Zhang Haiyan leaned in again but saw no more information. He leaned back into the shadows, puzzled, and asked, “What’s under that reef?”

“You think over the past ten years, have they only been digging this one reef, or have they excavated all the reefs here?” Zhang Haixia asked.

Zhang Haiyan nodded; he understood what Haixia meant. But what could be under the reef? The reef was just the top of an underwater mountain covered by coral, and if they had excavated all the reefs here, was there some special mineral within the reefs? Or perhaps the ancient coral reefs contained some precious treasures?

“Shall we go down and take a look?”

“We can’t go down. Look at these sentries; they form a circular structure with no blind spots, and the lighting is very adequate,” Zhang Haiyan replied, thinking to himself how unfortunate it would be if these workers were passengers from ten years ago, held captive here as laborers for a decade. “Old rules apply; let’s grab someone and ask.”

The two of them looked around. On the deck of this steamship, there was only one ship tower with two large smokestacks. The main superstructure was located in the middle of the hull, with cargo holds arranged between the superstructure and the bow and stern decks. The bow was straight, tapering below the waterline, typical of North Atlantic ships.

The watchtower was at the top of the superstructure, surrounded by about seven or eight sentries near the two large smokestacks. There were ropes hanging down, tied to the ship’s side, with probably over a hundred lines. A lantern was hanging about three to four meters above. The deck was very clean, with no sign of anyone.

The windows of the cabins and the bow, as well as the superstructure, were dark, suggesting that there was no one inside. However, Zhang Haixia shook his head, saying, “There’s a smell of people living in the cabins. There must be someone inside.”

“Did you smell someone using the restroom again?” Zhang Haiyan looked at Zhang Haixia with pity. Zhang Haixia responded tersely, “I smelled alcohol.” After saying that, he pointed to one side, where someone from the bow had come out to check the extinguished lights, confirming his statement. But the bow was still quite far from them, and rushing over would easily get them discovered.

The person coming from the bow was dressed in military uniform. He looked at the broken glass on the ground and communicated with the sentries above in a dialect from Guangxi, looking quite puzzled. These people were also Chinese; Chinese people and Malaysians had always been more difficult to deal with. The closer they were to the Chinese mainland, the harder they were to handle. However, this time Zhang Haiyan managed to catch a few words, mentioning that they had encountered two capable individuals on the reef earlier, and now something unusual was happening, possibly because of those two.

After speaking, the sentry nodded, and they all raised their guns, aiming at the deck. Soldiers also appeared on the deck, all with their handguns cocked, beginning to check the area.

Zhang Haixia glanced at Zhang Haiyan, his face showing displeasure, clearly dissatisfied with how Zhang Haiyan had recklessly handled those lights earlier.

In the darkness, Zhang Haiyan listened to the approaching footsteps. The two of them were quite capable, but the tragedy of the times was that he knew he had absolutely no chance of fighting back against those automatic pistols.

As his thoughts raced, Zhang Haiyan quickly looked up and aimed a blade at the blue light emanating from the central rock crevice, launching it with precision. The cold gleam shattered a blue light wind lantern, sending sparks and glass scattering everywhere, causing immediate commotion below. The biggest characteristic of Zhang Haiyan was his ability to exploit human emotions; he was never thorough in his actions, but he thrived in the brief moments—those twenty or thirty seconds—where people would typically think one step further. That was his absolute domain.

The rocks below were more important than the ship itself. If the lantern on the rock was broken, it indicated that someone might have already dived onto the rocks, which would make everyone anxious, creating a twenty-second cognitive buffer.

Twenty seconds was enough.

All the guards and searchers looked toward the rocks. Zhang Haiyan grabbed Zhang Haixia’s hand and, close to the ground, executed a move that was extremely difficult for humans to perform, flinging Zhang Haixia out. Zhang Haixia landed and immediately propped himself up, sliding into the bow of the ship.

Then, Zhang Haiyan rolled out as well. Their movements were too conspicuous; a sentry upstairs almost turned to see them. Zhang Haiyan quickly spat out a blade, which slid along the deck and embedded itself into the sole of a man’s shoe. The man exclaimed, “Ouch!” The sentry’s head, which was about to turn, was momentarily distracted by the sound. In that instant, Zhang Haiyan slipped into the bow of the ship.

Zhang Haixia caught him. “They’ll discover us in a minute.”

“A minute isn’t enough?”

The bow of the ship was a duty room, with a staircase in the middle that led down to the lower hold. As the two descended, they were confronted by countless standing corpses, each covered in a thick layer of salt lumps—over a hundred in total, a truly horrifying sight. The corpses varied in shape, with men, women, and children among them. Their eyes had shriveled away due to dehydration, leaving hollow sockets staring at the ground, a chilling sight.

There were no lights in the cargo hold; all the windows had been covered from the inside, blocking any external light. The entire hold had only one light source: at the far end, there was a partition with a door that stood open, revealing a warm light inside that was very bright and inviting.

As they walked into the pile of corpses and moved forward, they spotted a person at the end of the cargo hold, dressed in a distinctly different military uniform with insignia. He was wearing a mask and gloves, injecting something into a corpse. Zhang Haixia covered Zhang Haiyan’s mouth and used lip-reading to say, “The smell is overwhelming; I don’t know what kind of liquid it is. What is he doing?”

Zhang Haiyan pushed Zhang Haixia’s hand away and replied with lip movements, “Just ask him directly.” Just as he was about to move forward, a phone rang. The officer answered it, pulling off his mask. He was very young and handsome. After listening for a moment, he spoke into the phone in an official tone: “Given the distance from here to the Panhua Sea Reef, swimming over is impossible. If someone could swim over, they must be from Zhang Qishan’s group. Get the submachine guns ready; if they are from Zhang Qishan, you won’t find them this way.” It seemed the call had come from the deck.

Zhang Qishan?

Zhang Haiyan was momentarily stunned but did not hesitate. The instant he made the call was the second moment in his life when he was caught off guard. He suddenly exerted force and rushed into the partition. Just as he was about to subdue the officer, almost simultaneously, the officer abruptly turned his head and drew his pistol, aiming it directly at his head. A deafening gunshot rang out, but Zhang Haiyan reacted swiftly, tilting his head to dodge the bullet.

The scorching bullet grazed his face, causing Zhang Haiyan to break out in a cold sweat. This cold sweat was not due to the bullet itself but rather from the officer’s decisive movements; he was clearly well-prepared and had been waiting for Zhang to attack. He had underestimated his opponent, and he realized he hadn’t done so in a long time—he didn’t even know how long it had been. In that moment, the mindset of underestimating his enemy filled him with immense fear.

This fear did not stem from the enemy but from the teachings of his adoptive mother. His adoptive mother would impose the most terrifying punishments for underestimating an opponent. For their faction, underestimating the enemy was an absolutely unforgivable mistake. Yet after ten years away, he had surprisingly forgotten this lesson.

Almost reflexively, as Zhang Haiyan dodged the bullet, the blade hidden in his mouth shot out, piercing the officer’s mouth and directly exiting through the back of his head. Blood erupted from the officer’s skull, and he collapsed to the ground.

Zhang Haiyan realized he had lost control of his strength and quickly moved to support the officer’s neck, kicking away his gun. He asked, “Who are you people?”

The officer’s mouth was filled with blood as he looked at Zhang Haiyan in pain, trying to pry his hand away. Zhang Haiyan said, “If I let go, you’ll die. Tell me, and I’ll help you stitch up your wound. Afterward, you might just need to go to the bathroom a few more times at night; it’s nothing serious.”

The officer’s eyes were glazed over, fixated on a cabinet to the side, which was filled with jars preserved in formalin and had several drawers. Zhang Haixia casually walked in, closed the door, and began rummaging through the drawers, all of which were filled with documents.

With blood pooling around him, the officer rolled his eyes back, seemingly on the verge of passing out, forcing Zhang Haiyan to release his grip. Zhang Haixia found a stack of items from the cabinet and flipped through them. “The soldiers upstairs will be coming down soon; you better prepare yourself. And look, I know what they’re looking for.” He tore off a page from a document and showed it to Zhang Haiyan, which read: “Research on the Plague Ship of the Ming Dynasty in the South China Sea.”