In the partition of the cargo hold of the “Rushan” ship, a blood-soaked officer suddenly trembled and opened his eyes. The intense pain made him want to moan, but even the slightest movement caused him more agony. The blood beneath him had slowly dried up, and for some reason, a large scab had formed over the wound on the back of his head.

He crawled up, opened a cabinet, and found a mirror on the inside of the cabinet door. He wanted to see the back of his head but realized he couldn’t. When he touched it with his hand, he felt a horrifying wound and knew he wouldn’t survive.

He looked out the window and saw Zhang Haiyan walking towards the center of the reef with disinfectant. Watching the crowd and the dust being kicked up, he already understood what had happened. After a moment’s thought, he took a sealed steel can from the cabinet and calmly walked towards the deck.

The people on the deck were all gathered around, and he whistled. Several soldiers noticed him approaching and quickly realized he was gravely injured.

“Deputy, did Zhang Haiyan do this to you?” one soldier asked.

The deputy squinted at him, and the soldier added, “Your lifelong nemesis?”

The deputy struggled to speak, “Zhang Haiyan?” He glanced in the direction of the reef, trying hard to keep himself from collapsing. “Prepare the ship; we are getting ready to leave.”

The soldier nodded, and the deputy turned to another soldier and said, “Everyone here has already contracted the disease. You all hurry and take antibiotics. Leave these laborers here; we don’t have time to deal with them. Don’t alarm them. Find twenty people, bring submachine guns and yellow explosives, and come with me to retrieve the plague water. Sink all other ships except ours.”

Some soldiers went to get their weapons, and soon twenty people stepped forward. They descended to the reef, and at this point, the deputy felt the wound on the back of his head start bleeding again.

I will not let you down; I will definitely bring the things back to you! He silently vowed, gritting his teeth, and somehow found the strength to walk even faster than usual.

Everyone saw the blood-soaked deputy and parted to either side. Blood dripped from his footsteps. The group quickly reached the cave entrance.

“I’ll go down to get the plague water; you all set up the explosives,” the deputy calmly commanded.

Some of the laborers had already seen the explosives in their hands and began to retreat.

At the same time, Zhang Haiyan and Zhang Haixia had entered the bottom of the wreckage of the plague ship. They were sprinkling disinfectant while investigating.

The ship had completely calcified; coral had grown through the holes in the ship, covering the interior. The lower hold had been completely deformed, but many burlap sacks could be seen hanging from the original beams of the ship. These sacks had once contained corpses, and now the bodies should have mostly decayed, numbering in the hundreds. Due to the rapid influx of air from the outside, the sacks had quickly turned black.

Under each sack, there was a puddle of black, fungus-like material, which was actually the liquid from the decaying bodies dripping down from the sacks. All of these substances flowed toward the low point of the ship, eventually pooling in a central waterhole.

These black, ink-like substances resembled a massive solar radiation map, with the waterhole at the center acting as the sun.

They arrived at the edge of the water pool. Zhang Haiyan silently said, “This is the essence of the entire ship, the concentrated liquid of all the dead bodies.” The water in the pool was surprisingly clear, reflecting the lantern and their figures.

Zhang Haiyan and Zhang Haixia exchanged a glance, and with a tacit understanding, they prepared to pour the disinfectant into the pool. Suddenly, there was a sound of a gun being cocked from behind, and the two of them instantly dove into the darkness, their position having been turned into a beehive by bullets.

Turning around, they saw the deputy officer and a group of people indiscriminately firing into the darkness. Zhang Haiyan immediately dropped to the ground, just as he was about to counterattack, two or three more guns fired simultaneously. He rolled over, stepping on the coral reef, and climbed up to the beam, with bullets following closely behind him.

The deputy officer had already reached the edge of the water pool, crouching down to fill a sealed jar with corpse water before turning to leave. His subordinates were not keen on fighting either, instantly igniting all the TNT bundles and throwing them around. A few demolition experts skillfully placed the heaviest bundles under the beams and at critical points of the keel, igniting them before quickly retreating.

Zhang Haiyan felt a sense of foreboding and wanted to use a blade to cut the fuses, but looking up, he saw hundreds of sparks flying. He shouted, “Haixia, let’s go!”

The two of them rushed towards the exit, but as they reached it, a burst of bullets rained down, forcing them to retreat again. Then they heard gunfire; someone had shot through the scaffolding outside, causing it to collapse wildly, preventing them from climbing up. Meanwhile, the fuses behind them continued to hiss and spark.

“I should have taken that idiot out earlier!” Zhang Haiyan cursed in frustration. “What a blunder!”

As he spoke, he quickly turned around, picked up several bundles of explosives close to them, and threw them deeper into the ship, clearing a space. Then he grabbed a few burlap sacks and handed them to Zhang Haixia. “Use these for cover, let’s see what happens.”

Zhang Haixia looked at the sacks, shook his head, and asked, “Do you want to go back to Xiamen?”

“Of course!”

Zhang Haixia took all the sacks, strapped them onto his back as a shield, then pushed Zhang Haiyan into a corner, spreading his arms to shield him. “That’s good.”

“What are you doing?”

“Zhang Haiyan, I don’t want to go back to Xiamen; I have no ties there. You go back for me.”

Before he could finish speaking, there was a huge explosion, and a massive shockwave slammed Zhang Haixia onto Zhang Haiyan, as if Zhang Haiyan’s head had been struck hard, and then he knew nothing.