Chapter 71: Raging Sea: Summary

I checked the instruments next to the helm, and they all looked normal. I said, "This boat seems fine, not like it was in any accident... Could it be that the coast guard caught them and took the whole crew back?"

Fatty shook his head and said, "No. If the crew was gone, the boat would've been towed away too. Why leave it here? It's definitely not the coast guard. This area is chaotic, with all sorts of shady boats. Let's check the cargo hold. If everything's gone, then it's pirates."

I knew about pirates—the boat captain had told me plenty on the way here—but it still felt unreal to me. When Fatty brought it up, I was a bit surprised and asked, "This place isn't exactly inshore, but it's not deep sea either. Can pirates really be that rampant?"

Fatty laughed at my naivety. "How naive can you be? You think the military is omnipotent? Even tigers nod off sometimes. Let me tell you, in these waters, you've got Vietnamese, Japanese, Malaysians—you can't see it on the surface, but it's a hidden undercurrent. You have no idea how much drugs, smuggling, human trafficking, and pirate ships there are, and every one of them is armed. A derelict boat showing up here is no surprise."

We walked into the cargo hold and immediately smelled tea. Fatty went first, I followed, and we looked it over top to bottom. All the supplies were there, arranged just as they were before I went into the water. On the bunk we had earlier lain on, there was even a cup of tea. I touched it and said, "Damn strange—it's still warm."

Fatty gave a helpless smile and said, "Strange things happen every day, but today they're extra special. Could the whole crew have been snatched by ghosts?"

I said, "Look, only a few sips were taken from this tea, but the lid is on, which means they left in a hurry, but not in a panic. Under what circumstances would you leave in a hurry but not in a panic?"

Fatty shrugged and said he didn't know. I thought about it but couldn't imagine what had happened here. We walked back to the helm, and Fatty grabbed the radio and shouted "Mayday" a few times, but no one answered. I noticed a radio receiver sitting to the side and turned it on. It was playing a typhoon warning from a Taiwanese fishery station.

When we'd come up, we could already feel the wind picking up, but it was dusk and we couldn't see far. The broadcast used a lot of jargon I couldn't understand, but the last line—"All vessels at sea should enter port for shelter"—was repeated several times.

Both Fatty and I looked grim. Normally at a time like this, we wouldn't have to worry—the boat captain would handle everything. But now the whole crew had vanished on us. The heavens really knew how to play a joke.

Fatty checked his watch and said, "Looks like staying here isn't going to work. With this little tub, we'll all be flying into the sky soon. I'll take the boat out first. In deep water, a typhoon will still rock us, but in these reefs, we'll definitely run aground if the waves get big. Go weigh anchor."

He lit a cigarette, snapped on a few instruments, and acted like he knew what he was doing. I found it weird. "Do you even know how to steer a boat? This isn't a joke. The four of us barely made it out, and now you're going to crash us into a reef and feed us all to the fish?"

Fatty grinned at me and said it was talent. "Don't worry about the boat—even a plane, give me a few minutes to fiddle with it, and I could get it up in the air."

I couldn't tell if he was serious or not, and I was still uneasy. Fatty skillfully started the engine and told me that back in his sent-down youth days, he'd been a production team leader in a fishing brigade, so he knew the basics. Plus, he'd watched the captain operate the controls on the way here and had a general idea of all this high-tech stuff. As long as we didn't hit any big storms, getting back should be no problem.

In reality, his so-called "production team leader" had just meant poling a bamboo raft to catch fish in a mountain stream. But at the time, he sounded so confident and sincere that I actually believed him, and I trotted off to weigh anchor.

After the boat got moving, Fatty told me not to bother him—said we were still in the reef zone and he needed to concentrate. I saw the sweat on his forehead and his serious expression, so I knew he meant it, and I went back to the deck.

Poker-face was massaging A Ning's hands to improve her circulation. She looked a bit better than when she'd first come up, but her complexion was still awful, and her breathing was shallow and irregular. I asked Poker-face how she was, and he nodded, probably meaning she'd be fine.

I took out some dry provisions and gave everyone a little to eat. After all we'd been through, even though we weren't out of danger yet, at least we were back in familiar territory. I relaxed, and started to get drowsy. So I changed into my own clothes, wrapped myself in a blanket, and dozed off next to the helm.

I'd only meant to sleep a few hours, then see if Fatty needed relief, but my body wouldn't cooperate. When I woke up, it was already the next day—I couldn't tell if it was morning or afternoon.

I looked at the sea beside us. The waves were big, and I could see a few scattered seabirds flying very low. The sky was overcast, with clouds packed together as if it were about to rain. Without tall buildings blocking the view, the dark clouds filled your entire field of vision. Under such a scene, you feel incredibly small—the sense of oppression is nothing like in the city.

I glanced into the helm. Fatty was curled up in a corner, snoring like thunder. Poker-face was at the wheel. I'd just woken up, and even though something about the scene felt off, I didn't pay it much mind. I turned over and went back to sleep, until Fatty patted me awake at noon.

"Comrade Innocent, time to eat. Grab your own chopsticks."

I opened my eyes and saw that Fatty had cooked up a fish-head hotpot and was using chopsticks to separate the pieces. The broth had turned white, and the heat was just right. The fish looked familiar—it was the captain's grouper. I chuckled; Fatty had been eyeing that fish for a long time, but the captain had insisted on selling it to a hotel. Looks like it couldn't escape Fatty's clutches.

Fatty was busy chopping green onions, adding chili peppers, and breaking up the fish. He seemed to be an old hand at it. I laughed and said, "Fatty, nice work! You've got skills. Where'd you learn that?"

Fatty said, "Back when I was sent down to the countryside, I had no mother, no wife—I had to do everything myself. Hunting, fishing, raiding beehives in the old mountains—there wasn't anything I hadn't done. This little fish soup is nothing."

I gave him a thumbs up. "Brother Fatty, Lord Fatty, I rarely truly admire anyone, but you're something else. I need to learn from you."

He wasn't buying it. "Don't feed me that crap. If you want to eat, eat fast. If not, get the hell out of here. And keep your spit out of the pot!"

Of course, I wasn't about to give up good food. I immediately grabbed my chopsticks and dug in. In less than twenty minutes, a three-pound grouper was in our bellies, leaving me with a burp of sour reflux.

After we'd eaten our fill, Fatty went to relieve Poker-face at the wheel. The boat had an autopilot system, but we didn't know how to use it, otherwise the boat could drive itself. Full and happy, Fatty held the wheel with one hand and with the other pulled out his "night pearl" to examine, humming a little tune: "The good girl in the bamboo house, shining like a night pearl." As he hummed, he saw me sitting there idly and handed me the pearl. "Since you've got nothing to do, help me estimate a price. How much do you think it's worth?"

I took it, weighed it in my hand, and said, "Fake. This isn't a night pearl."

Fatty nearly choked. He stared at me wide-eyed. I quickly reassured him, "Don't get worked up. Even a fake is valuable. This is apophyllite. You know the phrase 'passing off fish eyes as pearls'? That's what this refers to. It's also extremely rare—it just depends on finding a buyer. I knew the moment I saw it. Think about it—if there were that many night pearls set in a single treasure top, who do you think Wang Zanghai was? Is that possible? The entire Chinese imperial family, accumulated over centuries, only managed to get about a dozen of the real ones."

Fatty felt a bit better after hearing that and cursed, "Can't you finish your sentences next time instead of cutting them short? You'll give someone with weak lungs a heart attack. So, give me an estimate—how much is this thing worth?"

I'd never actually handled one of these before, so all I could do was guess how much a few of my regular clients might offer. I named a few prices, but Fatty wasn't satisfied—he said he'd risked his life for it, and if the price wasn't good, he'd rather keep it at home as a lamp. I sighed and said, "Fine. I met a big spender in Jinan last time. I'll ask around for you when I get back. I figure it should be enough to get you a villa, at least. Don't worry about it."

Fatty said, "Then you'd better put in some effort. My villa's riding on you. And speaking of which, damn it, if I'd held my breath a few more seconds and knocked off another one, I could've bought a little plane. Then I'd be living like an American billionaire, right?"

I saw he was lost in his daydreams and ignored him. He put the pearl back in his pocket and asked me, "You didn't find your Third Uncle this time. What are your plans? Looks to me like this isn't over yet. You're still in for it."

Originally, I'd planned to go back and tear his house apart to find out what the hell he was up to. But since Fatty asked, I couldn't tell him the truth. I gave a helpless smile. "What plans could I have? I'll go back and keep running my shop. I'm definitely not going into another tomb. The money you get is offset by the life you risk. It's not worth it."

Fatty laughed loudly and didn't say anything more.

A few hours later, we reached Yongxing Island. The island was making disaster preparations, and there were many fishing boats taking shelter. We packed up our luggage, took advantage of the confusion to slip ashore, abandoned the boat, and Fatty carried A Ning first to the military medical clinic. Then we found a guesthouse to stay in. The fishermen usually stayed on their own boats to handle any problems, and with the typhoon coming, there were hardly any tourists, so the guesthouse was mostly empty.

We stayed on the island until flights resumed, about seven days in total. During that time, we discussed the underwater tomb more than once and reached a number of conclusions.

First, we all agreed it was Wang Zanghai's tomb, but we couldn't be sure whether the gilded body sitting cross-legged on the stone disk was really him. That dried corpse had clearly been tampered with. As strange as Wang Zanghai was, he couldn't have been that insane.

Second, Cloud Summit Palace is on the Changbai Mountains, and who is buried inside is also unknown. It can only be inferred that it should be a Mongol inside, and moreover, it is highly likely a woman with a very special status.

Third, the snake-browed bronze fish appeared in Lu King's Palace and the Underwater Tomb, and the hexagonal bronze bells also appeared in these two places, indicating that the hexagonal bells and the snake-browed bronze fish might have some connection. King Lu Shang was a tomb robber, and Wang Zanghai was an engineer; the only common point between them is that they often had to dig in the earth. Whether they both dug up something at a certain place is also unknown.

Fourth, it was proposed by Poker-face. He drew a rough sketch for us, marking our movement route inside the ancient tomb and roughly outlining the structure of the tomb. Then he pointed at several areas, which were sandwiched between the top chamber (where we broke in) and the burial chamber below. There should be several more rooms here. Poker-face estimated that the structure of this tomb was somewhat similar to a Warring States imperial mausoleum. Among these suspended rooms, one should be a pit for rare birds and exotic beasts. Those weird and strange things might have come from there.

I broke out in a cold sweat upon hearing this and asked him: "Are you saying that Wang Zanghai caught a Jiangshi and a Jinpo as pets? That's fucking awesome, isn't it?"

Poker-face nodded and said, "He is not the first. There are such things in several imperial mausoleums of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and in the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor as well. Especially since Wang Zanghai was fond of this, there's nothing wrong with him doing so."

In my spare time, I often took out my laptop, dialed up to go online, and tried to look up information on Wang Zanghai, but there was very little online. I only knew that he designed Macau, and it was a copy of another city. The next few days were boring to death; the wind was so strong we couldn't go out. On the fourth day, the phone line broke, and we had to play Big Deuce with Fatty. Poker-face wasn't into that; he just leaned against the bed staring at the ceiling all day, and I couldn't do anything about him.

As for the white fuzz on Fatty's back, we didn't bother with it later, and it inexplicably healed. I suspected it was really because of my saliva, which gave me a weird feeling, but I didn't want to delve into it and later forgot. Actually, at that time, I should have felt that something was off, but my personality was set in stone—just muddle along. I deserved to go through this calamity.

These past few days, I also tried to ask Poker-face about his background, but he acted as if he hadn't heard. This guy's skill at playing dumb might even surpass A Ning's.

On the fifth day, the phone line was restored, and I went online again. At this time, I was thinking about Zhang Qiling's background and suddenly had an inspiration. Since Zhang Qiling could regain his memory, if other people had the same experience as him, maybe some of them had also regained their memories. So, as if possessed, I typed his name into the search. The search results were overwhelming—all records of people with the same name. I randomly clicked a few and found they didn't contain useful information.

Searching like this was not a solution, so I added Third Uncle's name as well. This time, only one piece of information remained. Looking at the title, it was a missing person notice.

This discovery was unexpected. I suddenly felt a bit suffocated. I clicked it open, and it turned out to be that photo taken at the dock before they set off, scanned and uploaded. Below it, all the names were listed. I read through them and found there was one more sentence written at the end.

Some people say I'm a teaser. I say I definitely won't tease. Someone asked why it was only posted in the early morning. I say that I get up at eight in the morning and can't stop until twelve o'clock. No way around it.

Some people ask why I didn't update these past few days. Ah, the editor made me revise the manuscript, no way around it. And I was busy with meals, the mortgage was pressing down, making it hard to breathe.

The next part is about to start—the Qinling Sacred Tree chapter, going back into the mountains. This chapter will not be very long. The one after that will be the Cloud Summit Palace chapter. Angry Sea and Sinking Sand should be revised by this week. Then I'll repost it, cutting out all the boring parts.