Chapter 260: One Wave After Another

After entering Taijiang, everything was no longer up to the fishermen.

Yu Chengde's two broken-down boats were first "escorted" by an armed speedboat to a separate dock, then soldiers and dock officials wearing bean-green ramie short-sleeve shirts, half-shorts, and peaked caps — looking much like the Hong Kong patrol officers of later generations — boarded to interrogate them.

After a brief interrogation, everyone was ordered to take their bundles, disembark, and go to the registration office to register.

In the immigration classification, people like Yu Chengde fell under "Free Migrant Household." According to regulations, all such immigrants had to be registered individually and undergo inspection and a period of quarantine — these people's sanitary conditions were usually suspect.

And so the thirty-two villagers of Chengwei Village all disembarked and, under the direction of Immigration Bureau officials holding short clubs, formed a crooked, uneven line. The whole process was calm; no one resisted, because there were many soldiers nearby, holding rifles with bayonets fixed.

At the same time, the immigrant groups disembarking from other boats had already formed several long columns, waiting to be registered.

At the end of the line was a row of quarantine sheds set up by the Immigration Bureau at the dock. These sheds were open front and back; once immigrants passed through, they could go directly to the bathhouse behind them to bathe and change clothes.

The large group composed of shaven-headed individuals moved quite quickly — these people had all undergone "training" in Hangzhou. They knew how to queue, and their personal data had long since been registered. Now they only needed to walk up to the checkpoint and loudly recite their "identification number."

Both the team leader standing in the shed and the Immigration Bureau receiving officer had these people's forms. Each time a person passed through, both sides, after verifying the details, would simultaneously tick the form, and that person's affiliation would officially be transferred from Hangzhou to Dayuan.

Since the newcomers had all completed quarantine in Hangzhou, after bathing and changing clothes they would quickly be taken away by people from various communities. Generally speaking, these "rule-savvy" newcomers needed only three days to recover, whether mentally or physically. Then they would be assigned work according to the specialties listed on their forms.

The troops passed through customs very quickly, but the small groups had a much harder time of it.

Yu Chengde and his people were assigned separately to a work shed far from the others. Once it was heard that they came from Putian, a clerk speaking in Putian dialect soon began questioning him.

The procedures were complicated. First, he had to state all his personal information. As Yu Chengde, at the head of the group, answered questions nonstop, he saw a clerical staff member at a desk beside them recording ceaselessly with a short, stubby black pen.

After he had clearly explained his personal information, the villagers' general information, and the reasons for their coming, the clerk nodded, then took out a sheet of paper and began reading the regulations aloud to Yu Chengde.

Since Monkey had explained this before, Yu Chengde generally understood these few clauses, even though they were mixed with some strange terms.

The content of the regulations was very simple — nothing more than the Great King here granting them permission to join, and a warning to the newcomers to obey authority. The last two lines were what he wanted to hear: this side promised housing and work, with pay according to labor.

After reading several brief procedural declarations, the clerk pointed to a long table to the side, where several people wearing gloves were already waiting.

Yu Chengde had long known this would be a search, so he cooperatively took out the several silver ingots and other odds and ends from his bosom — no one would have imagined that hidden inside the broken-down fishing boat was a sea pouch containing gold ingots.

So Yu Chengde was very calm.

Seeing that he was fairly cooperative, an inspector with a white cloth mask on his face turned and shouted to the villagers behind him: "All valuables, jewelry, and weapons must be taken out and registered. Don't worry, we won't embezzle your meager possessions. Everyone will bathe and undergo a body inspection soon — hiding things is useless. Take them out now."

Yu Chengde chuckled at this, and the next moment, he drew the military spike from his lower back and tossed it onto the table.

That was when things took a turn — when an inspector casually picked up the military spike and glanced at it, his expression suddenly changed to one of great alarm. He carried the spike and strode quickly to the clerk; the two pointed at a string of numeric codes on the blade and muttered a few words to each other, after which the clerk immediately pointed at Yu Chengde and shouted: "A spy! Seize him!"

A sharp whistle sounded, and the soldiers nearby instantly swarmed over. Before the people of Chengwei Village could react, they were all pinned down by gleaming bayonets.

Comrade Yu Chengde, on the other hand, was beginning to understand — the short sword style pointed at the tip of his nose was very familiar, exactly the same as his own.

Everyone was quickly isolated, and Yu Chengde received special treatment. First, his wrists were locked behind him with a pair of gleaming iron rings, then several men shoved him into a separate shed and cuffed him backward onto a chair.

Two men wearing peaked caps and blue short-sleeve shirts, with fierce-looking faces, soon entered the shed.

Next came the interrogation. With a "Clang!", the military spike was first tossed onto the table in front of Yu Chengde. Then one of the peaked-cap men glared viciously at Yu Chengde and asked: "Talk. Where did the knife come from? I'm warning you — confess honestly and there's still a way out, otherwise you'll get a taste of the electric shock."

"These two must be the local Public Gate men," Yu Chengde thought. Although he didn't understand what "electric shock" meant, he figured it was some kind of punishment.

The man's mind was now crystal clear — it was indeed this short sword that had brought disaster. So he hurriedly explained loudly: "Sirs, I've been wronged! My son fished the short sword up from the seabed!"

"Fished up? That's a new one. Explain in detail."

Yu Chengde hurriedly began explaining honestly and thoroughly. He knew the villagers were surely being interrogated at the same time, so he concealed nothing — except for the gold.

Just then, two people walked in from outside the shed.

The one in front was tall, with fair skin and a side-parted hairstyle. His features were ordinary; he wore a half-worn gray Gucci short-sleeve shirt, Western-style trousers, handmade Taiwan deer leather shoes on his feet, and a 226 Law Enforcement Pistol hanging at the back of his waist.

When the two peaked-cap men in the shed saw this person enter, they immediately stood and saluted, reporting loudly: "Probationary Sergeant Hu Xinsheng of Chikan Branch reporting to the Governor, awaiting instructions!"

"Continue," the newcomer said in an odd tone, just two words, then sat down expressionlessly to the side and reached out to pick up the confession on the table and began reading.

The two officers clearly worked much harder after this, and before long, they had thoroughly extracted everything Yu Chengde had in him — it wasn't complicated to begin with, just a simple story of a seabed scoop.

At this point, the shed fell silent. Everyone was waiting for the man in the gray shirt to speak.

"Go check the others' confessions," the gray-shirted man finally said, and the attendant standing behind him ran out. The young attendant returned shortly after, bent down beside the man, and whispered a few words in his ear.

"Indeed fished up. Your son's got some skill."

"Not at all, not at all — just a worthless, unruly boy." Seeing that this clearly high-ranking man was speaking to him amiably, Yu Chengde hurriedly replied with an ingratiating smile. He now had a feeling this matter could probably be smoothed over.

Yet what Yu Chengde hadn't expected was that the very next moment, the clerks who had handled the registration earlier came running over with excited faces — a copper Buddha and a box containing gold ingots were subsequently placed on the table.

The color instantly drained from Yu Chengde's originally ruddy face. He knew he was done for now.

The man was now one hundred percent certain that the sunken ship was the property of these short-haired people. Now, caught with the goods, his own people had essentially walked right into the trap. So Yu Chengde was now utterly despairing — based on his life experience, a jail term for everyone was unavoidable, and it wasn't impossible that he himself might be beheaded.

The next moment, under Yu Chengde's panicked gaze, the gray-clad man, listening to the clerk beside him taking credit, reached out with interest and flipped open the box of gold ingots.

"Not bad. This is much better than sinking to the bottom of the sea — at least it can rejoin the economic cycle."

After saying something Yu Chengde couldn't understand, the gray-clad man reached out and picked up the copper Buddha, then, with some fiddling, opened the Buddha's lotus base.

Under the gaze of everyone in the shed, the man then used two fingers to pull a strange object out from inside the Buddha.

"Ah, the chip's water-damaged." The man said this, then stood up, turned to the clerk, and said impatiently: "In the future, get these things sorted out clearly before notifying the Intelligence Bureau. Do we look idle to you?"

With that, the man tossed the copper Buddha into his attendant's arms, put his hands behind his back, and walked off.

What followed was even more awkward. The police, the Immigration Bureau clerk, and Yu Chengde stared at each other for a moment, then the two policemen first gave a dry laugh, left behind a perfunctory remark, picked up the military spike and the confession, turned, and walked away: "Lao Wu, we'll hand this military item over to the Military later."

The clerk surnamed Wu was now the most embarrassed — he had originally thought he'd discovered a group of spies, but the matter had ultimately been judged by the Intelligence Bureau's big shot as making a fuss over nothing. This was now a black mark against him.

After scratching his head awkwardly, this thirty-something Lao Wu first signaled his colleague with a look to unlock the suspect's handcuffs, then said to Yu Chengde irritably: "The military spike and the copper Buddha are both military items and must be confiscated. The gold ingots will be converted to silver value according to regulations and a passbook issued to you."

At this point, Yu Chengde hardly dared to quibble over these possessions. Rubbing his wrists, he nodded and apologized profusely: "It's my fault, my eyes were blind — I shouldn't have touched the sirs' property. Now that it's returned to its rightful owner, it's a fine thing, a fine thing indeed."

"You wretched fool — do you think this is the Great Ming? Who'd covet your measly bit of money?" Clerk Wu, having had the bad luck of being reprimanded by the Governor today, finally vented his anger on the culprit, Yu Chengde: "You damned thing, hiding stuff and getting me chewed out — get out! Wang, take him to open a passbook first."

"Yes!"