The night pearl, a relatively precious gem in ancient times, could serve as a 360-degree, all-encompassing light bulb after simple refinement.
The extraordinary people from the Great Jing Dynasty used these night pearls as lighting tools in their cave dwellings.
Lu Zheng, of course, had a few.
Now, as he took one out and infused it with true qi, the night pearl emitted a light that pierced through the seawater, illuminating a range of a hundred metres.
Countless fish swimming at the ocean floor appeared in the sight of Lu Zheng and Lin Wan.
At the same time, the fish, startled by the light, flicked their tails and darted into the surrounding darkness.
“My goodness!”
Lin Wan gasped in shock because, not far from them, a massive creature over five metres long, instead of fleeing, was charging straight at them.
“A great white shark!”
“Splat!”
The great white shark burst through the water, its gaping jaws wide open.
Lin Wan threw a fierce punch, striking the shark square on its snout.
“Bang! Crack!”
With one punch, the shark’s supposedly unbreakable skull shattered instantly, its brain scrambled into mush by the force of her blood qi.
The next moment, the great white shark’s corpse, sent flying by Lin Wan’s punch, tumbled backwards through the water for dozens of metres, stirring up underwater currents before slowly coming to a stop under the water’s resistance, bleeding from all orifices, and sinking gradually.
“Phew—”
Having sent the great white shark flying with one punch, Lin Wan let out a long breath, her face showing a mix of relief and lingering fear as she patted her chest, “That scared me to death.”
Lu Zheng: ?_??
Lin Wan, blushing with embarrassment, said, “Yes, I’m stronger than it, but when something that big appears out of nowhere, it’s terrifying!”
“Right, right!” Lu Zheng nodded repeatedly.
The shark’s corpse, accompanied by gradually dispersing blood, sank slowly, attracting numerous fish to swim towards it.
Lu Zheng and Lin Wan moved slightly away and soon reached the ocean floor.
This area was very close to the east coast of the Americas, with the Caribbean islands to the east, so it was still within the coastal continental shelf, where the average depth from the sea floor to the surface was less than three thousand metres.
Well, areas below two hundred metres, beyond the light penetration zone, were already considered deep sea, and a three-thousand-metre depth was the abyssal zone.
However, the sea area they were in didn’t reach the average depth. They descended only fifteen hundred metres before arriving at the high plateau of the continental shelf’s ocean floor.
In the lightless depths, irregularly scattered sand and bizarrely shaped plants dotted the landscape, along with sparse deep-sea creatures, all of which were species they had seen in various science books.
“They’re so ugly,” Lin Wan pouted, “I thought there’d be coral everywhere, with pretty little fish darting around.”
Lu Zheng was speechless, “That’s in shallow waters, where the average depth doesn’t exceed a hundred metres.”
Lin Wan smiled and hooked her arm through Lu Zheng’s, “Then let’s find the shipwreck quickly and head to a place with coral and tropical fish. This place is just too oppressive.”
Lu Zheng scanned their surroundings and nodded, “Indeed, normal people would feel oppressed. Someone with claustrophobia would probably go mad.”
With their position as the centre, within a hundred-metre radius illuminated by the night pearl, there was no trace of a shipwreck.
Lu Zheng channelled more true qi into the night pearl, and its light intensified, expanding their visible range to five hundred metres.
Lu Zheng nodded and said, “That’s enough. Let’s start looking.”
Next, they began circling the area, expanding the radius by a thousand metres with each loop.
After twelve loops, an enormous galleon appeared before them.
“Found it?” Lin Wan was both surprised and delighted.
“Let’s go check it out!” Lu Zheng’s eyes lit up.
This was a distinctly featured sailing transport ship, similar to a galleon but much larger than the oldest galleons. Lu Zheng didn’t know its official name.
Calling it a sailing transport ship would do.
They floated closer to the ship, discovering that its surface was covered in a dense layer of algae.
The hull was cracked but not completely broken, maintaining a rough integrity.
Because it lay in the deep sea, the shipwreck wasn’t a haven for fish, shrimp, and crabs as depicted in films. It was utterly lifeless.
Lu Zheng had no intention of navigating the narrow, confined passages from the deck to check the lower decks and cabins room by room.
With a lift of his hand, a red jade sword flew out from the gourd’s mouth. A flash of red light sliced a large gash into the ship’s side.
“Crack! Crack!”
The fragile balance was disrupted, and the cracks on the ship’s surface grew larger and longer.
Then the red jade sword darted twice more, adding force to the already collapsing ship.
The next moment…
The ship, which had rested on the ocean floor for over three hundred years, completely shattered and collapsed.
Lu Zheng raised his hand, casually using a manipulation technique to keep the collapse at a slow pace.
It didn’t scatter wildly, stirring up sand and currents, nor did it let the ship’s contents mix into a jumbled mess.
Even so, glints of gold caught their eyes.
“It really is a treasure ship!”
Under Lu Zheng’s control, hundreds of wooden crates floated out from the collapsed ship, along with a pile of broken crates and scattered gold, silver, and jewels.
With a wave of his hand, a gold necklace studded with pink diamonds drifted into Lu Zheng’s grasp.
“How much is this necklace worth?”
He carefully rinsed the necklace in the seawater, then withdrew his hand, leaving the water behind and holding a clean, sparkling pink diamond gold necklace.
Gently placing it around Lin Wan’s neck, Lu Zheng nodded seriously, “Looks good!”
Lin Wan beamed, urging him, “Quick, quick, collect everything!”
Lu Zheng raised his gourd, gathering all the sealed wooden crates. Whether they contained treasures would be checked once they were ashore.
Beyond that, he meticulously collected the broken crates and scattered jewels, leaving nothing behind.
Finally…
He picked up an elliptical wooden plaque about two feet long.
“As expected, it’s the San Miguel,” Lu Zheng nodded and said.
“It’s not in English,” Lin Wan asked, “You recognise it? San Miguel?”
Lu Zheng nodded, “It’s Spanish. I recognise it. San Miguel.”
Lin Wan looked baffled, “You know Spanish too?”
“Yeah, didn’t I say last year I was going to learn languages?”
“But you learned Spanish?” Lin Wan remained baffled.
“And Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Russian. I learned them all.”
Lin Wan, “…”
“With this plaque, these treasures are probably worth even more,” Lu Zheng said with a smile.
Lin Wan nodded, then shook her head, “Selling them is a big issue. It’s best to find a foreign agent and set up an offshore company. I’ll ask around for you when we get back.”
“You can ask about that?”
Lin Wan shrugged, “How do you think professional treasure-hunting companies operate?”
“Impressive!”
“Alright, we’ve got everything. Let’s head up,” Lin Wan said, “Good thing you’re here, or this lonely, pitch-black deep sea would scare anyone to death.”
Lu Zheng nodded, wrapped his arm around Lin Wan, and shot towards the surface.
Moments later…
As Lu Zheng and Lin Wan broke the surface, they saw, twelve kilometres away, two additional yachts beside their own.
