94: Chapter 94 East Lake Island Outer Sea

After driving for about an hour, the sky had completely darkened; all that remained on the sea were the bow lights and the sporadic fishing boat lights in the distance, while the blue glow of the navigation screen cast a quiet, secluded light over the cockpit.

The phone vibrated once.

Hu Tian glanced at the screen: Zhou Waner.

He locked the throttle to cruise mode, picked up the phone, and answered, "Hello."

"Brother Hu Tian!"

Her voice on the other end was noticeably cheerful, with some background noise as if she had just walked out of a classroom corridor, "Are you free to talk now?"

"I am. I'm driving the boat, go ahead."

"Driving the boat?! Did you go to Donghu Island?"

"Yeah."

"Oh... stay safe."

Zhou Waner paused for a second, clearly not paying much attention to that, and quickly steered the conversation back, "Never mind, let me tell you, I really stole the show today!"

Her tone couldn't hide her smile, and Hu Tian could imagine her expression right now, "Let's hear it."

"It's about that Hongwu Imperial Kiln matter,"

Zhou Waner's voice picked up speed, "Today in class, the professor asked us to discuss that blue and white large jar with scrolling vine patterns, so I brought up everything you said back then—the orange peel texture on the glaze, the sandy feel of the base, the grayish blue pigment with rust spots, and the characteristics of the imperial kiln shapes from that period..."

"And then?"

"Then the professor stared right at me,"

Zhou Waner lowered her voice, as if reenacting the scene, "He asked me where I learned all this, and I said my boyfriend told me. Then he asked what my boyfriend does, and I said... I said he's just an ordinary person."

Hu Tian chuckled softly, "Did he believe you?"

"Of course he didn't,"

Zhou Waner laughed out loud, "He said, 'Your boyfriend isn't ordinary; these judgment points are very precise, especially when looking at the rust spots and orange peel texture combined. Many people who come from professional training backgrounds tend to overlook this detail.' He said..."

She paused, as if recalling his exact words, "He said, 'This person is either a veteran who has been grinding away in the antique trade for many years, or he is exceptionally gifted. Either way, he is not an ordinary person.'"

"Your professor has a good eye."

"Hmph, it feels a bit like praising myself,"

Zhou Waner huffed, "But the point is, the professor praised me, okay? He said my analytical approach this time was very clear and asked me to give a special presentation in the next class about the dating methods for Hongwu Imperial Kiln pieces."

"That's great,"

Hu Tian glanced at the navigation; the route was normal, "How do you plan to present it?"

"Haven't thought about it yet,"

Zhou Waner's tone lightened, "But with a walking dictionary like Brother Hu Tian around, what do I have to be afraid of? I'll ask you when the time comes."

"Sure, let's talk about it then."

"Oh, by the way,"

Hu Tian seemed to remember something, "How was that large jar finally determined? Was it real?"

"It was a replica, but it was a Hongwu Imperial Kiln imitation from the early Qing Dynasty. It was in perfect condition and quite valuable."

"Wow..."

Zhou Waner sighed with a laugh, "Forget it, look at that perfunctory exclamation. Hmph! I can't win against you. Stay safe while you're out at sea, don't push yourself too hard."

"Got it."

"I'm hanging up now, I still have to go to the library to look up some information."

"Go ahead."

The call ended, and the cockpit quieted down again, leaving only the low-frequency vibration of the engine and the sound of waves lapping against the hull.

Hu Tian put the phone back on the shelf and refocused his attention on the navigation screen. More than half of the blue route remained, and the destination coordinates shone quietly in the bottom right corner of the screen, waiting for him to arrive.

He placed his hand back on the rudder, kept the throttle at the same setting, and the bow continued to break through the waves, sailing steadily toward the deep night sea in the southeast.

The night had reached its deepest point; the moon had completely set, leaving only starlight spread across the sea, glimmering with a faint silver-gray.

Hu Tian glanced at the clock in the bottom right corner of the navigation screen: 12:17 AM.

The silhouette of Donghu Island was three nautical miles ahead, pressing down on the sea in a dark mass. Its edges were irregular, its undulations were indistinct, and there were no lights at all, blending in with the surrounding night. If he hadn't been staring at the navigation, he would hardly have noticed there was land ahead.

He didn't rush to approach; he dialed the throttle down a notch, reducing the speed from twelve knots to seven. The sound of the bow breaking through the waves softened, the engine's vibration smoothed out, and the entire boat seemed to slow its breathing along with him.

Hu Tian turned the cockpit light brightness to the minimum and looked toward the starboard side. There was nothing there, only the surging waves moving in the dark, with the sea reflecting the extremely faint starlight.

He wanted to circle the island first.

It wasn't unnecessary; it was a necessary habit.

He had checked the information before setting off. Donghu Island was an uninhabited island, administratively under the jurisdiction of a nearby county, but there were no records of any development. There was no fresh water on the island, the soil was barren, and the vegetation was sparse. Historically, only occasional fishing boats would briefly stop on the leeward side of the island to shelter from the wind; no one stayed there for long periods.

But "what the records say" and "on-site confirmation" are two different things.

He had seen it too many times: places that were uninhabited on paper, only to arrive and find someone building shacks, setting up nets, or doing things that shouldn't see the light of day.

Once he went into the water in the reef area to work, if he was seen by someone, even if they didn't do anything and just casually mentioned it to others, his entire plan would gain many uncontrollable factors.

So, he would circle it first.

He dialed the throttle down another notch, stabilized the boat speed at about five knots, gently adjusted the heading, and began to circle clockwise along a distance of three hundred meters from the perimeter of Donghu Island.

The north side of the island was the windward side, where the swells were noticeably larger and the boat's pitching increased. He placed both hands on the rudder to steady the bow while his eyes scanned back and forth along the island's coastline.

The island's shore was a rocky structure, uneven and jagged, with white spray constantly crashing and churning against the edges, the sound carrying far into the night.

Inland from the shoreline, one could see the silhouette of low shrubs, dark and dense, with no lights, no fires, and no traces of human activity.

There was no one on the north side.

He steered the boat to the east side. The terrain here was slightly flatter, with a small patch of beach about twenty meters wide. Behind the beach was a pile of low reefs, and behind the reefs was the vegetation of the island interior.

He reduced the boat speed to three knots, slowly approached the beach, and swept the beach with the bow lights.

The beach was clean, with no footprints, no structures, and very little driftwood, only a few pieces of timber pushed up by the waves lying at the edge of the beach.

There was no one on the east side.

The south side was the leeward side, where the swells were much smaller and the sea was calm. Hu Tian maintained the speed at four knots. As he rounded it, some light points appeared in the distance. He looked in the direction of the lights and estimated the distance to be about ten-plus nautical miles to the southeast. A certain area had lights that were vaguely denser than the surrounding area, which should be the small town mentioned in the data.

He squinted for a while; the lights were stable, showing no signs of spreading outward, and no moving light points were coming toward this side, just shining quietly in the distance.

There were people in the town, but they were in the town, not here.

He withdrew his gaze and continued to circle the west side.

The west side was the flattest face of the entire Donghu Island, with a shallow concave arc forming a very small natural bay. The water inside the bay was calmer than outside, and according to fishermen's habits, if anyone were to stop briefly on the island, they would most likely choose this location.

Hu Tian reduced the boat speed to two knots, almost drifting in gently, and carefully scanned the inside of the bay.

There were no boats.

There were no mooring buoys, no signs of temporary anchorage, and no ropes on the rocks. The water in the bay was as calm as a mirror, with only the ripples caused by his boat spreading out.

He stopped the boat in the bay, put the engine in neutral, and the boat swayed gently with the small swells. He walked out of the cockpit, stood on the deck, and listened intently for about a minute.

The sound of the wind, the sound of the waves, the occasional cry of a seabird in the distance—there was nothing else.

The whole island was quiet, quiet to the point of being desolate, cut off from the world.

He returned to the cockpit, confirmed his position on the nautical chart, marked the west bay, then pushed the throttle back, drove the boat out of the bay, and moved back toward the reef operation area.

On the navigation screen, the target coordinates were about 1.4 nautical miles southeast of Donghu Island, marked as a blue circle. He pointed the bow in that direction and slowly drove toward it.

When approaching the target area, he switched the navigation lights to the lowest brightness and left only one bow light on, dimmed, just enough to see the sea conditions a few dozen meters ahead without casting too much light into the distance.

The water surface in the reef area was significantly different from the outside.

The swells on the outside were regular and steady in rhythm; here in the reef area, after the swells reached the shallow water, they began to deform, their direction became chaotic, and their rhythm was disrupted. The boat's pitching became irregular, alternating in amplitude from side to side, requiring him to constantly hold the rudder to maintain the heading.

He glanced at the nautical chart, compared the terrain distribution of the reef area, and found a relatively open area of water where the reefs were sparsely distributed and the water depth was about ten meters. Although there were still swells, there was no risk of reefs breaking the surface, and the boat could stop there.

He reduced the throttle to idle, let the boat slowly drift into that area, and felt the movement of the hull. The side-to-side rocking was within an acceptable range and would not affect his standing or operating on the deck.

He cast the anchor.

The iron chain dragged the anchor down along the rope. A few seconds later, the rope tightened, the anchor bit into the seabed, the boat's drift stopped, and it was fixed in this position.

Hu Tian turned off the engine.

In an instant, the roar of the machinery vanished, and the whole world was left with only the waves and the wind. After a brief period of adjustment, his ears began to perceive all the details of the night again: the muffled sound of waves hitting the reefs, the low hum of the wind sweeping past the mast, and the occasional bird call in the distance, followed by silence again.

He stood on the deck for a while, letting his breathing align with the rhythm of this sea, before walking back to the cockpit, sitting down, and drawing his consciousness inward.

It was time to use the Treasure Hunting Radar.

The Treasure Hunting Radar didn't require any external equipment, instruments, or operating interfaces. It existed deep within his consciousness, like an innate sense, and when needed, he just had to trigger it actively.

He closed his eyes, pulled his attention away from the external sound of the waves and the swaying of the boat, and guided his consciousness to sink down, toward that familiar level of perception.