HDRDTH -Chapter 71 Deep-Sea Ruins Navigation Chart

“Click.”

That crisp sound felt especially piercing in the dead silence along the reservoir shore.

“Take cover! Everyone take cover!”

The leading major instinctively dove sideways, his palm clamping tightly onto Yu Xian’s shoulder and flipping him straight into the thick, rotten mud.

Immediately after, a row of riot shields rapidly formed a half-height steel wall in front of them.

“Down! Everybody get down!”

The police officers and tech experts, who had been stunned a moment ago, now moved faster than anyone else, scrambling and crawling behind the armored vehicles.

Wang Fei was dragged by Qin Yue and plunged headfirst into the half-height grass.

“Let go… damn it, my hand is injured!”

Yu Xian spat out a mouthful of mud. A sharp, stabbing pain shot through his left palm, making him inhale sharply.

With a sudden twist of his shoulder, he used a clever burst of force and actually slipped free from the major’s restraint.

“Yu Xian! Are you insane? That’s a high-radiation source!” the major roared in a low voice from the muddy pit, cold sweat sliding down his temples.

“Radiation my ass!”

Yu Xian wiped the foul mud off his face, crouched in the pit, and sneered while pointing at the box.

“That’s just the internal pressure-release lock of a Soviet 404 sealed container. It’s been underwater too long—the pressure valve is old. When I hauled it up and jolted it, it triggered a mechanical lock mechanism.”

As he spoke, he ignored all attempts to stop him, stood up barefoot, and strode through the mud toward the metallic monstrosity that had terrified everyone.

“Fall back! That’s an order!” the major shouted anxiously, already reaching for his gun.

Yu Xian didn’t even look back. He walked straight to the box and, under everyone’s shocked gaze, lifted his mud-covered right foot and slammed it hard into a protruding point on the side of the container.

Bang!

A dense burst of white smoke sprayed out through the seam, carrying a sharp smell of old machine oil and dry ice.

When the smoke cleared, the wildly fluctuating radiation detector suddenly went silent.

The red light turned green. Everything returned to dead calm.

“Done. Just some old junk inside, thick lead lining. As long as you don’t cut it open with a saw, it’s safer than the phone in your pocket.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the reservoir, inside a dark drainage tunnel.

Old Black and his four men clung tightly to the damp stone wall like giant black geckos.

“Boss… that madman kicked the box open?” Ah Qiang’s voice trembled as he peered through the gap at the distant searchlights.

“Don’t look! Move!” Old Black gritted his teeth and ripped off his weighted lead blocks.

He knew the situation too well.

Whether that box contained nuclear waste or gold bars, if they, a group of illegal divers, showed themselves now, they would be finished for good.

“While they’re all focused on that damn box, we go through the drainage channel. Dump the oxygen tanks, flip the wetsuits inside out—leave no trace.”

Old Black glanced one last time at the lone figure under the lights, a flicker of unprecedented fear in his eyes.

“Jiangcheng… is cursed. From now on, anything involving someone surnamed Yu—no matter how much they pay—we don’t take it.”

The four shadows silently slipped into the turbid drainage channel, vanishing into the darkness like fish that had never existed.

At the shore, inside the secured perimeter.

The major cautiously approached with the decontamination team.

After repeated measurements confirmed that radiation levels were completely within safe limits, everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“Master Yu, you really… are skilled enough to dance on the edge of life and death,” an old detective said, wiping cold sweat from his face as he handed Yu Xian a cigarette.

Yu Xian didn’t take it. He was staring blankly at a tiny white fish in the grass—no thicker than a finger.

“This whole thing is ridiculous. I risked my life, bled, fought, and in the end I pull up this?”

He pointed at the small fish, then at the military box.

“A box of scrap metal, not even a bite of meat. Air force fishing… damn, you guys are really something.”

The detective chuckled awkwardly, thinking that if this counted as “air force,” then every angler in the city should just jump into the river.

Wang Fei finally walked out from the grass.

“Mr. Yu.” Her tone was complicated.

Yu Xian glanced at her, then at the seventy-jin giant black carp not far away.

“Miss Wang, the competition is over. You caught the big one, I caught a box of junk and a tiny fish. By the rules, I lose.”

Wang Fei’s facial muscles twitched slightly.

Lose?

She looked at the divers who had already disappeared without a trace, then at the earth-shattering scene before her, and felt her face burning.

“Master Yu is joking. I just got lucky today.”

“No need.” Yu Xian waved his hand, looking completely relieved.

“I’ll write the song. Come find me tomorrow and we’ll discuss it. I just want to go home, take a hot shower, and throw these broken shoes away.”

He looked down at his plastic flip-flops—the straps were already snapped—with deep regret.

The major stepped forward and saluted.

“Mr. Yu, this box is related to a classified decommissioned project from back then. We need to take it back for further investigation. Your identity is special, so we may need your cooperation for a simple statement later.”

“Fine, fine. As long as it doesn’t affect my stall tomorrow, anything goes.”

Yu Xian waved him off casually and signaled Wang Dafu.

Wang Dafu was still hugging the titanium fishing rod like it was a divine artifact.

“Dad! That sixty-jin black carp is still in the pool. Should we… cook it tonight?”

“Cook your head. That’s a hero fish. It must be worshipped.”

Yu Xian shuffled toward the business car in his broken flip-flops.

Just as he was about to get in, the major suddenly shouted from behind:

“Master Yu! Down there in the water—besides the box—did you really not feel anything else?”

Yu Xian paused.

He recalled that strange, slippery force—like something alive, like a loach slipping left and right.

That definitely wasn’t the box.

But he just lazily waved his hand.

“There’s only mud and ghosts underwater. What else could there be? I’m leaving!”

The business car started and disappeared down the empty mountain road.

Wang Fei stood there watching the departing vehicle, then suddenly turned to Qin Yue.

“Check where those four divers went. Also… release that big carp.”

“Huh? Re… release it?” Qin Yue looked confused.

“If I don’t release it, do I keep it around to remind myself how stupid I was?” Wang Fei said coldly, then turned and got into her car.

Late night, Jinshui Bay Villa.

After showering, Yu Xian changed into clean sleepwear and sat on the balcony, looking at the shimmering swimming pool below.

The black carp king was swimming lazily.

He lit a cigarette. The wound on his left hand had already been rebandaged.

His phone lit up. It was a message from Shen Zhian:

“Mr. Yu, the provincial rewards have been approved. Besides the commendation banner, there is also a special bonus. Also… the thing found in that box seems related to the ‘pressure cooker resonance’ you mentioned before. The experts would like to invite you…”

“Invite my ass.”

Yu Xian directly tossed the phone aside.

Right now, he only wanted to know where he could buy a decent pair of flip-flops tomorrow.

At that moment, in a classified provincial laboratory.

The sealed box Yu Xian had kicked open had already been forcibly dismantled.

When the experts saw the core item wrapped in multiple layers of lead shielding, all their expressions turned grave.

It wasn’t nuclear waste.

It was a perfectly preserved map made of a special material—

A Deep-Sea Ruins Navigation Chart.

And at the very edge of the chart, there was a symbol that Yu Xian found extremely familiar.