Shirley Yang agreed, we started the underwater thruster and floated the same way, I saw that she had just taken a picture with an underwater camera, thinking that the Chinese Shang Dynasty civilization was only limited to the Central Plains, much smaller than the current Chinese territory, if the ruins of the Shang and Zhou civilizations were found at the end of the South China Sea, it would be of extraordinary significance for the study of human navigation history and civilization history, even if the Qin King bone mirror could not be found, just bringing these photos back would be enough to stimulate Professor Chen to be hospitalized again.

The three of us turned on the lighting equipment and slowly floated to the coral forest, but as soon as we came up, we found that something was wrong, the B team that was collecting eggs at the bottom of the translucent coral tree was drawing a circle of diving searchlights in front of us, obviously needing our immediate support, I moved my hand forward and quickly approached the coral tree with Shirley Yang and Uncle Ming.

Ruan Hei and Duoling, the bosses of the boat under the coral tree, are desperately prying a giant mussel, this big mussel is hiding under the coral reef, three times larger than the largest grinding plate, the wavy mussel shell is tightly closed, no matter how hard Ruan Hei and the two of them can't move the shell, this giant mussel has grown for thousands of years, the shell is white and crystalline, almost integrated with the stones on the bottom of the sea, it is a man-eating shell that is good at pinching people's legs and feet. Raw mussels in the sea, it is really an ancient saying, because the egg people and fishermen are most taboo to hit the "back" net empty-handed, so all kinds of pearl oysters are still called mussels, although the man-eating shellfish does not mention its scientific name "Tridacn" in the mouth of the egg people, but often called it by "white niche", I don't know how many egg people are caught by this kind of thing when pearling and spoil their lives. I don't know why the boat boss Ruan Hei wanted to catch it, and before I could ask him, he couldn't wait to gesture to us and tell us that there was a person in the mussel shell!

I also said that I misunderstood what Ruan Hei meant, there are no other people in this turbulent coral spiral sea except us, even if this is a sea clam commonly known as a man-eating shell, how can there be a "person" in its shell? Is it a living or a dead person? Uncle Ming seemed to suddenly wake up and made a gesture of swimming fish. This time, it was developed, and the cannibal berry was caught by a rare mermaid in the sea, whose meat was twice as expensive as the same weight of platinum.

Uncle Ming held down the man-eating mussel the size of a grinding disc, and was so excited that a long string of bubbles bubbled up, gesturing to tell us that this old mussel may have caught a mermaid at the bottom of the sea. In fact, this was just wishful thinking on his part, what was in the shell of the mussel was only seen by the boat boss Ruan Hei and his apprentice Duo Ling, and it was difficult to describe it carefully underwater.

I saw that the shell of this rare big clams was crystal white, it was a rare piece of green-headed goods, anyway, the watermelons in the rear cabin were thrown away, and there was a lot of empty space. So he made a gesture and asked Ruan Hei to take Duo Ling to wait at the bottom of the sea without a trace, and Shirley Yang and I went back to the ship first, and let the fat man come down with a chisel and crowbar to help, and hoist the thousand-year-old mussel back to the deck.

After the deployment, we immediately floated to the decompression line, and then returned to the water tank to remove the heavy equipment. I briefed the fat man and Gu Chai on the underwater situation, and the fat man was already holding back on the boat and wanted to scratch the wall, and after hearing this, he immediately took Gu Chai to hand over to us, and went into the water with a chisel and a hydraulic separator to catch mussels.

Master Ruan Hei and the three of them are all good at picking eggs with sleighs, and they are even more handy with equipment, but they still wasted a lot of effort to chisel the "clams" off the reef. Several of them took advantage of the buoyancy of the ocean current to lift it to the surface of the sea, and trapped it with a steel cable, Uncle Ming drove the crane arm on the boat to hook Gui, and finally caught the thousand-year-old giant mussel out of the water.

The fat man had the intention to show off, stood on the giant clam shell suspended in the air, pushed the frog mirror to his head and shouted to me: "Old Hu, what do you think this guy that Commander Ben caught?" According to the current market, bring it back to the United States, at least you can change a yacht, and then we will bring a few American girls...... "As the boom was lifted higher and higher from the sea, the fat man began to feel dizzy before he finished speaking, and he screamed, and his feet fell into the water.

I was worried that he would get carried away and make too much noise to attract sharks, so I quickly asked Ruan Hei to drag him back to the boat, and I beckoned the boat boss Ruan Hei to hurry up as well, and it was almost time to withdraw, but Ruan Hei thought that the walrus was calm, the tide level was low, and there were many old snails on the bottom of the sea, so how could he miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to collect eggs, he ignored the danger of diving disease, and after replacing the scuba, he insisted on taking his two apprentices into the sea again to collect eggs.

Uncle Ming also has this intention, and advises me not to stop the behavior of the egg people, looking at the weather, it may rain, but without hyacinth, the surge must not be affordable, as long as there is no surge to dry up, even if it rains heavily at sea, it will not affect the diving operation. However, Uncle Ming himself didn't want to dive again, anyway, Ruan Hei's master and apprentice were all helpers hired for money, and they never lost half of their dividends, since they wanted to make a big profit, why stop them, although let them do it.

At this time, the sky is even more overcast, thick clouds like ink, covering the sea, there seems to be a dangerous signal in the sea breeze, my heart moved, my heart said that there must be no strong winds and waves at night, but thinking that Uncle Ming and the boat boss Ruan Hei are very familiar with the walrus weather, since they said that it is okay, it is okay.

It is said that there are storm surges in the Coral Spiral Sea all year round, except for the night when the moon is full and the sky will be clear, the clouds are usually thick and heavy, accompanied by the turbulence of the infrasound thunderstorms, it is difficult for the aircraft to fly overhead, and the low-frequency electromagnetic waves on the seabed interfere with the ship's electronic equipment, so that the needle rudder loses its course, and many catastrophic accidents are caused by this, but this phenomenon can not be explained so far.

At this time, Shirley Yang was curiously looking at the captured man-eating mussel, because everyone was busy collecting eggs, and they didn't have time to pay attention to it, but they just grabbed the rope with a steel rope, and prepared to free up their hands to collect it again. Shirley Yang said to me: "You see the white shell of the man-eating mussel undulating, as if it is a wave, and like the wheel of the ancient Roman chariot, the wonder of heaven and earth, it is really beautiful, looking at the texture of the mussel shell is extremely fine, which shows that it has grown at least a few thousand years on the seabed, human civilization is only a few thousand years, and this man-eating mussel has survived for almost thousands of years, which really amazes human beings who can only talk for a few decades." ”

I am afraid that Shirley Yang will be merciful and want to release this old clam into the sea, so this green head that everyone has worked so hard to get will be lost, and the fat that reaches the mouth will fly again? Since it has lived for so many years, it should be enough, because the Great Master once said that the meaning of life is not about its length, but about whether it can produce value.

But man's correct thinking does not fall from the sky, so I had to work for her and say: "Many of the creatures in the sea have a very long lifespan, and I am not surprised that the thousand-year-old king is 80,000 years old. The man-eating mussel actually does not eat human flesh, but once its jagged two shells are clamped to a person, it will be dead and closed. Listening to what Ruan Hei said, he seemed to see a dead man sandwiched between the shells of this clams, and no egg people dared to enter the coral spiral to collect eggs for thousands of years, and he didn't know whether it was a mermaid in the South China Sea, or a shipwrecked crew sea wolf, but this blood debt must be repaid with blood, let's find a guy to skid it away and take a look. ”

As we spoke, it began to rain in the sky, and the sea and the sky were dark and boundless, and although it was daytime, it was like evening, and the sea in the distance was dark and vast, and only a few buoys flashed brightly, but we had to wait until the tide rose again to leave, and we could not do anything about the bad weather. Fortunately, as Uncle Ming said, although the rain fell rapidly, but it had little impact on the walruses, the swell was still gentle, I think it was probably related to the catharsis of the sea air the day before, the geographical weather of the coral spiral sea area is difficult to measure reasonably, the sky is raining like a note, but the sea is calm.

We all went back to the cabin to get raincoats and put them on, and braved the rain to deal with the man-eating mussel, because the light was dim in the rain, we had to turn the searchlight on the top of the boat and hit the mussel shell, which was even more white, and it looked a little infiltrating. The giant mussel is not dead when it comes out of the water, and it is ready to move by the rain, but the shell of the mussel is still tightly closed, not showing any gaps. Faced with this thousand-year-old living creature, the fat man and I really didn't know how to start, if we damaged the clam shell, it would be worthless.

Uncle Ming saw that he was going to break the mussel, and he was also busy, he decided that there was a priceless mermaid in this mussel, I had never heard of a mermaid in the South China Sea, and thought it was similar to the black-scaled shark who was made into a long candle in the tomb of the king, so he asked Uncle Ming if these two things are the same thing?

Uncle Ming said that mermaids and mermaids are two different things, one evil and one good, and their habits and appearance are also different. The mermaid cannot make a sound, the meat is edible, and the mermaid is evil, can make a seductive sound on the surface of the sea, and the botulism cannot be eaten, but its ointment can be used as a permanent fuel, and the ignorant are easy to confuse the two. However, although the black-scaled mermaid is rare, after all, someone has caught it, and this "mermaid", or "fish man", is too rare, rare in a hundred years, and its meat is delicious and incomparable. There is a legend that eating the flesh of a fishman can live forever, but no one has actually eaten it. Once when he was running a boat in the South Seas, his sailors caught two mermaids alive in the sea, both above the navel are human shapes, no different from normal people, the lower body is similar to scaly feet, can use wake wave water, standing in the stormy waves, just get close to see, the mermaid has a layer of slippery mucus wrapped all over the body, strange and unapproachable. After being caught and loaded into a large bucket full of water, the crew gathered around to watch, and the merfolk were not frightened, so they swam and circled in the barrel.

At that time, Uncle Ming did not know the goods, just in time to catch up with a merchant who was willing to sell and release the fish, so he asked for a sum of money, and let the merchant take the mermaid away, and later learned that the price of the mermaid in the black market in North America and Europe, more than twice the weight of platinum, Uncle Ming only knew that he had been evil, beat his chest, and regretted it, after more than ten years of retrospect, he had to worry about chest tightness and scolding endlessly, he was too kind and easy to trust others, otherwise he would not be pitted by the profiteer who suffered a thousand knives. At this moment, there is a chance to get another mermaid, how can he not let him have a whim.