Although he showed great enthusiasm and care for Ling Yun and Xiao Rou, even arranging a clean single room for them on the smuggling boat and providing them with almost the same treatment as the captain, Lao Yu was still filled with unease. The young man was thin and frail, probably still a student, while the girl he was with was unbelievably beautiful. Why would such a couple, with legitimate green cards, choose to smuggle themselves into the United States instead of using public transportation? If they encountered any danger, Lao Yu truly couldn't bear the responsibility.
Zhang Yunfeng's last casual remark still chills him to this day: "If either of them loses a single hair, your whole family will be shark food."
Although Lao Yu couldn't understand it, with his experience of seeing all sorts of people over the past decade, he could vaguely sense that Ling Yun and Xiao Rou were not simple. Ling Yun's face seemed to always maintain the same expression: neither humble nor arrogant, calm and composed. He even ignored the fierce-looking men under the snakehead's command. Only someone with true strength would have such a mindset.
The stunningly beautiful young woman wore the same expression, completely oblivious to the lecherous gazes of her thugs. She showed no panic, not even the slightest disgust. This in itself suggested something; perhaps these two were no ordinary people. Even in dangerous situations, they wouldn't need his extra care. Old Yu reassured himself, involuntarily making the sign of the cross on his chest. He was a devout Christian, and before each voyage, he would fervently pray to God to ensure his survival on the treacherous seas.
Ling Yun and Xiao Rou slowly boarded the private cabin specially prepared for them on the smuggling boat. A burly man with obvious scars on his face approached Lao Yu and winked, saying, "Boss, I think that girl is really something. After you've had your fun at sea, could you let the brothers have some too?"
"Smack!"
A heavy slap landed on the thug's face. Old Yu looked thin and withered, but his strength was extraordinary. The nearly 1.9-meter-tall man didn't even groan before half of his teeth, along with bloody saliva, flew out. He fell heavily to the ground, motionless, having been knocked unconscious by Old Yu.
All the thugs stared at Lao Yu in utter fear, and the air seemed to freeze. The guy being beaten was one of Lao Yu's confidants, and they had an excellent relationship. Even when Lao Yu was in a bad mood or angry, he had never hit him or even cursed him. But today, he was beaten unconscious by Lao Yu for just one sentence, or even a joke.
Old Yu trembled all over, not from anger, but from fear. For many years, even when facing the sparking gun barrels of Somali pirates, he had never felt such fear. It was a fear that came from the bottom of his heart, a deep fear that the boy and girl would hear him, and then he would be facing an abyss.
"Throw this blind fool into the sea," Old Yu said, pointing at his trusted aide. His tone was cold and ruthless. He turned to his men, who were almost too scared to speak. "Remember this: if any of you talk about those two guests again, including privately, and I hear you doing so, you'll be thrown into the sea. During the smuggling trip, no one is allowed to disturb them without their permission. And on this voyage, you all better keep your manhood in check. No raping women, and no beating or scolding those country bumpkins. Behave yourselves properly. Once those two guests disembark, you can do whatever you want." With that, he walked onto the ferry without looking back, leaving the group of terrified and bewildered men staring at each other, at a loss.
"This guy's got some sense." Xiao Rou stared expressionlessly through the plexiglass window of the ferry cabin at the smugglers and their men on the dock. Even through a five-centimeter-thick sheet of iron and thirty meters away from the dock, Xiao Rou heard every word of Lao Yu's conversation with his subordinates. She wasn't angry. In her more than ten years of brutal struggles as an ability user, such things were countless. Men who coveted her beauty and wanted to take advantage of her were like fish in a river, but most of those who dared to lay a hand on her had already become fertilizer for the earth. Killing was as simple as eating a meal for Xiao Rou. There was neither anger from provocation nor cold-blooded torture. Offend me, and I'll kill you. It's that simple.
"Xiao Rou, you should put your mask on. Otherwise, you're too beautiful, which will not only attract attention but also make me feel unsafe," Ling Yun said with a smile. He sat on an iron bed welded to the side walls in a single cabin that was only five square meters in size. A thin, relatively clean printed quilt was simply spread on it so that it wouldn't be too hard to sit on. The facilities here were very basic, but compared to the outer cabins and the cabins where stowaways lived, it was already like paradise.
"Do you think I'm pretty?" Hearing her beloved's praise, Xiao Rou's heart suddenly started racing. She turned her head, and a hint of girlish shyness appeared on her fair and jade-like face. It seemed that only in front of Ling Yun could she revert to being that simple, lovable little girl.
"Of course you're beautiful. I remember when I first met you, I said you were the most beautiful girl in the world. You still are now, and you will be in the future. Xiaorou, you will always be the most beautiful girl in my heart. Having you is my luck and my pride." Ling Yun said gently, his soft words like the warmest and most passionate words in the world, making Xiaorou's heart flutter.
She turned around and gently nestled into Ling Yun's arms, instantly releasing a delicate and fragrant scent: "Yun, when did you become so good with words? You're not just trying to comfort me, are you? I don't feel safe at all around you. You have so many beautiful friends, and they all like you very much..."
Ling Yun took a deep breath and hugged her beautiful, smooth body tightly: "I mean it, Xiao Rou. From the moment I saw you, I knew that you were my real girlfriend. I will never like anyone else in my life. My heart belongs only to you."
Upon hearing Ling Yun's heartfelt confession, Xiao Rou's eyes lit up with a strange rainbow, and her heart was filled with immense happiness. She couldn't help but cup Ling Yun's face and kiss him deeply on the lips.
Lingyun held her tightly, feeling a surge of passion. The small, simple cabin had become a paradise of love, filled with fragrance and the scent of fresh flowers.
The ship suddenly moved slightly, and the view outside the rounded plexiglass began to slowly recede behind. With a few rough shouts from the sailors outside, the ferry finally began to weigh anchor.
Ling Yun released Xiao Rou's body, put an arm around her slender waist, and gazed absently out through the window, which was no bigger than a washbasin. Because the ferry wasn't as tall as a ship, after it had been sailing for a while, all he could see through the window was an endless expanse of sea. He couldn't see anything, but Ling Yun didn't bother to look. His panoramic view was already scanning the area within several kilometers through the ship's walls.
About a hundred meters from the ferry, a clearly visible trace of aura was winding westward—the very aura left behind by that peerless expert. Generally, powerful individuals carefully erase their aura after leaving to prevent highly skilled trackers from tracing their movements. However, aura is difficult to completely erase, just as it's hard to collect every single molecule of scent once it dissipates into the air. But under the Eye of Illusion, none of this was a problem.
The direction the powerful figure led Xia Lan away in wasn't much different from the direction the ferry was heading. Ling Yun thought to himself.
The panoramic view swept across the cabin a few more times. It was a huge ironclad ship that looked to have been in operation for many years and appeared dilapidated. The railings on both sides of the bow were rusty, revealing the dark iron base color. Some railings were even bent and broken and then reinforced by welding.
Near the bow and stern, the ferry was reinforced with protective measures by the snakehead. Some areas even had iron stands for machine guns and five-centimeter-thick baffles with gaps, which seemed to be counter-attack weapons for use in case of danger. However, it is hard to say whether they can actually withstand pirate attacks.
A group of men and women, pale and thin like migrant workers and dressed in tattered clothes, were trembling with fear under the stern reprimands of the thugs. There were about a hundred of them, sitting in neat rows on the cold and dirty deck. Some of them had newspapers or rags stuffed under their buttocks, but most of them just sat directly in the cabin, swaying from side to side with the rocking of the ferry.
Due to the tightly sealed environment and poor air circulation, the ferry was filled with a pungent, putrid smell.
Chapter 280 Humiliation on the Ferry
Although Xiaorou couldn't see inside the cabin, she had another way. After her mental perception carefully scanned the entire ship, she stretched out her two slender, snow-white hands, palms facing upwards. A faint silver light bloomed from above her palms, instantly forming a mirror-sized quadrilateral.
As the silver light slowly dissipated, the quadrilateral revealed its transparent and shimmering base color, as if it had formed a mirror. Then, the scene inside the cabin slowly emerged on the quadrilateral, as clear as surveillance footage. However, the quadrilateral was obviously more ingenious than surveillance footage, because as the people inside the cabin moved around, the emerging scene constantly adjusted its angle, just like a cameraman holding a camera and filming the contents of the cabin from various angles.
Ling Yun stared intently at the small, magical technique she was performing, his eyes widening in surprise. He could sense that this technique consumed only a tiny amount of his own energy, yet achieved an effect almost identical to a panoramic view. Although it was inferior in energy detection and the ability to see through concealment, and its angles were not as convenient or blind-spot-free as a panoramic view, under the same technique, a panoramic view consumed more than ten times the energy of this small technique. In terms of performance ratio, Xiao Rou's technique was clearly more suitable.
"What, are you stunned? This is a little gadget." Xiao Rou smiled and glanced at him, extending her slender, white index finger. Her pink, transparent nail lightly touched the quadrilateral, creating a misty effect. The image displayed on the quadrilateral screen seemed to be attracted by something, slowly bulging from the flat surface and then transforming into a three-dimensional image. Except for being shrunk by dozens of times, it was a completely real scene unfolding in front of Ling Yun.
With a gentle wave of her left hand, Xiao Rou casually set up an isolation barrier in the single cabin, instantly silencing all external sounds. However, immediately afterward, noisy human voices began to emanate from the 3D image. Thick thugs, less than the thickness of a finger, moved back and forth along the edge of the image, loudly shouting at the stowaways to stay in their positions and not to move.
The 3D image suddenly flashed and changed into another image. This time, it showed the cockpit, where Lao Yu's withered but powerful hands were holding the compass, intently looking at the boundless sea in the distance. The compass hanging on the ceiling was changing slightly, but it did not deviate from the correct position.
The cockpit was a bit larger than the single cabin where the two men were. Besides Lao Yu, there were two burly men in sailor uniforms and a fat man with a full beard standing inside. The two burly men were wolfing down their chicken burgers and occasionally taking big gulps of Coca-Cola at their feet.
The fat man was also chewing on a greasy chicken leg with relish. He sat cross-legged on a rusty iron chair next to the cockpit door, making muffled sounds: "Brother Yu, should we send some food to those two distinguished guests? You don't let anyone disturb them. Won't they starve after thirty hours?"
Old Yu's hand holding the compass suddenly jerked, and the compass swung wildly to the right, turning countless circles. The ferry abruptly veered to the right in another direction, the sharp turn causing it to rock violently. The two burly men, caught off guard, nearly fell onto the deck, their bodies swaying. A bottle of cola, its cap open, spilled onto the floor with a thud, the black carbon dioxide gushing out and bubbling.
"You two idiots, get this stuff cleaned up and get out of here! Don't eat in the cockpit again, you hear me?" Old Yu quickly turned the compass back to the correct position and shouted at the two burly men.
The two burly men quickly packed up their food, grabbed their Coke bottles, and slunk away. Their boss seemed out of sorts today; he must have some serious worries. Otherwise, why would he be so irritable? He had just killed his trusted confidant, and the two men didn't want to suffer the same fate as him, being thrown into the sea by Lao Yu to feed the sharks.
The fat man was stunned. He pulled the chicken leg he had almost finished eating out of his mouth and threw it into the trash can next to the chair. "Brother Yu, what's wrong with you? Why are you so angry today? Is it related to those two...?" As he said this, his tone suddenly softened, and he involuntarily stood up with a slight tremor, because what he saw was a pair of red, triangular eyes filled with anger. Having followed Lao Yu for many years, the fat man knew that this either meant that Lao Yu had reached his extreme temper or had encountered something extremely terrible. In his years of smuggling, the fat man had never seen Lao Yu with such an expression.
*Snap!* A pair of powerful, black hands gripped his throat tightly. With a single, forceful thrust, they lifted the fat man, weighing over 200 pounds, into the air. The fat man's eyes rolled back, and he saw stars. Terrified, he thought Old Yu had gone mad and was trying to strangle him. He tried to scream desperately, but his throat was already choked, and he couldn't make a sound. He could only let out a couple of squeaks like a dead rat struggling in its death throes before he was about to lose consciousness.
With a thud, the fat man's strong shoulder was slammed against the metal plate at the back of the cockpit, causing the cockpit to shake violently. The fat man felt as if all the bones in his body had fallen apart, and he slid down the metal plate involuntarily, like a limp rag. The large black hand that had been gripping his throat slowly released its grip, and the fat man plopped down in the seat, his fat face turning a deep purplish-red. He gasped for the stale air, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly like a fish out of water.
“I told you, don’t talk about those two guests, don’t even mention them.” Old Yu said slowly, his triangular eyes flashing with a venomous light. “Is what I said so hard to understand? If you weren’t my cousin, I would have strangled you. Don’t worry about them. If they need anything, they will tell us. If they don’t need anything, no one should bother them. Otherwise, you’re going against me.”
"Brother Yu, I was just asking casually out of kindness, you don't need to react so strongly." The fat man finally caught his breath and said with a wry smile, "I didn't mean to bother anyone, I was just curious about who it was that could make you so nervous."
Old Yu took a few steps, staring intently at the vast blue sea outside the plexiglass in front of the compass. After a long while, he said in a low voice, "I don't know who they are, but the more I interact with them, the more I feel a deep sense of fear. You can't feel this kind of fear; it's a feeling that only those who have seen bloodshed and slaughter can have. I can't explain it to you. Moreover, they have a very powerful background. I can only say that they are definitely people we can't afford to offend."
A look of surprise appeared on the fat man's face. Although Lao Yu was just a smuggler, he was a well-known figure in the underground smuggling organization on the Hong Kong coast. Even when facing the most dangerous and fierce environments and enemies, he had never seen him show such fear. That could only mean that the ordinary boy and the stunningly beautiful girl had a very powerful background, even beyond his imagination.
Before he could say anything, Lao Yu waved his hand and said, "Alright, stop asking. Go out and keep an eye on the brothers. We've already left the shallow waters and entered the open sea. Make sure everyone stays alert. Also, before we reach the west coast of the United States, don't drink too much or cause trouble among the illegal immigrants. In particular, make sure they control themselves and don't touch any women. Otherwise, if they anger the customers, I can't say what might happen. We've been in business for so many years, and we must always be careful. Don't let small things lead to big problems and cause trouble."
The fat man nodded obediently. He had always respected his black cousin and was about to turn and leave when a loud shout of curses suddenly erupted from the cabin, accompanied by a woman's struggles and cries, and several men's slightly frightened pleas for mercy and attempts to stop him.
Old Yu and Fatty's expressions changed simultaneously. Just what they feared had happened. They had barely finished telling their men not to cause trouble when chaos erupted in the cabin. Old Yu said irritably, "Go check it out. If anyone dares to cause trouble, tie them up and throw them into the sea. I need to keep an eye on the compass; I don't have time to deal with this."
The fat man nodded, turned around, and walked out of the cockpit.
Inside the cabin, Xiaorou gently pulled with both hands, and the quadrilateral 3D image stretched out with her gesture, instantly becoming much larger. After a flash, the 3D image transformed into a composite image of two different scenes, clearly showing the scene of the fat man slowly walking from the cockpit into the passenger cabin.