Chapter 233 — A Piece of Theater

"Heh. Do you think Goro has the nerve for that? Especially after seeing what you and Victoria can do—would he take that risk?" Yang Hengye shook his head. If Yang Ce hadn't spotted that person on the pirate ship—someone who had absolutely no reason to be there—Yang Shuoxuan would never have been so certain that this business had nothing at all to do with Goro.

"I suppose you're right." Hearing Yang Juehuan's analysis, Wang Yanqiu agreed with him. Goro had no need at all to take such a risk and rob them. These snakeheads were not short of money, and robbing Yang Pushen and his group would amount to suicide. So as long as Goro's head was on straight, he would never do such a thing.

Yang Ce and Wang Yanqiu came up onto the deck. They found Victoria holding the hunting rifle, her expression cold as she watched Goro and the approaching vessel in the distance. The pirate ship was gradually drawing near.

"Listen, everyone on the ship opposite! Listen, everyone on the ship opposite!" As the pirate ship drew close, a voice came booming across from it: "Do not attempt any resistance, or we will open fire on you!"

The same words were repeated several times. The pirate ship too came to a stop alongside Goro's boat. Several ropes were hurled over Goro's gunwale, bringing his boat completely under the pirate ship's control.

Of the four burly men on the pirate ship, the one-eyed man stayed behind to guard it, while the other three climbed down the ropes onto Goro's boat.

"Hand over everything of value. We don't want to get rough—save us the trouble and hand it over yourselves," one of the burly men said.

Wang Yanqiu and Victoria both looked at Yang Ce at the same time. The moment Yang Pushen gave a nod, the lives of these three men—along with that of the man on the pirate ship—would all end right here.

But Yang Jiyan gave a slight shake of his head and said quietly to Wang Yanqiu, "Give them the diamonds and the money."

Wang Yanqiu was slightly taken aback, but still did as Yang Ce said and tossed the small suitcase in her hand onto the deck ahead. She was quite puzzled as to why Yang Ce had not lifted a finger against these pirates—after all, Yang Ce was not the sort to swallow a loss meekly. These men had actually tried to rob Yang Ce, and Wang Yanqiu had assumed they would meet a miserable end.

Yang Ce was confident enough in dealing with these few, but the real ringleader had yet to show himself, and Yang Shuoxuan could not be bothered to move against them. Seizing the lull, Yang Ce used his ability to probe the pirates' vessel.

There were only a handful of cabins aboard the pirate ship, so Yang Ce finished his sweep in what felt like an instant.

Apart from the ringleader, there was no one else hidden on board.

And this pirate vessel held only these four brutes. What astonished Yang Ce, however, was that the ringleader had actually...

"Help! Save me, these men have taken me captive!"

Just as Yang Ce was mulling this over, a shrill female cry for help rang out from the pirate ship, and the man left on guard aboard immediately tensed, raising the gun in his hands and knitting his brows.

That distinctive timbre made it easy for Yang Ce to tell that the voice belonged to the very ringleader on the ship. And even without Yang Xutang coming out, he had already seen that she was—

—right there.

The three brutes on Goro's boat paused in their work as well, then snatched up the black case on the deck; before they could even open it, they turned to head back to the pirate ship. But the instant they moved, Yang Shuoxuan moved.

Yang Ce seized the right leg of the brute nearest him and yanked him over. Before the man could react, Yang Ce's hand closed around his throat; the brute slumped to the deck without so much as a grunt.

Even as he finished that one off, Yang Ce's legs were not idle—his left leg lashed out straight, kicking another brute who had rushed over to help clean off the deck and straight into the sea.

Wang Yanqiu and Victoria had been watching Yang Juehuan's every move, so the moment Yang Ce struck, they moved too. Wang Yanqiu's glass dagger slid into her hand in an instant, stabbing toward the brute nearest her—the one stooping to retrieve the black case.

Wang Yanqiu's strike was viciously precise. The blade sank straight into the brute's heart; his body convulsed once, then he dropped to the ground without a sound.

Victoria, meanwhile, raised her gun in a flash, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The brute left on guard aboard the pirate ship was shot dead as well—the whole sequence flowing in one breath, without the slightest hesitation.

After finishing off the one-eyed man left aboard the pirate ship, Victoria put another round into the sea, striking the brute Yang Ce had kicked overboard squarely in the body.

Watching Yang Ce's clean, efficient work, Victoria was astonished at heart. It was the first time she had ever felt unable to see through a person. On the fighting stage in the past, she could keenly discern an opponent's strength—that was the secret of her undefeated record.

But this time she had misjudged. There was no killing intent about Yang Juehuan at all, yet the instant Yang Ce struck, he was so ferocious and steeped in blood that Victoria could not help feeling a little afraid. If Yang Ce were her enemy, could she dodge a single blow from Yang Juehuan?

Wang Yanqiu's strike, by contrast, did not much surprise Victoria. Victoria had long since recognized that Wang Yanqiu was one of her own kind, so she felt nothing particular about Wang Yanqiu's move now.

It was just that Victoria grew more and more perplexed—what on earth had Yang Ce brought her back to the country for? Yang Ce and the women around him were each more formidable than the last. Did he really need Victoria to protect him?

Watching Wang Yanqiu pull out her dagger with an expressionless face, wipe it a couple of times on the brute's corpse, and tuck it back into her sleeve, Victoria could tell that Wang Yanqiu was an old hand at killing, no inferior to Victoria herself.

Goro and Jim were stunned. They had never expected Yang Ce, Wang Yanqiu, and Victoria to dispatch the pirates before them in an instant, and their eyes went wide.

Amid their shock, they also felt profoundly lucky that they had not crossed Yang Ce—otherwise they would have died even more wretchedly than these pirates. What sort of people were Yang Cenbin and the rest? They were far more vicious than any pirate.

Yang Ce paid no more attention to the few corpses on the boat; he leaped onto the pirate ship and walked toward the source of the sound. It was a locked cabin, but under Yang Puqi's foot the whole door was kicked clean off its hinges.

"Help!" The person inside the cabin was still crying for help.

"No need to shout, Miss Alice." Yang Ce glanced at the girl in the room and said mildly, "Everyone up there has already been dealt with by me."

"Ah, how is it you? Yang Ce?" Alice's eyes went wide with surprise, fluttering as she stared at Yang Ce. She gaped incredulously, her mouth forming an "O."

"Naturally it's me." Yang Yuting nodded. "If I hadn't recognized your voice, do you think I'd bother with such a trifle?"

Had Yang Ce not witnessed the earlier scene, he might well have been fooled right now by Alice's innocent expression. Unfortunately for her, Yang Minlan had already grown wary, and combined with what he had just seen, he did not believe a word of her nonsense.

Only, Yang Ce did not want to expose her just yet. He wanted to see what trick she was really preparing to play, so he chatted with Alice, feigning perfect naturalness.

"That's true enough," Alice sighed. "It seems I really must thank heaven for letting me run into you. Otherwise, as you say, anyone else might not have bothered with such a trifle—nor had the ability to. Those men were professional pirates, all of them formidable. An ordinary person really couldn't beat them."