Volume 2Chapter 12: Uncle San’s Lie
Seeing these characters, I was almost stunned into fainting. Wu Sanxian and Chen Wenjin, isn’t that the full name of Uncle San and Wenjin? Could this notebook be something they left behind? But how could something like this appear on a ghost ship?
If it is said that before the ghost ship sank, there happened to be two people on board, one named Wu Sansheng and the other named Chen Wenjin, and these two people also happened to be archaeologists who happened to be on the Xisha Wanzhou Reef to do some archaeology, the probability of such a coincidence happening is probably enough for me to win several five million lotteries.
I thought about it for a moment, and it seemed that there was no need to think too much. This notebook had no other explanation. There was no doubt that it should be something left by Uncle San and his friends. Moreover, judging from the signature on it, this notebook should have been given to Wenjin by Uncle San, and Wenjin used it as a log to record the daily progress of the archaeological work on Wanjiao. The owner of the notebook should be Wenjin.
Then this ghost ship was related to the archaeological activities of Uncle San and his friends at that time, and it might even be the medium-sized fishing boat that did not return on time at that time.
After thinking about it for a while, I couldn’t help but feel that countless question marks were popping up in my head, and I began to feel a splitting headache.
I’m afraid that only the people involved would know the real meaning of these things. The scant knowledge I have now is all about the most superficial things about these things, and it seems that there is still a lack of a core to connect them all. If Uncle San could have honestly told me everything, I’m afraid that I would have been able to roughly know the key to the whole thing by now.
Or maybe the contents of this notebook can give me some clues. I originally wanted to hide this thing and read it when no one was around, but my strong curiosity was unbearable. I thought that she would know about this sooner or later, so there was no need to make it so mysterious. I didn’t avoid her and looked it up directly.
Wenjin is a very serious person. She records everything in the same format every day, and it is clearly listed. The first page I saw was the first day they left, July 15th. There was a list of names, and I saw that the leader was indeed Wu Sansheng. What was the name of that boring oil bottle? I remembered that Uncle San mentioned that his surname seemed to be Zhang. I looked for it, and sure enough, there was a person named Zhang Qiling. Could it be him?
I flipped through it again, and the main content was about the process of finding and determining the exact location of the sea grave. It was even more detailed than what Uncle San said, and even the types of ropes and the reasoning process were written out. I really couldn’t figure out how these two people could get together. But I didn’t need to read all of this again. I flipped straight to the end, and I was dumbfounded when I saw it.
In fact, I didn’t need to read the last part, just the last few headings were enough to surprise me, and I also cursed that bastard Uncle San a hundred times.
I saw that it said:
July 21, first time entering the underwater tomb.
Personnel: Wu Sanxing.
Progress: cleaning the left and right ear chambers and the tunnel, preparing to clean the back chamber.
Work: using an air pump to ventilate the tomb chamber, preparing for a long time to clean.
Artifacts unearthed: a double-phoenix carved wooden coffin (baby coffin).
Note: an emergency occurred, detailed records to be added.
Then there was only one record:
July 23, second time entering the underwater tomb.
Personnel: all members.
Progress: None
Work: Avoiding the summer storm
Artifacts: None
Notes: None
It turned out that before he took them in, Uncle San had already gone in once. With his bandit nature, he must have taken a lot of things out. He only wrote here that he had cleaned up the left and right ear chambers and the tunnel. Who knows if he had opened the back room! Maybe he had already touched everything in the coffin. What did this old fox do the first time he went in! I couldn’t help but hate it.
I skimmed through it, and there should be a lot of useful but not critical records inside. I don’t need to look at it so carefully now. I put it away and put it back in the waterproof bag, and looked back at the woman’s reaction. Who knows, she didn’t seem to notice me at all, just desperately stripping the sea rust off the bulkhead in the captain’s cabin.
She was very fast, it was almost as if she wasn’t stripping it but smashing it. The half-board had already been cleaned out, and I could see that the sea rust was actually steel. She peeled it all the way down to the connection between the ship and the bulkhead. I found that the bulkhead was welded to the ship, which seemed very strong. The door on it was also made of steel, with a car steering wheel-like rotary seal lock.
The woman kept muttering to herself as she peeled, as if she were saying, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, I’ll let you out soon.”
I heard something wrong with her words and realized that she was a little abnormal. I saw that there was a layer of rubber between the door and the frame. The compartment inside seemed to be sealed. After the woman cleaned up, she desperately tried to turn the rotary seal lock, but she was far from strong enough. The lock itself was very heavy, and with all the rust inside, it was impossible to open it without the strength of a sailor. She turned it a few times, but it didn’t budge.
I felt something was wrong, so I said to her, “The contents may not have been soaked in water, so it’s best not to open it. If there’s a monster inside, we won’t be able to defend ourselves, and we’ll definitely be trapped here.”
She didn’t listen to me at all, and kept trying to turn it. I shook my head. This woman was really unreasonable. I completely lost my good impression of her.
For the next few minutes, I crossed my arms and watched her waste her energy. I felt a little relieved. At this point, she turned around and looked at me. I thought she had finally come to her senses, but then she suddenly let out a strange cry, and her body leaned back. Two withered hands shot out of her hair like lightning, grabbed the rotating seal lock, and began to exert force. The strange hands were extremely powerful, and I immediately heard the sound of rust cracking inside.
I was so scared that my scalp went numb, and I almost fell to the ground. This scene was unbelievable to the extreme. No wonder the strange hands disappeared. They had been hiding in her hair all along. Was the person I had just been talking to a ghost or a human?
At this time, the rotating seal lock had already loosened, and the woman turned it a few times, preparing to open the steel door. Suddenly, there was a loud noise inside, and a large amount of water rushed out of the door. The door was directly hit by the water and slammed into the woman’s back, knocking her into the air and knocking me to the ground. I knew something was wrong, and I just wanted to push her away and escape. Then the sea water rushed over my head, directly washing us both out five or six zhang. I managed to look up and saw a huge face covered in scales peeking out from behind the door, staring at me.