152: Chapter 152 The world is so big, and there are so many treasures overseas.

"Pu Liangchen, written on May 19, 1686."

Hu Tian closed the diary and sat in silence in the darkness for a long time.

Hu Tian stood up, put Pu Liangchen's diary into the System Space, and placed it together with the letters and lists from before.

This batch of items was irrefutable proof.

It was a complete record of a technology theft network that had continued for hundreds of years, a historical witness to the planned and organized plundering of Chinese civilization.

He turned around, looking at the now-emptied underground space, and an indescribable emotion surged in his heart.

Anger.

Sorrow.

And something complex and heavy, for which he couldn't find a word to describe at the moment.

Perhaps it was a sense of responsibility.

These items could not just rot underground, nor could they be taken by those with ulterior motives to conduct shady business.

They should be made public, so more people could know about that period of history, which had been deliberately forgotten, regarding the plundering of civilization.

Hu Tian stood in the darkness for a long time.

He remembered that sentence in Hao Yulin's secret memorial.

"If this were to come to light, the world would know the severity of the harm caused by the foreign barbarians."

When Hao Yulin wrote this, he must have been in a similar state of mind.

Anger, sorrow, and a sense of powerlessness that went deep into the bone marrow.

But Hao Yulin lived in that ignorant age of the Qing Dynasty; China in that era had not yet truly realized what was happening in the outside world.

By the time they realized it, it was already after the Opium Wars, and everything was too late.

But today is the 21st century.

The 21st-century world is a whole.

The speed of information flow is thousands of times faster than in any other era.

What he did here tonight—if the other side had even the slightest inkling, given the foundation and infiltration capability that the Silver Cross had accumulated over hundreds of years, they would sooner or later trace it back to him through the clues.

Over the past few hundred years, they had established an extremely complete intelligence system, one that spanned the East and West and continued through generations without interruption.

They could not turn a blind eye to any movement that touched their core interests.

This was a real threat; he wasn't overthinking it.

So, what should he do?

Make these things public?

Hu Tian thought for a moment and shook his head.

It wasn't that he couldn't, but the timing wasn't right.

He was nothing right now, just a young man who had just started messing around in the antique circle, carrying a pile of diaries and letters from hundreds of years ago, running out and saying: "Look, there was a multinational organization hundreds of years ago that specialized in plundering China's technical materials; this is the evidence."

Nobody would take it seriously.

Or rather, those who would take it seriously might not necessarily be on his side.

The other side's centuries of foundation meant they had deep infiltration at every level. Once this evidence was exposed, could he guarantee that these things would safely reach the places they truly should reach?

Could he guarantee that he wouldn't run into trouble during this process?

The answer was no.

He was too weak right now.

Hu Tian lowered his head, thought for a long time in the darkness, and slowly cleared his thoughts.

Since that was the case, then he would use their own methods to treat them.

What did they rely on for their plundering over the centuries?

They relied on organization, funds, intelligence networks, and deeply rooted relationships in various places.

And he had the system.

The world is so big, and there are so many overseas treasures—shipwrecks, pirate hoards, ancient ruins, wealth lost in wars—these things are scattered all over the world. No one has been able to systematically find them for hundreds of years because no one has his ability.

But he does.

What he had to do was use the system—an advantage that others could never replicate—to search for treasures on a global scale, accumulate wealth, accumulate resources, accumulate influence, and accumulate the power that would truly allow him to protect this evidence and eventually push it into the public eye.

Once he had sufficient strength, he would then use his influence and the power of the state to return, piece by piece, the things that the other side had plundered from China.

This was not something that could be completed in a short time.

But he had plenty of time now.

And the other side didn't know of his existence.

This was his only, and also his greatest, advantage.

They had been plundering China for hundreds of years.

Then he would go and plunder the whole world, find back, one by one, the wealth that had been hidden, stolen, or concealed by the colonizers and the plunderers, and use it for himself.

Once he had accumulated enough, he would use this wealth and influence to get back everything China had lost, with interest.

This road was not easy to walk, but he had already thought it through.

Since he had thought it through, he would walk it.

First, he would safely store this evidence.

The System Space was the best place; no external force could detect the existence of the System Space. Putting these things inside was safer than putting them in any vault in the world.

He had a lot of things to do now.

Hao Yulin, just you wait.

Not just you, but also those craftsmen who didn't leave their names, those ordinary people who were bought off at high prices and foolishly handed over their ancestors' skills, and those who knew nothing about all of this, just being swept forward by the era.

They didn't know what had happened.

But Hu Tian knew.

He would keep a clear account of this debt, one by one, and then, he would collect it back, one by one.

Hu Tian took a deep breath and turned to walk toward the exit.

Hu Tian turned the flashlight back to its bright setting, the beam illuminating the path ahead, and he stepped out, following the path he had come, walking toward the exit.

After exiting the cave, the sea breeze hit his face, much cooler than inside the cave, carrying a damp, salty scent; it blew on his face, making him feel very clear-headed.

He didn't linger near the entrance of the cave; he carefully reset the loose stones he had moved, pressed the gaps tight, took a few steps back to take a look, confirmed that there was nothing unusual about the appearance, then put his tools into his bag, patted the mud off his knees, and climbed down along the reef.

The moon had shifted to the west, the silver strip of light on the sea had narrowed, and it was late at night.

The sea breeze blew his hair into a mess, but he didn't care; his hands were on the helm, and his eyes were looking at the dark sea ahead.

His mind was spinning with all the things he had just put into the System Space tonight.

Hundreds of ancient books, techniques of investigation and craftsmanship, the works of the various schools of thought, literature from various periods of the ming dynasty, the Tiangong Kaiwu, hand-copied versions of the yongle encyclopedia, and that stack of letters between Adam Schall von Bell and Pu Liangchen (during the reign of Emperor Kangxi).

Hu Tian's fingers on the helm tightened slightly.

He started the engine, the bow of the boat cut through the black sea, and headed toward Beigan Island.

The propeller churned up white waves again, and the yacht slowly left the cliff and sailed into the open water.

The small boat broke through the black waves, sailing toward the vaguely visible lights on the shore, the sound of the engine vibrating softly on the silent, deep-night sea, dissipating into the wind.

The sea breeze blew his hair into a mess, and the moonlight shone obliquely on his profile; he didn't pay any attention to that, his eyes fixed on the water ahead, his expression calm, except for a very faint curve at the corners of his mouth, so slight it was almost imperceptible.

The night wind carried a salty, fishy smell, and the yacht moved forward through the waves, leaving a trail of white water on the pitch-black sea.

Hu Tian drove the yacht on the dark sea, the sound of the engine roaring rhythmically, the bow splitting through waves of white foam.

About half an hour later, he could already see the scattered lights on the coast of Beigan Island.

But he had no intention of docking directly.

He drove the yacht to a position about two hundred meters from the coast, where the water was of moderate depth and the sea was relatively calm, making it a good place for sea fishing.

He turned off the engine, the yacht floated slowly on the sea, rising and falling gently with the waves.

Hu Tian took a folding fishing rod out of his bag, assembled it with skilled movements, took a lure from a small box, and hung it on the fishing hook.

Under the moonlight, the metal surface of the lure shimmered.

He cast the rod, the fishing line drew an arc in the air, the hook fell into the distant seawater, creating a ripple.

The sound of the reel turning was exceptionally clear in the night.

He adjusted the fishing rod, braced the end of the rod against the fixed pole of the yacht, sat on the gunwale, and took out his phone to check the time: 1:20 AM.

The sea breeze blew on him, taking away the damp, musty smell that had remained from the cave.

He took a deep breath, his mind still recalling the things he had seen in the cave just now.

Hundreds of ancient books, each one of inestimable value, not to mention those secret manuals of skills and the hand-copied yongle encyclopedia.

And that stack of letters.

Those letters were the things that truly made his spine chill.

The text that detailed how to bribe craftsmen, how to steal skills, and how to disguise identities to infiltrate China—every word was like a needle pricking his heart.

The name Hao Yulin was already deeply engraved in his mind.

The fishing rod suddenly moved.

Hu Tian came back to his senses, his hand pressed on the rod, feeling the power coming from the deep water.

No rush, he slowly reeled in, letting the hook swim underwater, luring the prey.

Another violent pull.

Hooked.

He gripped the fishing rod and started to wrestle with the guy underwater.

Judging from the feel, it should be a fairly large fish, with plenty of strength, struggling desperately underwater.

The fishing line was pulled straight, making a buzzing tremor.

Hu Tian was unhurried, reeling in bit by bit, then letting out the line, then reeling again, letting the other side exhaust its energy.

This process lasted about ten minutes, the struggle underwater gradually weakened, he seized the opportunity, pulled hard, and a grouper weighing at least two catties was dragged out of the water, flicking its tail in the moonlight, its scales reflecting silver-white light.

"Not bad."

Hu Tian took the fish off, threw it into the prepared bucket, re-attached the lure, and cast the rod again.

It was late at night, and other than his small yacht, no other ships could be seen on the sea.

The lights on Beigan Island in the distance had also gradually gone out for the most part, leaving only a few scattered streetlights still on.

Hu Tian sat on the gunwale like this, casting and reeling again and again.

Sometimes he caught fish, sometimes he didn't.

But he didn't care about that; he just needed a way to calm himself down.

Sea fishing was just right.

Time passed second by second, and the horizon gradually turned pale.

Hu Tian looked at the bucket; there were already six or seven fish of various sizes inside: grouper, yellow croaker, and a fairly large sea bass.

That was enough.

He packed away the fishing rod, put the tools back into his bag, and then took a portable stove and a set of simple kitchenware out of the storage cabin.

Since he had caught fish, he would prepare a seafood feast on the spot.

The poem says:

Ancient scrolls hidden in the dust of time, silver hooks and iron strokes testify to the past.

Set sail on the angry sea to find lost treasures, vowing to return civilization to its people.