Chapter Forty-Four: Blackbeard Becomes a Shareholder

When Lin Qi awoke, his mind was clouded and the world outside the window was shrouded in darkness. Only the applewood logs burning fiercely in the fireplace cast a warm glow and crackled softly. Two large silver-wrapped candles stood tall on the candlesticks, but only one was lit, its light just enough to illuminate the vast bedroom.

Indeed, the room was enormous—at least fifty times the size of Lin Qi’s dormitory at the Fifth University. The bed alone, draped in fine silk and satin, was larger than his university lodgings. Heavy gauze curtains surrounded him, all embroidered with exquisite rose patterns.

This bedroom had once belonged to Lin Qi’s mother. A few years after giving birth to him, she succumbed to illness, her constitution too frail to withstand it. Since then, the room had become Lin Qi’s domain, its furnishings unchanged from when his mother was still alive. From these familiar arrangements, Lin Qi could still find a trace of warmth and comfort—something he could never obtain from Blackbeard.

He nestled in the thick goose-down quilt, dazed for a moment, then forced himself upright.

On the bedside table sat a small warming stove and a cup of sobering broth. He drank it all in one go, frowning as he did so. Heat surged through his body, dispelling the lingering effects of wine. Lin Qi inhaled deeply, feeling instantly refreshed and invigorated.

He donned a set of elegant black robes laid out by the bed, strode across the thick carpet, and quickly reached the corner of the bedroom. There, he tapped the wall nearly a hundred times in rapid succession, then pushed open a hidden door and walked down a short passage of about three meters. Ahead lay a vast library.

It was unimaginable that, at the heart of the Black Tiger family’s fortress, there could be such a library. One might expect storerooms for grain, oil, or weapons, but a library seemed utterly out of place for the Black Tiger clan. Yet, it existed—and it was astonishingly large.

The domed ceiling soared nearly twenty meters high, with a diameter of more than fifty meters. Along the walls stood rows upon rows of bookshelves, covered in dust and filled with books. Some volumes were made of stone slabs, others of lead or iron, and a few rare and ancient clay tablets were protected under crystal cases.

None of the books in this library were common works found in the mainstream. They were relics from ancient times, filled with records and theories that bordered on the bizarre—eccentric doctrines. Among them were several damaged clay tablets, said to date from the latter part of the legendary Age of Destruction, inscribed with tales of gods bringing disaster to destroy the world.

If such clay tablets were ever carelessly revealed, the Church would immediately dispatch an army to raze the Black Tiger family. Therefore, they remained hidden here, guarded by an array of mechanisms and traps.

Carefully avoiding the shelves that held those clay tablets, Lin Qi wove his way through the stacks to the center of the room. There, the floor was engraved with a strangely shaped magic array—quite unlike the multi-pointed star arrays popular in the Western Continent, but rather bearing a sinister, archaic, heretical style.

Lin Qi stepped onto the array, whispered an incantation, and a strong light burst forth. In an instant, his body vanished without a trace.

Nearly a hundred meters beneath the main fortress, in a spacious secret chamber, Blackbeard sat beside a crystal coffin, gazing quietly at the figure within—a petite, frail woman, delicate as a withered petal. She had black hair and yellow skin, unmistakably of pure Eastern descent. Though life had left her body, she still radiated a breathtaking brilliance.

She was not a great beauty, but gentle and kind, inspiring joy at first sight and an involuntary sense of closeness. This woman was Lin Qi’s mother—a broad-hearted, gentle soul, like a cup of warm water, incapable of inciting malice in anyone.

Lin Qi materialized from the magic array beside the coffin. For a moment, he silently regarded his mother’s face—still as gentle and approachable as he remembered. Compared to Blackbeard’s monstrous, hairy, and brutal visage, hers was truly that of an angel beside a beast.

“Mother must have been blind to marry you!” Lin Qi said, lost in thought as he gazed at his mother’s corpse, unable to resist mocking his father. In front of his mother’s coffin, Lin Qi spoke not the common language of the Western Continent, but the tongue of the East.

Blackbeard’s peculiar eyes rolled, and he snorted, “What’s wrong with me? Wealthy, upright, brave, loyal, a hero among men—where else could you find such a man as me?”

He cocked his eye and, in fluent Eastern speech, retorted, “Back then, your grandfather brought a small caravan to the West. At sea, they ran into pirates—if it weren’t for your father stepping in, where would you be now, you rascal?”

Lin Qi exposed Blackbeard’s old wound without hesitation: “But weren’t the pirates who attacked my grandfather’s caravan part of our family’s own crew?”

The blow struck home; Blackbeard glared at Lin Qi, then wisely sidestepped the topic. Indeed, the pirates who raided Lin Qi’s grandfather’s caravan were subordinates of the Black Tiger family. Blackbeard had happened by with a group fresh from a profitable venture, and, upon glimpsing Lin Qi’s mother on the deck, decided to play the hero and rescue the beauty.

Such ancient embarrassments were not easily discussed with a son.

Scratching his thick beard, Blackbeard said in a muffled voice, “Are you still brooding over your issue with Arthur?”

Lin Qi took three pale yellow sandalwood sticks from the offering table beside the crystal coffin, lit them, and placed them in the incense burner at its center. He bowed respectfully, knocking his head three times before his mother, then stood and bowed deeply three times. Only then did he approach Blackbeard, saying coldly, “Someday, I’ll kill him.”

Blackbeard scratched his nose awkwardly and laughed dryly. “He is, after all, the son of my ironclad ally, Red-Haired Ghost. The old ghost had the misfortune to cross paths with the berserker fleet from the Five Islands and got wiped out. As his brother, I had to take in his only son.”

He sighed and continued in a low voice, “Soon, I’ll send him off to inherit his father’s estate. What do you think?”

Lin Qi touched his nose, still speaking with a chilling undertone, “Then pray the gods keep him away from me, or I’ll kill him.”

Seeing Lin Qi’s unwavering resolve to trouble Arthur, Blackbeard could only change the subject again.

“Hmm, your Iron Fist Brotherhood is doing well, but you lack funds to expand, don’t you?”

Lin Qi’s eyes sparkled suddenly, gleaming like gold coins.

He exclaimed in delight, “Father, are you going to fund my operations?”

Blackbeard raised his brow and chuckled dryly, “Not for free—I want a stake!”

He pulled out a bank gold note and handed it to Lin Qi.