The spring cold had a bite in it and the river water was freezing.

And the moon was dark, the wind was high, and the waves ran heavy.

Ning Chen put his head up out of the water, looked at the capsized ship, and his face went livid.

This is a warship. These people dared scuttle a warship to try to kill me... Their nerve is past all measure. No — it is more than that. They are out of their senses.

Touching a warship is a crime that takes the entire household to the sword.

I have been careful the whole way, and I never imagined they would dare move on a warship.

Bodies came up one after another and were carried downstream.

A warship usually carries forty or fifty crew.

By the number of bodies, almost everybody on board had been dealt with.

Then something closed on Ning Chen's ankle.

A hand had hold of his ankle and was trying to drag him under.

Ning Chen let his body sink with it and drove his other foot out hard, and it landed square on the man's chest.

The hand on his ankle let go. If the man was not dead he was badly hurt.

Ning Chen came up again and swam toward a plank.

The plank was some piece of the ship's structure, about the size of a round table. Ning Chen climbed onto the plank and looked around him with sharp eyes.

"Old Pan! Old Feng!"

"Old Pan! Old Feng!"

Ning Chen still had not seen Pan Yucheng or Feng Qizheng, and it made him frantic.

But he called several times and got no answer from Pan Yucheng or Feng Qizheng. What he did get was the assassins.

One assassin swam up quietly behind Ning Chen, and the moment his head broke the surface Ning Chen's dagger came after it and went straight in between his brows.

Then there was a thud from under the plank.

An assassin must have tried to come up at him from under the plank, but the plank was thicker than he…