Wang Lui was startled awake by the sound of a horn blowing. The heat caused by the sun, which he could feel on his body, told him it was dawn. He sat up straight, stretched, and yawned without having any decency to cover his mouth.
"Everything sucks here," he grumbled to himself as he climbed to his feet. He had no sense of direction or anything else. It was infuriating just moving from ship to ship.
Being reborn in such a strange and unfamiliar place with no control over his destiny and no real understanding of what was going on was very disorienting and difficult to cope with.
Captain Muyang let him and Stoneman into their ship the previous day after the Skeleton pirates' ship was destroyed by his mana and consumed by the median sea.
Wang Lùi couldn't tell if Captain Muyang was dubious, he just didn't like anyone and his paranoia toward these people was the same.
He was barefooted but was fully clothed. They had lent him a pair of trousers and a shirt to cover his body.
Wang Lui left his tiny place of resting and walked freely as if he wasn't blind.
Shirtless men were singing in a language he couldn't understand, as they set to work.
They were cleaning the floor, scrubbing off the worms that eat through the hull planking, and boiling seawater to make it drinkable. Wang Lui felt he belonged anywhere other than that ship. The deity told him his life was just about to begin but he could sense danger coming.
What important role was he to play in this multiverse of madness? It was just pointless to be reborn and be blind.
Without sight, life was meaningless.
Wang Lui rolled up the sleeves of his shirt as he walked, he was on his way to find Captain Muyang to have a word with him since he had his own life to live and couldn't follow them to their desired destination. To hell with whatever his creator said about having so much ahead of him.
Wang Lui bumped into a patched-eye man with stale teeth.
"Oh, it's you," the man immediately turned to face Wang Lui with a smirk on his face, "had a good rest?"
"Why do you even care?" A grumpy, sour-mood Wang Lui side-stepped the man, and considered using an aid stick for support then decided against it. He felt if he did that, it would demean him.
"You're blind yet you walk around as if you can see." Another bald man with a red faded beard was surprised to see Wang Lui like that.
"Minding your business is a universal thing, it can be applied anywhere," Wang Lui snarled and made to pass, but the man pushed him backward.
"You've got a bit of a temper there," he said right in Wang Lui's face, "you're the blind one, you should worship the ground we walk on or beg to lick the shit off our asses. If we hadn't rescued you, you'd be as good as dead now. Hm?"
"He has nothing yet he behaves like a god. I think he needs to be taught a lesson," this from another man who was throwing a huge net into the sea.
"I'll just let you off this time," the red-bearded man's actions contradicted his words. His fist connected with Wang Lui's jaw immediately. And Wang Lui fell as a deadbeat groan rolled from his throat.
Wang Lui wondered why he wasn't retaliating when they just activated his anger buttons. He felt glued to his fallen spot.
"He's lucky to be a guy. If he were a girl, I'd have taken him right here and now." The eye-patched man snickered, licked his palm, and rubbed it in Wang Lui's face.
"Captain Muyang is lucky. He doesn't get lonely at night, while we struggle with stiffened blue balls from the whips of the harsh sea wind."
"I hope everyone controls their masculine urges on this ship, fucking the mouth of dead fishes is just stupid." Said a chubby man who threw a bucket of soapy water on the floor and scrubbed it with a brush.
Laughter erupted in the air and Wang Lui was repulsed by their manner and choice of words. They weren't skeletons he could throw off the sea, these were humans. Some were even burly and if he fought back, he could get beaten.
Still, he knew he wouldn't let what they did to him slide. The punch and the smelly hand in his face.
"Someone had scratches and bruises on his cock which was grazed by the teeth of a fish."
Wang Lui helped himself up and sucked his bottom lip that he was certain had a cut. He wanted them to keep talking so their attention could be diverted away from him and then he would strike.
"Spreading jam on bread for fuckery is a better-off option since there's no woman on the ship except Min Xu, Captain Muyang's wife."
Their lewd and vulgarity was making the atmosphere on the ship even more tense and uneasy and Wang Lui was stuck in the middle of it. He was uncomfortable even as he was preparing to attack the person whom he sensed was closer to him.
"It's enough now," Wang Lui heard a feminine voice and at this, he knew it was the Captain's wife. The woman whom they talked about.
"Stop mistreating him because he's blind." She continued, pointing at Wang Lui.
And Wang Lui wondered why she was speaking up for him. He already had his own plans on how to deal with them.
The bald man walked until he was standing in front of the woman.
"Count yourself lucky for being Muyang's wife, else I'd have fucked…"
The rest of the man's nasty response was cut short by a headbutt from the woman, something which sent him to the floor immediately.
"Talk about touching me again and I'll knock off four of your teeth, you rotten worm!" Wang Lui overhead her threat and a smirk spread across his face.
Min Xu bounced her head from one man to the other with a sneer resting on her face.
"Are you already fed up talking about fucking the mouths of dead fishes and bread, or brewing with jealousy because I am the only woman on this ship and Muyang's wife at the matter?" Min Xu tsked and waited for them to speak but they didn't. Instead, they drilled holes into her body with their faces.
"No one fantasizes about touching me anymore?" She raised a brow as she stood right in front of Wang Lui, "that's better. Most of you are yet to have children and your balls are valuable in terms of producing offspring. You wouldn't like my husband chopping them off and throwing them into the sea for fishes to feed on, would you?"
Wang Lui chuckled upon hearing this, clearly enjoying everything. The way Min Xu called them out was refreshing and bold. She wasn't afraid to call them out and put them right in their place.
Wang Lui could hear the men muttering incoherent and muted curses as they left that side, leaving just him and Min Xu.