In the pitch-black night, screams filled the deck.

“Pirates are here! Run!”

The pirate ship rammed into the merchant ship, causing a large dent in the center of the ship.

The bow of the pirate ship directly embedded into the deck of the merchant ship.

Passengers kept coming up to the deck to see what was happening.

When they saw the pirates, they screamed and ran around in panic, causing chaos.

On the other side, the pirates saw the chaos on the merchant ship and, brandishing their large knives, let out excited roars.

The guards on the ship usually only guarded the house and yard at home, guarding against small thieves.

They had never seen such a situation before. Not to mention maintaining a basic formation, a few of them were even trembling while holding their knives.

“You all, guard around the ship’s side and the bottom of the ship,” the crown prince ordered in a deep voice.

The pirates tried to jump directly from the bow of their ship to the deck of the merchant ship.

The crown prince drew his long sword like a white rainbow, piercing through several pirates with one strike, knocking them into the water.

He alone stood at the gap in the ship created by the collision, blocking the main path for the pirates to board.

Seeing this, the guards followed his orders, leaving some to guard around the deck while they went to the bottom of the ship.

There was a secret door for escape in the bottom of the ship.

If they didn’t guard it, the pirates could board from the bottom, and they would be caught in a pincer attack.

The pirates on the other side also noticed that there was a skilled fighter on the ship.

Some continued to fight with the crown prince, while others went underwater, using hooks with ropes to hook onto the merchant ship, climbing up the ropes to board the ship.

In the darkness, they were all soaked and dripping with water, looking like sinister water ghosts from legends.

The guards left on the deck were frightened, cowering in fear.

They wished they could run with the other passengers.

They only dared to stab with their swords when they saw the pirates climbing up. Predictably, they lost their heads.

Seeing their companion die, the other guards were even more afraid and fled without fighting.

At this time, screams and cries also came from the bottom of the ship.

“The pirates are boarding from the bottom of the ship!”

“Quick, jump off the ship and escape. Master Chen has already escaped in a small boat!”

The servants and guards who could swim jumped into the water like dumplings, while those who couldn’t cried and hid all over the ship.

The crown prince frowned deeply, not expecting the guards on the ship to be so useless.

Thinking that Qin Zheng was still in the cabin, he didn’t care that his wound had reopened and hurried back.

---

When Qin Zheng heard the sound of fighting outside the cabin, she quietly opened the door a crack to look out.

She happened to see the man who had caused trouble yesterday rushing up from the bottom of the ship, only to be killed by the pirates on the deck.

Even though she had experienced a palace coup before, Qin Zheng was still scared stiff.

She quickly closed the door and bolted it.

She didn’t know where the crown prince was, but it was obviously more dangerous outside than inside the cabin.

But hiding in the cabin all the time was not a solution.

The pirates would definitely search room by room.

Qin Zheng looked around the room, trying to find a weapon to defend herself. Unfortunately, the temporary room they were assigned was too rudimentary.

She couldn’t even find a stick, let alone a sharp weapon.

Just then, the door was suddenly kicked twice, and a rough, vicious voice sounded, “Damn it! There’s still someone hiding in this cabin!”

The wooden bolt behind the door was almost kicked loose by the person outside.

Qin Zheng broke out in a cold sweat.

In a split second, she glanced at the potted plant on the table.

Qin Zheng made up her mind, picked up the potted plant, and hid behind the door.

The door bolt couldn’t bear the weight and was broken.

A bald pirate with a stubbly beard walked in.

Before he could see clearly inside the room, Qin Zheng, hiding behind him, raised the potted plant and smashed it accurately on his shiny bald head.

With a crisp sound, the clay flowerpot was directly shattered on the pirate’s head, and the fragments scattered all over the floor, with soil and plants spilling all over him.

Qin Zheng was so nervous that she almost stopped breathing, waiting for the pirate to fall.

However, the pirate staggered for a moment but didn’t faint. Instead, he turned around.

Qin Zheng felt her heart almost jump out of her throat, but fortunately, the pirate only glanced at her with blackened eyes before collapsing.

Qin Zheng breathed a long sigh of relief.

She was scared to death.

Afraid that the pirate falling at the door would alert the others, she exerted all her strength to drag him into the room and close the door.

Qin Zheng speculated that this pirate used to be a monk, because there was still a Buddhist bead hanging around his neck, and his weapon was a Zen staff.

She weighed the Zen staff in her hand, and it was quite heavy.

Since she had no weapon to defend herself, she decided to use this Zen staff for now.

When she heard footsteps approaching the cabin, Qin Zheng quickly hid behind the door again with the Zen staff.

The pirate who entered this time seemed to be a small fry.

He saw the monk pirate lying on the ground and exclaimed, “Master Hua?”

He hurried forward to check.

Qin Zheng, hiding behind the door, directly struck him hard on the back of his head with the Zen staff.

The small fry was knocked out cold.

After all, it was only the second time she had done something like this, so Qin Zheng’s heart was still beating fast.

She wiped the sweat from her forehead and looked at the two pirates she had knocked out.

Her fear dissipated slightly, but a strange sense of accomplishment rose within her.

Two down!

She seemed quite capable, didn’t she?

The small fry’s weapon was a wolf’s tooth club.

Qin Zheng weighed it in her hand; it wasn’t as heavy as the Zen staff, but it was still substantial.

The Zen staff was long and heavy, making it cumbersome to carry and inconvenient for knocking people out.

Qin Zheng decisively abandoned the Zen staff and picked up the wolf’s tooth club.

After closing the door again, there were soon urgent footsteps outside.

The third one was here.

Qin Zheng hid behind the door, gripping the wolf’s tooth club tightly in both hands, fearful yet somewhat expectant.

The door opened, and a pair of embroidered boots stepped into the room.

Qin Zheng raised the wolf’s tooth club to strike, but it was easily intercepted by a pair of large hands. “It’s me.”

The voice was cold and the tone low and mellow.

Qin Zheng looked at the prince’s crown-like face and stared at him wide-eyed. “Your Highness?”

The prince looked at the raised wolf’s tooth club in her hand and caught sight of the two pirates knocked out in the room.

There was a rare look of surprise in his eyes.

Qin Zheng, seeing him staring at the wolf’s tooth club in her hand, realized she had almost attacked him by mistake.

Feeling guilty, she quickly threw the club aside and explained, “I didn’t know it was Your Highness. I thought it was a pirate.”

“I was late,” the prince suddenly said.

If she hadn’t been so clever in protecting herself, it would have been too late by the time he arrived.

He suddenly said this, and Qin Zheng felt a little embarrassed. “You must have been tied up over there and couldn’t get away. I’m fine here, aren’t I?”

She had even knocked out two pirates!

The prince glanced at her, said nothing more, and just raised his hand slightly. “The ship has been taken over by pirates. Let’s escape first.”

Qin Zheng understood, grabbed his sleeve, and followed him out of the cabin.

Many people had died on the deck, and blood had dyed the boards red.

There were guards, servants, and passengers among them, which made Qin Zheng’s heart jump.

Pirates kept coming to attack. The prince’s long sword swept through them, bringing a flash of blood.

Seeing they were outnumbered, the pirates focused their attacks on Qin Zheng.

She only held onto a piece of the prince’s sleeve, making it difficult for him to evade. To help her avoid the swords, he ended up with a long gash on his arm.

Feeling a bit panicked, Qin Zheng took the initiative to hold his hand. “Hold my hand to dodge better.”

The blood flowing from the prince’s arm moistened his palm.

He instinctively gripped Qin Zheng’s wrist.

Even in such a life-threatening situation, he could still clearly feel the delicate softness of her wrist.

It felt like if he exerted a little more force, he could crush it.

Furrowing his brows, the prince’s heart was in turmoil, but this moment of confusion made his swordplay even more fierce.

The pirates were all skilled swimmers, and jumping into the water would be disadvantageous for them.

Moreover, he was injured, and getting his wound wet would only make things worse.

The prince thought about the escape route and noticed several small boats parked below the pirate ship.

He had an idea.

While dealing with the pirates on the ship, he said to Qin Zheng, “Find a way to get onto the small boat.”

Qin Zheng had also seen the few small boats.

Since all the pirates had boarded the merchant ship to plunder, there was no one watching the small boats.

With the prince’s protection, Qin Zheng hurried towards the ship’s side.

A pirate saw Qin Zheng leaving the prince and tried to chase after her with his sword, shouting, “Stop!”

Qin Zheng didn’t dare to stop and ran even faster.

The prince was surrounded by seven or eight pirates.

Seeing Qin Zheng being chased by one of them, he forced back the pirates around him with a sword, picked up a fallen pirate’s knife, and threw it at the pursuer.

The knife hit the edge of a large iron cage covered with a black cloth, pulling the cloth down.

Qin Zheng unintentionally glanced at the cage and found a girl inside.

She looked about fourteen or fifteen years old, wearing a red dress, with healthy wheat-colored skin, bright grape-like eyes, and a natural wildness.

However, her hands and feet were shackled.

The girl also saw Qin Zheng and quickly climbed up, saying, “Sister, save me!”

Qin Zheng felt a bit soft-hearted, but she and the prince were currently in danger themselves.

She glanced around and saw that the pirate lying dead next to the cage had a bunch of keys hanging from his waist.

However, the girl’s hands and feet were shackled, so she couldn’t reach out of the cage to grab them.

Qin Zheng ran over, took off the keys, and threw them into the cage before continuing to run towards the ship’s side.

“My husband and I are also escaping for our lives. I can only help you here.”

The girl quickly picked up the keys, nodded without any hesitation, and said, “Thank you, sister. Please go quickly. Once I have the keys, I can escape!”

She dropped her shoes, used her bare feet to hold one of the keys, aimed the key at the lock on her handcuffs, and clicked it, unlocking her handcuffs.

After Qin Zheng reached the ship’s side, she climbed down to the small boat using the rope that had previously secured the pirates.

After unlocking the chain that tied the small boat to the large boat, she shouted to the deck, “Husband, hurry up and get on the boat!”

Several pirates heard her and swam up from underwater.

Before they could approach the small boat, the prince jumped down from the large boat and landed on the small boat by stepping on their heads.

“Quick, row the boat,” the prince said, holding his chest soaked with blood, his face pale.

Qin Zheng knew that his injuries must have worsened.

She picked up a bamboo pole from the boat and, imitating the way she had seen boatmen do it in martial arts dramas, pushed off the side of the large boat with all her strength.

The small boat quickly drifted far away.

Several pirates were still determined and swam after them.

Qin Zheng struggled to row the boat, using the bamboo pole.

The task of propelling the boat forward with the force of a bamboo pole against the water was indeed not an easy one.

Seeing several water bandits about to catch up, the Crown Prince wiped away a trickle of blood from his mouth and took the bamboo pole from her hand, saying, “Let me do it.”

With a sweep of the bamboo pole from his hand to the left and right behind, several water bandits were immediately knocked over by the force, and with another push of the pole underwater, the small boat rowed far away.

After rowing for a while, the surface of the water remained calm, indicating that the water bandits had stopped chasing them.

Qin Zheng knew that his injuries were not optimistic, and rowing the boat was exhausting, so she held the oar at the stern to help row, lightening his burden.

Unexpectedly, a head suddenly emerged from the dark water, with disheveled hair, resembling a water ghost.

“A ghost—”

Qin Zheng was so scared that her soul almost left her body.

She picked up the oar and fiercely beat the head, successfully knocking it back into the water.

After a moment, a person floated up on the water.

“Don’t be afraid, it’s a pirate.” The Crown Prince had extremely good eyesight and immediately recognized him as one of the water bandits who had been chasing them before.

He had just been in the water for too long, which had caused his hair to become disheveled.

After being beaten fiercely by Qin Zheng, it was unclear whether he was dead or just unconscious.

“Is… is it a pirate?” Under the moonlight, Qin Zheng’s face was pale, and her hands were still trembling with fear as she hugged the oar.

She looked pitiful.

“Yes,” the Crown Prince replied.

Qin Zheng was really scared.

She sniffled and said, “I thought it was a water ghost.”

The Crown Prince looked at her pitiful appearance and subconsciously glanced at the water bandit floating in the distance, not knowing if he was dead or unconscious.

When he heard the sound of breaking water behind him earlier, he turned around, but before he could sweep the bamboo pole out, Qin Zheng suddenly became fierce and knocked the person into the water.

Somehow, he suddenly remembered the two pirates in the cabin who had been knocked unconscious by her.

Hmm, her skills are getting more and more proficient.