80: Chapter 80 You go ahead and do your thing, I'll let you know if there's any progress on my end.

"This painting was created using two different media. The symbols on the outer layer use a lead-based mineral pigment, which fluoresces under ultraviolet light; that's why I was able to read part of it last night. But the inner layer uses something else—I suspect it's some kind of organic ink, perhaps shellac or resin. Materials like that only show significant reflection differences in the near-infrared spectrum."

Zhou Waner leaned in, staring at the small screen of the handheld device. "So, you have to use this to see the inner layer?"

"Seeing it is the first step,"

Hu Tian said, "After seeing it, you have to record it, then organize the information from both layers separately, and finally decipher them by comparing them. Because these two layers aren't independent; there's a corresponding relationship between them. The outer layer is the index, and the inner layer is the content. Deciphering either layer on its own won't give you the full picture."

Zhou Waner quickly jotted down a few words in her notebook. "So the part you deciphered before was the outer layer?"

"Yes, I've read most of the outer layer—the coordinates and place names. But I didn't have this device last night for the inner layer, only a UV lamp, so I got stuck."

Hu Tian fixed the multispectral imager onto a small stand, adjusted the angle to target the area near the central axis of the painting, and then switched the handheld device to scan-and-record mode. The screen began capturing the image line by line.

"What I'm doing now is recording the image of the inner layer in its entirety,"

he said. "This process needs to be slow, and I can't let it shake, otherwise the image will be distorted and errors will occur during decryption."

Zhou Waner watched the scanning line moving slowly across the screen. "How long will it take?"

"To scan the entire painting, about twenty minutes. Then I'll export the images, perform an overlay comparison on the computer, and decipher it section by section. If it goes fast, an hour; if it's slow, it's hard to say."

Zhou Waner placed her small notebook on the edge of the table and sat up straight in her chair. "Then I'll wait."

Hu Tian didn't speak, focusing intently on the scanning progress.

The room fell quiet, save for the faint hum of the device and the occasional sounds from the street outside the window.

After waiting for a while, Zhou Waner couldn't help but ask, "The merchant group you mentioned, from the late Qing and early Republican era—what kind of trade were they involved in?"

"Everything,"

Hu Tian said. "Legitimate goods like textiles, porcelain, and spices, but also things that weren't so legitimate. In that era, many merchant groups along the Southern Fujian coast were involved in grey-market maritime activities—smuggling, reselling—and some even had dealings with pirates. The lines weren't very clear."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Waner paused with her pen. "Dealings with pirates?"

"Yes,"

Hu Tian said. "In that region and during that era, the relationship between pirates and merchants was very complex. Sometimes they were antagonistic, sometimes they cooperated. Some merchant groups actually started out as pirates; they 'whitewashed' themselves to do legitimate business, but the old relationship networks remained."

Zhou Waner didn't say anything more, but lowered her head to write a few words in her notebook, her expression thoughtful.

When the scanning was halfway done, Hu Tian imported the already scanned portion of the image into the computer and began preliminary overlay processing, extracting the outer and inner layers separately, aligning the coordinates, and comparing them section by section.

Zhou Waner moved her chair over, sat next to him, and watched the operations on the screen. "How do you map the correspondence for this overlay?"

"The symbols on the outer layer are an index; each symbol corresponds to a block of information in the inner layer,"

Hu Tian said. "It's like the relationship between a table of contents and the main text. You have to figure out the logic of the table of contents first to know which section of the main text corresponds to which entry."

"So, have you deciphered the logic of the table of contents?"

"I deciphered most of it before,"

Hu Tian said. "Today, by filling in the images of the inner layer, I should be able to match up the rest."

As he spoke, he operated the screen, marking the recurring glyphs in the outer layer image, then looking for the corresponding positions in the inner layer image. With the two images overlaid like two transparent sheets of paper, clear correspondences began to emerge in certain places.

Zhou Waner stared at the screen. "That recurring glyph—you said before it was a symbol created by that merchant group itself. What does it mean here?"

Hu Tian pointed to a mark on the screen. "In their recording system, this glyph is an abbreviation for a proper noun. I saw it once in a local gazetteer from the late Qing dynasty while researching that merchant group. I didn't pay much attention to it then, but it matches up today."

"What proper noun?"

Hu Tian didn't answer immediately. He zoomed in on the image on the screen, focusing on the area dense with symbols. The handwriting of the inner layer appeared very clearly in the near-infrared image, arranged line by line, high in density but very neat in structure.

He looked at it in silence for nearly two minutes. Zhou Waner waited by his side, not rushing him.

Then Hu Tian spoke, his voice calm, but with something suppressed in his tone. "Zhu Bu."

Zhou Waner was stunned for a moment. "What?"

"Zhu Bu,"

Hu Tian repeated. "One of the biggest pirate leaders in the Fujian and Zhejiang region during the Jiaqing reign of the Qing dynasty. At his peak, he had hundreds of ships under his command and ran rampant along the southeastern coast for nearly twenty years. He was later granted amnesty, but the whereabouts of the wealth he accumulated were never found. It's recorded in history books, but no one knows where the treasure is."

Zhou Waner put down the pen in her hand. "Are you saying that what's hidden in this painting is a clue to Zhu Bu's treasure?"

"Not just a clue,"

Hu Tian scrolled down the image on the screen, revealing the information from the inner layer section by section. As he read and deciphered, his voice lowered slightly. "There's a section here that is a specific description. It talks about a shipment of goods, including quantities and types—gold and silver ware, porcelain, and a batch of foreign goods he intercepted at sea. The value converted to today's terms would be a huge number."

Zhou Waner picked up her pen again. "Where is it hidden?"

"The Southern Fujian coast,"

Hu Tian said. "The coordinates from the outer layer that I read last night match up now. It's a specific location, but the coordinates are written using that merchant group's coding method. It's not latitude and longitude; it's a type of relative coordinate system that uses a certain landmark as a reference point, then gives directions and distance."

"What is the reference point?"

Hu Tian found the corresponding information on the screen. "A temple. The name contains the characters 'Tianhou.' There are many Tianhou Palace temples along the Southern Fujian coast, but combined with the description that follows, we should be able to narrow down the range."

Zhou Waner was scribbling quickly in her notebook. "What does the subsequent description say?"

"It says this temple is on a small island. The island isn't big, but it has a freshwater source. The temple is on the north side of the island, facing the sea,"

Hu Tian said. "Then, coming out of the temple's main gate, go in an east-by-southeast direction. The distance uses their own unit of measurement, which I'll have to convert; it's roughly on the order of a few hundred meters, to a cluster of reefs. The treasure is beneath the reef cluster, underwater."

Zhou Waner stopped her pen. "Underwater."

"Yes,"

Hu Tian said. "Zhu Bu was a pirate for nearly twenty years. He knew better than anyone that things hidden on land would eventually be found. Underwater was the safest place. Besides, he had ships and men; access to things underwater wasn't a problem for him."

Zhou Waner was silent for a moment. "Then who painted this painting, and how was it passed down?"

"I haven't fully deciphered that yet,"

Hu Tian said. "But from the last section of the inner layer information, there is an inscription—not a name, but a symbol that corresponds to a specific identity marker in that merchant group's recording system. It should be one of their internal recorders, someone specifically responsible for preserving this type of important information. When this painting was made, Zhu Bu should have already been granted amnesty, or he was already dead. This recorder hid the information in the painting to leave it for those who came later."

"Those who came later,"

Zhou Waner repeated. "People from within their merchant group?"

"Originally, it should have been,"

Hu Tian said. "But the painting later drifted out. How it got scattered, I don't know. Perhaps the recorder met with some mishap, or perhaps the merchant group later disbanded. The painting was passed around until it ended up at an antique stall by the Qinhuai River, where I got it."

Zhou Waner closed her notebook, placed it on the table, and looked up at Hu Tian. "What are you planning to do?"

Hu Tian saved the image on the screen, closed the overlay processing window, and leaned back in his chair. "First, I'll convert the coordinates and determine where that Tianhou Palace is, then we'll see."

"I'll look it up, I'll look it up! I love these kinds of secrets that you have to piece together bit by bit,"

Zhou Waner said. "I can compile a list of the recorded Tianhou Palace temples along the Southern Fujian coast. Combined with the descriptions you mentioned, we should be able to find the place. Hehe!"

Hu Tian glanced at her, looking happy. "You don't mind the trouble of looking this up?"

"It's not trouble; I like things like this,"

Zhou Waner said, her tone flat but clearly carrying a restless yearning. "Now that we have a direction, of course I have to look it up."

Hu Tian didn't say anything else. He took the multispectral imager off the stand and began packing up his tools. "Then you start compiling the list. Once I finish converting the coordinates, we'll compare notes."

The light outside the window had shifted. The afternoon sun shone in at an angle, falling on a corner of the painting on the table. The landscape on the painting spread out quietly, showing nothing unusual, but Hu Tian knew that the secrets that had been silent for nearly two hundred years had just had a crack opened in them today.

Zhou Waner sat down in front of the computer, pulled her chair forward, and opened the browser. She first pulled up a satellite map of the Southern Fujian coast, adjusted the view to the coastline area, then created a new document and began organizing the information item by item.

She had her own way of doing things—not searching aimlessly, but listing the conditions first and applying them one by one.

A small island, has a freshwater source, the island isn't big, the Tianhou Palace is on the north side, facing the sea.

Adding these conditions together could eliminate most places.

The total number of inhabited and uninhabited islands along the Southern Fujian coast was not small, but there weren't many small islands with freshwater sources to begin with. Adding the condition that there was a Tianhou Palace on the island narrowed the scope significantly.

She searched while taking notes in her notebook, occasionally switching to the map window to mark the locations of islands that met the criteria. Her movements weren't fast, but they were steady, like someone used to doing this kind of work.

Hu Tian stood by for a while, looked at her screen, and didn't say anything.

Zhou Waner didn't even look up. "You go and do your thing, I'll let you know once I've made some progress here."

Watching Zhou Waner, who was searching for information earnestly.

Hu Tian responded with a sound and turned to walk toward the collection room.

The poem says: Ancient painting hides secrets, Zhu Bu's treasure a mystery. Infrared reveals the truth, treasure hunting awaits the right time.