Chapter 36: Buying a Ship (Part 2) Requesting Bookmarks

  "Are you done? Why don't we continue on the boat?" Old Ba Er said with a smile to Tang Jie.

  Tang Jie shook his head: "It doesn't matter, if you want to watch, there will be plenty of opportunities in the future."

  Old Bal laughed, he turned his head and continued to say to Darius: "Refit this ship, convert all its cargo holds into gunrooms, and then I need to see a chartroom, a storeroom, a staff room, an infirmary and a carpenter's room inside the ship! Also, all the guns in the gunrooms must be muzzle-loading cannons, don't try to fool me with those outdated culverins!"

  Old Barl hooked his iron leg over Darius' shoulder and said, "Add all these things together, a total of 20,000 gold coins, no more! If you are willing to sell, then sell to us. If not, we will go elsewhere! After all, Xishan is not the only shipyard!"

  Darius's mouth was wide open, but his eyes were full of surprise. This is the standard sea ship configuration of a warship!

  "He munched on, saying: 'Two gentlemen, what do you want a warship for?'"

  Lao Ba glared at him: "Are you selling or not?"

  Darius swallowed his saliva, just about to speak, but his eyes suddenly glanced at Captain Bar's iron hook prosthesis, and his heart suddenly moved.

  Are they really businessmen?

  Darius didn't think much when he first approached Old Bar and Tong Jie, because there were many other businessmen on the dock trying to recruit customers. If he was a step late, these customers would be taken away by other businessmen. In his eyes, these outsiders were all moving wallets.

  It wasn't until after half a day of introductions that Darius noticed something unusual about these two people.

  This shiny iron hook, this head of hair as black as night...

  Darius suddenly remembered a topic that was most discussed by those sailors and ** in the bar.

  Damn it, I should have gone back and gouged out my eyes!!!

  Darius's face turned very unsightly, as a businessman who was proud of his keen eyesight, he had been so negligent, this was an unforgivable mistake!

  Are they the pirates who caused chaos in Damascus?

  Especially when Darius saw the eyes of Old Barliali occasionally sweeping towards him, Tong Jie's introverted yet always unable to conceal sharp aura made Darius feel like a needle on his back.

  Darius had originally wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to make a profit from the two, but now he only had one thought in his mind: Omnipotent sea god Tira, forgive my small greed, let these two guys leave quickly and disappear as far as possible!

  What is the greatest fear of merchants at sea?

  The answer is obvious: pirates!

  Old Ba Er and Tang Jie stared at him together, causing a cold sweat to break out on the back of this short and stout merchant.

  What will they do with me?

  I heard that pirates would hang people from the mast, then use a knife to peel off their skin, and let seagulls peck at their flesh, slowly watching them wail to death.

  Won't I also be caught and subjected to such painful torture?

  Darius' legs were shaking non-stop, he was greedy by nature but also afraid of death, and at any rustling sound would curl up into a ball. He was truly an oddity among the Xexians. However, it never occurred to him that pirates like Old Barl and Tong Jie wouldn't dare to openly provoke the Xexian guards in broad daylight before revealing their true identities.

  Lao Ba Er looked at Daliu's face turning red and white, sighed: "Forget it, let's go find another seller!"

  He gave Tang Jie a look and the two of them turned around to leave, without even giving that three-masted Lion-class warship a glance.

  The two of them had just walked out less than five steps when they heard Darius let out a loud shout: "Alright, 20,000 gold coins it is! But I want cash!"

  Darius's face turned bright red, his chest heaving rapidly, and in his mind an angel seemed to be shouting loudly: Are you crazy, selling the ship to two notorious pirates?

  Another devil with a pitchfork in his hand shouted: They can give me 20,000 gold coins, 20,000! After deducting the 10,000 gold coins for renovation and cannons and the 8,000 gold coins for the sea ship, I can earn at least 2,000 myself! This is what I can earn in ten years!

  The head of the Kelsman family, the first family of the Ponde continent, once said a famous phrase in the business world: "A businessman is someone who would make a deal with the devil for greater profit!"

  It is clear that Darius was just such a person.

  But the stout merchant, while attracted by the price offered by old Barl, retained the cunning and caution peculiar to his class; his eyes gleamed with a fox-like light, as if trying to see from what secret source these two men had produced the two thousand pieces of gold.

  Lao Ba Er smiled, his pretentiousness was quite effective. He gave Tang Jie a glance: "Congratulations, kid, you now have a ship of your own! Name it later!"

  Two people walked away laughing, Darius watched them nervously, swallowing saliva nonstop, a faint voice in his mind screamed desperately: I must be crazy, I'm actually making a deal with pirates!

  Old Barl took out a thumb-sized emerald eye stone from his bosom and stuffed it into Darius' palm: "Is it worth twenty thousand gold coins?"

  Darius's eyes widened as soon as he saw this huge cat's eye stone, and his eyeballs were straight!

  He stared blankly at the cat's eye stone, which was crystal clear all over, but refracted a golden light in the middle. His throat rolled with a humming sound, and he panted heavily.

  Darius's hand trembled slightly as he picked it up from his palm, and he carefully observed it against the sunlight in the sky.

  The cat's eye effect in a chrysoberyl is due to the presence of numerous tiny, dense, parallel fibres or needles of rutile asbestos. The direction of these fibres is parallel to the crystal's c-axis and the effect appears as a bright line that seems to move as the stone is turned.

  On the continent of Ponde, cat's eye is extremely rare, and a high-quality cat's eye is even more deeply favored by those noblewomen. Under their pursuit, a good cat's eye can often be sold at an astonishingly high price.

  Darius was not skilled in distinguishing the quality and price of cat's eye, but he knew that the value of cat's eye depended on its color, quality and the perfection of the cat's eye band.

  The cat's eye gemstone in his hand has a central, straight and clear light band that moves freely with the rotation of the gemstone. Even when exposed to sunlight, the cat's eye effect does not weaken at all, and its color is the most valuable honey yellow!

  This is an extreme cat's eye stone, worth at least 100,000 gold coins!!

  The value of this cat's eye alone is enough to build a small fleet!

  After identifying the cat's eye stone, Darius's breathing suddenly became rough, his tongue seemed to have grown a circle larger, he tightly grasped the cat's eye stone, as if afraid that Bar would regret it in the next second. He stuttered and said: "It's worth two million gold coins! Gentlemen, do you have any other orders? Whatever you order, I will definitely do it for you! Even if you want a front-loading cannon, I'll find a way to get it for you!"

  Lao Ba laughed loudly: "I've thought of it, can you get it?"

  Muzzle-loading cannons can be freely bought and sold by merchants, but these long-range muzzle-loading mortars are prohibited from being circulated among the people for sale. Only military personnel have the qualifications to equip and purchase them. Anyone who dares to buy or sell such a large cannon will be punished with the most severe punishment!

  Darius' bluff was called on the spot, and he didn't seem embarrassed at all. He just said to Old Bar, "Sir, please wait here for a moment, I'll go get the contract, and in a little while this ship will be yours! In no more than five days, you'll see your three-masted Lion-class warship set sail on the high seas!"

  "Five days? Five days is too long..." Old Bar muttered with a frown.

  Darius bit his lip tightly and stretched out three fingers: "At least three days, I'll have my workers work overtime to rush it. What do you think?"

  Lao Ba knew that three days was already an extremely tight deadline for completing a ship's renovation.

  He nodded: "Three days is three days, but if I come to pick up the goods and find that you've been sloppy or haven't done something right... Hmph..."

  The big beard put an iron hook across Darius's neck, sneered and only scared him out of his wits. Darius answered repeatedly and left quickly.

  Tang Jie watched as the fatty ran away as fast as a champion in a 100-meter dash, like a rolling meatball. He had never known that a meatball could roll so quickly!

  "How much is that gemstone worth? I feel like we've been cheated." Tang Jie looked at Bal in confusion.

  Baron Boatwright chuckled: "At the Imperial Capital's auction seven months ago, a cat's eye stone just like this one sold for 130,000 gold coins. What do you think it's worth?"

  Tang Jie's face changed instantly, and he took a cold breath: "1.3 million gold coins? Isn't that enough to buy ten three-masted Lion Eagle-class warships?"

  "What a loss! Why didn't you exchange this cat's eye gemstone for gold coins?" Tang Jie retorted.

  Old Bar stared at Tang Jie, sighed and said: "Kid, where did this gem come from? I believe you should also be able to guess! However, what you need to understand is that it's just a tiny part of Pirate King Atos' treasure. As long as we find Atos' treasure before others do, we'll have endless wealth!"

  "What we lack now is not money, but time!" Tang Jie reacted extremely quickly and suddenly came to a realization.

  Old Bal nodded and patted Tang Jie's shoulder: "Let's go, we're leaving here!"

  "Where are we going?" Tang Jie asked.

  "Go to the Green Forest Bar in Xixis," Old Bal said.

  "What's going on there?" Tang Jie asked curiously.

  Old Bar laughed: "Foolish child, you have a ship, but can you sail it alone? Let's go recruit sailors!"

  After finishing, Old Bar said with a wink: "By the way, there's a great woman over there, you can get to know her! If you come to Xixi and don't go to the Green Forest, if you haven't had wine with Maria in the Green Forest, then it's like you've never been to Xixi!"

  Second update is complete, see you later!

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