Blue, Red and White Dark Abyss Cauldron

This night was extremely long.

Bai Yixing was worried and couldn't sleep at night. It was not until dawn that he was so sleepy that he fell into a deep sleep.

He slept until dawn the next day, and only got up reluctantly after Hu Yong ran downstairs to urge him four or five times.

When I got out of the cabin, I found that the sun was setting and it was almost noon.

There were not many boatmen on the deck, probably because they were like Bai Yixing and had not woken up yet because they slept too late last night.

Although the ship was still sailing eastward along the current, it was no longer as bumpy as before, and the waves on the sea were obviously much smaller.

Bai Yixing was overjoyed and thought of going down to the cabin to ask the boatmen to turn the boat in the correct direction.

When I turned around, I happened to see a figure standing at the bow, neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. It was Qin Gang from Heshan. He was holding the stern railing with both hands, his neck slightly tilted, as if staring at the sea in the distance.

He walked over and said happily, "Brother Qin Gang, it shouldn't be a big deal to turn the boat around in this kind of storm, right?"

Qin Gang frowned and said, "Now is not the time to be happy, look." Then he pointed to the sea to the north.

Bai Yixing squinted his eyes and looked in the direction he pointed for a while, but he couldn't see anything. He was puzzled and asked, "What is there?"

Qin Gang did not answer directly, but said in a deep voice: "Notify everyone and prepare to meet the enemy!"

Bai Yixing was puzzled and asked, "Meet the enemy? What enemy?"

When several boatmen heard Qin Gang say that they wanted to meet the enemy, they all gathered around him and asked him what was going on and whether he was joking.

Qin Gang said: "The mermaids are coming. If you want to survive, quickly take out your swords and fight them!"

There are mermaids in the deep and boundless West Sea. Many people in the Snow Country have heard of them, but have never seen them. When they heard Qin Gang say that mermaids have come, they couldn't help but be skeptical.

Hu Yong even said, "Nonsense! Our master consulted a physiognomist before setting out to sea, and he said that the journey would be smooth sailing. How could we encounter a mermaid?!"

Qin Gang glanced at him and said coldly: "Who is Master Miaoxiang?!" He said no more, turned around and went downstairs, probably to find a suitable weapon.

Bai Yixing knew that Qin Gang was not a person who liked to joke, but he had not seen it with his own eyes. In order to avoid causing panic, he was unwilling to hastily give the order to fight the mermaids.

He looked carefully at the sea surface that Qin Gang had just pointed at, and indeed found some tiny black spots on the sea surface in the distance, which seemed to be jumping constantly.

Not long after, the boatmen also saw this strange scene, and everyone finally began to panic.

Bai Yixing's heart was also beating non-stop. He forced himself to calm down and shouted loudly: "Ring the bell, fire! Ring the bell, fire..."

A boatman ran to the back of the cabin and rang the bell. Another boatman ran to the stern and lit the brazier with a tinder. The brazier was filled with flammable ash fish oil, which caught fire as soon as it was touched by the open flame, and the flames jumped four or five feet high.

The ships behind saw the signal fire from afar and rang the bell to start fires as well.

In just a cup of tea's time, the five large ships were already filled with people, including helmsmen, sailors, oarsmen, cooks, etc., all running onto the deck.

Some boatmen on night duty were still sleeping. They were woken up by the noise and said impatiently, "I've been sailing in this sea for so many years and have never seen a mermaid. How could there be mermaids on this waterway?" When they saw the black spots getting closer, they couldn't help but believe it.

All the boatmen gathered around Bai Yixing, the owner, to discuss how to deal with the situation.

Bai Yixing had never encountered such a situation before, but as the leader of the fleet, he had to remain calm and said that since the mermaids had come to our door, everyone should not be afraid, because our ship was so high that it would not be easy for them to come up.

Many boatmen thought the same thing, and felt much more at ease.

A boatman suddenly shouted: "What if they get on the boat? What should we do then?"

Bai Yixing was furious and said unhappily: "Then let's fight them. There are no cowards among us Snow Country people!" He was used to group fights and was not afraid of anyone when he got ruthless.

An old boatman said, "I heard from a friend from Cangmu Country that mermaids all walk barefoot. It's very easy to deal with them. We just need to lay some sharp iron nails on the ground. They won't be able to walk, so they can't do anything to us."

The boatmen thought that this was the strategy to deal with the enemy. You, Bai Yixingguang, would say fight to the death, but you are still too young.

Hu Yong said: "But where do we get so many nails on the ship?"

Bai Yixing suddenly had an idea and said, "There are a lot of hard jade stones on the ship. We can smash them and lay them on the deck. They are almost the same as iron nails."

Jadeite is a kind of stone that is a specialty of the Snow Country. It is very hard, crystal clear and colorful. After being carved, it can be made into very exquisite ornaments. It is very popular in the Cangmu Country. Therefore, Bai Yixing bought a batch before going to sea this time.

Jadeite is heavy, so in order to keep the speed of the cargo ships similar, each ship was loaded with some.

The sailors were overjoyed when they heard this. They carried out several large pieces of emerald stone from the cabin, smashed them with hammers, and covered the deck with them. It was very uncomfortable to walk on it even with shoes on.

The other four ships received instructions and followed suit, smashing green stones to cover the decks.

Seeing the mermaid swimming closer and closer on the waves, it was obvious that its speed was faster than the boat.

They jumped out of the water from time to time, and gradually it became clear that they were not fish. Each of them had hands and feet and a human body, with a row of thorn-like fins on their backs, and looked very strange. A rough estimate was that there were two or three hundred of them, which was not much different from the number of people on the five boats.

The most surprising thing is that most of the mermaids actually hold strange weapons like harpoons in their hands!

Although it was the first time for everyone on the boat to see a mermaid and they didn't know whether its habits were good or evil, but from its appearance it could be basically judged that it was a ferocious creature, and it was so aggressive that it must have come with bad intentions.

Without Bai Yixing's instructions, the boatmen went to the cabin and carried out bundles of swords and distributed them to everyone.

These swords were made by Bai Yixing using the cold iron he bought, and he was going to sell them to Cangmu Country to make a fortune. In order to prevent any accidents on the sea, he put some on each ship, and they came in handy at this time.

However, no one had any experience in fighting, so there was inevitably some confusion when distributing weapons. Some people were accidentally cut by swords and turned around to curse their companions who were holding swords.

Bai Yixing didn't care about all this. He picked up a long knife from the ground. Feeling a lot braver, he just waited for the mermaid to climb onto the boat and then fight her.

The extra swords were tied to the railings of the boat by the boatmen, with the blades facing upwards, to prevent the mermen from climbing the boat. This was also Bai Yixing's idea.