Stepping out of the teleportation vortex, they found themselves above the azure sea under a clear blue sky, and a large three-masted ship slowly sailed beneath them.
Li Changzhou and his companions landed on the deck to find themselves surrounded by a group of people with shaved foreheads and wearing kimono, revealing that it was actually a ship from Fusang.
"Piracy really is getting easier by the day, to think we would have such fine goods delivered right to our doorstep," a samurai chuckled as he approached.
Gurgle gurgle, the head rolled far across the deck.
"Pfft!" Blood gushed like a fountain from the samurai's severed neck.
"You damn fools!" The drawing of swords, their cold shimmering light flickering.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
The deck quickly stained red, as Li Changzhou sheathed the Emerald Bee Sword, panting slightly and sitting down against the mast.
Yang Qinglan supported him, and after he sat down, she carefully fed him Elixir Pills.
More than a dozen two-headed hounds leaped from the crowd, pounced from the masts, and sprung from the deck, swarming towards the four of them.
"Whoo!"
A gale arose, blowing the two-headed dogs away; those on the deck clawed at the wood, leaving scratch marks as they struggled to steady themselves, while those caught in mid-air vanished into the horizon.
"Ah! Save me!" The Fusang people clung to crates and grabbed ropes, blown by the wind as if dangling from a cliff, parallel to the deck.
The spiritually illuminated arrow, like a fish swimming upstream, struggled for a moment in the fierce wind before losing its strength and being whisked away into obscurity.
Li Qianxia let out her breath, her face not red, unaffected.
"You," she continued amidst the sound of people and dogs falling, "act as if nothing has happened, as if you saw nothing. Where you were intending to go before, continue on there now, do you hear me?"
"Heard, we heard!" someone who understood the language of the Great Song hastily responded.
Li Qianxia glanced over: "You're a Han Chinese?"
"Yes, yes, this one is Han Chinese!" The man scrambled to tidy his windblown hair, revealing his face.
Hiss!
The man's eyes were scorched through front to back while everyone looked on in horror at Li Qianxia's slowly fading fiery gaze.
"Traitorous dog," Li Qianxia cursed, turning to address the crowd, "Any other Han Chinese among you?"
Her brother grievously injured and unable to help, she was enraged by seeing this man helping Fusang people to plunder those from the Song Dynasty, anger taking over her heart.
The ship fell silent; whether one was Han Chinese could be seen at a glance, those who did not shave their hair into the Fusang style were mostly so.
Li Qianxia glared at these people, but did not kill them.
"Set sail!" She ordered and turned to walk toward Li Changzhou, then suddenly turned back, "First, clean the deck!"
Bodies were tossed into the sea to feed the fish, and the blood on the deck was washed away cleanly; the Fusang people even sang lightheartedly just to achieve the "as if nothing happened" demeanor Li Qianxia had demanded.
"How's my brother?" Li Qianxia asked Yang Qinglan.
"He's alright, the power of Guanyin is troublesome, but he should be able to purge it by tomorrow night," Yang Qinglan answered.
The Turquoise Pool's Heavenly Calamity transformed into a green bird the size of a palm, circling above Li Changzhou's head, shedding specks of radiance, continuously dissolving the aura of disaster.
As long as this Green Bird was present, even if only one breath remained, that breath could be extended for another decade or two, provided that the Turquoise Pool was willing to expend Mana.
"Man proposes, but Heaven disposes," she maintained the Green Bird, sighing, "Your brother's plan was sound, and with 'Emotion Control' backing it, it should have been foolproof. I didn't expect the Subduing Tiger Arhat would recognize him."
Though they were unclear about the usefulness of those people's faith in Guanyin, since Guanyin required these people, it demonstrated there must be value.
Their failure now might become an obstacle in the future.
"Human effort is the decisive factor, while success is left to the heavens; we've done our best, and there's no use lamenting over failure," Yang Qinglan said.
The Turquoise Pool nodded.
"I didn't expect Earth Immortals to be so powerful," Li Qianxia voiced her lingering fear, "even my brother couldn't withstand a single blow."
They both felt the same.
During their fight with the Arhat, he was formidable, but if it came down to a fight one-on-one, they believed they had a sure chance of victory, until the Bodhisattva Guanyin intervened, defeating all four of them with a single palm strike.
Li Changzhou, the strongest among them, could not handle a single blow from their opponent.
"The Bodhisattva Guanyin isn't representative of all Earth Immortals," Yang Qinglan pondered for a moment before adding, "She is one of the four great Bodhisattvas of Buddhism, one of the most likely to achieve Buddhahood; her strength is also top-tier among Earth Immortals."
"This also proves something," the Turquoise Pool interjected, "we must have many allies, and their strengths are formidable."
"Shall we seek out those people next?" Li Qianxia asked.
"Yes."
By evening, the large ship cut through the waves, its wake like a white apron trailing behind.
In the west, the setting sun cast a molten golden glow across the sea, as if it had draped the entire ocean with a layer.
The Turquoise Pool and Yang Qinglan sat cross-legged, recovering their Mana, their bodies emanating a glow that was as beautiful as a painting bathed in the twilight.
Li Qianxia sat atop the high mast in a red gown, her legs swinging freely as she kept watch.
Looking down at Li Changzhou, who was meditating with closed eyes, the sea breeze lifted his antique-styled long hair, and the setting sun tinged half of his side profile red, making him appear as handsome as a Heavenly God.
His complexion was better than in the daytime, she noted to herself.
Suddenly, and quite abruptly, the sky darkened.
Li Qianxia looked up.
The Turquoise Pool and Yang Qinglan both opened their eyes at the same time.
Beneath them, the three-masted ship was already a colossal vessel by the Song Dynasty's standards, but before them—was a gigantic ship so exaggerated in size that it made the three-masted ship look like a pea next to a watermelon in comparison.
To the ancient people aboard the three-masted ship, it was as if they had witnessed a divine being.