Odd Containment Specialist.

Chapter 880 Two Coping Strategies
"You're back?"

When Summerback returned to that shore, Sparrow gave him the expected smug smile.

"I need to go back to the modern world," Xia Shou said. "Could you please take me back?"

Sparrow's smile froze; the request seemed to have caught him off guard.

“Reason.” Sparrow shrugged.

"Because Spreadt will try to infiltrate the present world, he has already sent people there. Those people are not from this era and are not affected by the reset, so..."

“Does any of this concern me? I mean, what reasons would make me accept your request?” Sparrow looked at Xia Shou seriously, then shrugged. “I’m a pirate.”

Xia Shou remained silent.

He couldn't think of a reason that could convince Sparrow.

It's impossible to go to the present world by taking the ladder route provided by Zhang Heping. The only way back is to take Sparrow's Black Pearl, and only Sparrow can pilot the Black Pearl; otherwise, it will get lost in the Origin Sea.

He could only persuade Sparrow, he had no choice but to persuade Sparrow!

Similarly, Sparrow had already considered this, which is why he allowed him to act on his own at the time.

Sparrow knew all along that he could only come back to him.

"What do you want me to do?" Xia Shou could only bargain with him.

“You should have helped me in the first place. What did that person say to you? Did he let you leave anytime? I don’t know if he told you how much I gave him in return,” Sparrow said.

“I don’t care what benefits you gave him, but I have a clear conscience. I have already helped you a lot. Without me, Hu Ling, Hippolyta, and the others who infiltrated the palace would not have been able to come out alive.”

“Come with me to the Jade Bureau,” Sparrow suddenly said.

"Wh...what?" Xia Shou was a little taken aback; the topic had jumped around too quickly.

“You want to go back to the mortal world, right? I can take you back, but you’ll have to come with me to Moyusi afterward.” Sparrow slowly approached, lowering his voice and mumbling incoherently, “I know you know that place. Pedros told me you can use that stone to guide you.”

Xia Shou took a deep breath, feeling as if he had figured something out.

Pedros?
Combining Sparrow's words about stones and finding the way, he guessed the general truth.

The stone likely refers to black jade, and "guiding" probably refers to the kind of thing Pedros did in the underworld, but he wouldn't do such a thing. So why would Pedros tell Sparrow that he could guide?
I don't know what Pedros said to Sparrow.

Xia Shou didn't think Pedros had betrayed him. After all, in Pedros's eyes, he was someone chosen by the Moyu Division and was also going to the Moyu Division, which meant he was on the same path as Sparrow.

Pedros might even think that this helped him.

In a way, it did help him. He originally wanted to go to Moyu Si. If Sparrow could go with the Black Pearl and that stone, why not?
“Okay, I promise you,” Xia Shou readily agreed.

“I don’t believe you anymore. We need to write an agreement. I’ve prepared everything. You just need to sign it.” Sparrow pulled a crumpled piece of oil paper from behind his back. There were words written on it, as well as some incomprehensible runes, as if some kind of contract ritual had been performed.

When Xia Shou cast a suspicious look at the other party, Sparrow explained, "It makes perfect sense for the Crescent Moon to be a witness, doesn't it?"

Xia Shou looked at the other person's "sincere" smile, then at the paper in his hand, and said, "Shall we find a more private place to sign this agreement?"

"Of course, whatever you like!" He generously spread his hands.

Thirty minutes later, Xia Shou and Sparrow emerged from the woods.

As expected, Sparrow had indeed tampered with the contract. Fortunately, he could use Pinocchio to see through the other party's lies, so he wasn't fooled. Although the price was having his sense of taste taken away for three days, the benefit was that he gained another concession from Sparrow—a promise of custody of the stone. "Everyone, get on the ship. We're going back. We'll come back when things reset here!" Sparrow called out.

Xia Shou couldn't help but ask, "Where's your first mate?"

"Oh, the boat can sail without him."

“No, that’s not what I’m asking. What I mean is, are we just going to leave him like this?” Xia Shou asked.

Sparrow turned around and said in a serious tone, "There's nothing we can do. We need to go back and regroup before coming back to save him!" Although he spoke earnestly, his performance was so affected that it was almost nauseating.

The other crew members boarded the ship in small groups, and the veteran crew members hardly mentioned the first mate, as if losing him was no big deal.

"Pirates are really ruthless," Su Weiyu commented unhappily.

"Isn't this just like in the movie?"

“It’s completely different. In the movie, the audience knows that their companion will be alright, and Sparrow will definitely rescue them in some way in the end. But this is reality. How can it follow the script of the movie? They just really abandoned that person.” Su Weiyu said with a frown.

It's clear that she's lost her illusions about real-life pirates.

Xia Shou didn't think anything of it at all, after all, he had never had any romantic feelings for Sparrow.

……

……

When Natsumori arrived in the present world, the sun had just risen the next day. The round trip took only one day, and the main part of that day was spent not in the Scar Era, but in other historical periods during the journey.

Before Shangguan Yan received Xia Shou's new intelligence, the second report on the Scar Era had not yet been delivered. The Bureau of Control was quite optimistic about the danger of the Scar Era, and relevant departments had even begun to arrange for its transformation into a training base.

One of the intelligence reports led to an emergency decision by the Control Bureau: the Möbius Canyon, where the Heart of the Rift King is located, received a large number of secret reinforcements.

This reinforcement is very timely and can definitely arrive before the Demon Kings take action, because Xia Shou is very fast, and even if the Demon Kings set off decades ago in the Scar Era, it would only take a very short time for them to arrive in the modern era ahead of time.

Even with the most pessimistic estimate, the earliest they could arrive was no more than four or five days ago.

On the contrary, another piece of new intelligence brought back by Xia Shou caused the Control Bureau a great deal of trouble.

—Sprite, the Rift King, knows the truth about the cyclical history.

In fact, even if Sprite knew the truth, the present world would most likely not be affected, because the speed difference between the two eras is too great, making it impossible for the Rift King to operate in the present world for too long. The Bureau of Control believes that even in the worst-case scenario, that is, if Sprite arrives in the present world, she can still survive until the Scar Era resets.

However, Sprite is not an idiot, so the Bureau of Control is currently designing its response strategy based on the premise that "Sprite has some means to quickly complete the signing."

The biggest challenge in the entire response process was information transmission.

The transmission of information between historical periods was not like modern mobile phones, where you can just make a phone call. Instead, it was more like the ancient military intelligence missions that required people to travel long distances in person.

The journey from the Scar Era to the modern era is not a short one-day trip for travelers. For example, although Xia Shou only spent one day returning to the modern era, he spent two months adrift at sea.

And this is still the case with the Black Pearl. The normal ladder route would take even longer, which means that the intelligence being transmitted would also have a high probability of being intercepted along the way.

For example... some of the ladders at the bottom have already been occupied by Sprite.

(End of this chapter)