The man who had fainted finally came to half an hour later, only to find himself being stared at by two strangers whose faces were a little too close for comfort. He blinked. And then he opened his mouth and let out an ear piercing scream that was enough to make blood curdle.
Yuehwa and Shoya both took a couple of steps backwards, stuffing their fingers into their ears to stop themselves from going deaf.
"Shut up!" Yuehwa exclaimed, before grabbing around for something to stuff into the man's mouth. When she finally found something (a smelly sock from the awful smell of it), she quickly plugged it into the fellow's open mouth and the horrendous screeching finally came to a halt. "Much better," she said, heaving a sigh of relief.
The man looked at them in fear, as though they would slit his throat within the next minute.
Pulling a chair to sit herself down, Yuehwa looked down at him and said, "We're not with those guys who tried to kill you. I'm not sure how much you remember of what happened before you passed out, but we're the good guys." For once. "If not for us, you'd be the dead one, not him." She pointed at the shrivelled body of the assassin that was still lying on the ground not far from where he was.
The man immediately recoiled back into his corner, wanting to put as much distance between him and the dead body as possible. He looked up at Yuehwa, horrified. With the sock still stuck in his mouth, he tried to say something in response, but it came out as a muffled mess.
"Who are you? Why were those men trying to kill you?" Yuehwa asked, putting on her best interrogation voice.
Still, all the man could respond with were muffled sounds.
"If you don't remove the sock from his mouth, how is he supposed to give you a reply?" Shoya remarked. He had returned to his favourite position, lying along the wooden beams above. Yuehwa decided that she hated it when he adopted that position, because he was obviously just showing off that he could balance on a beam.
As much as she hated admitting that Shoya was right, there was no two ways about the matter. Reaching over, she said to the man, "If I remove this sock, you are not to continue screaming, is that clear? Or else..." She drew a line across her own neck with the index finger of her left hand, before removing the sock with her right.
The minute the sock came out, the man started on a coughing fit, desperately trying to get rid of the stench that still remained as an aftertaste.
"Alright, let's start again. Who are you and why were those men trying to kill you?" Yuehwa folded her arms, waiting.
The man looked at her timidly, then up at the fellow who was lying on the roof beam, before he finally opened his mouth and said, "My name is Park Maroo and I am just a traveller on the way to Dahai. I don't know why those men were after me..."
The man's speaking voice was nothing like his screeching voice. It had a deep baritone that actually sounded rather soothing to the ears. That said, it didn't change the fact that this man was lying to her, and she didn't like it when people did that. Moving her chair a little closer, Yuehwa leaned over and placed one hand on his shoulder, saying, "Now, I really don't like it when people don't tell me the truth. It makes me feel like they don't trust me, and look at this face, how is this face an untrustworthy face?" Leaning back in her chair, she sighed. "I guess I should have just let those men get to you, since you obviously don't appreciate what I've done."
The man looked a little worried for a moment, wondering whether or not his rescuers would suddenly do an about turn and decide to do away with him after all. In that split second, he made up his mind.
"I'm actually the adviser to the crown prince of Gi," he said quickly. "Those men thought that I was the crown prince so they were trying to kill me, but the crown prince is actually on a separate ship heading for Dahai. I'm just the decoy."
"Clever," Yuehwa mused to herself.
The ship that they were on was an ordinary merchant ship, old enough to be on the verge of decommissioning. If the crown prince wanted to travel to Dahai without being noticed, it would make perfect sense for him to be travelling incognito on board such a rickety ship instead going around with great aplomb and fanfare. However, he chose to do what none of his enemies would have expected him to and that was to travel in style on board the royal ship, right in front of everyone's eyes. Right this moment, the crown prince of Gi was likely fast asleep in his comfortable bed, surrounded by a dozen bodyguards who would have nothing to do except swat flies, simply because everyone else was foolish enough to think that the man on board this old, antiquated merchant ship was the real crown prince instead.
Seeing that the duo seemed to have no intentions to hurt him, Maroo finally plucked up the courage to get up on his feet. The moment he straightened himself up, Yuehwa took a double-take at the tall figure that was standing in front of her. He was a lot taller than she had expected.
Maroo slowly made his way to the door, poking his head out timidly. He shook his head and sighed when he saw the bodies of his guards along the corridor, before quickly retreating back into the room. "Thank you for saving my life." He bowed respectfully to Yuehwa and then to Shoya. "You have my eternal gratitude."
"An eternity is a long time," Shoya quipped, earning yet another death glare from Yuehwa.
"Can't this fellow accept someone's thanks without needing to add the extra dose of sarcasm," she muttered under her breath. Turning her attentions back to Maroo, she said, "No need for that. We didn't do it for you. Just needed to stretch the muscles a little. In any case, with the two of us on board you're probably safe for the rest of the journey. When you meet your crown prince again, you should give him a good telling off for putting you in such a dangerous position."
"Even if I died for my prince, I would not dare complain," Maroo replied solemnly, looking somewhat appalled that she would even suggest that the prince had done something wrong. "It is part of my duty as a servant for my prince and the kingdom."
Yuehwa flipped the whites of her eyes as she listened to his words. The way Maroo was speaking with such reverence for his prince gave her the goosebumps, and she said a silent prayer that he would one day see the light before he ended up with his head chopped off by one of his prince's enemies. On the beam above, she could sense Shoya laughing quietly to himself and for once she agreed with the sentiment entirely.
"Suit yourself," she declared, getting up on her feet. "Have a good night."
"Aren't you going to do anything about... about..." Maroo looked down at the dead body that was still lying in the middle of his room, then expectantly towards Yuehwa. Perhaps he expected her to turn around and apologise for having forgotten to clean up the mess, but she didn't. Instead, all she did was shrug her shoulders and waltz out, her footsteps heading back down the corridor to the other end of the ship.
"Are you going to—" Maroo looked up at Shoya and asked, albeit a little more quietly.
Shoya shrugged as well, before hopping off the beam and walking out after Yuehwa.
Left on his own with a blackened, shrivelled body to keep him company, Maroo collapsed onto his bed, his jaw hanging down in shock. It was going to be a long night.
#
"Do you have something that can turn a person mute?" Yuehwa leaned to her left and whispered into Shoya's ear.
"Yes..."
Yuehwa immediately stretched out her hand excitedly, wanting to relieve herself from the torture that she was being put through.
"...but I don't have it with me now," Shoya finished his sentence, his expression still placid and calm. Just to prove his point, he waved his sleeves in the air to show her that he wasn't hiding anything. "Do you think I lug my entire storeroom around?"
In the background, Maroo was still rattling on and on about his favourite topic in the whole wide world: his prince. By now, Yuehwa and Shoya had already learnt that the great crown prince of Gi had been born with the mark of the sun at his right shoulder blade, at a moment when the stars were all aligned to form a silver bridge across the sky. At the age of five, he singlehandedly defeated a tiger; by age ten he had written an essay on the state of the five kingdoms that had put all the kingdom's scholars to shame; and at fifteen, he led the army of Gi to their first military victory against rebel insurgents.
Whether these were real or exaggerations, to be entirely honest, Yuehwa couldn't care less. She was just annoyed that she was stuck on board a vessel in the middle of the sea, with Maroo's excited voice grating against her ears all the time. Afraid that the assassins would come after his life once more, Maroo had made it a point to follow Yuehwa and Shoya around wherever they went, straying no more than three metres away from their vicinity and even choosing to sleep on her floor. Shoya had remarked that his determination was commendable, but Yuehwa had simply scowled in response and charged him a hundred gold coins for the floor space he occupied in her already-cramped cabin.
"None of the other princes can hold a candle to the crown prince! When the prince was twelve, one of the king's concubines tried to get rid of him so that her own son could wear the crown, but before she could put her malicious plans into motion, the prince had already seen through her act and— Hey! What are you doing? Put me down!"
Since Shoya was sitting idly by and didn't intend to be helpful, Yuehwa decided to take matters into her own hands. Within the next minute, Maroo found himself dangling off the side of the ship, held up only by a strip of red silk that had been tied around his waist. He stared in terror at the deep blue of the ocean that was staring back at him, the occasional spray of salt water into his mouth reminding him of how close he was to the water's surface.
"Pull me up! Pull me up!" he screamed, his mellow voice once again taking on a shrill tone.
Yuehwa laughed, amused at how this man could issue two such differing pitches from the same voice box. Under normal circumstances, Maroo had a voice that was deeper than most, mellow and rich; when he was spooked, suddenly his voice would spike a couple of octaves, making him sound like a little chipmunk. She looked down at him as a fisherman would the worm hanging off his rod, rather smug about what she was doing.
Shoya walked over to her side and peered down at the helpless adviser, saying, "They say there are sharks in the sea between Jin and Dahai. Do you reckon that's true?"
Although he was speaking rather quietly, his words still managed to reach Maroo's ears and the latter's face suddenly drained itself of all colour. He gulped, staring down at the water below and imagining what it would be like staring into the mouth of a shark.
"I don't know," Yuehwa mused, "but we could always do a little test to find out. Adviser Park seems like the tasty sort."
"Save me! Pull me up!" Maroo was still screeching, flailing his arms about helplessly in the air.
"I've seen a shark maul a person before. Poor fellow was leaning over the side of the ship trying to fish his hat from the surface of the water when the shark suddenly leapt up and grabbed hold of him. After the shark was done, all that was left of the poor chap was a couple of bones and his chewed up hat. It was all rather unfortunate," Shoya remarked.
Yuehwa was impressed at how he was able to tell such a gory story with a straight face, as if it were just another everyday occurrence that you might come across while you were walking home from the market. By now she had come to learn that the White Scorpion had no emotions, save for that patronising half-smile that he constantly wore on his face that seemed to suggest that he knew more than he let on.
Maroo was already white as a sheet, but his jaw dropped the moment he was done listening to Shoya's calm tale. He quickly muttered a silent prayer, praying to the gods that they would continue to protect his prince even after he had become shark food. Tilting his head up to the skies, he shouted, "My prince! Please forgive your loyal servant for I will no longer be able to serve you and protect you from this day onwards. Know that I will always be watching over you even when my bones are lying at the depths of this godforsaken ocean!"
"Are you kidding me?" Yuehwa scoffed. "How is it he still manages to think about his stupid prince at a time like this?"
"Time for lunch," Shoya quipped, turning to walk away.
At the mention of lunch, Yuehwa's eyes immediately lit up. Tying her end of the silk to one of the ship's wooden posts, she quickly followed after Shoya, leaving Maroo to continue facing the prospect of being shark food on his own. Ignoring the shrieks that were coming from the shark bait, Yuehwa and Shoya disappeared into the ship's cabins.
"You would think that the crown prince of Gi was some sort of god or something," Yuehwa grumbled as she shoved her spoonful of rice into her mouth. "This is really good, you should go open a restaurant or something. If you ever do, I should get a lifetime's worth of free meals because I gave you the idea."
Shoya chuckled, serving up some bowls of hot soup. "There are many out there who treat the crown prince with the same high regard as the adviser, although I do agree that Park Maroo is bordering on the extreme. Word on the street is that the prince was blessed by the heavens and is destined to unite the five kingdoms under one flag. The stars only align in that manner once every five hundred years."
"Oh?" Yuehwa raised an eyebrow curiously. "Then what about the day when you were born? When the sun vanished from the sky? How often does that occur?" She looked expectantly towards Shoya for a reply, but all he did was give her one of his crooked smiles. "Forget it, it probably happens once every fortnight," she grumbled. "Is the fellow really that great? I'll bet he's just some pampered kid who doesn't know a thing about what it means to go hungry for a day. He probably weighs a ton and waddles around in his precious silks and jewels all the time."
Shoya raised an eyebrow. "That's a little harsh. You haven't even met the man. What if he is exactly as everyone describes?"
"Then may he marry the princess of Dahai and may the both of them live happily ever after," Yuehwa responded nonchalantly. "Have you seen him before? You must have travelled to many places. Have you been to Gi? I haven't been there, but apparently they have the best scenery across all the five kingdoms. Perhaps when I retire I shall retreat to one of the mountain ridges of Gi and build my own little hermit hut there. So, what's it like over there? Have you actually met this crown prince before?"
"No. I'm a commoner, why would I have the chance of encountering the crown prince?"
At that moment, Yuehwa thought she caught a hint of something flash across Shoya's eyes, but then she blinked and it was gone. He was smiling to himself as he continued slurping down his soup. Shaking her head, Yuehwa sighed and carried on with her meal, wondering to herself if Shoya found it entertaining to act all mysterious.
Ordinary commoner my ass. With those abilities, there are probably no palace walls across all the kingdoms that would be able to stop you from breaking and entering. Oh well, he doesn't owe me any answers anyway. Once this journey is over, we'll part ways and probably never see each other again, she thought.
If not for the fact that they were stuck together on board this ship, she wouldn't even have bothered to trouble herself with him, or the bumbling idiot who was still hanging overboard.
Once their feet hit the shores of Dahai, then it was going to be the start of a brand new adventure—excess baggage not allowed.