Insufficient balance

  Sun Guangfu entertained Old Liu in Weihai for a few days, then took Liu Xiangyang by car and boat to a small town near Weihai. In the middle of the night, they boarded a small boat from the dock, sailed on the sea for half a night, and then boarded a large ship, which is now this ocean-going fishing vessel.

  Although he was familiar with Sun Guangfu, Old Liu was still uncertain about this for the first time. Along the way, he asked everything, but got little information. It was roughly that don't ask how the boat came, don't ask who to find when you arrive, and don't ask about your 100,000 yuan... This can be asked, where did the money go? Sun Guangfu pulled out a paper box from his pocket with a sullen face and handed it to Liu Xiangyang.

  "Compound sulfanilamide! Have you all bought medicine?" Liu Xiangyang asked, looking at this familiar name.

  "Hmm, they lack clothes and medicine over there. I've prepared 4,000 boxes in total, each box costs 450 yuan. After deducting various expenses when it arrives at the destination, you can earn more than five times that amount." Sun Guangfu said quietly.

  "I..." Liu Xiangyang swallowed a string of questions, originally wanting to ask if it was very dangerous, but feeling that the question was too childish. If it's dangerous, Sun Guangfu wouldn't be able to escape either; would they kill each other together? This question didn't make much sense either. When boarding the ship, Sun Guangfu took him to take a look at the cargo hold below, which was packed full of goods. His own small amount of money and goods were basically insignificant. After thinking through several questions, Liu Xiangyang also put his mind at ease halfway, after all, he hadn't received the money yet, and he wasn't back in a safe place, so there was still some anxiety in his heart.

  "Don't worry, I was nervous when I first started too. After a few more runs, it'll be fine." Sun Guangfu understood people well and took out a cigarette to smoke, then handed one to Old Liu.

  "Alas, all the pirate ships have boarded. I'm tense for nothing, how much longer can we hold on?" Liu Xiangyang lit a cigarette and said helplessly.

  "It'll probably take another 3 or 4 hours, it's too dark now and we can't drive too fast. Come on, let's have a drink together, by the time we finish drinking, we'll be there." Sun Guangfu said as he pulled Liu Xiangyang towards the driver's cabin.

  One hour later, Liu Xiangyang was carried back to the cabin, having drunk for the first time at sea and getting drunk after just one round. The remaining 11 people were still gathered in the driver's cabin, engaged in lofty discussions and imagining their future.

  It's time for an unexpected crossing, but which one is suitable? Let's choose the simplest one, no need to explain the cause and effect, because nobody knows the cause and effect, that is, Unidentified Flying Object. For example, in the sky, dark clouds are rolling, as if a very large object is slowly falling towards the sea surface, just above this fishing boat...

  "Old Sun... Old Sun..." Liu Xiangyang frowned and shouted loudly at the cabin entrance.

  “。。。。。。”

  No one responded, and the deck was empty. Liu Xiangyang rubbed his temples as he came to the wheelhouse, pushed open the door, and inside, except for the small table from last night's drinking and the various leftover dishes on it, there was also no one.

  "Old Sun..."

  Liu Xiangyang was fully awake, shouting and rushing towards the cabin door, checking each room one by one, but no one was there, although their personal belongings were still there. Then he opened the cargo hold on the deck and shouted inside, but except for the sound of waves hitting the ship's hull, there was no response.

  "What the...?!" Liu Xiangyang had basically searched the entire ship, even going to the diesel engine room in the hold, but still found no one. However, the cargo in the hold was still neatly stacked as it was when they set sail, and Old Liu specifically went down to open a package, which contained dozens of boxes of "Zhongnanhai" cigarettes. The goods were all there, but the people were gone? No matter how hard he thought, Old Liu couldn't figure out the reason.

  Sitting on the driving platform, Liu Xiangyang was eating last night's leftover wine and dishes while looking at the book in his hand. The book had a few big words written on it: "73M Ocean Squid Fishing Vessel Operation Manual (Part 1)". In fact, Comrade Liu Xiangyang wasn't so careless that he would forget to study even in such an abnormal situation. Instead, after confirming that there was really no one on the ship and that the ship was stationary, he wanted to see if he could start the ship or check the GPS and other things to determine his location, whether he could head back to port first or call for rescue. Anyway, he couldn't just wait to die at sea.

  According to the manual's text and illustrations, Liu Xiangyang basically understood most of the instruments on the driving platform. He tried operating the marine radio to call for help, but his voice became hoarse from shouting, with no response or even static noise. Putting down the microphone, he then tried starting the engine again, which surprisingly worked. Feeling the slight vibration of the machine beneath his feet, Liu Xiangyang shakily operated the steering wheel and controlled the fishing boat for a few minutes before decisively shutting off the engine and stopping the boat. He couldn't determine his direction without any reference points on the vast ocean, where he wouldn't know if he was moving in a straight line or not. Liu thought it best to wait for rescue instead, as they had enough food and water; it was safer than randomly sailing around, which could lead to colliding with other boats and ending up in an even worse situation.

  Since they couldn't set sail, Liu Xiangyang picked up a pair of binoculars from the driving platform and stood in the driving room, pretending to observe all around.

  "Huh? ... ... It seems like there's something." Liu Xiangyang, holding the binoculars, suddenly stopped his spinning body and turned back, finally coming to a stop.

  "Whoa, it seems like a person! There's someone in the sea!!! It looks like I'm not the most unlucky one after all. Should I save him? Must save! This isn't just about building a few levels of merit, this is a chance to redeem myself! Maybe I can even get my smuggling charges waived!" Liu Xiangyang thought to himself as he adjusted the resolution of his binoculars to take a closer look.

  In the telescope, I indeed saw 2 or 3 people who seemed to be clinging to a piece of wood-like floating object, rising and falling with the waves. The specific appearance couldn't be seen clearly, only the heads could be seen.

  Since the decision to save people, action must be taken. Originally, Liu Xiangyang was going to take a small boat like in the movies, but after searching the whole ship, he couldn't find a lifeboat there. In the end, he had no choice but to start the main engine and slowly made his way over, shaking and swaying.

  Afraid of getting too close and turning rescue into murder, Liu Xiangyang repeatedly controlled the fishing boat. After circling for an unknown number of times, he finally managed to stop the fishing boat about a dozen meters away. Due to the trouble caused by the waves and the height of the ship's body, it was impossible to see people any closer.

  Shut down the main engine, dropped anchor, Liu Xiangyang took off his outer clothes and only wore shorts, put on a life jacket, and tied the thin steel wire rope of the squid fishing machine and two life jackets to his waist, climbed down the ship's side and swam towards the people in the water.

  As the distance drew closer, Liu Xiangyang, who was in the water, saw clearly that there were 2 people holding onto a large piece of wood, with their entire bodies submerged in the water except for their chests and above. The wood was pitch black and it was unclear what shape it was, but on top of the exposed part of the wood was placed a small basket, which looked similar to the kind used as dog houses when buying dogs.

  "Don't die, don't die..." Liu Xiangyang's heart was racing as he swam with all his might to the person closest to him, stretched out his hand to grab the wooden board, and pressed himself against it. Probably feeling the wood tilt, the person closest to him woke up, slowly lifted his head, and a stubbly face with piercing blue-green eyes appeared before Liu Xiangyang.

  "Save... save me... save my son." A fluent but hoarse English came out of the big beard's mouth.

  "I'm going... saved an international friend..." Liu Xiangyang was taken aback at first.

  "Don't move, I'll save your son and you, give it to you first, put this on." Liu Xiangyang's English scores in middle school were not bad. In recent years, he also played a lot of foreign games while running the internet cafe. Most importantly, there were two British student members in the internet cafe who often played games together. After mixing with online games for several years, they all learned each other's languages thoroughly.

  "Sir, please save my son first... Save my son first..." The big beard was struggling to put on the life jacket, while stubbornly begging in a hoarse voice, pointing to the doghouse.

  "Is this your son?" Liu Xiangyang heard him shouting several times before he came to his senses, and it turned out that what was not a doghouse was a cradle, and if the one inside was indeed his son, he would probably be an infant.

  "Third Master... Third Master... are you still alive?" Just as Liu Xiangyang was about to untie the ropes on the cradle, the person opposite him also woke up and became very agitated. He kept shouting in Chinese while frantically untying the ropes around his body. As he struggled, the wooden thing almost lost its balance and nearly flipped over.

  "Don't move around! You'll capsize if you keep struggling!!! What's the hurry? Wait a bit, put this on first. Whether you can swim or not, follow me." Liu Xiangyang quickly stabilized the wooden board and shouted while throwing the remaining life jacket to the person on the other side. At the moment he threw the life jacket, Old Liu couldn't help but feel a chill. The person on the other side was probably over 40 years old, with a dark face, a faint blue mark on his forehead, and seemed to have shaved his head, with no hair on the front half and all of it combed back on the latter half, and a large braid wrapped around his neck.