Chapter 27: Arrival

“Sister Qinglan, you’re finally here! The beach at night is so eerie—I was scared to death.”
Seeing that it really was Lin Qinglan approaching, Tan Yan finally breathed a sigh of relief. Despite acting calm earlier in front of her brother, she had been extremely anxious inside.

“Why did you run over here alone? Where’s your brother?”
Not seeing Tan Hao behind her, Lin Qinglan thought something might have happened. Normally, those two were always glued together.

“I got too excited when I saw you and forgot he didn’t have a flashlight. He’s probably still back there waiting for us to fetch him.”

“Let’s hurry over and get him then. My younger sister’s the one captaining the boat tonight, so watch what you say. Don’t act too arrogantly—her temper isn’t great. If you provoke her, she might just toss you into the sea to feed the sharks.”

Lin Qinglan meant well in warning Tan Yan. This trip to smuggle them to Hong Kong had already disrupted a lot of Lin Qingmei’s plans. If Tan Yan annoyed her, who knew what might happen?

After all, in the vast open sea, if someone were to die, no one would ever find out.

What Lin Qinglan didn’t realize was that her “helpful” reminder had nearly scared Tan Yan to tears. How could someone be so ruthless?!

Once they got on the boat, Tan Yan didn’t even dare to glance at Lin Qingmei.

Lin Qingmei, unaware that her best friend had just painted her as a murderous maniac, simply assumed Tan Yan was shy and didn’t like talking to strangers.

“You should head back. When Lin Zheng wakes up, he’ll come looking for you. This trip to Hong Kong will take several days round-trip, so just stay home and wait for us to return.”

“Safe journey.”

Watching the fishing boat slowly drift away from shore, Lin Qinglan finally turned around to leave. She couldn’t go to Hong Kong this time, but next time—she was planning a trip to Japan to “shop for free.”

If America weren’t so far away, she wouldn’t have spared it either. But for now, traveling wasn’t so convenient, and she couldn’t just disappear for a month without reason.

“Qingmei, go get some rest. Your second and third grand-uncles and I will handle the boat tonight. We should reach Hong Kong around 3 a.m.”
Third Grandpa Lin, worried that Qingmei wouldn’t be able to stay up all night, told her to rest. After all, she was a girl, not used to the hard lifestyle of old sailors.

“No, I’d rather you two take turns. I want to learn how to navigate at sea at night.”
How could Lin Qingmei just go to sleep? She brought the two old men along specifically to learn how to navigate the seas at night.

If she slept, the whole trip would’ve been for nothing. Besides, she had gone days without sleep in her previous life—one night was nothing.

“Alright. Did you bring the sea navigation chart your grandfather left behind?”
The chart, drawn by her grandfather himself, contained decades of seafaring routes. It was a treasure of accumulated knowledge.

“I brought it. Let me go grab it from the room.”
She had indeed seen the chart earlier and tossed it into her space storage while packing. Since she didn’t have a bag on her to hide her spatial movement, she went to the cabin to pretend to fetch it.

In the cabin, Tan Yan, already on edge, saw Lin Qingmei walk in and instantly dove under the blanket, trembling. Lin Qingmei was baffled—why was this girl so scared of her?

Sigh. Better to just step out. Otherwise, the poor girl might not sleep at all.

Night deepened, and aside from Third Grandpa Lin and Lin Qingmei, everyone else on the boat had fallen asleep.

The sea was completely silent, with only Third Grandpa Lin’s voice breaking the stillness as he passed down decades of sailing wisdom.

These few hours of teaching were priceless. Without her grandfather’s connection, they likely wouldn’t have taught her a thing.

At around 1 a.m., Second Grandpa Lin woke up to take over the watch, and Lin Qingmei now had a new teacher.

By 3 a.m., they finally approached the dock at Hong Kong.

The people resting inside were woken up at this point.

“Qingmei, how about you take your third grand-uncle ashore to exchange grain? Once you’re off the boat, I’ll take it back and return to pick you up in five days.”
This was the usual way her grandfather had done it—since they didn’t have official customs clearance documents, they could only sneak ashore quietly.

“No need, let’s all go ashore. I’ve prepared the clearance documents.”
There’s no way Lin Qingmei would go into this unprepared. She had made sure to sort out all the proper documentation long ago. When she first transmigrated, she started preparing them.

Back in her past life, she had looted a customs vault and database—so she had access to clearance passes for different time periods, complete with official seals.

Though this world was a parallel one, many things were nearly identical to her previous world. The names of the cities were exactly the same. If not for the different political leaders, she’d have thought she’d simply been reborn into her original world.

“Qingmei, you’re full of surprises. You even managed to get clearance docs. But I guess it makes sense—your grandfather was a legend, and how could his granddaughter be ordinary?”
Third Grandpa Lin now looked at Lin Qingmei with admiration. Such a capable girl—if only she were his granddaughter!

“You’re flattering me, Grandpa. I just think things through a bit more carefully. We don’t get many chances to travel this far—we definitely can’t return empty-handed. The brigade leader gave me all the village’s money for this trip so I could bring back as much grain as possible.”

“Actually, even Hong Kong’s grain is imported. Next time, we should just go straight to Thailand. It’s way cheaper there.”
Third Grandpa Lin truly was a seasoned old sailor. He had even compared grain prices in surrounding coastal countries. Hong Kong’s prices were higher but it was close. Thailand had cheaper grain, but was much farther by sea.

“Grandpa, when you all went to other countries in the past, how did you communicate?”
In her grandfather’s diary, Lin Qingmei had seen records of voyages to other coastal nations. They may have been fishermen, but they’d been to quite a few places.

She was curious—how had they communicated with foreigners? Through hand gestures?

“More or less! We mostly brought liquor to trade for grain. Foreigners loved our rice wine—especially fishermen. When it was cold, a few sips would warm them right up.”
As Third Grandpa spoke of the past, he smiled fondly. Though life at sea had been hard, those youthful days were full of joy.

During the war, they even ambushed several Japanese fishing boats transporting supplies.

Back then, they were young and bold—unafraid of anything. Robbing those Japanese boats had actually made them quite a bit of money.