Black Sail
Chapter 148: CXLVIII. Ghost Blowing the Lamp

Chapter 148: CXLVIII. Ghost Blowing the Lamp

Two days later.

Chenxi Port was located on the western coast of Western Aran, situated in a precious section of the Narrow Sea Golden Waters.

The railway constructed from the Imperial City to here was exceedingly long.

The Aran National Church dispatched Holy Professors to various train stations to evangelize, to bless the west with prosperity in commerce through the grace of the Dragon Lord.

Sharon, who was in the Imperial City, didn’t have to run around as much as the lower-ranked staff, but she had been quite hassled during this period.

After being away from home for several days, she found two letters in the lockbox under her apartment number in the first-floor mailbox when she returned.

One letter had come from Heaven Port; the other from the adventurer’s guild of an Affiliated Country.

This made Sharon’s spirits soar—after hoping and waiting, the anticipated letters had finally arrived.

She immediately returned home to open them and see what Liszt had said.

Over the years, aside from that traitor William, only a senior from Lostra had been in contact with Sharon.

As for Liszt, enveloped in a mystique from his chaotic surroundings, communication was extremely difficult; it was unknown whether his sense of humor was still the same as before.

Sharon was filled with anticipation.

At the desk in her bedroom, she cut open the envelope with scissors, took out the letter, and first read the one from Heaven Port.

Opening with a thunderbolt!

Liszt had returned the three Golden Dragons she had sent him, even adding two more.

"Grandpa’s money that I can’t finish using, only because it was too heavy to carry and the messenger would have stolen it."

He started off boasting, with an air of a nouveau riche country bumpkin.

"What the heck! And I was being so kind."

Sharon said annoyedly. She had sent it with several months of her salary, worried about him struggling, and even added some savings.

However, Liszt had little to say—his vocabulary didn’t exceed two hundred words, less than two pages of paper.

And it was all about boasting.

How he had gone from the Heavenly Port Pier to the Inner City with deft movements of his blade—white blades entering, red blades exiting, without even blinking an eye.

Bragging about whatever practices were effective there and how things should be done.

Basically, his words carried weight, nearly rising to the heavens and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the sun.

To those aware, he was still being used as a tool by the local bigwigs; to those unaware, they might think he had become the Boss.

Sharon’s eyelid twitched—what older greasy man was blowing his own trumpet in front of a female classmate he hadn’t seen for years?

Finally, Liszt mentioned that Sharon shouldn’t do anything foolish but sit tight and wait for him to arrive in Aran soon after chopping off the heads of five local traitors, including Mu Ran, and that he would write to her again.

Looking at the date the letter was sent, it was mailed over twenty days ago.

That guy was all talk, letting Sharon’s expectations fall flat—he should have written a love letter of several tens of thousands of words to justify his constant presence in her thoughts, that jerk!

When she opened the second letter, unexpectedly, it was also from Liszt.

"What... he’s already arrived."

Even with Sharon’s mature mind, a girlish excitement fluttered her heart, speeding it up a few beats, as wild as a startled deer—Liszt was a man of action, having already set forth to find her.

"If you read this letter, we’ll be in Aran by now and will soon settle in Yunxi City for a period. Once there, I’ll send adventurers daily to the local church to find you, so come quickly."

The content was very brief.

Liszt didn’t mention the tough jobs, afraid of risking changes.

Sharon took a deep breath and immediately wrote a letter to her direct supervisor to temporarily swap her posting, to visit an old friend who was sick in Yunxi City, where she would stay for half a month.

Then she took off her nun’s attire, swiftly changed into casual clothes, grabbed her luggage, and left the house.

Yunxi City...

Truly a beautiful place.

Meanwhile, at that moment.

Within Cast Province.

Liszt and his group were traveling in a passenger coach and had arrived at this famous artistic metropolis by dusk.

The cities within Aran differed greatly from those in other countries.

Primarily, it was in the strict division between fortresses and cities.

Fortresses were entirely military-based, naturally equipped with complete facilities, where military families could reside, and licensed merchants could enter to do business.

But cities had no walls, completely devoid of military functions, with very limited power for the lords.

After a reshuffling of national powers at the founding, followed by years when the Emperor’s influence had reached terrifying levels,

His issued "Lord’s Bill" had a profound impact within Aran.

The Emperor still recognized the nobility, upheld hereditary titles, and dispersed power to govern such vast lands.

However, one regulation in the "Lord’s Bill" was quite intriguing.

It was almost the Western Continent’s version of limited sovereignty.

Not only was the sovereignty of the Affiliated Countries limited, but the domestic lords’ sovereignty over their territories was also damn limited.

You were still a lord, possessing significant influence over your territory, but you could neither levy taxes nor maintain private armed forces.

It wasn’t that you had no money or troops; you had to follow my rules.

Aside from the basic stipends for nobility, the Royal Court would provide commissions based on local development initiatives, and the armed forces maintaining local order would be stationed by the National Guard directly under the Royal Court.

The Emperor created countless military departments like nurturing parasites, with dozens or hundreds of departments reporting up like a dish on a menu, extending into a vast bureaucratic network to maintain his grand strategy.

Any lord who refused to comply and sought to stir trouble would face the Constitutional Guard, the Tax Army, and the National Defense Police Team, all authorized to deal with him. The local National Guard might even turn against him, and without military power, the lord’s chances of successful rebellion were virtually nil.

If a lord angered the Emperor, he could parachute another noble from the Royal Court to replace him.

Born during turbulent times, with the Witch Hunting Secret Department rampant and lords waging wars, he understood how crucial the influence of the Royal Court was, yet he couldn’t just wipe everyone out; they needed to be preserved.

With the release of the "Lord’s Bill," the Emperor also knew many opposed him, with a lot of the anti-imperialists stirred up by the aftereffects of the law.

So, the Emperor did something utterly outrageous.

As the ruler of a nation, he actually welcomed anyone to duel him.

If you killed him in a duel, you would immediately succeed the throne.

But not just any desperate fool could participate in such a duel; conditions applied. If your influence was significant and well-known, you could come to the Imperial City, pass the preliminary challenge by the Imperial Guard Commander to prove your credentials, and then participate in the imperial duel.

As one might expect,

The Imperial Guard Commander, a tough character, was once an officer who campaigned against the Northern Beastman Barbarians but got his ship sunk.

Swimming seven days and nights in the North Sea’s ice-cold waters with an empty stomach, he made it back to shore and single-handedly defeated over a hundred Beastmen ravaging villages along Aran’s border.

He was indeed an Aran Superman.

To this day, no challenger had lasted a single move against him.

Cast Province Capital, the City of Art, Duguli.

There were no city walls, just a grand cluster of buildings, bathed in the neon brilliance of Magic Energy Devices.

It was twilight already.

The sunset bled red, casting a golden glow on this city filled with cultural ambiance and dazzling luxury.

No place, whether LA or Xinxiang, could compare to it.

Duguli, as one of Aran’s top ten economic cities underpinned by the Magic Energy Industry, was lined with skyscrapers, traditionally Gothic stone buildings rather than glass facades, bustling with crowds and traffic, endless at a glance.

Even the sky featured Magic Core-driven floating platforms, exquisitely luxurious, possibly airbound restaurants.

The array of pirates who followed were wide-eyed, having never seen such an array in their fringe world lives.

"Down with the heinous imperialists!"

Liszt, his chin in hand, nearly corrupted by capitalism, almost forgot his critical tasks, almost squandering his significant funds in the city through rampant debauchery and gambling.

Mika had long heard of this place but never had the chance to visit.

"First, let’s experience the local customs and culture."

As an experienced old hand, Mika had his ways. Although officially there were no brothels in Aran, they were merely not on the surface; there were plenty of such places.

"Can you even find it just after getting here?"

Liszt found it unbelievable, searching for such places in a strange city was like asking an imbecile to perform precise neurosurgery with an awl and pipe wrench.

Mika immediately composed a poem.

"Seek the dragon points by observing the mountains, each entangling layer is a gate.

First, find the travel bus station, then explore the urban villages.

Massage therapy and Foot Bath City, everywhere are the days of people.

Cab drivers navigate to hostels, less than three days will sever the lecherous streak."

Mika, smoking a cigarette, resembled a sagely hermit.

The entire Black Sail group was profoundly shocked.

Liszt was stupefied; Mika, also known as Little Li Bai.

"Truly a powerhouse of our times!"

Even Morison was astoundingly impressed.

Amidst the waves of steam and machinery, who could touch the extraordinary? Who whispers in the fog of history and darkness? I awake from the mysterious, my eyes beholding this world.

Housewives, mature women, youthful faces, Lolitas, water droplets, discs, hemispheres, jade pots, butterflies, Outer Tagore... The light still shines, mystery never far, this is the legend of a "patron."

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