He’s fought countless battles—unmatched in strength.”
“Then how do we deal with him?”
“We don’t. He only attacks cities and ships of the Holy Faith. As long as there are no followers aboard Donghuang’s ships, and we notify him in advance, we can avoid raids—maybe even gain his protection.”
Strategy is merely the art of knowing both yourself and the enemy—collisions of intelligence and decision-making.
If the intel is deep and accurate enough, if one understands the enemy’s flaws and motives, many problems become solvable.
“How can I trust what you’re saying?”
City Lord Lu Sheng stared intently at the girl’s face, trying to find any trace of panic or deception behind her pale, serene expression.
He found none.
The girl was like a reclusive tactician from ancient legends—calmly waving her feathered fan while mapping out the tides of war.
“You don’t need to trust me.”
“But even if everything you say is true, then what?” Wu Ma questioned. He understood the value of this information, but: “What good does it actually do for Donghuang’s merchant fleet?”
“Hmm? I thought I’d made myself quite clear.”
“Please understand,” Lu Sheng said with a smile, “General Wu Ma is… a soldier.”
“Mm… mm???”
It took Wu Ma a moment to realize he’d just been insulted.
Unwilling to let his intelligence be doubted, he raised his hand, objecting loudly:
“The three major pirate factions are incredibly powerful, with over a million fighters between them! Even if we know the pirate leaders’ weaknesses and bait them in, we might not win!”
“Who said anything about fighting them?” Wu Yi gently shook the feathered fan in her hand, borrowed from the city lord’s table.
“Huh? No fighting?”
Wu Ma scratched his head.
“Then how are we supposed to turn the tide?”
“Profit amid chaos. Get rich in silence.”
“Please, enlighten us.”
Lu Sheng clasped his hands respectfully.
“First: Spread a rumor that a heavily loaded treasure ship from Spania is about to pass through Black Sam’s territory. Drake, hungry for glory, won’t resist the bait—he’ll crash into Sam’s domain.”
“Second: Plant an undercover agent in Drake’s ranks. Have them seduce Black Sam’s fiancée, and then leak the evidence of the affair to Sam. He’s hot-blooded—he won’t take kindly to betrayal. If he somehow restrains himself… then cuckold him again.”
“Third: Secretly spread the Holy Faith aboard both Drake’s and Black Sam’s ships. Redbeard Hayreddin hates those followers with a vengeance—he won’t tolerate being allied with them anymore.”
“Fourth: Take this chance to win Hayreddin over. Invite him to escort and protect Donghuang’s merchant ships.”
“That way, the pirates will at least be fighting each other for a while—buying Donghuang time to strengthen its naval power.”
“……”
Wu Ma: “Can you be any dirtier?”
“For the people of Donghuang, there’s no such thing as ‘too dirty,'” Lu Sheng said solemnly.
He wasn’t concerned with ethics—only with how likely the plan was to succeed.
“Indeed, if you know what they can’t tolerate, you can strike right there—sow discord, stir the waters.
Sounds simple, but carrying it out will be tough…”
“That’s your problem.”
Wu Yi curled weakly into the chair, clearly growing sleepy.
Probably from hitting her head too hard earlier.
Damn… did she have a concussion?
“I’m just a humble city lord,” Lu Sheng sighed.
“But this plan? It means playing the three greatest sea lords against one another, like pawns. And I still don’t know if your intel is real.”
“That’s your problem too.”
Wu Yi had already retired from battle and politics— she had no interest in power plays.
The only reason she stepped in at all was to save Wu Ma.
She tried to stand, but her frail body collapsed back to the floor.
Her blindfolded face looked around in confusion, soft pink lips tightly pursed as she struggled to rise on her own—
But her legs wouldn’t cooperate.
……
Even the hardened Lu Sheng felt a sting of pity.
At first, he had only seen her as a sickly, pretty talisman of luck.
There were plenty of weak, beautiful girls in the world.
Sure, she was prettier than most… but that was all.
But now, she felt like something else entirely.
That fragile beauty was now cloaked in the quiet power of a hidden strategist, one who could sway nations with her insight.
It gave her illness and blindness an almost tragic, divine aura.
“Who are you really?”
“A nameless nobody.”
Wu Yi was breathless, annoyed with her own weakness, but stubbornly trying again to get up.
“A nameless nobody who knows more than the city lord?”
“Believe it or not. Huff—Wu Ma, take me to your place.”
She was trying to bail.
That prophetic dream from earlier still haunted her— she needed to find Little Fox Gourd Vine quickly.
She had to figure things out before it was too late.
If she waited until she was lying in the bed of that so-called “Lord of R’lyeh,” there’d be no time left to act…
But suddenly, Lu Sheng’s voice turned cold:
“You’re not leaving.”
Once again, a killing chill settled over the receiving hall.