109 – Five Large Chests
East Coast.
When the tide started to retreat, large quantities of cowrie, starfish, crab, and other seafood were left behind on the sandy beach soaked in seawater. Fishermen had already started to salvage seafood.
From atop Blackdragon, Liszt watched a big crowd of barefooted men busying themselves on the beach. They were busy tying together all the ropes they could find, which nearly included all of the town’s ropes.
Kosto dove underwater and tied one end of the rope into a noose around the shipwreck’s keel.
Then, he swam to the surface and waved to everyone: “Pull! You can pull now!”
Dozens of serfs, alike the people depicted in the Barge Haulers on the Volga, took heavy steps and instantly stretched the rope taut. Under Gort’s prompts, they shouted and exerted their strength: “One, two, three!”
One, two!
Three!
The shouts followed a rhythm.
The rope tightly tied to their shoulders slackened and stretched taut according to the people’s rhythm. With each step they took, their feet sank deeply into the sand. The were old men and youngsters among the crowd of people performing this task. With ragged clothes, suntanned faces, hair sticking to foreheads, and sweat dripping down, they did really resemble the people depicted in the Barge Haulers on the Volga.
But they were not.
Liszt had seen Ilya Repin’s famous painting ‘Barge Haulers on the Volga’ in a textbook. The barge haulers depicted in the painting, who dragged barges on the riverbank all year long, had expressions numbed from a life of misery. The Flower Town’s temporary barge haulers, on the other hand, had smiling expressions, even with the scorching sun over their heads.
This barge hauler task would yield them one copper coin each.
The sir lord, who came from the great Tulip Fortress, was generous and benevolent! He brought them enough food, jiggling copper coins, and even silver and gold coins!
Their lives had never been this hopeful.
“One, two, three!”
“Put your backs into it!” Gort roared, “You lazy fellows, haven’t you eaten yet?!”
In the sea, Kosto kept diving, swimming to the surface, and shouting loudly: “Use more strength! The hull has been pulled out! Use more strengths and pull out the bow!”
After several encouraging shouts, Kosto shouted again: “Success, the shipwreck has been successfully pulled out of the sand!”
After the shipwreck was pulled out of the sand, the barge haulers became more and more relaxed, easily pulling the worn-out shipwreck ashore. It was difficult to make up the ship’s original appearance. The shipwreck was covered in green algae, it only had a single mast remaining, which was broken to boot, and the hull was covered with holes, from which crabs crawled out now and then.
“Sir, the shipwreck has been salvaged!” Said Gort excitedly.
Kosto also came over: “It’s an old-fashioned brig sailboat. From its shape, I surmise that it’s a ship from one hundred years ago. Sir Lord, this should be a ship of the Sapphire Grand Duchy. Only the grand duchy was capable of building brig sailboats one hundred years ago.”
While on horseback, Liszt circled the shipwreck: “A shipwreck from one hundred years ago you say? Then, is it a merchant ship? Or is it a warship?”
“It should be a merchant ship. It has a sealed cabin, which is used for transportation of goods.”
“What are you waiting for, Teacher Gort? Have people tear open this cargo ship from one hundred year ago. I want to see what’s inside.”
“As you wish!”
It was very difficult to build a ship, yet it didn’t took much time to tear it open. Before long, the cabin was forcibly opened. Some patrolmen went inside, pulling out some soaked, ruined cloth and some cereal remains. This was probably a cloth and foodstuff merchant ship that sank somehow.
“If it is a treasure shipwreck, then it can’t be carrying just that.” Doubted Liszt.
Just as expected.
A patrolman suddenly shouted: “There are chests, there are a few chests inside! They are in excellent conditions and are locked!”
“Get the chests out!”
“Give me a hammer, the chests are stuck to the keel.”
After a great deal of trouble, a total of five large chests were dragged out of the shipwreck’s cabin and placed on the beach. Kosto circled the chests and sized them up before arriving at a conclusion: “Sir Lord, this should be redwood. Besides being sturdy and durable, it clearly was also waterproofed. These chests must be hiding something valuable.”
Liszt smiled: “In this case, carry them to the castle… That’s right, double the pay of everyone involved in this operation. Also, since it was Captain Kosto who discovered the shipwreck, reward him with a gold coin.”
Although he had yet to pry the chests open, yet he already started to mete out rewards in order to encourage his subjects to discover, explore, and contribute more good stuff to him. At the same time, the gold coin served to encourage Kosto to recruit apprentice sailors, to see whether he really could come up with a group of up to par sailors.
……
Five large chests, each one as big as a desk, were neatly placed in the castle’s hall.
The locks, which were probably brass casts, had already rusted.
Carter guarded the chests, keeping the servants at bay.
Therefore, the maids and servingmen could only crowd at the entrance to the hall to look at the chests in curiosity.
“Debbie, say, what do you think is inside? Could there be Mermaids?”
“Maybe there are Sirens. There are Sirens at the sea.”
“These chests are quite old already. If there had been any Mermaids or Sirens inside, they would have turned into bones long ago.”
“Not necessarily. I heard that Mermaids can live for hundreds of years!”
“My guess is that there should be gold coins, no, dragon coins inside! A chest full of dragon coins could be used to buy the entire Flower Town.”
“Jim, you should use your brain a bit more. The entire Flower Town, including you and me, could be sold for a few dragon coins at best! A chest of dragon coins could be used to buy the entire Coral Island!”
Carter turned towards the murmuring servants and chided: “Have you forgotten about the aristocratic etiquette? Go back to work and mind your own business, understood?”
Mrs. Mawson also came downstairs. She swept the few maids with a glance, and then fixed her gaze on Maisie: “Master’s study has not been properly cleaned, especially in the corners. You were negligent, Maisie. Go clean it again.”
“Yes, Mrs. Mawson.” Maisie nodded in agreement and quickly went to get the cleaning utensils.
After being chided by the butler and the housekeeper, the servants didn’t dare to linger. They returned to their duties. Only Carter and Mawson were left in the hall.
“Master still hasn’t returned?”
“Master went to the black nightshade field. The black nightshade is not faring well, so Master is trying to solve the issue.”
“I went to see the black nightshade. It is in quite the predicament. Mr. Carter, do you think that it will survive?”
“I believe it will.” Carter smiled lightly. “Because Master will save it. The Flower Town is beloved by the glory of knights, which is even more true for Master.”
Liszt didn’t know that his butler had so much faith in him.
At this time, he was looking at the dying black nightshade. With his brows knitted, he wondered how he could help it gather magic power: “According to the mission, its ‘magic power, which is as mild as water’ is being drained. Does that mean that the black nightshade has to be supplemented with water-attributed magic power? In the fief, only myself and Marcus have attributed qi, yet they are respectively of the fire and wind attributes.”
Suddenly, he had a flash of inspiration – he thought of the black pearls. There were fourteen water-attributed black pearls inside his space ring: “Perhaps I could grind a black pearl into powder and apply the powder to the black nightshade’s roots, letting it absorb the water-attributed magic power by itself… I don’t know whether it’s the right idea, but it’s the only one that seems to be feasible at the moment.”
Going for broke, he immediately took out a fist-sized black pearl, ground it into powder, and then applied it to the black nightshade’s roots.
“Whether you live or die, black nightshade, now it’s up to your luck.” He mounted his horse and anxiously galloped to the castle. There were still five chests concealing treasures waiting to be opened.”