Chapter 6: Hands-down

Just when he was at a loss, Aning suddenly stopped and pointed at the distance and shouted.

I looked along her fingers and saw a huge and blurry black shadow approaching us in the huge waves. It was very fast. I squinted my eyes and looked carefully, but the light was too dark and I couldn't tell anything at all.

I couldn't care about that much now. I gritted my teeth and pulled Aning to swim towards the black shadow.

The black shadow came to us instantly. It was a fishing boat very similar to the one we were riding on. The hull was painted dark green, and there was neither signal light nor warehouse light on the bow. The whole ship was pitch black.

I looked at it and felt something was wrong. Even if an ordinary ship had no power, a kerosene wind lamp should be lit in the ship's warehouse. With such a black method, isn't there anyone on the ship? That's not a ghost ship?

We slid our almost numb arms and used all our strength to move towards it. The boat slid past us five or six yards away, without stopping, and floated behind us all at once.

I saw that it was terrible. This was our only hope for survival. If we missed this ship, there would be no chance.

The scene at that time didn't allow me to think too much, so I gritted my teeth and followed. Aning in front had already grabbed the side of the ship and climbed onto the deck. She threw a survival buoy with a rope at me and shouted: "Catch this!"

The survival buoy happened to fall beside me, so I hugged it, pulled the rope and pulled myself to the side of the boat bit by bit, until my hand grabbed the iron ring on the side of the boat, and I let out a sigh of relief in my heart.

Aning pulled me onto the side of the boat. I had completely lost my strength and fell heavily in. The deck under me was almost not burdened, and immediately made a harsh creak.

We both survived the disaster, and our faces were ridiculously pale. We didn't know if it was for the sea water or scared. We took a breath. Aning found a wind light hanging outside the ship warehouse. He turned on the light and signaled to go to the ship warehouse to take a look.

Although the boat warehouse was closed, a lot of sea water still splashed in through the gaps, and the places illuminated by the wind lights were wet.

The structure of this ship is very similar to ours. It is an old fishing boat produced in the 1970s and 1980s. It has a tin hull and a large warehouse space. The ship warehouse used to be a cargo warehouse, and it was also pitch black inside. We shouted twice, but there was no response except for the squeaking deck friction.

I felt something strange. This was undoubtedly an unmanned ship sailing on the sea. Wherever the people on it went, and when the storm came, they abandoned the ship and left?

There were a lot of things piled up in the warehouse. I saw a hanging stove and hurriedly started to warm up. If there was a cup of hot coffee at this time, I would admit it even if I died.

Aning pulled open the water cloth on the cargo and found that it was all submersible equipment, most of which were oxygen cylinders, and there were some numbers on the bottles.

We picked up one and took a closer look.

Aning suddenly screamed, frightened me, and asked her what she was doing, she said tremblingly: "This ship is k5-883!"

Ghost ships have been found all over the world, and some are still very old. All legends have the same beginning, and a complete ship was found on the sea, but there was no one on it.

Some ships even had half-eat supper on them, but the people who were eating disappeared from now on and would never appear again.

What did they encounter while eating? Where did they go? It will always be the subject that suspense novelists are most willing to explore.

Aning held up the wind lamp, shining the number on the oxygen cylinder, and marked it with black ink - k5-883.

I think I have seen this number, but I can't remember it.

Aning explained, "This is the number of the ship you hired by your third uncle. Our company stipulates that all inspection equipment must be the same as the number of the ship."

My mind changed: "Ah, still, I saw this number when I was reading your report on the plane, but I was surprised, how could Uncle San's ship float here?"

Aning said this is not surprising. In the storm, the flow of water seems to be messy, but in fact there are still certain veins to find. We probably happened to land in the same vein as the ship and were drifting in the same direction.

This ship drifted here along the sea current and encountered us who fell into the water. It seemed like a huge coincidence, but it was inevitable to some extent.

The wind outside was getting louder and louder, and the waves were slamming onto the side of the ship from time to time, causing the entire ship to make a sound of being about to be torn apart. I don’t know when this damn storm will blow.

We found a dry place in the warehouse to sit down and took the oven to keep warm. I sneezed several times in a row. Aning smiled and shook his head at me, and took out a few bottles of soju from a wooden box for me to drink.

I saw that she was familiar with the boat, where she placed it and where she was, and she knew everything, and she felt strange.

She told me that the foreign adventure mechanism is very complete, ranging from the procurement of instruments to the order of stacking goods in the warehouse, there are relevant regulations. These regulations usually seem unreasonable, but when it comes to an emergency, they will play a role. You see, if we don’t have such regulations now, we might not be able to find anything.

I sighed in my heart that foreign explorers have strong survivability in the wild, and they put a lot of effort into details, which is really something worth learning in China.

Our diving suit didn't even pull the waterproof training before it fell into the water. After baking the oven, the sea water inside the clothes formed a layer of white powder, which was very uncomfortable. Aning took out the spare diving suit and walked to the back of a pile of goods to change clothes. She grew up abroad and was very open. I couldn't help but feel distracted when I looked at the graceful figure illuminated by the wind lights.

Halfway through the clothes, Aning suddenly screamed, poked his head out and called me, "Mr. Wu, come here quickly."

I was drooling when I saw her shadow. When I heard her call me, I was shocked and asked her what was wrong with her?

She quickly wrapped her plump upper body into her diving suit, walked out and said to me, "It seems that there is something in the pile."

I walked over and picked up the wind light and shone it. I found that there was indeed a black thing in the gap between the cargo box and the ship wall. I hid in the shadows in the gap. If I didn't use the wind light to illuminate it, it would be difficult to find it. This thing was curled up in a ball, and looked at it coldly, and thought it was a human head. No wonder Aning was shocked.

I reached over and touched it and found that it was a backpack, very ordinary one. I don’t know why I hid it here for someone.

Aning breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that he was really only the bag. I wondered if there was anything important in the bag? Someone on the boat hid the bag. Is it related to the disappearance of the people on the boat?

I was honest and didn't hesitate to open the bag and pour out the things inside. A bunch of documents and changing clothes. I picked up the clothes and found that there was an old waterproof bag under the clothes. The rubber had cracked. Inside the bag, there was a note that was almost disintegrating. When I looked, there were a few words on the cover:

Archaeological Records of Xishawan Reef, in July 1984, Chen Wenjin presented it to Wu Sansheng.

I didn't expect that this bag was actually from Uncle San, and I was so surprised at the moment.

This notebook may have been distributed to experts during the archaeology of Xishawan Reef. Uncle San probably kept it as a souvenir until now. I don’t know if there is anything recorded in it that I don’t know.

I was curious and just looked it out.

Uncle San has a low level of education, but he is a person who is very serious in doing things. He uses the same format for every day and lists it clearly. I saw that the first page was the first day they set off. On July 15, a list was listed above. The leader was Wu Sansheng. What was the name of that oil bottle? I remembered that Uncle San mentioned that his surname seemed to be Zhang. When he looked for it, there was indeed a person named Zhang Qiling. Could it be him?

The main contents above are to find and determine the specific location of the sea dove. They are very detailed, and they are simply written down the word, even the type of rope and the reasoning process. I already know these contents, and there is no need to read them again, so I speed up and turn them to the next few pages.

The last few records caught my attention,

On July 21, we were preparing to enter the underwater tomb for the first time. I have found the entrance. After understanding it, this ancient tomb is not complicated.

On July 24, we went in and found a strange phenomenon inside. It seemed that the ancient tomb was not "clean".

When I saw these two lines of words, I was stunned. What happened? Could it be that Uncle San had already sneaked into the ancient tomb once during his inspection?

What he told me at that time, "I won't say even if I bring it into the grave." Would he meant that when he was conducting an investigation, he entered the ancient tomb that was absolutely inaccessible in theory.

Then what did he encounter after he entered? Here he wrote: What is the strange phenomenon that he discovered? What does the ancient tomb mean? What does it mean if it is not "clean"?

In just two short sentences, the doubts I brought to me were even more fierce than the waves outside. I felt that countless question marks would break my mind.

I re-read the notes several times, hoping to find more clues, but the content afterwards was all blank.

Looking back at Uncle San’s attitude on this matter, there are so many strange things, which are very different from his previous personality. Behind this matter, there are probably inside stories that I can’t imagine. But I don’t know when these secrets will be solved.

While thinking about it, Aning snatched the notebook from me and looked carefully. I didn't mind letting her know these things. Anyway, the content inside did not touch the core of the problem at all. The more you read it, the more confused you will be.

We ate a little, boiled hot water, and wet the towel to cover our numb hands.

After this toss and troubles, our physical condition improved rapidly. Although the wind was still raging outside, I no longer felt nervous.

After eating, I asked Aning to take a break first and go around to see it. I slept on the boat for a while and was more energetic than her. Now I can't sleep even if I want to.

I took the oven and hot water to the outside warehouse, and kept it burning. After I finished, I lit a cigarette and sat in the cab. While looking at the surging sea in front, I wondered what to do next.

I don’t know if this ship can be started. If it drifts like this, there will be no danger in a short period of time, but if it drifts into the reef group, it may hit the reef and sink.

Human beings are too small for the ocean. Even if we are wise, we cannot compete with the power of nature. We can only be saved today because we are lucky, but how long can such good luck last? I can think of God, but I don’t know how long it took, a few waves hit the front window of the cab, and the glass buzzed, and it seemed that the wind direction had changed.

At this time, I found Aning woke up and was walking over yawning. Her tight clothes were half-pulled, intentionally or unintentionally showing her plump breasts. I didn't know if this was her habit or was deliberately seducing me, so I ignored her and turned to look at the sea.

Although I am not Liu Xiahui, in this case, I don’t want to mention the matter of love between men and women.

She greeted me, walked to the side of the fireplace to keep warm, and asked me if I would go to bed for a while.

I had something in my mind, so I might not be able to sleep when I was sleeping. I was even more tired when I was half-dream and half-awake. I shook my head and said no, let her continue to rest.
Chapter completed!