"Hey, this ship is just interest! We're taking the rest of the goods too!"
"We're claiming that one as well!"
Brother Fa switched his voice again and again, leaning into the radio receiver and using different tones to provoke the other side while pretending there were hundreds of people on their team. The act was so realistic that even Jing Shu and the others were dumbfounded; it almost felt true in the heat of the moment.
Counting everyone, they only had six people including Xiao Hei. The poor guy was about to pee his pants, his knees knocking together as he huddled near the control console.
For the underground black market and the Slave King, this was a disaster stacked on top of another. One side had pirates show up out of nowhere, and the other lost contact with more than twenty ships at a vital junction. By the time they finally thought to check the satellite positioning system, those ships were already close to Williams.
"Chase them! Turn around and chase!"
"Don't let a single one escape, damn it!" The furious Slave King issued the order, sending his troops in two directions to crush anyone who dared to target his cargo. Several heavily armed helicopters took off from the city, their rotors thrumming in the air, while nobles and their bodyguards grabbed their guns to deal with the pirates. No one could figure out how the hell pirates even showed up here. The canal was narrow, so where could they have come from?
The whole place was a mess. Slaves who realized something was wrong started jumping into the dark river to flee, their bodies splashing into the cold water. Some who had been enslaved too long just hid in the shadows of the cargo hold, dazed and unresponsive. They knew if they ran, they would starve anyway. Others, unwilling to die as slaves, rallied a group of Black men to raid the kitchen and steal bags of grain for their escape.
Ship No. 24 was already chaos, and the situation outside was even worse as the convoy ground to a halt.
Soon, several speedboats caught up, their engines screaming as they bounced over the wake. No matter how fast the cargo ships went, they couldn't outrun those boats. Machine guns mounted on the decks opened fire, sweeping Ship No. 24's deck indiscriminately. Bullets tore through metal and wood, and the deck was soon slick with blood and the sound of screams.
Ling Ling stood on a high point of the bridge, her eye pressed to the scope as she sniped the attackers one by one. Tank, fully suited in Jing Shu's heavy exoskeleton armor, fought like a walking war machine. Monkey and Snake Spirit tore through the shadows of the lower decks, their strength unmatched. The little snake killed plenty in the dark, its venom quick and silent.
Tank boarded Ship No. 25, unstoppable in his armor, bullets bouncing off the reinforced plates as he slaughtered his way through the defenders. He took control of the ship, staging a full-on pirate robbery scene that panicked the nobles and bigshots watching from a distance. Desperate to protect their investments, they redirected their firepower toward him.
"We can't leave empty-handed," Brother Fa said, checking the gauges. "If we can get this ship moving, it's ours. Once we report the contribution, we can ship it back. It's full of metal ore, worth a fortune."
Now Ships No. 24 and 25 were speeding ahead together. In the Slave King's mind, these people couldn't escape anyway. Cargo ships were slow; how far could they really go in a narrow canal? But those twenty-odd missing ships? They were gone, completely gone. That alone made him furious enough to throw in every resource he had.
As a support and navigator, Jing Shu's main job was to guard the control room. She didn't care how the raiding slaves looted the ship. Most of what they took were worthless feed and low-grade food anyway. The more chaos they caused, the better her team's chances of slipping away unnoticed.
The glass around her shattered in a spray of shards, and gunfire and explosions filled the air outside. Inside, Xiao Dou, her fat hen, curled in its nest, half-asleep and utterly unbothered by the noise. Jing Shu, though, was worried. The nobles' armed forces were now fully deployed. Just the six of them couldn't hold out for long. Machine guns were bad enough, but now they had even started using grenade launchers, trying to sink the ship altogether.
"The ship can't take much more," Jing Shu said, firing her gun at a Black man trying to break through the door.
Brother Fa bit down on his cigarette and exhaled a slow cloud of smoke. "The canal's exit is just ahead. Once the passage widens, take Ship No. 25 and get as far as you can. If you can't, jump into the river. Your mission is done once Old Goat reaches Williams."
"What about you? You aren't coming with us?" She looked at the pile of luggage beside her. It was taller than she was. Everyone else came to fight; she came carrying baggage.
"Me? I have still got work to do. Once I let you all out, I will block the canal with Ship No. 24. That way, the others can't pass or turn around. Their speed will drop by half. Otherwise, how could you possibly escape?"
Jing Shu's brow furrowed. "You're planning to die with them?"
"Start the ship first, then come over to us. We will wait for you on No. 25."
Brother Fa laughed, the sound dry. "Don't worry. No one wants to die if they can live. I just need to make sure they can't turn back, buy Old Goat some time, and give you a chance to run. I will disguise myself later, maybe as one of the Black men in the water. Oh right, what is your name again?"
"Mirror. You?"
"I'm Zhang Facai. They call me Xiao Zhang, but I prefer Brother Fa."
Jing Shu never found out if Brother Fa survived. At the canal exit, he went first, turned the massive ship around with a groan of metal, released Ship No. 25, then anchored No. 24 sideways across the narrow canal, sealing it completely.
A ten-thousand-ton cargo ship blocking the canal ensured no one was getting through that way.
Tank steered Ship No. 25 roughly into the open water, but they made it out alive. The whole crew felt like they had just escaped hell itself. For the first time, Jing Shu understood what raining bullets and roaring fire really meant. Snake Spirit was slightly injured, but everyone else was still alive.
They all breathed in relief and pushed the speed as far as it would go. Just thirty more minutes and they would be clear of pursuit.
But then the sky started to rumble with a heavy, mechanical beat. Armed helicopters appeared overhead, their shapes black against the clouds as they raced toward them. To their horror, the helicopters dropped bombs, blowing up the ship blocking the canal. A massive explosion sent up a mushroom cloud of fire, the shockwave tearing open the riverbank.
Boom!
In the dark night, the ship turned into a sea of flames. Black men screamed as they leapt into the water to escape the heat.
"Brother Fa didn't make it," Ling Ling said quietly, peering through her night vision goggles at the burning wreckage.
Tank patted her shoulder, his hand heavy. "We can't waste what he bought us with his life. If it comes to it, I will stay behind. Don't you dare hesitate."
There was no time for grief. The helicopters were closing in, searchlights cutting through the dark and illuminating the deck of Ship No. 25.
"No time to be sad," Ling Ling muttered, pulling an RPG launcher from Tank's pack with a metallic clatter. "Those are armed helicopters, fast ones. The RPG might not keep up with their movement. If we miss three shots, we jump into the water."
Jing Shu wasn't about to hold back either. She pulled out her own RPG, the metal cold against her palms. Those helicopters were no joke. If she didn't fight back, she would be the one getting blown to bits.
===
I just finished migrating my Xianxia Handbook to AO3. If you haven't read the Webnovel version yet, or if you read it before this announcement, I highly suggest checking it out. I've made some changes and added extra information.
If the Webnovel version felt a bit dense or "full" of narration, this AO3 version might be easier to follow since I included bullet points for clarity.
I don't plan on adding any major new content to the handbook since I think it already covers the core and most important aspects of the Xianxia genre. Future updates will probably just focus on cultivation stages and formal titles.