The Great Worm Lich

The winter rain was bleak. Although Venis City was adjacent to the ocean, and the temperature difference was not particularly obvious throughout the year, when the entire city was covered in a few days of drizzle, the pedestrians walking on the spacious flat stone road while holding umbrellas and wearing leather raincoats, still seemed to make themselves look smaller as they hurriedly walked across.

On a relatively remote corner of the city’s most prosperous commercial street, ‘Golden Fish Avenue’, in a narrow two-story building that could only accommodate two wooden tables, a stove, four soft chairs, a seemingly dumb boy stared off in the distance as he watched the little splash of water on the stone slab through the old wooden window. Suddenly summoning his courage, he said in a whisper, “Sir, the rain is getting heavier. It’s getting heavier…”

“So what if the rain is getting heavier? Just say it out loud if you have anything to say, Romon! I’ve told you before that I don’t like you hemming and hawing like that!” Sitting on a soft chair in front of the stove with his back leaning against the chair, Zhang Lisheng, who had picked up the bad habit of businessmen placing their feet on the wooden table, stretched his limbs and said.

“Nobody is coming to enquire for the vacancy anymore when the rain is getting heavier so can I go home early, Boss? It’s my mom’s birthday today,” the teenager recoiled and turned around to look at the young man, before asking with longing in his voice.

“Oh, I see. Of course! Since it’s your mom’s birthday today, of course you can go home early! Yeah, wish your mom a happy birthday for me, Romon!” Zhang Lisheng casually replied and took out a gold coin from his pocket before flicking it with his thumb. “This is the salary I’ll give you in advance. Go buy a present for her.”

The gold coin emitted a faint brilliance and drew an arc before landing into the teenager’s palms. Stroking the coin’s sleek surface, he opened his mouth and said incoherently, with his face excited and flushed, “Sir! Thank you very much, Sir! Thank you so much…”

“It’s fine. You have been working hard these days, and the recruited sailors are also in line with my requirements. This is what you deserve.” Zhang Lisheng waved his hand. “Go now! You still have to buy a present, don’t you?”

“Yes! Thank you very much, Sir! Thank you so so so much…” Romon shed tears of gratitude as he nodded. He picked up an umbrella and left the low-rise building, while continuously muttering his gratitude.

When the wooden door opened, raindrops fell into the house and the wet fancy cloth written with the words ‘Li Trading Company’ in the threshold. Looking at his own fabric sign, Zhang Lisheng rocked his body on the soft chair when the door was closed again and muttered, “This Romon is very obedient, easy to rope in, and doesn’t have much brain. he’s really the best candidate to guard my trading company in this Venis City after I leave. Those single unattached sailors have already been recruited but the navigators and captains who come to apply are too young! They can only understand the nautical charts a little and I think it’s even more useful for Wizard Li’s sailors to explore sea route than use them. This is so weird! Why isn’t there any old guy…”

After pondering for a while but not figuring it out in the end, the starving young man touched his stomach and stood up. He took out a black silk umbrella from behind the door and walked along the drizzle towards a restaurant.

Listening to the driving sound of the rain falling onto the ground on the road, he continued to ponder the question just now, thinking whether he should change his train of thought. As he was walking, he suddenly caught a familiar figure from the corner of his eyes. With a sudden jolt in his heart, he immediately greeted loudly and enthusiastically, “Hanoo! Hey, Hanoo! I didn’t expect to meet you here. We haven’t seen each other since we returned to Venis City! Where have you gone these days… H-Hey, are you okay?”

By the time the young man saw the navigator, who was once conceited and had a smooth tongue, to have seemingly aged for more than a decade, his words got stuck in his throat.

“I’ve been staying in the city police station these days, being investigated for the sailor riot at the sea. I didn’t have a good time at all!” Hanoo, who was holding a shabby gray umbrella under the rain with a face as dark as the weather, had a blunter sense than before. Trembling, he walked closer to the young man and answered.

“The sailor riot?” Zhang Lisheng was stunned. “Hasn’t that event been settled according to the sea law? Isn’t it enough having 70 to 80 people dead? Speaking of which, I also went to the police station these days and even went to the Navy Bureau and the Insurance Association several times. However, it’s for the testimony regarding the Hellfire hijack of the ships. The people I came across were quite polite and they did not mention a word about the sailor riot at all!”

“You’re now a distinguished guest of the Bailile and Tantorn Families, a taxpayer of the city, the owner of three seagoing vessels and is completely different from a disgraced navigator like me who is suspected as the source of the riot! Of course, the questions asked would be different!”

“You are suspected?” Upon hearing Hanoo’s grief and indignation, Zhang Lisheng’s heart lit up with joy right away but he continued to put on a sympathetic expression. “But you were in the steering room doing nothing during the riot!”

“But I didn’t try to risk my life to stop those rioting sailors like Captain Anduki did!” Hanoo answered in a trembling voice. “In fact, everyone knows that I am not guilty at all. B-But, they just want me to say it out loud that I’m a coward, a wimp who would give up on my employer in a dangerous moment, an untrustworthy person! They just want me to destroy my own reputation! B-But, what have the Bailile Family given me before? What have they given me that is worthy of me maintaining their honor despite in the midst of despair? Yeah, it’s true that they were the one who sent me to the Institute of Navigation and allowed a painter like me, the child of a cook, to become a respected navigator, b-but, I’ve also worked for them for 25 years already! A whole 25 years! I could only work for them in the past and 70% of my salary has been deducted to repay them for the loan! Isn’t this enough already? Isn’t this enough…”

“Hey, don’t be too emotional, Hanoo! Don’t get too emotional,” Upon seeing Hanoo’s emotions getting out of control, Zhang Lisheng quickly chimed in. “I know that you are wronged, but the rainy street is not a good place to talk. Have you eaten already? Why don’t you let me bring you to a warm restaurant for a lunch? Let’s have a glass of good fruit wine and two panfried steaks that have its both sides fried brown? Shall we talk while eating?”

Hanoo became silent in the rain for a while, and his emotions gradually calmed down. Panting heavily, he nodded and followed the young man to cross three to four blocks and finally came to a lively pub near the city gate.

The instant they entered the door, they immediately felt the warm and joyous atmosphere. Zhang Lisheng breathed a sigh of relief in front of the bar that was filled with a mixture of tobacco, food and liquor scent and waved his hand at the butcher-like boss that had a round face. “Charlton, give me three sautéed steaks, two seafood chowders, and one pot of your best sour fruit wine!”

Then, he went inside and sat down in front of a table at the corner near the wall.

“Looks like you’re a stingy miser as well. You’re already a business owner yet you still eat in this kind of pub.” Hanoo, who had been silent all along the way ,sat next to the young man and looked around the noisy environment. Without warning, he chuckled mockingly and said.

“Hanoo, I didn’t expect you to say that,” Zhang Lisheng said with a big grin. “Isn’t this kind of restaurant the favorite place for you seafarers? I have been recruiting sailors, navigators and captains for the past few days so I’ll always come to this place to eat.”

“You don’t know anything but you have already wandered around at such a young age and are lucky enough to have acquired three merchant ships all at once. Me, on the other hand, know everything that is to know about nautical knowledge, and I’ve worked hard conscientiously for more than 20 years but fate has made me an untrustworthy ‘garbage’ whose name has been permanently damaged!” Hanoo became silent for a while and chuckled in a sneer. “Listen, young man, if your ship is a small merchant ship or you’re just simply recruiting for sailors, then yeah this place is the correct place to be. However, you have two medium-sized merchant ships and a large merchant ship which have huge appeal. For this reason, if you really want to recruit qualified navigators and captains, you need to go somewhere else. ”

“Where is it?” Zhang Lisheng suppressed the joy of his heart with all his might and asked eagerly.

“It seems that Bailile and Tantorn Family are not as thankful towards you as they seem on the surface. Who knows, maybe they are waiting for you to go bankrupt so that they can buy the ships they have given you at a low price.” Hanoo did not answer the young man’s question directly but slander his employee maliciously instead. “You want to recruit navigators and captains? Then, do you know who exactly are the navigators?”

“No, I don’t. Hanoo, it doesn’t mean that I have to go to the livestock farm if I want to eat beef.” Zhang Lisheng pursed his lips together and shook his head.

At this moment, the sexy and sensuous waitress served them steaks, seafood and fruit wine. The aromatic scent of food filled the air. Hanoo sniffed and all of a sudden, he asked in a choked voice, “Can you give me two steaks to bring back later?”

“Of course!” The young man nodded.

Upon hearing this, Hanoo suddenly gritted his teeth out of the blue and poured a large glass of fruit wine for himself. After downing it all in one gulp, he suddenly said, “Listen, young man! This is Venis of the Kattaman City State! If a young sea merchant like you, who has just learnt how to stand, employs an attitude of ‘it doesn’t mean that I have to go to the livestock farm if I want to eat beef’ to recruit captains and navigators, unless you’re the illegitimate child of the lucky god, you’ll only find yourself recruiting quacks or liars! As a result, you’d go bankrupt or encounter a shipwreck and die. Do you understand? ”

“Understood, Hanoo. Then, can you tell me which kind of captains and navigators are the good ones?”

“For the sake of this large pot of sour fruit wine, of course I can!” Hanoo poured himself another full glass of fruit wine, and downed in another gulp. Drunkenly, he continued, “The Kattaman City State is established by maritime trade so outstanding navigators have a very high social status. In particular, those lucky ones who discover new routes, explore new islands, or publish books that attract the attention of the Senatus, they would often be awarded with titles and can even become a City Governor. For this reason, it would not be considered as an indecent thing for the sons of a noble merchant family to become a captain or a navigator. In correspondence to the lofty social status of a navigator is the harsh conditions of nurturing a captain or a navigator. In addition to innately good brains, a long learning process and strong financial support are also essential. For this reason, most of the navigators can be roughly divided into two types. The first ones are those who are born in a wealthy family and are raised by their parents using a lot of money while the second ones are the children from the poor families who exhibit great talents during childhood and have signed a contract with various businesses to borrow money to enter the Institute of Navigation…”