Chapter 456: Standing out
=By my records, the last time we were on Roaring Tide it was around the time we were with the Storm Queen. After she had passed away, we activated the transport protocol. That’s how we ended up in Umbral Spider with the Drunkard?=
=Uh…=
“TEACHER LOGOS! TEACHER PATHOS! THERE’S A SKELETON IN THIS ROOM!”
{What the fuck?}
“AND HE SMELLS LIKE THOSE WEIRD UNCLES THAT KEPT TRYING TO GIVE ME CANDY BACK IN PEARL TUSK!”
{I…feel like I should resent that statement.}
<=Godsdammit=>
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“What kind of vessel even is that? It’s so freaking huge and loud! Also, what’s with the water wheels? They milling something using the tide?”
“Nah, bro. That’s a steamship. I saw them once when I was on a trade voyage to Dozing Salamander. They use coal and heat in this special furnace in order to get that thing to move. That said, I’ve never seen one that big before. Ones I saw were only as big as a fishing vessel.”
“Damn…who do you think got the reputation and gold necessary to rent out a ship like that?”
“Hell if I know, but they caused the Harbor Master to get out of there real fast.”
The PS Nemona made a hell of an entrance as it rolled into docks of Pearl Scale Harbor that day.
Blaring a massive horn first thing in the morning, showing up with it’s paddles spinning and furnace at full burn just as the sun was rising.
It wouldn’t have been a massive stretch for the people to assume this giant steamship was a monster, with a few people even hysterically proclaiming it to be so.
But as the sun rose higher and the sky got brighter, people soon realized it was some type of ship…the wealthy kind of ship that the Harbor Master loved to put through unnecessary inspections just to try and line his pockets a little more.
Many onlookers saw the harbor master and his men fly over and do his usual thing, tell them they heard something weird about this ship he hadn’t seen before and then subtly hinting at a bribe…but then an Aether Lord flew up to meet him, accompanied by two Grandmasters and the Harbor Master suddenly turned tail and ran.
It was insane enough that a steamship of all things had appeared out of nowhere and wanted to dock in their small yet illustrious ports, it was another thing altogether when it turned out that one of the passengers aboard the ship had a freaking Aether Lord on it.
Rumors and gossip began to fly across the town despite the morninging grogginess, all focused on one thing that was significantly more interesting and relatable than a steamship: who the fuck were these guys?
“I was over there to grab iem breakfast earlier, and from what I could hear, the crew are all from Stampeding Bison, from our sister port actually.”
“Pearl Tusk? Damn, I haven’t been there in years…’
“Hey guys! I figured out who the heck scared the Harbor Master pantsless! Well sorta.”
“Really? How’d you figure that out?”
“Saw an emblem on the cargo that looked familiar. Turns out, it’s the Zhen Clan!”
“Oh shit!”
The Zhen Clan was one of the oldest and most reputable clans in operation in all of the Pearl Scale Empire.
Known for producing several of its fiercest and most loyal warriors over the years including the “Fierce Jade Beast”, the “Tsunami Whale General” and the “Nine Iron Rods Berserker”, the Zhen Clan earned and maintained its reputation as the “boot camp of champions”.
That being said though, there was still a particular black mark on the clan’s reputation, one that was more relavent to the nobility and aristocracy of the empire than the common folk, but it didn’t stop the latter group from discussing about it.
“Actually, here’s the weird part, there were two different Zhen Clan emblems!”
“Really?”
“Yeah, one had like a flower or something added to it. I guess it’s a branch clan or something?”
“The Zhen Clan had a branch clan all the way in Stampeding Bison?”
“That or they had a mission over there.”
“Hold up…Zhen Clan…Stampeding Bison… mission…wasn’t there an incident like several decades back? One of their disciples wronged the Emperor by eloping with their local princess? What was her name again? Princess Bai Hua?”
“Oh shit, yeah…I remember that incident. Whole empire was freaking out for like a week. Wait, didn’t they announce they found and killed that guy but the princess died due to mercury poisoning or something?”
“That’s what the official record stated, yes.”
“I’ve seen that report too, but I have also kept track on rumors. While the officials say that that princess died and the renegade clansman got executed in the spot, some say those two managed to get away and had started a new life on another continent.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I recall some merchants and mercenaries talk about a clan of Roaring Tiders in some place called…what was it…Rock Talon City? Something like that. Apparently they’re a clan of beast tamers and the like, and that they’re also used the name of the Zhen Clan.”
“So…you think this other Zhen Clan, is actually related to the main Zhen Clan?”
“It adds up don’t it? The sudden arrival of a bunch of Zhen clansmen on a foreign ship, two different emblems that look fundamentally similar. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised that Aether Lord was actually an internal Zhen Clan enforcer or something facilitating a mediation between the two groups.”
“Okay, that’s where you lose me. Why the fuck would the Zhen Clan try to make nice with this other Zhen Clan? The last time a city insulted their reputation, the place got leveled.”
“That’s…a good point.”
Regardless of all the rumors and speculations though, the only ones who knew the truth of the matter were the same people who were being talked about.
That being said, it didn’t stop pedestrians from staring at them.
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“Is it just me or is there a lot of eyes on us right now?,” Zhen Hai asked his cousins as he helped to carry out a trunk from the ship.
“No, no, there are indeed a lot of eyes on us right now,” Zhen Feng agreed as he was helping Zhen Hai out.
“Ok…why?,” Zhen Xing asked as he strapped a cage down to a wagon.
“Maybe they find it weird that we’re helping to unload our own stuff?,” Zhen Lao pointed out.
From the moment the ship had made port and the Zhen Clan began to unload their stuff, a whole crowd of people suddenly showed up and started gawking at them.
Initially, the crowd had been staring at the steamship, confused by its function and awestruck by it’s form and various decals.
However, once the people onboard the ship began to unload stuff, they started staring at them.
Well, to be more specific, they started staring at the Zhen clansmen, with a focus on the “branch” members.
“Not to sound like a braggart, or vain” Zhen Liu interjected as he had Nepherage “the puppet” move a bear’s cage with the bear in it out of the hold, “but I think they’re staring at me.”
“You mean your puppet?,” Zhen Xing asked.
“No no,” Zhen Liu said while pulling at his cheek, “at me…”
“Why would they…oh.”
“They’re jealous you inherited Aunt Daria’s cheekbones? Because I’ve always been,” Zhen Guo joked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Hah! If only.”
It kinda worked.
As a child from a certain blue planet, Zhen Liu was, unfortunately, learned when it came to how people tended to view whatever they classified as “others”.
Sexuality, ideology, philosophy, it didn’t matter what was different between person A and B, as long a story found something different, they will judge the other over it without failure.
And as one of the few members of the clan who happened to look both like a Roaring Rider and a Stampeding Bisoner, it wasn’t hard to put together that a rather homogenous port would be shocked at the sight of him.
He recognized the feeling, he felt their gazes, he had been subjected to these stares before and had done this himself once or twice before back when he “Thomas”.
But now, he was “Zhen Liu”, and frankly put…it wasn’t worth getting angry over it.
Besides, even the old Zhen Liu got used to those gazes at some point, back home…
[Milord, I can feel your irritation through the bond, do you want me to get rid of these onlookers?,] Nepherage comforted her lord.
Zhen Liu felt she meant to, he could already see her imagining herself dropping the cage and just throwing lava balls at them.
‘Nah, I’m good, Nepherage. Let’s just finish unloading. Sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get out of here.’
As the Zhen Clan kept doing their job, the crowd eventually got bored and returned to their own tasks for the day.
A foreign arrival was a novelty at best when one is busy.
However, to a select few members of the crowd, foreign arrivals meant new information.
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“Zhen clansmen on a ship from Stampeding Bison? Why would they…no…it can’t be…”
