Chapter 105: A Startling Revelation: The Global Voyage and the Origin of the Chicken

Wang Cheng walked in and saw a sixth-rank "Altar Child" of the White Scale Guards, already busy burning incense and opening an altar on the former site of the family temple, which had been razed to the ground.

The official position of an Altar Child is dedicated to dealing with ghosts and evil spirits. Each is humorless, possessed of a chilling aura, and most suffer from shortened lifespans; some even remain childless. Despite being a Ground-tier official, they often have a more miserable existence than most Water-tier officials.

The man was utilizing a "Five Mountains Ghost-Suppressing Altar," carefully arranging a clutch of ghosts he had painstakingly cultivated, now housed in ash urns, upon the altar.

"Stop looking. The Thousand-Household Commander, whose surname is Death, is currently using the ashes of the Pu family as a medium to curse their ten clans. Even those hiding outside who haven't returned, or those who secretly apprenticed under masters without anyone knowing, none will escape."

Wang Cheng remembered that there was indeed a "Death" surname in the Hundred Family Surnames, but this was the first time in his life he had encountered a living person with it. He guessed that this surname might have some sort of predestined bonus for the Altar Child position.

As for the tenth clan, the "students"—thankfully, he had not played along with Pu Shouying's invitation to become an apprentice. Otherwise, even if he had escaped the Nine Dragons Spitting Pearls formation, the identity of "Wang Fugui" would have been untenable.

"Fugui, you are a seventh-rank 'White Water Lad,' right? Your spiritual response is 'Enlightenment.' The task assigned to you is to kill all the earthworms and insects in the Pu residence; not a single living one can remain. Once you are finished, come find me to help raid the place. Mind you, we must report back to His Majesty before dawn; we cannot afford any delays."

Lu Yunchen summoned two mortal laborers to assist Wang Cheng and then turned to leave.

"Commander, why go to such trouble? Watch me employ a minor technique."

Wang Cheng was not about to waste his whole night killing earthworms. He quickly found a brazier, lit a fire, and once the charcoal glowed red, he tossed in a piece of "Moth-to-Flame Incense." While humans would feel nothing, the aroma acted as a fatal lure to all manner of insects.

*Rustle, rustle.*

Without a moment's delay, sounds of crawling and fluttering wings erupted from every direction. Earthworms, centipedes, ants, moths, and caterpillars all rushed toward the fire at the source of the scent, only to be crackled into ash by the charcoal. Wave after wave, continuous and ceaseless—they didn't need to do anything; the extermination was fully automated.

"This incense is quite well-blended. You laborers watch the fire. Fugui, come with me, *ahem*..."

Lu Yunchen, known as the "Ghost-God's Envy," rarely set aside his pride to offer a word of praise. During every house-cleansing, the task of killing worms and ants was one nobody wanted, mainly because the life force of such creatures was too weak; even the bloodthirsty ghosts they kept were unwilling to kill them. Otherwise, the lucrative job of raiding a household would never fall to an outsider. If one were to slip a couple of night-luminescent pearls into their pocket, would the buyer really know where the treasure came from?

Lu Yunchen, holding a wine flask, swayed as he led Wang Cheng toward the main residence of the family head. If there were hidden compartments or secret rooms containing precious items, they would most likely be there. As he hesitated over which room to point out to Wang Cheng, Wang Cheng recalled information he had tortured out of Pu Shouying’s memory and volunteered:

"Commander, why not start with the study nearby?"

Lu Yunchen waved his hand dismissively, letting him decide.

*Boom!*

Wang Cheng used a thunder-bolt to blast open the restrictive formation on the study door, ignored the piercing alarm, and strode inside. He hadn't been able to enter the study while searching stealthily before, but this time he returned with an arrogant swagger. The feeling of working with a "demolition-style search warrant" was truly refreshing; it was no wonder everyone broke their heads trying to get into the White Scale Guards.

He immediately began his search. The entire Pu ancestral home was far too large, and with limited time, each person was responsible for a significant area. It was only thanks to the fact that officials could summon the clerks and soldiers within their legal talisman to help that they could guarantee the task would be finished by sunrise.

"Found it."

Wang Cheng bypassed the various precious antiques, calligraphy, and paintings in the study that might correspond to the warehouse ledgers and stomped hard on a blue brick on the floor. A hydraulically driven secret room slowly opened.

Inside were letters between Pu Shouying and various local officials, gentry, and major clans, as well as ledgers of illicit goods and records of dealings with pirates, including sources of smuggled goods and financial trails. He merely committed the names of those officials to memory before turning his gaze to another pile of documents.

Those were dozens of nautical charts of different sea areas and routes, along with logbooks and scholarly works from captains of various Western nations. Among them were "Needle Route Charts" drawn using the methods common to the Great Zhao, marking travel times, mileage, compass directions at specific ship positions, and specific landmarks. There were also charts for star-positioning, detailing the rising and setting of the sun and moon, water depths, and mudflats and reefs. They recorded routes mainly in the East China Sea, the South Seas, the Spice Islands, and east of the Strait of Malacca.

Others were Western nautical charts, primarily marked with rhumb lines, compass roses, wind roses, and scales. The usage of these charts was entirely different from the Needle Route Charts; for instance, they required combining rhumb lines with a compass to plot a course. The wind rose diagrams indicated the frequency, average wind speed, and maximum wind speed of various wind directions, with multiple identifier types for years, seasons, and months.

Wang Cheng possessed the ability to observe the stars; he didn't need a compass or a star-sighting board. A single glance at the charts allowed him to instinctively determine his position, surpassing even old sailors who had drifted on the sea their entire lives. He wouldn't treat these treasures as incomprehensible books. Instead, the knowledge accumulated by countless sages from both East and West over lifetimes quickly merged into a whole in his mind.

He automatically adjusted the scales and pieced them together into a complete route stretching from Yingzhou, the Great Zhao, and the South Seas all the way to the Western lands.

Wang Cheng’s expression turned joyful, then dimmed. "This set of charts is far more complete than the one in the hands of the Five Peaks flag-bearer, but it clearly lacks the section from the New World to the Great Zhao, leaving a vast 'fog of war.' This confirms what my master said before: the Western oceans and waters are far safer than the Cangming Ocean. Given the status of the Pu family, their timeliness was certainly guaranteed; the absence of these charts means that, to this day, no Western adventurer has been able to cross the Cangming Ocean, which covers a third of the world."

He didn't dwell too much on this small regret. Thinking that he was preparing to write a book on navigation and naval warfare, it was as if he had been given a pillow just as he felt sleepy; these materials were more precious to him than a hundred thousand taels of gold and silver. He immediately tucked them into his money-eye without ceremony.

"If I leave these materials to the imperial court, there might be a sliver of a chance to ignite the central government's desire to explore the world beyond the Divine Land. But it's more likely that another Liu Daxia, Li Daxia, or Zhang Daxia will emerge to burn them in a fire, quelling the Emperor's 'frivolous' delusions of 'wasting resources' and 'competing with the people for profit.' For safety's sake, I'd better keep them myself."

"Once I finish my book on naval warfare, even if I don't become a sage or a 'Prince,' there will be no problem in becoming the 'first person to open his eyes to the world' in history books. If I can reach the upper three ranks of 'Living Ghost-God,' that title alone will be enough to add one or two exclusive powers."

While packing up these materials, Wang Cheng accidentally discovered a letter tucked between the pages of a book. Opening it, he saw it was written by Pu Shouying’s eldest son, who was currently doing business in the South Seas, dated half a month ago.

"...I heard from other merchants who came to the East that the Kingdom of the East Franks sent out an oceanic fleet three years ago, consisting of 265 men and five sailing ships: the flagship *Trinidad*, the *San Antonio*, the *Concepcion*, the *Victoria*, and the *Santiago*, to begin the first circumnavigation of the globe. It was said to be a sensation at the time, but three years have passed, and everyone assumes they have perished at sea.

However, recently, someone discovered a dilapidated Frankish galleon in the waters off the island of Luzon in the South Seas. Clues found on board proved that this ship was the *Concepcion*! Father, can you believe it? They actually succeeded in crossing the Cangming Ocean—the very sea that all dynasties of the Divine Land have feared like a tiger and forbidden people from sailing! They even gave that extremely dangerous body of water a very strange name: the Pacific Ocean!"

The moment he saw the words "circumnavigation of the globe," the figure of the white-headed eagle, Ah-Ji, jumped into Wang Cheng’s mind, along with the crude memories in its brain.

"It’s not a local bird, but grew up in the coop of an oceanic adventure ship, drifting across the sea with the ship and a flock of chickens..."

"Because it had never seen its own kind, it always thought it was a chicken..."

"Its memory also contained the words for 'circumnavigation' in the Frankish language. It was just that one day, the people on the ship all started acting very strangely, so it ran away during the chaos and lost all its beloved little hens."

Combining the two pieces of intelligence, Wang Cheng could conclude that Ah-Ji had indeed crossed the Cangming Ocean with that fleet of adventurers, coming from the New World to the coast of the Great Zhao.

He continued reading.

"...They deciphered a nautical logbook on the ship that read like the ravings of a madman and found that these Frankish adventurers seemed to have brought out some incredible treasure from the depths of the Cangming Ocean. Recently, the waters around the island of Luzon in the South Seas have often been shrouded in thick fog, and many strange things have happened. Many evil, unheard-of things are wandering about, as if they are searching for something."

When Wang Cheng had taken his post as a White Water Lad, he had glimpsed a sliver of the world behind the wall with the help of the suddenly erupting "Four Seas Currency." Feeling his own strength was insufficient, he had little greed for those treasures and was not prepared to get involved.

"Ignore it. The Great Zhao has the Mountain and Sea Curses that connect the north and south. Even if there is trouble in the depths of the Cangming Ocean, it cannot reach here. Wait!"

He suddenly remembered something.

"Today, the Nine Dragons Spitting Pearls formation extracted the dragon energy from the grass-roots and the boat-head in the East China Sea eye. Although the dragon energy on the Old Father was eventually replenished and even earned a windfall—making it possible for his manifestation in the human world to occur much earlier—the power suppressing the evil spirits still fluctuated violently overall. According to the letter, if there are indeed evil spirits 'outside the wall' waiting for a chance to catch a thief, is it possible..."

*Clang! Clang! Clang!*

An alarm bell suddenly rang out from the beacon tower on the edge of the port of Citong.