Volume 2Chapter 8: The weather has changed

I followed her into the cabin, which was full of piles of things, with barely enough room to put my feet down. It seemed that they had prepared in a hurry, and all the supplies had not been moved into the cargo hold in time, so they were just thrown haphazardly at the entrance. As I walked around, I noticed that the main items were diving equipment, large instruments, food, and ropes, with oxygen bottles making up the majority.

We walked through the cargo and arrived at the back of the cabin, which connected to the engine room. There were several bunk beds strewn about, covered with black, oily blankets. On one of the beds sat a slightly overweight, balding middle-aged man with a shiny, oily face. When he saw me, he stood up nervously, shook my hand and said, “Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. My name is Zhang.”

I didn’t like this man at first sight, but out of politeness I shook his hand anyway. His hands were very strong, and it seemed that he had done manual labor before.

Ms. Ning introduced to me, “Mr. Zhang is a consultant specially invited by our company. He is an expert in the study of the Ming Dynasty underground palace, and is mainly responsible for the analysis of this underwater underground palace.”

I have no interest in the orthodox archaeological community, and I have never heard of his name. But seeing his complacent expression, I had to say, “I have heard of you for a long time.”

The bald man waved his hand dramatically and said, “I’m not an expert. We’re just doing research. It’s just that I’ve been lucky and happened to publish a few papers.

I’ve never seen anyone talk like this before, so I didn’t know how to respond. I just said, ‘You’re too modest.’

He liked that, and shook my hand again. He asked, ”I don’t know what capacity Mr. Wu was invited here. With all due respect, it seems that Mr. Wu’s research is in a relatively unpopular field, or maybe I’m just ignorant. I’ve never seen Mr. Wu’s name in any archaeological journal.

These words were clearly meant to belittle me, and I don’t know if he meant it or not. I have a bad temper, and I almost exploded when I heard this, but I thought to myself that I had only just boarded the ship and was still unfamiliar with the environment, so I had to suppress my anger and said in a bad mood, “I specialize in digging.”

My tone was already very bad, but he didn’t even realize it. He said, “Oh, you’re an architect? No wonder, you’re not in our circle. But we’re also half-way there. You build houses for the living, and I study houses for the dead. We still have some overlap.”

I couldn’t help laughing and crying when I heard this. It seems that although this person’s words are not reliable, he is not the kind of person who is hypocritical. I patted him and said, “I’m not an architect, I’m an excavator. You study the houses of the dead, but I have to dig them out first.”

After saying this, I regretted it a little. I had not yet agreed to personally go down into the pit. The situation there was unclear, and everything would have to wait until I actually saw it. I thought and added, “But whether or not to dig at that time will depend on the situation. If the situation does not permit it, you won’t be able to dig even if you want to.”

He didn’t pick up on my hint, and kept handing me his business card, saying that having one more friend means having one more way to go, and that if I ever need help in the north, I can ask him for it. I saw that he had made friends with me in less than two minutes, and I thought that if we continued talking, we would be sworn brothers. I quickly changed the subject and asked the woman about the situation in the area where the accident occurred.

The woman was very capable, and she listed several things, and I got the general idea.

It turned out that Uncle San was unable to determine the exact location of the underwater tomb at the time. He only identified four possible areas, and they went to each one in turn. They must have found it, but the last report on the missing ship was brief and did not mention which sea area they had finally identified, so now we have to find it one by one.

Their plan was to start from the closest Fairy Reef, then go to Yongxing Island to replenish some supplies, and then go to three other sea areas near Qilian Island, with no more than a half-hour stopover. As for the method of searching, the water in the Xisha is very clear, and under good lighting conditions, you can see down into the water up to 30 meters.

The captain of the ship is very familiar with those waters, and to us laymen, the bottom of the water looks the same from the surface, but in their eyes, the bottom of each body of water has its own characteristics, and as long as there are some changes in the topography of the seabed, he can tell.

From the woman’s conversation, I found that she still had great confidence that the three people at the bottom of the sea were still alive. I don’t know where this blind confidence comes from. Of course, I also hope that she is right and that Uncle San is safe in the sea.

The bald man saw that I was having a good time talking to the woman, and he was a little upset that he was left alone. I think this person is already middle-aged, but his temper is still like that of a child. I can’t help but laugh. There is really news every hundred years. I don’t know if we will get along well.

I thought to myself, as the boat shook, the old fisherman at the back of the boat raised the anchor and started sailing. The boat began to rock violently. Because it was an old boat, it not only rocked from side to side, but also swayed irregularly back and forth, as if I were in a cradle. After more than ten hours of travel, I was so tired that I yawned. The woman was very considerate and let me rest. I was also very tired and fell asleep as soon as I lay down.

When I woke up, the boat had already sailed to the middle of the sea. I looked out the window and saw that it had changed in the blink of an eye. The entire sea seemed to have turned dark green all of a sudden. The sun disappeared behind a large cloud, and light shone through the gaps in the clouds, forming a huge gold-leaf print in the sky.

But the good times didn’t last long. The dark clouds soon joined together, blocking out all the sunlight. The sea turned a terrifying black, and the waves rolled up, the boat swaying with the waves. When we were in the trough of the waves, the sea was above the ship’s rail, as if about to be swallowed by the waves, which was terrifying.

I saw the boatmen running around nervously, reinforcing the nets that held the cargo. Although they were in a hurry, the captain’s face showed no sign of fear.

I was used to living in the city, and seeing this scene made me feel extremely excited. I wanted to go up to the deck to help, but after I got up there, I realized that it wasn’t at all what I thought it would be. In this situation, you need to be able to stand on the deck, and it’s not just about being quick. You have to be very familiar with the waves and the boat, and know when the next tilt will be after this tilt, so you can prepare in advance. I obviously didn’t have this level of skill, and after a few steps, I had to hold onto a protruding iron ring.

At this point, a few crew members seemed to have seen something and started to shout. I couldn’t understand the Minnan dialect, so I followed their fingers and saw something faintly on the left side of the ship, behind the high waves.

Because the distance was relatively far, I couldn’t see it clearly, but I thought it might be a ship. At this time, the woman walked past me and I asked her what these people were shouting about.

Her hair was wet and fluttering in the wind. After listening carefully, she said, “They seem to have seen a ship.”

The boat captain came over to us and said in a half-baked, broken Mandarin, “It seems like there’s a boat in trouble over there. According to the rules, we have to go over and take a look.”

There was nothing wrong with that, of course. The woman nodded, and the boat captain quickly issued a series of instructions to his crew in their native language.

The sea in the wind and waves was like a hilly landscape, with each wave a mountain. Our boat charged into the waves, then broke through them, and every time it did, the people on board took a sea bath, getting soaked countless times. I had never felt so excited before, and couldn’t help but want to scream.

We rolled over a dozen waves in a row, and finally could see the general outline of the thing.

At this time, I heard the captain of the ship scream in horror, and then several crew members panicked. I hurriedly asked the woman what was wrong, and she suddenly changed her expression when she heard it. She grabbed my hand and said, “Don’t look back. It’s a ghost ship!”