115: Voices in local chronicles

As the night deepened, the tourists atop Yellow Flower Mountain had long since dispersed, leaving only the whistling sea breeze and sparse lights in the distance. Wang Dalong wrapped his jacket tighter and sat next to Lin Feng with his arms around his knees, his exhaled breath rising in white mist within the beam of the flashlight.

"Brother Feng, did you see anything? This stuff is more hypnotic than advanced mathematics," he muttered softly, his eyelids already starting to droop.

Lin Feng turned a deaf ear. His entire mind was immersed in that copy of the "Nan'ao County Gazetteer."

The brushstrokes of the Qing Dynasty literati were complex and meticulous. Mountains, rivers, local products, figures... item by item, they recorded the past of this island.

Lin Feng's reading speed was extremely fast; his gaze wasn't looking at individual characters, but rather scanning entire blocks of information. He was rapidly constructing a geographical model of Nan'ao Island from hundreds of years ago in his mind, comparing it with modern nautical charts.

"Not right... it's not right..." he murmured to himself.

According to the records in the gazetteer, the distribution of Nan'ao Island's coastline and bays differed greatly from the present. Hundreds of years of tides, wind, waves, and silt accumulation were enough to change many things. Many of those former natural harbors had turned into tidal flats, while some inconspicuous corners might have formed new deep-water zones under years of seawater erosion.

He wasn't looking for treasure legends, but rather the most tedious geographical changes and hydrological records.

Wang Dalong let out a yawn and was about to advise Lin Feng to head back and rest early when Lin Feng's finger suddenly stopped on a page, as if he had been burned.

"What is this?"

Wang Dalong's spirits immediately lifted, and he leaned his head in.

It was in the "Geography" section of the gazetteer, a chapter recording local landmarks and scenic spots. After a long list of descriptions about temples and ancient pagodas, there was an inconspicuous footnote in small characters.

The handwriting was scrawled, looking like a bit of local folklore a writer had casually jotted down during a later revision.

"...Ten li out from Yunao Town, there is a bay called 'Deep Bay' by local fishermen. The mouth of the bay is narrow, the interior is deep, and it is surrounded by mountains on all sides, shielding it from wind and waves. However, the currents within the bay are treacherous, often having whirlpools; those whose vessels enter by mistake have a slim chance of survival. According to local legend, this is the sleeping couch of the Sea Dragon King, also called 'dragon vein waters,' and ordinary people dare not approach it."

"Deep Bay? dragon vein waters?" Wang Dalong muttered. "Isn't this just a warning for a dangerous area? What's so special about it?"

Lin Feng did not answer him, instead quickly searching for the place name "Deep Bay" on his phone's map.

Nothing.

Whether it was official maps or various travel apps, there was no place called "Deep Bay" on Nan'ao Island.

"I told you, a place name from hundreds of years ago is long gone," Wang Dalong said, spreading his hands.

"No, it's still there." Lin Feng's eyes held a strange light. He pulled over the military nautical chart, his fingers moving rapidly across it as if performing some complex calculation.

"The gazetteer says, 'Ten li out from Yunao Town.' One li in ancient times is roughly equal to five hundred meters today. Ten li is five kilometers. Using Yunao Town as the center, draw a circle with a five-kilometer radius..."

His finger drew an invisible circle on the nautical chart.

"It also says 'the mouth of the bay is narrow, the interior is deep, and it is surrounded by mountains on all sides.' This describes a gourd-shaped, land-locked natural harbor."

His finger moved back and forth within that circle, screening locations one by one that matched the topographical features.

Finally, his fingertip stopped at the southeastern corner of Nan'ao Island, on a rugged stretch of coastline that wasn't labeled with any name.

From the map, it looked like a place of jagged rocks and a craggy coastline, not looking at all like somewhere a ship could dock. But on the high-precision military nautical chart, after zooming in and zooming in again, one could clearly see that on the inner side of that rocky coastline, a tiny entrance was hidden, almost completely closed off by rocks. And inside the entrance was a deep-water area so blue it was almost black.

"Found it," Lin Feng uttered these two words.

At the same moment he spoke those words, the system interface in his mind had a violent reaction for the first time.

It was no longer that vague red glow covering the whole island. This time, an incredibly clear, pinhead-sized red dot emerged on the map, perfectly overlapping with the position his finger was pointing to on the nautical chart!

Immediately after, a fragmented, broken "memory" flooded into his mind.

It wasn't a complete image, but rather shards of sound.

It was the sound of countless soldiers shouting in dialects with heavy accents, the groan of heavy timber being pried, the piercing friction of iron chains being dragged across rock, mixed with the thunderous roar of crashing waves.

There was also an old and hoarse voice issuing orders in an ancient Hokkien dialect.

"Drop the gate... sever the dragon vein... open... the water gate!"

The memory fragments came to an abrupt halt.

Lin Feng's face was somewhat pale, and a layer of fine sweat broke out on his forehead.

"Brother Feng? Brother Feng! What's wrong?" Wang Dalong was startled by his appearance and quickly moved to support him.

"I'm fine." Lin Feng waved his hand and stood up, leaning against the stone steps. His chest heaved; the information shock brought by those sounds just now was far more staggering than any image.

Drop the gate, sever the dragon vein, open the water gate.

This wasn't hiding treasure. This was building a massive hydraulic engineering project based on an entire bay!

Jiang Wanqing was right about 'harmony among people,' but the key didn't lie in those ethereal legends, but in the most primitive reverence and name passed down through generations of Nan'ao Island locals for this sea area—'dragon vein waters.'

This name was itself a safety lock. It had kept all the locals at a respectful distance from that area for hundreds of years.

"Fatty," Lin Feng turned his head to look at Wang Dalong, his eyes shining, "we were all thinking about it the wrong way before."

"Huh? What was wrong?"

“Zhang Shijie and the others didn't 'hide' treasure ships on Nan'ao Island at all."

Lin Feng spoke each word deliberately, delivering a subversive conclusion.

"They built a 'dockyard' here. A dockyard submerged underwater!"

Wang Dalong's mouth hung open in shock.

"Let's go!" Lin Feng packed up the nautical chart and the county gazetteer with clean, decisive movements. "We're going down the mountain right now."

"What... what for?"

"To find a boat. To find a boat captain who dares to go to the 'dragon vein waters.'"