Chapter 150: Shipwreck Graveyard

And so, I stayed up until the middle of the night on the bed, clutching the casket. I eventually drifted off to sleep while the thread was still inside the box, the paper still in my arms. The moment I closed my eyes, exhaustion swept over me like a tidal wave. It seemed noisy outside, but I was dead to the world and heard nothing at all.

The only time I regained a flicker of consciousness was in the morning when Lu A’yao pulled the casket from my arms. I startled awake, my vision blurry as I recognized him. I glanced out toward the sea and saw that the sun hadn’t even risen yet, so I pulled the covers back over my head and fell straight back to sleep.

I slept until after nine o’clock. When I rolled over and opened my eyes, I was the only one left in the cabin’s bunks. I sat up and rubbed my messy hair, spotting Xiao Wu sitting on a wooden stool nearby, legs crossed as he read a newspaper.

Still not fully awake, I sat on the bed in a daze for a while before stretching. I reached out to feel He Yu’s bunk next to mine; the sheets were cold, meaning he had been gone for a long time.

I looked at Xiao Wu. “Why is it so quiet? Where is everyone?”

Xiao Wu flipped a page of his newspaper and pointed out the window. “Young Master, the ship has been moving all morning. The Boss and Boss Yu led the team underwater for mapping. The underwater terrain is very unclear, so it’s going to take a long time to narrow down the search area.”

Hearing this, I scrambled to the cabin’s only small window and looked out. Our research vessel looked like a lone leaf, appearing thin and helpless on the vast surface of the sea. The reefs from yesterday had long since vanished. From our current position, there were no landmarks to be seen in any direction.

I whipped my head around and asked Xiao Wu, “Why are you so idle? Why didn’t you go help?”

Xiao Wu gave me a chuckle. “The area is too large, so almost all the men have gone into the water. The Boss was afraid you’d be scared if you woke up and no one was here, so he specifically left me on the ship to look after you. In fact, it’s not just for today. My main task these past few days is actually to watch over you, Young Master. The Boss won’t let you run around.”

I slumped back onto the bed like a deflated balloon, crossing my arms and pouting like a pufferfish. It seemed I really couldn’t put up a fight. Fourth Brother was treating me like a three-year-old. He was still hung up on the time he let me go to Yunnan, so this time he was determined not to let me follow the team.

The Nine-Ring Jade Casket at the head of the bed had been re-wrapped in red cloth and placed neatly. The thread I had used for my diagrams had been pulled out of the lock, and my messy tools had been organized by size and laid out beside the casket. I had to admit, Lu A’yao was one of the few meticulous people on this ship.

I got out of bed and washed my face. Picking up the Nine-Ring Jade Casket, I pulled back the cabin curtain and dragged out an old-fashioned folding table and a frayed camp stool. I sat down on the deck and continued to tinker with the casket.

I hadn’t been sitting there long when the water surface began to churn. Soon, a diver fully equipped with an oxygen tank surfaced. I couldn’t see his face clearly, but my intuition told me it was definitely He Yu.

I quickly stood up and ran to the edge of the ship to lower the cargo net. The diver grabbed the net and climbed up step by step, eventually tumbling onto the deck with my help. He splashed water all over me, soaking half of my freshly changed pants.

He Yu pulled off his mask and sat slumped on the deck. He shook his wet hair and cursed, “Damn! I’m exhausted. Young Master, you’re finally awake? We’ve been down two or three times already, and you were sleeping like a dead pig. Did you wake up because you were hungry or thirsty?”

“Screw you! You’re the dead pig. You’re so heavy I almost got pulled into the sea just now. Fourth Brother needed three or four people to haul you into bed yesterday, yet you have the nerve to lecture me? I fought with this damn casket all night and I’ve almost finished the structural diagrams. So what if I woke up a little late today?” I snapped at him.

After scolding him, I patted my pants and stood up. I sat back on my stool with my wet pants and continued looking at the diagrams I had drawn last night. I began unwrapping the red cloth from the Jade Casket, keeping my legs spread to let my pants air-dry. He Yu struggled to take off his oxygen tank and then crouched over to watch me.

“Not bad, Little Yao. I didn’t realize you’d actually figured out the structure?”

He reached out with his wet hand to grab the papers on the table. I ruthlessly slapped his hand away and shot him a glare, putting on airs. “Your pig trotters are soaking wet. Can you take responsibility if you ruin the paper?”

“Fine, fine. I give you a few compliments and you get all arrogant. I’ll just stand here and watch without touching, alright?” He Yu lowered his hands and sat cross-legged beside me.

His comment made me laugh. I took the sketches from last night and spread them on the table, moving them closer for him to see. As he looked, he shook his head and muttered to himself, “You’ve got some skill. I didn’t realize you really had it in you. Looking at your diagram, the amount of work needed to unlock this casket seems massive!”

On the other side, I had already unwrapped the cloth. I smiled at him and prepared another silk thread. “Massive? It’s more than just massive. I’m telling you, I discovered that every groove inside this casket holds a jade bead, and the position of each bead is specific. They never repeat. It would take the most experienced mechanism master at least six months to a year to open this thing.”

“Tsk. You say it’s so mysterious… what kind of priceless treasure could be inside? Once we open this casket, will the treasure be enough to help us buy a one-bedroom apartment within Beijing’s Third Ring Road?” He Yu asked.

I glanced at him and told him to stop joking, then nudged him. “What happened? Why did you come up by yourself?”

He Yu opened a bottle of mineral water for himself. “Those guys have stamina that isn’t human. They’ve been down two or three times and they aren’t even winded. I can’t do it. I’m just a damn treasure appraiser. Your Fourth Brother thought I was a burden and told me to come up first.”

Xiao Wu had moved over at some point and asked, “Since you were down there for so long this time, did you find anything new?”

I stopped what I was doing and looked at He Yu. He took a few more gulps of water before saying mysteriously, “Yes! But this isn’t just any discovery. Beneath our research ship, there is something truly magnificent!”

I stroked my chin, thinking it was odd. He Yu usually seemed uninterested in everything except for that piece of jade Lu A’yao wore. He had never spoken so highly of anything before, but this time, I saw a damn thievish glint shining in his eyes as he spoke.

If even He Yu called it a good thing, then it had to be a hundred times better than ordinary gold or jade. Was there truly a massive tomb beneath this stretch of sea, one so significant that Liu Sanshui was willing to brave a storm alone just to see it?

“Stop keeping me in suspense. Tell me, what exactly is this new discovery?” I couldn’t wait and pressed him to speak.

He Yu scoffed and lowered his voice. “We found many Porcelain Shards beneath our research vessel. There is a strange, triangular sand mound down there. We only searched less than a nautical mile, but according to the map, the terrain for twenty nautical miles around is significantly higher than the surrounding seabed.”

Seeing Xiao Wu’s face grow pale, I began to feel a sense of unease myself. “And?” I asked. “What does it being higher than the rest of the seabed prove?”

He Yu said, “We cleared away three small shipwrecks. They were from different eras, with their bows and sterns so rotted they were practically fused together. They were all ship burial coffins used as funerary offerings, but they were different from any I had seen before. They had been stacked on top of each other before being sunk into the sea.”

“But the most terrifying part isn’t the coffins themselves, it is the sheer number of them. Beneath the three we cleared, there were more coffins. We changed our strategy and dug to the side, only to find that they were surrounded by the same fused ship burial coffins.”

He Yu grabbed my wrist. “Little Yao, if this elevated area is considered a square, it means that starting from our research vessel, four hundred kilometers of the seabed is covered in those stacked ship burial coffins. Where could such a massive underwater tomb even come from? This is clearly a shipwreck graveyard!”