The crew were less than enthusiastic about having a woman aboard, and it wasn't just superstition. From a practical perspective, having to allocate a section of the cabin to Yin Fengzi alone meant that the other men had to divide less space amongst themselves. And Wen had made it very clear that nobody would be sharing space with her.
They accepted Fengzi, though, when Wen reminded them of their last defeat and explained how a Daoist adept could deal with the better-defended imperial cargo ships. And once they'd seen Yin Fengzi practicing her spells on the rear of the deck, above the cabin, they stopped grumbling.
The search Pocapetl had been so worried about had never materialized but Wen hadn't seen the point of mentioning that to Fengzi. Whether this meant that Yin Dengzi didn't care at all about his daughter, or whether something else had distracted the imperial forces, Wen didn't much care. All he cared about was that the waters around Penglai remained free of government warships—or at least of government warships that weren't aimed at rest, recreation and the sort of debauchery of which Pocapetl's place had turned out to be a fairly mild example. Penglai really was a wonderful place, Wen had decided, and he was looking forward to many happy times there, once he had accumulated enough silver and gold to fund his father's recovery—and, if he was being honest with himself, his journey north to the gold fields of Jīn-sè Mèn.
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