Voyage With The Pirate King

There is a saying that knowledge is power which basically means that with knowledge one can achieve their goals with much less physical strength than they would have exerted without it. Well, at least in this context that\'s what it means. 

These four individuals had an educational session the previous night about Nocru\'s keystones but didn\'t necessarily come up with a game plan to find them. That\'s because none of them actually had an idea on where to start. The keystone in their hands was entirely found by accident but accidents cant happen twice, right?

What they didn\'t realise was that someone they had left out of this session had a much deeper connection with this keystone. That person happened to be Rui Yewan who had been robbed of that very keystone last night. 

He would have been able to provide them with a solution if only they had included him in their educational session. So when did they realise they had a keystone tracker in their hands? It was at the breakfast table where everyone besides Rui Yewan had panda eyes after sleeping late. 

Rui Yewan skimmed over each and every person on the table as he reached over with his chopsticks to grab the last fluffy steamed bun in the bowl at the centre of the table. Ji Wen was awfully silent which was highly unusual. His usually tied up curly hair was hanging loose but that wasn\'t the highlight. The man was shirtless with a pendant hanging around his neck. 

Rui Yewan\'s chopsticks paused when he realised at the end of that pendant was a familiar black gemstone his brother had confiscated from him last night. The shiny gemstone was brushing against Ji Wen\'s half shoulder tattoo of a vicious Raiju beast that was staring at Rui Yewan with its deep blue eyes.

Rui Yewan shuddered in fright but before he could look away the back of his hand was harshly tapped by a pair of chopsticks drawing his attention. Rui Fei gave him \'a what are you staring at\' look as he placed the last dumpling into Rui Yewan\'s bowl. Rui Yewan didn\'t say anything. He simply lowered his head and glanced over to the also unusually silent Rui Li with slightly puffed eyes. 

This was the first time ever since they left their father\'s palace that he had seen Rui Li with puffed-up eyes like she had cried. The other times she cried in these past two years was when a character in one of her novels died or something just as trivial but even then her eyes wouldn\'t be this puffed up. 

It seemed something happened last night to all four of them but he wasn\'t sure who to ask. "What\'s wrong with you?" he whispered to Rui Li with obvious concern in his eyes, "who bullied you?"

Rui Li turned her head to look at him and said, "No one but I am in a bad mood and wouldn\'t mind if you help me vent," she said pouting her glossy pink lips. Her words pulled Rui Yewan into a past memory that sent a stabbing pain into his abdomen whenever he thought about it. 

Once, he helped Rui Li vent after she found out that the novel she had been reading for the past six weeks was a BE rather than a HE and the way the female lead died was especially tragic, she asked for him to help her vent. 

Let\'s just say after that experience he couldn\'t walk straight for a week. His body involuntarily shuddered as he recalled that painful experience. There was no way in hell he was agreeing to that. His gaze fell back to his bowl directly giving her a silent response. Rui Li didn\'t make a fuss either. She just shrugged her shoulders and carried on watching the pair sitting across each other for some daily dose of sugar. 

From the above statement, one can easily understand who she was referring to. Her YaoFei CP was especially sweet today. Correction, they were especially sweet in her eyes. A simple hand movement or glance in her eyes was greatly amplified to biblical proportions as expected of our newbie fujoshi. This was in fact one of the first basic rules that newly appointed fujoshis should learn during orientation classes. 

A simple shoulder pat or glance can be interpreted as a full-blown closeted affair for personal enjoyment of course. She placed her fist over her chin and mouth propping up her head while concealing her smile as she watched her older brother ripping a piece of deep-fried crispy dough topped with fried eggs into Ji Yao\'s plate but his good intentions were met by a swift refusal. 

Feeling a little saddened Rui Fei retracted his hand and placed it into his own bowl. His face remained the same as before but there was a flash of disappointment in his eyes that Ji Yao noticed. It\'s not that he wanted to refuse his kind gesture but it\'s just that he hated scallions and that pancake had them sprinkled all over like the cook was trying to get rid of all the scallions before they go bad.

He followed the pancake pinched between Rui Fei\'s chopsticks with his gaze and his eye couldn\'t help but twitch. He watched on as that unappealing pancake touched Rui Fei\'s soft lips. The only good thing about this view was Rui Fei\'s sultry lips. Ji Yao couldn\'t help but think that pancake had ruined such lovely lips.

Rui Fei didn\'t know that Ji Yao was staring at him this entire time so one can only imagine his reaction when he raised his head after swallowing the pancake. He froze meeting that deep probing gaze and asked, "What? I thought you didn\'t want it... unless you are staring at me because I am handsome," his ego inflated to the high heavens. 

Ji Yao lowered his gaze unwilling to entertain the crazy. If it weren\'t for that disgusting pancake would he even look at him? Noticing his son\'s slightly contorted face Ji Wen unwrapped a rice dumpling for him as he explained to Rui Fei, " Ya Ya hates scallions. He won\'t eat anything with scallions on it even if he is starving to death."

Rui Fei was suddenly in a good mood. He smiled riley and murmured, "Ya Ya," with a twinkle in his eye.

Ji Yao put down his chopsticks with a loud clank as they hit the bowl and eyed Rui Fei coldly. His gaze seemed to be saying, "Are you seeking death?" but Rui Fei didn\'t take this threat seriously.

Ji Wen was just about to place the rice dumpling in Rui Fei\'s bowl when he froze in place with an expression that seemed to say, "You must be tired of living.." He could say it but no one else could and why was that? It was because Ji Yao wouldn\'t kill his own father but he could sure as hell kill anyone else who dared call him that.