The lid of the box slowly opened on its own, revealing a space no larger than my pinky finger, containing a tiny copper fish. When I took it out, I noticed that the fish looked quite ordinary, but the craftsmanship was exquisite. Particularly striking were the eyebrows above the fish’s eyes, which resembled a snake, lifelike in detail. I was very surprised; what made this item so valuable that it needed to be kept so securely?

At that moment, my third uncle walked in dragging a gas cutting cylinder. Upon seeing the box open, he exclaimed in surprise, “How did it open? How did you manage to do that?” I explained to him about the numbers, and he frowned deeply, saying, “Things are getting more chaotic. It seems these Americans are not just here for simple treasure hunting.” He picked up the copper fish, and suddenly his expression changed, and he exclaimed, “Isn’t this the snake-brow copper fish?”

Seeing that he seemed to know something, I hurriedly asked him about it. He took something out of his pocket and handed it to me. I looked at it and saw another very delicate copper fish, about the size of my pinky finger. The eyebrows of this copper fish were also represented by two sea snakes, and the craftsmanship was superb; each scale was very detailed. It seemed to have originated from the same source as the one in the box. However, there was a downside: this one had a lot of tiny white, lime-like dirt stuck in the grooves of the scales, which was very difficult to clean off. I immediately recognized it and said, “Is this from the sea?”

My third uncle nodded. I was quite surprised, as “sea goods” referred to antiques salvaged from the ocean, usually blue-and-white porcelain. It was generally easier to find antiques in the sea than on land because many items were exposed on the seabed. However, there were many microorganisms in the ocean, and most items brought up from the sea had white, powdery dirt that was hard to wash off, which reduced their value.

I was puzzled; I remembered that my third uncle wouldn’t usually be interested in such low-value items, so I asked him, “Did you ever go treasure hunting in the sea?” He nodded and said, “Only once, and I truly regret it. If I had just resisted the temptation to wade into that murky water, I would definitely have a bunch of kids by now.”

I knew a little about my third uncle’s story. He once had a woman, a remarkable lady in her own right. I heard they met while treasure hunting, and her name was Wen Jin. She was said to be quite gentle and didn’t seem like a typical treasure hunter from the northern school. My uncle and she were together for five years; she was skilled at finding dragon veins, while he specialized in locating burial sites, and they were known as a legendary couple in the treasure hunting world. Then, suddenly, I heard that the woman had gone missing. I thought she must have had an accident while treasure hunting; after all, it was risky work for a girl. Everyone in her family was quite regretful. But at that time, I was only a few years old and didn’t understand much. I just saw my uncle looking like a wooden statue for a week, deeply saddened. Eventually, he got better, but I couldn’t remember the details of those childhood events. Now, hearing my uncle seemed like he wanted to talk about it, I was very curious but didn’t want to appear too nosy. I asked, “Was the incident back then related to a sea treasure hunt?”

Uncle San sighed and said, “At that time, both she and I were still young. She had a few classmates who were in the archaeology team, and they vaguely knew I was a craftsman. I never thought about hiding it from them; we all got along well. Later, they went to the Xisha Islands for underwater archaeology, and I went along. I just didn’t expect,” he paused, as if reluctant to recall that event, “I didn’t expect that the things submerged underwater would be so large.”

It should have been more than ten years ago. Uncle San actually had little experience with the sea; he was somewhat blinded by love and boasted in front of Wenjin about how remarkable he was. So he followed the archaeology team out to sea. They chartered a local fisherman’s boat and spent two days reaching the vicinity of the Bowl Reef near the Western Reef. That area is one of the most dangerous sections of the ancient Maritime Silk Road, with many shipwrecks. When Uncle San went down to take a look, he was almost dumbfounded. The seabed was littered with broken blue-and-white porcelain; the scale was truly breathtaking.

Wenjin told him that these items had fallen from the shipwreck and were scattered everywhere by the ocean currents. In the past, fishermen would catch four or five pieces of porcelain with a single net, but they believed that anything that had been submerged belonged to the Sea Dragon King, so they would generally throw it back.

Unfortunately, most of these items were damaged, and it was rare to find anything intact. Even if they did find something, it was mostly covered in marine organisms, making it difficult to clean. Wenjin’s classmates viewed these items from an archaeological perspective, so they were all very excited. Uncle San looked out and saw nothing but desolation, feeling heartbroken, thinking to himself, “Damn it, why wasn’t I born when the ship sank?” He also didn’t consider that the blue-and-white porcelain at that time wasn’t even considered an antique.

They spent two or three days underwater, bringing up basket after basket of porcelain. Uncle San was quite knowledgeable about this, and he could talk for half a day about any piece he picked up. Suddenly, he became the spiritual leader of the archaeology team. His surname was Wu, and they called him Brother Sanxing. Uncle San became quite proud and really thought of himself as their leader.

On the fourth day, an incident occurred. One of the archaeology team members went out in a kayak and hadn’t returned by dusk. The others grew anxious and sent the larger boat to search for him. Later, they found the stranded kayak on a rocky outcrop two kilometers away from the Bowl Reef, but the person was missing.

Uncle San thought it was bad news; the person might have gone into the water to retrieve something and gotten into trouble. He quickly gathered his equipment and dove down, searching for half the night. Eventually, he found the person’s body, which was stuck in the coral reef and had already begun to swell. When they dragged the body up, Uncle San saw that the person was tightly gripping something in his left hand. When he pried it open, it was the bronze fish with snake-like eyebrows. Although a person had died, and everyone was deeply saddened, Uncle San had already realized that there might be something down in the water; otherwise, this person wouldn’t have gone down to salvage it at night.

Uncle San speculated that perhaps during the daytime search (using a boat to drag someone while searching), this person had seen something and didn’t mention it. He might have wanted to return at night when no one was around to take another look, but something went wrong. Of course, Uncle San didn’t voice his thoughts, as it was pointless to discuss it now that the person was dead. However, the bronze fish with snake-like eyebrows he held was definitely a clue.

The next day, Uncle San mentioned this matter to those people, and of course, he said something like this: “Comrade So-and-so worked overtime for the cause of archaeology and unfortunately met with an accident. However, judging from the results of his labor, it is clear that he has discovered something at the bottom of the sea. He sacrificed his life for this copper fish with snake-like eyebrows, so we must not let him down.” After some mobilization, the mood of the crowd improved a bit, and they returned to the area where the incident occurred to conduct a thorough search underwater, and at that time, they began to make progress.

They found more than forty large stone anchors (parts of ancient ship anchors) on the seabed nearby, all of the same size and specifications. The inscriptions on them were mostly illegible. Uncle San estimated that these more than forty stone anchors either belonged to forty identical ships that had lost them, or they came from the same ship. It became clear that it was unlikely for forty ships to sink in the same place simultaneously; there must be a very large ship down there, so large that it required forty anchors to secure it.

Uncle San was very familiar with history, and upon seeing this, he had a bold hypothesis in mind. When he surfaced, he said to Wen Jin, “It seems that down there is a sunken ship’s underwater tomb.”