Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4-7 2019 | Page 175

“No worries! To show our sincerity, we prepared some little gifts that you may find useful,” I said while asking my
colleagues to move several boxes in.
When the boxes of goods and silks were opened, the Emperor was beaming with delight.
“There should be an opportunity for us to cooperate,” he added immediately.
17 th November 1408
Rainy and freezing
Today, after being in “Kuzubai” for about half a month, we decided to head back to China as the food storage
started to become unable for us to sustain for a month. (Originally we planned to go further inland…) We followed
the same route and got to our fleet as soon as possible.
As soon as we sailed away from the land, someone bellowed, “Stop or you will be shot.” All of us were in panic.
One of us shouted, “I don't want to die here, I must go back to meet my wife!” Then, we saw a hook holding on
the wooden plank of our ship. Some people who looked cruel got onto our ship. When we thought how to deal
with this situation, a gargantuan man stood was looming right there.
“I know that you have gold bars. Where are they?” “No… I won't tell you…” one of the sailors trembled.
“You will be learning the lesson of refusal!”
People then rushed onto the deck. The fight started. Although we resisted hard and we had more advanced
weapons than theirs, we couldn't steal a march on them. Our size of manpower paled in comparison with theirs!
With more and more people injured, being the leader of the whole team, I had to think of a way to save our lives….
Suddenly, a flash of memory came up to my mind: The chief executive had given me the leather bag and reminded
me to open in only in emergency. I then quickly tore the bag open and inside the bag there was a pack of grey
powder. That is a pack of lime powder! It was useful in dealing with enemies as lime powder itself, when mixed
with water, generates heat and causes skin burn. I immediately spilt the powder onto the pirates’ faces and told the
sailors to use a wooden bowl to spill water on their faces. They thought that the powder we spilled was magic
powder that hurt them as they didn't know about this use of lime powder. They were afraid and ran away
immediately.