Chapter 4 Entering the Sea

  "What's the point of being so stubborn?" Wang Anjin replied irritably.

  I hastily returned to the room, and as soon as I pushed the door open, a hand stretched out from behind the wall and tightly grasped my wrist. I almost flipped the owner of this hand over like I did with Wang Yongshun, but it turned out that it was Dong Hao. This tall, rich, and handsome guy's eyes were shining brightly as he asked me: "This... is this really a small purple leaf sandalwood?"

  I just realized that he was talking about the Buddhist beads on my hand, which were given to me by Master Jianzhu. I gently twisted and broke free from his grasp, saying: "What's wrong?"

  The rich and handsome guy reevaluated me, and it seemed that my pretentiousness had skyrocketed in his eyes. Indeed, in this era where the market is flooded with fake goods made of black acacia wood masquerading as Dalbergia latifolia, genuine ones are extremely rare. I heard that African brothers from Madagascar sold their local Dalbergia latifolia to Chinese people, and amazingly, they deceived many so-called domestic experts, who all claimed that this was actually Dalbergia cochinchinensis. Because the trade volume was too large, it alarmed the United Nations and was banned from harvesting (Dalbergia cochinchinensis is an internationally protected tree species), which made African people very depressed, and they hastily invited international experts to prove that this thing was not authentic Dalbergia latifolia at all, directly slapping many domestic experts in the face.

  Unfortunately, this thing is genuine, but it wasn't obtained by relying on my father's influence, rather it was won through my own diligence and wisdom. The rich and handsome guy sniffed his nose and asked how much I would sell it for? In my heart, I thought that there was a sentiment and respect attached to it, so no matter what, I wouldn't sell. So I shook my head with an air of pretentiousness, feeling full of pride inside. Turning around to face Yang Zuo, "Captain Wang has discovered the city wall of Kang City, we need to slow down and confirm the situation."

  Yang Chao and Dong Hao heard this, three steps made two steps running to the cabin, and Wang An chattered a lot of words, I looked at the typhoon gradually going away from the stern, without saying a word.

  Dong Hao turned around and said to Liu Yuwei and Xu Biying: "Hurry up and prepare, put the sonar down."

  I thought this yacht wasn't a submarine, how come it's equipped with such high-end sonar?

  Liu Yawei brought over a box, took out several wires, and connected them to Xu Biying's laptop. Then he took out a cylindrical object with a small horn attached to the bottom and dragged it outside, throwing it into the water. The cylindrical object was likely a float, which floated on the surface of the water. Soon, data began to transmit, and Xu Biying's computer displayed a red, yellow, and blue seabed topography map. However, the image was very unstable. It seemed that although the typhoon no longer posed a threat, the waves were still quite large, making it impossible for the sonar to stabilize and accurately detect the seabed topography. Yang Chao asked Wang Anjin to stop the boat, but Wang Anjin ignored him and continued to drive forward. Yang Chao was so anxious that he stomped his feet.

  Even so, the data transmitted by sonar shows that this sea area is very shallow, with some vertical seabed protrusions that do not appear to be natural seabed terrain, but rather have a strong artificial cutting mark. It's probably the lost ancient city of Thonis-Heraklion below the sea surface.

  Under Yang's repeated requests, Wang Anjin came up with a compromise plan: to head west at full speed while probing the depth of this strange sea area. We gathered around Xu Biying's computer and listened as this woman, who looked like a waitress but was actually a Ph.D. student in acoustics, patiently explained things to us. It seemed that what Wang Anjin had seen earlier wasn't a city wall, but a city gate. It was only about 3 or 4 meters below the surface of the water. As we continued westward, there were all sorts of strange reactions below us, looking like one piece after another of ancient architectural complexes.

  This discovery has left us all thrilled. It seems that the ancient city of Gok is indeed real. We have found its east gate and are now heading towards the west gate.

  What a surprise, Kang City is so vast. The speed of the yacht was about 32 knots, which is almost 60 kilometers per hour, but after sailing for 15 minutes, the sonar reflected that another towering building appeared under the sea surface, probably located in the west city wall. Calculated this way, the east-west width of Kang City reaches 15 kilometers, you know, the Nanjing City in the Ming Dynasty, the north-south length is only about 10 kilometers, and the east-west width is only 5 kilometers!

  What a magnificent and prosperous existence Kangcheng was! How could it disappear from the map of China's provinces overnight?

  Recalling the huge waves stirred up by the typhoon just now, I can only believe that the disappearance of Kangcheng is a natural power, and it was erased by the hand of God.

  Because our direction of progress is opposite to that of the typhoon, as we move in opposite directions, the sky has gradually improved, although dark clouds still cover the sky, but the wind and rain have subsided a lot. Most of the men on the boat had already adapted to the tossing of the waves and were no longer vomiting so badly. So Yang Chao decided to dive down and take a look at these things underwater to see if they were really Gong Cheng.

  As we proceeded, the water was already far from the shore and had changed from the murky yellowish color seen on the shore to a clear blue. Just after the rain and wind, the objects that sank to the bottom of the sea floated up, making it slightly turbid. I estimate that the underwater visibility is not high, so everyone who went into the water brought high-powered underwater flashlights. Yang also brought a large bundle of rope, coiled and hung around his waist.

  Yang Chao, Dong Hao and I put on a brand new set of diving gear. The biggest difference between this suit and the one I used for practice is that the mask covers the entire face, also known as a "full-face mask" - it seals everything except the cheeks, and inside the mask, there's another sealed cover below the nostrils to prevent fogging up the lens when breathing, which would obscure vision. With this mask on, we look like aliens from science fiction movies or galactic warriors, really cool.

  This diving gear was originally prepared for Li Yubo. Fortunately, he and I are both bookworms with myopia and similar degrees, so the mask I made for him is suitable for me to wear.

  Put the fixing strap of the mask on your head, determine the position of the chin, then buckle the mirror towards the head, shake it a few times, adjust to a comfortable and sealed position, and finally tighten the tightening strap. After dressing up, I connected the secondary air pipe of the main helmet with the secondary head of the mask, and made an OK gesture to the other two people.

  Yang Chao pressed the communication button and said a few words, which sounded fairly clear, but I didn't know what it would be like underwater. He especially reminded me that the effective distance of the communication device underwater is generally around 50 meters, at most not exceeding 70 meters, so don't leave too far away. If the seawater becomes turbid and affects visibility, you can shake the flashlight to show your position.

  I nodded in understanding. Dong Hao added that when ascending, don't go too fast, worried about getting decompression sickness.

  Decompression sickness occurs when the pressure increase during deep diving causes a large amount of nitrogen in the blood to dissolve, and if the ascent is too rapid, the pressure drops sharply, causing these gases to form bubbles that emerge from the bloodstream, resulting in numbness and headache in mild cases, and life-threatening consequences in severe cases.

  We finished the handover, and the three of us gave an OK gesture to the people on the boat. Li Xuan Yu, who was listening to our conversation with earphones, also made the same gesture. Yang Chao took the lead, doing a backflip into the water, while Dong Hao and I followed closely behind. As soon as we entered the water, all we felt was the biting coldness. If not for the protection of our diving suits, we would probably have lost consciousness quickly due to hypothermia. Yang Chao didn't say anything, only raising his thumb and wiggling it downwards twice, indicating that we should dive down.

  We slowly let out the air from our BC vests and sank into the sea.

  At this time, the sky was not bright, and the visibility in the sea was not high. The voice of Yang Chao came from the headset: "The depth here is about 25 meters, we will dive five times, Lin You pay attention to balance ear pressure. Follow me!"

  Although I said that, as a diving novice, I actually dived three times and my fins had already touched the ground. Although I tried to balance the ear pressure, the huge water pressure still pressed on the eardrum, making me almost unable to hear any sound. The piercing pain came from my ears, I stood still in place, trying hard to control my breathing, it took a while before I dared to turn on the flashlight and looked around. But found that I didn't control the direction well, and got separated from the other two people.

  I thought to myself that it wouldn't be too far off anyway, and I could just use the communication device later. So I raised my flashlight and shone it down at the seafloor, wondering if there really was an ancient city down there.