Chapter 22: Tridacna (Part 1)

Shirley Yang agreed, we started the underwater thruster and floated up the original path. I saw her just taking pictures around with an underwater camera. She thought that China's Shang Dynasty civilization was limited to the Central Plains region and was much smaller than the current China territory. If the ruins of Guixu, which were far-reachingly influenced by the Shang and Zhou civilizations, were of extraordinary significance for studying human navigation and civilization history. Even if the Qin King's bone mirror cannot be found, just bringing these photos back will stimulate Professor Chen to be hospitalized again.

The three of us opened the lighting equipment and slowly floated to the coral forest, but we found something wrong as soon as we came up. Team B, who was picking eggs at the bottom of the translucent large coral tree, drew circles the diving searchlights facing us. Obviously, we needed immediate support. I turned my hand forward and quickly approached the coral tree with Shirley Yang and Uncle Ming.

The bosses Ruan Hei and Duoling were trying hard to pry a giant clam. The big clam was hiding under the coral reef, three circles larger than the largest millspin. The wavy clam shell was closed, and no matter how hard Ruan Hei and his two men tried, they could not move. This giant clam had grown for thousands of years. The shell was white and crystal clear, almost formed with the stones at the bottom of the sea. It was a man-eating shell that was only good at clamping people's legs and feet. The clams were born in the sea, which was actually ancient.

, Because egg people and fishermen are most afraid of playing "back" nets, they still call various pearl shells clams. Although the egg people do not mention its scientific name "Tedacna", they often call it "white niche". I don't know how many egg people were trapped by this kind of thing when picking pearls, and they ruined their lives. I don't know why the boss of the boat Ruan Hei wanted to pry it up. Before he could ask him, he couldn't wait to tell us that there was someone in the clam shell!

I also thought that I misunderstood Ruan Hei’s meaning. There are no one else besides us in this surging coral spiral sea. Even if this is the deep-sea giant clam, commonly known as man-eating shells, how can there be "people" in its shell? Is it a living or a dead person? Uncle Ming seemed to suddenly wake up and made a fish gesture. This time he became more developed, man-eating shells probably clamped the rare mermaid in the sea, and its meat is twice as expensive as equal-heavy platinum.

Uncle Ming held down the man-eating clam as big as a millstone, and was so excited that a long string of bubbles appeared. He gestured to us that the old clam might have clamped the mermaid at the bottom of the sea. In fact, this was just his wishful thinking. What was in the clam shell? Only the boss of the ship Ruan Hei and his apprentice Duoling saw it, and it was difficult to describe it carefully under the water.

I saw that the rare giant clam shell was crystal clear and white, which was a rare blue-headed cart. Anyway, the watermelons in the rear cabin were thrown away, and a big place was empty. Why not hold it in one go? So I made a gesture and asked Ruan Hei to take Duoling to wait under the sea. Shirley Yang and others returned to the boat first, and asked the fat man to bring a chisel and crowbar to help and hang the thousand-year-old clam back on the deck.

After the deployment was completed, we floated to the near pressure relief line, and then returned to the water injection tank step by step to remove the heavy equipment. I briefed the situation underwater and Gu Cai. The fat man had been so anxious to scratch the wall on the boat that he understood. After he immediately took Gu Cai to hand over to us, and took the chisel and hydraulic separator to catch clams.

Master Ruan Hei and the other two were good at prying clams and picking eggs. They were even more skillful with the equipment, but they still took a lot of effort to chisel the "tried clam" off the reef. The few of them used the buoyancy of the ocean current to lift it to the sea and trapped it with steel cables. Uncle Ming started the hanger hook on the boat and finally caught the thousand-year-old giant clam out of the water.

The fat man showed off his will, standing on the giant clam shell hanging in the air, pushed the frog mirror to his forehead and shouted to me: "Old Hu, what is this guy I caught? According to the current market, put it back to the United States, at least it can be replaced by a yacht. Then we will bring a few American girls..." As the arms raised and the sea surface became higher and higher, the fat man began to feel dizzy before he finished speaking. He screamed, and his feet became soft and fell into the water.

I was worried that he would be so proud that the noise caused too much to attract sharks, so I asked Ruan Hei to drag him back to the boat. I asked the boss of the boat, Ruan Hei to come up quickly. It was almost time to withdraw, but Ruan Hei thought that the walrus was calm, the tide was low, and there were many old snails at the bottom of the sea. How could I miss this once-in-a-lifetime egg-picking opportunity? He ignored the danger of suffering from diving disease and changed the scuba lungs, insisted on bringing his two apprentices into the sea to pick eggs again.

Uncle Ming also had this intention and advised me not to stop the behavior of the ball-men. It might rain in the weather, but without hyacinth, the surge will definitely not arise. As long as there is no surge interference, no matter how heavy the rain falls on the sea, it will not affect the diving operation. However, Uncle Ming himself does not want to dive again. Anyway, Master and disciple Ruan Hei are all helpers hired by money, and they have never paid any dividends at all. Since they want to make a big profit, why bother to stop it? Even if they let them do it well.

At this time, the sky was even more gloomy, with thick clouds like ink covering the sea surface. There seemed to be a dangerous signal in the sea breeze. I felt moved and thought that there would be no strong winds and waves tonight. However, I thought that Uncle Ming and the ship boss Ruan Hei were very familiar with the walrus Tianhou. Since they said it was okay, it would be fine.

It is said that there are storm surges all year round in the coral spiral sea area. Except for the sky clearing when the moon is about to erode, the sky is usually thick and the clear sky is often turbulent with infrasound thunderstorms. It is difficult for aircraft to fly over the sky. Low-frequency electromagnetic waves under the sea interfere with ship electronic equipment, causing the needle rudder to deviate from the course. Many catastrophic accidents are caused by this, but this phenomenon cannot be explained yet.

At this time, Shirley Yang was looking at the captured man-eating clam curiously. Since everyone was busy picking eggs, they had no time to pay attention to it. They just tied it with steel cables and were ready to start to clean it up. Shirley Yang said to me: "Look at the white shell of the man-eating clam, it was like waves, and it was like the wheelbarrow of the ancient Roman chariot. It was really beautiful and beautiful. Seeing that the texture of the clam shell was extremely fine, it showed that it had grown at least for thousands of years under the sea, and human civilization had only been for thousands of years, and this man-eating clam had survived for almost thousands of years. This really surprised humans who could only live for decades."

I was worried that Shirley Yang would be merciful and wanted to release this old clam into the sea. Then, this green-headed guy that everyone had worked hard to get lost again. Wouldn’t it be fat in his mouth fly again? Since it has lived for so many years, it should be sufficient, because the great mentor once said that the meaning of life is not about length, but whether it can produce value.

But the correct idea of ​​human beings did not fall from the sky, so I had to do her work and said: "Many creatures in the sea have extremely long lifespans, and a thousand-year-old tortoises. I don't think it's surprising that a thousand-year-old mussel does not eat human flesh. However, once its jagged two shells are clamped, they will close tightly. From ancient times to the present, egg people often suffer this hardship, so they gave it a stunning name such as a man-eating clam. According to Ruan Hei, he seemed to see a dead man in the giant clam. For thousands of years, no egg people dared to enter the coral spiral to collect eggs. I don't know if it was a mermaid in the South China Sea or a sea wolf who died in a crew member. However, this blood debt must be paid with blood. Let's pry it open and then talk about it."

As we spoke, it started to rain in the sky. The sea and sky were dark and boundless. Although it was daytime, it was like in the evening. The sea surface in the distance was dark and vast, with only a few floats flashing with light. But we had to wait until the tide surged again before we could leave. We were helpless in the bad weather. Fortunately, as Uncle Ming said, although the rain was rapid, it had little impact on walruses and the surge was still calm. It was probably related to the sea air release the day before. The geographical and heavenly celestial sea area in the coral spiral sea area was difficult to measure. The sky was raining like rain, but the sea surface was calm.

We all went back to the cabin to get the raincoat and put it on our bodies. We went to deal with the man-eating clam in the rain. Because the light in the rain was dark, we had to turn the searchlight on the top of the boat and hit the clam shell. The clam shell was even pale and looked a little crawling. The giant clam was not dead yet. With the rain, we were ready to move, but the clam shell was still closed and there was no gap. Facing this living creature that had been for thousands of years, the fat man and I really didn't know how to start. If the clam shell was damaged, it would be worthless.

When Uncle Ming saw that he was about to break the clam, he was busy. He decided that there was a priceless mermaid in the clam. I had never heard of the South China Sea mermaid. I thought it was a black-scale mermaid made into a candle in the tomb of King Xian, so he asked Uncle Ming if these two things were the same?

Uncle Ming said that mermaids and mermaids are different, one is evil and the other is good, and their habits are also different. Mermaids cannot make sounds, and meat can be edible. However, mermaids are evil and can make sounds and tempting on the sea surface. Botulinum toxins cannot be eaten. Only its ointment can be used as permanent fuel. Ignorant people are likely to confuse the two. However, although black-scale mermaids are rare, some people have caught them after all. This "mermaid", or "fish man", is too rare, and it is rare in a century. The meat is extremely delicious. It is said that eating fish man's meat can live forever.

However, no one has ever seen anyone actually eat it. Once when he was on a boat in Nanyang, his sailors caught two mermaids alive in the sea. They were all human-shaped above their navels, which was no different from normal people. The lower body was similar to the scales, and they could stand in the stormy waves with tail water. But when they approached, they saw that the mermaid was covered with a layer of winding and slippery mucus, which was not close to. They were caught and put in a large bucket full of water. The crew gathered around to watch. The pair of mermaids were not frightened and just wandered and circled in the wooden barrel.

Uncle Ming didn't know the goods at that time. When a merchant was willing to sell it for release, he demanded a lot of money, but the merchant took the mermaid away. Later, he learned that the price of mermaids in the black market in North America and Europe was twice as high as platinum. Uncle Ming realized that he had been fooled, beat his chest and stamped his feet, and regretted it. After more than ten years, he still had to be in a hurry to curse. He was too kind to trust others back then, otherwise he would not have been cheated by the profiteer who had been killed by thousands of swords. At this moment, he had the chance to get another mermaid, so how could he not let him have a whim?
Chapter completed!