Cursed Mountains and Seas

Chapter 106 Shocking News: Circumnavigation of the Globe, Ah Ji's Origins
As Wang Cheng walked in, he saw a sixth-rank "altar attendant" from the White Scale Guard burning incense and setting up an altar on the site of the ancestral temple, which had been razed to the ground.

The official position of Tan Tong is specifically for dealing with ghosts and evil spirits. Everyone in this position is serious and has a cold demeanor. Moreover, most of them will have a shortened lifespan, and some will be unable to have children.

Despite being a local official, he was in a worse situation than most water-based officials.

This person used the "Five Sacred Mountains Ghost-Suppressing Altar" and carefully placed the ashes of the nest of ghosts he had meticulously nurtured on the altar in an urn.

"Stop looking. The dead commander is using the ashes of the Pu family as a medium to curse and kill their ten clans."

Even those who hid outside and didn't return, those who secretly took on a master without anyone knowing, none of them can escape.

Wang Cheng remembered that there was indeed a surname called "death" in the Hundred Family Surnames, but this was the first time in his life he had seen a living person with it.

It is speculated that this surname may have some kind of divine blessing on the position of [Tan Tong].

As for the tenth clan, "students".

Fortunately, he didn't feign compliance and accept Pu Shouying's invitation to take him as a disciple; otherwise, even if he had escaped the Nine Dragons Spitting Pearls Scheme, he would no longer be able to keep the identity of "Wang Fugui".

“Fu Gui’er, you are a seventh-rank [Bai Shui Lang], right? Ling Ying is [Dian Hua].

Your task is to kill every single earthworm and worm in the Pu family mansion, leaving none alive.

Come and raid my property whenever you've finished killing them all.

"Remember, we must report back to His Majesty before dawn; we must not be late."

Lu Yunchen summoned two ordinary warriors to assist Wang Cheng, then turned to leave.

"Lord Commander, there's no need for such trouble. Watch me use a few tricks."

Wang Cheng was unwilling to spend the whole night killing earthworms. He quickly found a brazier, lit a fire, and when the charcoal was red-hot, threw in a "moth to a flame" incense stick.

The aroma is barely noticeable to humans, but it is incredibly attractive to various insects, causing it to spread rapidly.

rustling
Without wasting a moment, all sorts of crawling and flapping sounds came from all directions.

Earthworms, centipedes, ants, moths, and caterpillars all rushed toward the brazier at the source of the aroma, only to be burned to ashes by the crackling charcoal fire.

Round after round, without end, they didn't have to do anything, the executions were carried out automatically.

"The fragrance is quite well-matched."

"The strongman is here watching the fire. Fugui, come with me, cough cough."

Even the most envious ghosts and gods would admire Lu Yunchen so much that he would set aside his pride and offer a word of praise.

Every time they wiped out a family, no one was willing to do the work of killing earthworms and ants, mainly because these things had too weak a life force, and even the bloodthirsty ghosts they raised were unwilling to kill them.

Otherwise, such a lucrative opportunity as raiding a property wouldn't be available to an outsider. If they could find a chance to slip in two luminous pearls, would the buyer really know where the treasure came from?

Lu Yunchen, carrying a wine jug, swayed as he led Wang Cheng toward the most central courtyard of the family head.

If there are any valuable items in hidden compartments or secret rooms, they are most likely located here.

Just as Wang Cheng was hesitating about which room to point to, he remembered a passage he had extracted from Pu Shouying's memory and volunteered:
"Lord Commander, how about we begin in the nearest study?"

Lu Yunchen waved his hand dismissively, letting him decide for himself.

Boom!

Wang Cheng blasted open the protective array on the door with a single thunderbolt, ignoring the piercing alarm, and strode inside.

Previously, when they tried to sneak into the study, they failed, but this time they swaggered back in.

The feeling of working with a "demolition-style house raiding license" is so refreshing that it's no wonder everyone is scrambling to join the White Scale Guard.

They immediately began searching. The entire Pu family ancestral home was too large, and time was limited, with each person responsible for a considerable area.

Thanks to the officials who could summon the officers and soldiers within the legal register to help, the mission was able to be completed before sunrise.

"found it."

Wang Cheng ignored the various precious antiques and paintings in the study that might correspond one-to-one with the storeroom ledgers, and stomped hard on a blue brick on the ground.

The dark chamber, powered entirely by water, slowly opened.

Inside are letters between Pu Shouying and certain local officials, gentry, and powerful families, as well as accounts of stolen goods and transactions.
There are also records of selling stolen goods to pirates, the source of smuggled goods, and accounting procedures.
He simply memorized the names of those officials and then turned his attention to another pile of documents.

Those were dozens of nautical charts from different sea areas and routes, as well as some logbooks of captains from Western countries and scholarly works.

Among them are the "Needle Road Map" drawn in the style commonly used by the Daisho Emperor, which marks the time and distance of the voyage, the compass direction at a specific ship position, and specific landmarks.

There are also the positions of the sun and moon, the depth of water, and the mud, sand, and rocks used for astronomical positioning.

The records mainly cover shipping routes in the East China Sea, Southeast Asia, the Spice Islands, and east of the Strait of Malacca.

Others are Western nautical charts, mainly marked with isometric routes, compass dials, wind rose diagrams, and scales.
These nautical charts are used in a completely different way than compass charts. For example, they require the use of conformal routes in conjunction with a compass to determine navigation routes.
Wind rose diagrams represent the frequency, average wind speed, and maximum wind speed of various wind directions, and have various labeling types such as year, season, and month.
Wang Cheng possessed the ability to observe stars. Without a compass or astrolabe, he could instinctively determine his location by glancing at a nautical chart, making him even better than those old sailors who had spent their entire lives at sea.

It's not that these treasures are to be regarded as celestial books.

Even the knowledge accumulated by countless sages of the East and West through their lives quickly merged into his mind.

The scale is automatically adjusted to create a complete sea route from Yingzhou, Dazhao, and Nanyang all the way to the countries of Tai (the far west).

Wang Cheng's expression first lit up with joy, then darkened:
"This set of nautical charts is far more complete than the one held by the Five Peaks Flag Bearers, but it is obviously missing the section from the New World to Dazhao, leaving a large area shrouded in the fog of war."

This confirms what Master said before: the western ocean and waters are much safer than the vast ocean.

Given the Pu family's status, the timeliness was certainly guaranteed; the absence of a nautical chart indicates that, to date, no Western adventurer has been able to traverse the vast ocean that comprises one-third of the world's landmass.

He didn't dwell too much on this small regret.

The thought of writing a book about navigation and naval warfare came to him like a dream come true; this information was more valuable to him than 100,000 taels of gold and silver.

They immediately and without hesitation pocketed the money.

"If we leave these materials to the imperial court, there might be a slight chance that it will stimulate the central government's desire to explore the world beyond China."

But it's more likely that another Liu Daxia, Li Daxia, or Zhang Daxia will emerge, and they'll all be burned down, thus dispelling the emperor's delusions of "wasting the people's resources" and "competing with the people for profit."

Just to be on the safe side, let me keep it.

Once I finish writing my book on naval warfare, even if I don't become a saintly 'prince,' I'll still be perfectly capable of being recorded in history as the 'first person to open his eyes to the world.'

If one cultivates to the upper third rank of "Living Ghost or God," the title alone can grant one or two exclusive powers.

While tidying up these materials, Wang Cheng unexpectedly found a letter inside a page of a book.

Upon opening it, one could see that the letter was written by Pu Shouying's eldest son, who was doing business in Southeast Asia, and it was dated half a month ago.

"According to other merchants who came to the East, the Kingdom of East Franco sent a fleet of 265 people and five sailing ships three years ago: the flagship Trinidad, the San Antonio, the Consecutive, the Victoria, and the Santiago, to embark on the first circumnavigation of the globe."

It was said to have caused a sensation at the time, but three years later, everyone thought these people had perished at sea.
However, recently, a dilapidated breech-loading sailing ship was discovered in waters off the island of Luzon in Southeast Asia.

The clues found above prove that this ship is the Consecutive!

Father, do you believe it? They actually succeeded in crossing that vast ocean that all the dynasties of China had feared like a tiger and ordered to stay away from the sea!

They even gave that extremely dangerous body of water a very strange name: the Pacific Ocean!

The moment Wang Cheng saw the words "round-the-world voyage," the image of the bald eagle Aji involuntarily popped into his mind, along with the rudimentary memories in its brain.

"It's not a native bird; it grew up in a chicken coop on an ocean-going adventure ship and sailed across the sea with the ship and a flock of chickens."

"Because it had never seen another bird of its kind, it always thought it was a chicken."

"It still has the words 'circumnavigation' in Francophone."

But then one day, everyone on the ship started acting strangely, and it took advantage of the chaos to escape, losing all its beloved little hens in the process. (Chapter 70)

Combining the intelligence from both sources, Wang Cheng was able to conclude that Aji had crossed the vast ocean with this adventurous fleet and arrived at the coast of Dazhao from the New World.

Keep looking down.

"They deciphered a ship's logbook that seemed to be the ramblings of a madman, and discovered that these Franco adventurers appeared to have brought back some incredible treasure from the depths of the ocean."

Recently, dense fog has frequently occurred in the waters surrounding Luzon Island in the South Pacific, and many strange things have happened.

Many strange and unheard-of things are wandering around, as if searching for something.

When Wang Cheng was working for Bai Shuilang, he had glimpsed a fragment of the world behind the wall through the sudden emergence of the [Sihai Tongbao].

Feeling inadequate in his abilities, he had little desire for those treasures and had no intention of getting involved.

"Don't worry about it. The Great Zhao has a mountain and sea curse that connects the north and south. Even if there are disturbances in the depths of the vast ocean, they can't get here."

and many more! "

He suddenly remembered one thing.

"Today, the Nine Dragons Spitting Pearls Bureau extracted the dragon energy from the grass and the bow of the ship in the East China Sea."

Although the dragon energy in the old father's body was eventually restored and he even made a fortune, the time for him to manifest his divine power in the human world may have been brought forward considerably.

However, the overall power to suppress evil spirits fluctuated drastically.

According to the letter, if there truly are evil spirits "outside the wall" ready to catch thieves at any moment, is it possible that they would seize the opportunity to...

clang!clang!clang!
An alarm bell suddenly rang on the beacon tower in Citong, on the edge of the port.

(End of this chapter)