HDRDTH -Chapter 24 A Dead End?

The waters of the Maldives were a breathtaking shade of blue, like a giant sapphire.

This place was called “God’s Fish Tank.” Rumor had it that the fish were so dense that tossing a piece of bread into the sea would make the surface boil.

“Salted Fish No. 2” stopped over a deep-blue patch of ocean.

According to the nautical charts, this was a “golden fishing spot.” The water was five hundred meters deep, and the complicated seabed terrain made it a perfect hiding place for giant fish.

“Dad, is this place reliable?” Wang Dafu hugged his solid-gold fishing rod, looking seasick. “The radar isn’t showing anything.”

“Shut up.” Yu Xian sat in the tractor seat, gripping the battle-worn “Poseidon’s Spear” with a solemn expression.

“True monsters never show up on radar.”

“They’re spiritual. They know how to hide.”

In reality, the American sonar device used too much electricity, and Yu Xian found the noise annoying, so he had turned it off.

He pulled out a chunk of pig liver that had been marinating in a secret sauce for an entire week.

The smell was on the level of a biological weapon. Even the seagulls avoided it mid-flight.

“Bait up.”

Holding his breath, Yu Xian hooked the pig liver onto a custom hook larger than a human palm.

“…Will that actually work?” Su Qian pinched her nose and retreated several steps.

“Uncle Yu, do fish really eat that?”

“Hmph. This is called ‘heavy flavor.’” Yu Xian looked completely confident.

“The fish here are used to fancy Western cuisine. Today I’m treating them to authentic Chinese braised-offal flavor. They won’t be able to resist.”

He cast the rod.

“Whoosh—!”

Poseidon’s Spear sliced through the sky and hurled the biochemical pig liver into the ocean.

Everyone on the boat held their breath.

One minute…

Five minutes…

Ten minutes…

The tropical sun blazed overhead, and the sea breeze felt hot and sticky.

Other than the monotonous sound of waves, the float didn’t move at all.

Not far away, cheers and bikini girls screaming came from Jack’s futuristic yacht. They had just landed another grouper over half a meter long.

Jack even deliberately circled around “Salted Fish No. 2,” blowing a mocking whistle. His eyes practically said:

See, country bumpkin? This is skill.

“I knew it…”

Yu Xian’s lips twitched violently. That familiar despair mixed with the humiliation of being mocked in public surged back into his heart.

“What ‘God’s Fish Tank’? Total bullshit! This is obviously the Dead Sea!”

Just as he was about to reel in the line and admit that, even across two lifetimes, he could never escape the curse of being an empty-handed fisherman—

The rod tip dipped downward ever so slightly before bouncing back up, almost like it had merely been nudged by the current.

But Yu Xian’s pupils contracted sharply.

No.

That movement wasn’t from a fish.

It was more like…

something underwater had accidentally brushed against his line.

Just as he focused completely, the strange signal came again.

This time, it wasn’t a test.

It was a slow, heavy sensation—as if something beneath the sea had become hooked to gravity itself and was sinking downward.

Before Yu Xian could even warn the others, that sinking force suddenly transformed into a savage, unreasonable burst of terrifying power!

“BUZZ—BOOM!!!”

The drag system no longer screamed—it wailed like metal parts grinding themselves to destruction.

The steel cable on the electric winch fixed to the side of the ship—thick as a thumb—snapped taut instantly with a thunderous clang! The welded mounting point, thick as a bowl, tore apart on the spot, spraying sparks everywhere!

“Not good!”

Yu Xian’s pupils shrank violently. He shot up from the tractor seat and lunged toward the fishing rod, which had already bent into a horrifying C-shape.

But it was too late!

The force was beyond imagination.

The bow of “Salted Fish No. 2” was dragged downward so violently that icy seawater crashed onto the deck, knocking everyone sprawling!

“AHHH—!”

Su Wanyi and Su Qian screamed as they fell, instantly soaked from head to toe.

With a dull bang, Su Qian’s forehead slammed into the cold metal railing. Tears burst from her eyes in pain.

“Qianqian!”

Su Wanyi’s face went pale with terror. Hugging her daughter tightly, she looked at the swelling bump on the girl’s forehead and screamed at Yu Xian with heartbreaking desperation:

“Little Yu! Cut the line! Forget the fish already, okay?! The boat’s going to flip! Qianqian’s hurt! We’re going to die!!”

At that critical moment, Yu Xian grabbed the tail of the fishing rod with both hands, planting his feet against the welded tractor-seat base as every muscle in his body bulged like steel cables.

Su Wanyi’s cries stabbed into his heart like knives.

Cut the line?

He looked back at the trembling mother and daughter behind him, then at the fishing rod bent into a perfect arc as if mocking his fate.

Inside his head, he roared madly:

Why?!

Why is it that all I want is to catch a damn fish, but I have to risk my family’s lives for it?!

Am I, Yu Xian, destined to be an empty-handed fisherman forever?! Is even heaven itself humiliating me like this?!

No!

I refuse!!

Yu Xian’s eyes instantly turned bloodshot.

The obsession of an empty-handed fisherman defeated reason itself!

“Once it bites my hook, even Poseidon’s own chariot has to surface for me!!”

“Ah Long! Start the engine! Reverse throttle! Today I’m gonna see whether it can drag the Earth—or whether I can pull it out of hell! We’re playing tug-of-war!!”

“Y-Yes!!”

Ah Long scrambled into the cockpit and slammed the throttle all the way down.

“ROOOAR—!!!”

The tractor engine bellowed deafeningly as the propellers churned the seawater in a frenzy, trying to contend against the monster beneath the waves.

They remained locked in a dead struggle for half an hour.

Yu Xian felt as if his shoulder blades were about to rip apart from the force. His palms had long since split open, blood mixing with salty seawater as it burned every nerve in his body.

The explosion-proof steel deck beneath his feet had actually dented under the pressure of his stance.

Yet the light in his eyes only grew brighter.

This thrill of fighting against fate itself intoxicated him.

“GET THE HELL UP HERE!!!”

Using every ounce of strength left in his body, Yu Xian suddenly threw himself backward!

“CRASHHH—!!!”

The calm ocean surface exploded as though a deep-sea bomb had detonated beneath it. Towering waves erupted skyward.

A black shadow the size of a mountain, surrounded by bubbles and mud, slowly rose from the depths.

“What is that?!” Wang Dafu cried out. “A whale carcass?! It’s enormous!”

The thing was dragged closer and closer. Its underwater silhouette looked monstrous, even reflecting something that resembled giant scales.

It looked nothing like any known creature on Earth.

It was more like a prehistoric beast crawling out of the abyss.

And when it finally burst completely from the water, everyone sucked in a sharp breath.

Sure enough—

It wasn’t a fish at all.

It was a gigantic cylindrical metal container, two meters wide and roughly five meters long.

Its surface was covered in rust and seaweed. The so-called “scales” were actually rows of complicated valves, and several heavy broken chains were wrapped around it.

Most terrifying of all, the side of the tank bore a bright red skull symbol and a line of Spanish text:

【PELIGRO – ALTA PUREZA】

(DANGER – HIGH PURITY)

“CLANG!”

The massive metal tank crashed onto the reinforced deck of “Salted Fish No. 2,” denting the two-centimeter-thick steel plating inward.

Dead silence.

Only the wind howled across the sea.

Yu Xian remained frozen in his reeling posture, staring blankly at the tank as two silent tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Why…”

“Why?! All I wanted was to catch a fish… even a tiny one would’ve been fine… Why does heaven insist on giving me a damn metal barrel?!”

Just then, white foam began hissing out from a crack created by the impact. A strong chemical smell, similar to formaldehyde, spread through the air.

“It’s toxic!”

Wang Dafu covered his nose in terror.

“Dad! Throw it back into the sea!”

Throw it back?

Yu Xian stared at the skull symbol.

His fifty-five years of life experience from his previous life told him one thing:

This thing was definitely not ordinary.

At this point, he no longer wanted fish.

He only wanted to know what kind of absurd cosmic joke fate had arranged for him this time.

“Ah Long, bring me a crowbar.”

“Little Yu, are you insane?!” Su Wanyi screamed. “What if there’s a bomb inside?!”

“It’s fine.”

Yu Xian licked his cracked lips.

“I just want to see what kind of ‘bait’ grows this damn big.”

Under everyone’s horrified gaze, Yu Xian smashed the rusty lid with the crowbar.

Again.

And again.

BANG!

The lid burst open.

And in the next second, everyone was stunned.

There were no explosives.

No chemical weapons.

Instead—

A white avalanche poured out.

Countless brick-shaped white packages wrapped tightly in waterproof tape tumbled out like a landslide, instantly piling across the entire deck.

One package split open on impact, scattering fine white powder into the sea breeze.

At first Wang Dafu looked confused.

But when he recognized the unique waterproof wrapping style and those familiar “brick” shapes—

His mind exploded.

He had seen identical cargo bricks in a documentary about international drug cartels.

His face instantly turned deathly pale. His whole body shook violently like a leaf.

“D-Dad…”

His voice trembled with terror as he pointed at the white bricks.

“T-This stuff… this is ‘white gold bricks’!”

“What bricks?” Yu Xian still hadn’t reacted.

“Drugs!!” Wang Dafu collapsed onto the deck in despair.

“So much of it… there’s gotta be several tons here! If we get caught with this, we’ll all be lined up and executed on a Maldivian beach!!”

Yu Xian: “…”

He stared at the mountain of white powder on the deck, then at the approaching Interpol patrol boats in the distance—drawn here by the earth-shaking tug-of-war from earlier.

Their police lights flashed wildly as they sped toward them.

At last, Yu Xian finally understood why the radar hadn’t shown any fish earlier.

This was a cartel’s underwater drug stash point.

I wiped out another criminal organization’s entire base again?!

But before he could even process that realization, Wang Dafu suddenly pointed in another direction and screamed even more hysterically than before:

“Dad! Over there! Another boat! A black one! It’s heading straight for us!”

Everyone whipped around in horror.

At the horizon where sea met sky, a black speedboat without any markings sliced through the waves like a bloodthirsty shark, charging directly toward them at insane speed.

Police lights flashed.

Sirens wailed.

The black boat came in silent, radiating murderous intent.

On one side was the judgment of heaven.

On the other side was the pursuit of hell.

And they were trapped right in the middle.

A dead end.