In the ensuing chaos, by some strange impulse, I raised the back of the Qin King Bone-Illuminating Mirror in front of me. Recalling that this mirror back had once reflected ancient corpses for millennia, absorbing the corpse-qi generated by zombies, I didn't care much for other things, but to be illuminated by it while alive felt intensely ominous.

The underwater environment was too dark; I couldn't see anything on the mirror's back, only a deep, profound blackness. A strange feeling settled in my heart: why was the back of the Qin King Bone-Illuminating Mirror as dark as if it had been scorched by fire and smoke? Wanting to see clearly, I quickly raised my hand, grasped Gu Cai’s arm holding the searchlight, and directed the beam onto the mirror's surface for a closer look. It turned out the back of the bronze mirror had been sealed with pitch, bearing the impression of an exorcism talisman seal.

A thought struck me: "The cruise ship's owner likely knew this ancient mirror was sinister and simply covered the back, making it much safer during collection, appraisal, or transport. In that case, the legend of the Qin King Bone-Illuminating Mirror being an ill-omened object is probably true." I immediately tucked the ancient mirror into my dive bag, tapped the opening for the others—got it, team, time to withdraw.

Shirley Yang helped me remove the leaking scuba gear from my back; the dive mission was nearly complete. Losing one of the twin oxygen tanks wasn't critical, but she still nudged me slightly, perhaps chiding my audacity for daring to shine the light on the mirror's back. What if the mirror's Yin side hadn't been covered?

I thought that since I had already seen it directly, it was too late even without the searchlight. I wasn't like Gu Cai, staring blankly and looking to slash at anyone in the water. If I hadn't weighed the priorities beforehand, I never would have rashly looked at the Yin face of the mirror back. But underwater, it was hard to tell; I gave an upward gesture, preparing to lead the dive team away from the Mary Selena. At that moment, the stern of the wreck settled into an underwater slipstream. Under the surge’s impact, the ship's steel keel trembled incessantly, a sensation intensely felt in the lower hold. Since sharks haunted the passage through the wreck’s main hall, we had to find an alternate route.

The four of us moved to the ship's side, finding a broken porthole in one cabin. Outside, the water churned violently between the wreck and the remains of another wooden sailboat. Just as I was about to check if we could ascend from there, Shirley Yang beat me to it. She leaned out of the porthole, beckoned us over, and signaled that we could leave.

I told Fatty and Gu Cai to drop their heavy demolition gear, then, gripping my dive knife, followed Shirley Yang as I squeezed out of the porthole. Intense turbulence buffeted me; it felt as if buoyancy had ceased to function. Only by clinging to the cracks in the wreck could we manage to move upward.

Outside the wreck with Shirley Yang, we saw that despite the turbulence, we could force our way through. The water outside wasn't as polluted as the murky darkness inside the cabin, so we ushered Fatty and Gu Cai out one by one. I suddenly noticed something strange about the turbulence. Taking the dive light, I looked down into the depths. The Mary Selena’s massive propeller was spinning relentlessly in the undercurrent. Logically, the ship’s power had been lost long ago, and we hadn't sensed any engine activity in the cabin. Yet, this sunken vessel was like a haunted house; its bottom propeller was turning now.

Fearing the captain’s ghost was harassing us, I wanted to retreat quickly, but the underwater turbulence was fierce. If we didn't hold onto the wreck, reaching the surface would be difficult. The stern propeller whirled furiously, shredding the debris of the wooden boat caught in the current. Hull fragments surged back and forth with the turbulence, and the Mary Selena itself vibrated as if shaking violently. Holding onto the wreck to steady ourselves was a huge effort, let alone moving upward.

This sudden underwater tremor abruptly stopped, and a swirling current jetted out from the propeller area. From the pitch-black seabed, several enormous tentacles covered in suckers emerged, resembling a massive, gray sea serpent crawling up the wreck. It turned out the Mary Selena had sunk into the Guixu, right on top of a giant squid's lair, trapping it inside. Normally, the giant squid only reached out with its tentacles to snatch passing aquatic life near the opening. It might have been the creature nudging the wreck’s propeller just now, and sensing living things crawling out of the ship, it immediately extended its tentacles to ensnare us.

Seeing the immense greenish-gray mass surging towards the wreck underwater, my courage crumbled. If I encountered some zombie beast on land, I could grit my teeth and at least fight to escape with my life, but deep underwater, the water pressure slowed movement and limited action. Giant squid in the deep sea can drag down ships; if the heavy cruise liner hadn't pinned it down, all four of us knew the danger. We could only cling to the hull and struggle upward through the current.

No matter how fast a person moves, how can one outpace a deep-sea monster underwater? A gray-white tentacle, as thick as a water vat, was instantly behind me. In the turbulence, my grip faltered; the "Poseidon's Radiance" underwater searchlight slipped from my hand and was instantly caught by the giant squid's tentacle. The light extinguished immediately. The twelve-kilogram searchlight was crushed into a wad of scrap paper in the suckered appendage.

The giant squid flung the searchlight away and suddenly spread its tentacles, slamming them down toward Gu Cai’s head. The dense array of suckers beneath looked like countless eyes suddenly opened. Gu Cai looked back from the wreck; despite his formidable bravery underwater, being young, he froze in shock in the water, forgetting to dodge or defend himself.

I was right beside him. Seeing Gu Cai paralyzed—though he was a descendant of the Dragon Clan who traversed the sea, he was still a toad in a well who hadn't seen much of the world and didn't know how to react. Desperate to save him, I instinctively snatched a cold flare from my dive bag and slapped it towards him, pushing it behind him. The white fire in the water was blinding, and it poked right into the inner side of the giant squid's tentacle. Amidst a puff of white smoke, the dense suckers rapidly contracted, drawing back as if startled, creating a turbulent rush of water like an autumn wind stripping leaves, nearly sucking us back to the bottom.

The dropped cold flare illuminated the base of the wreck brilliantly. We could see a pile of wreckage from many ancient ships below. Amidst the propeller blades of the wreck, a shadowy mass seemed to be the giant squid's nest. Two of its tentacles were the longest, usually used to snatch fish and shrimp; now, one arm retracted, while the other arm snaked along the hull toward us. Fatty and I hurled the emergency cold flares we had all brought down at once. The giant squid, fearful of the fire, had to wave its tentacles repeatedly to block them.

I knew perfectly well that the giant squid’s arms could drag cattle and pigs underwater, and if caught, one would die from bones being snapped before even being dragged away to be eaten. But trapped in its lair, its reach was severely limited. We had to climb quickly toward the middle of the wreck to escape, yet dealing with these two python-like arms left us no room to move toward the surface.

Seeing the tentacle studded with eye-like suckers strike again, I reached into my bag—the cold flares were exhausted. Although the speargun carried potent venom, it was effective against smaller sharks, but useless against the thick-skinned, mountain-sized King Squid. I saw a massive, fully extended tentacle poised above me, ready to strike down. Fatty and Gu Cai panicked. Everyone wanted to use their dive knives to stab it, but I thought, how can ants shake a mountain? How could defensive dive knives harm it in the slightest? But at that moment, what else was there but a final, desperate struggle?

Suddenly, an idea flashed. I made a downward gesture to everyone, grabbed Shirley Yang, who was closest, and plunged directly into the turbulent water heading for the bottom, following a downward current. Fatty grabbed Gu Cai’s arm and followed suit. The two held onto each other to prevent being separated by the undercurrent. Amidst the caves formed by the piled shipwreck debris, we quickly reached the area near the stern propeller. We braced ourselves against the massive blades to hold steady, while at the same time, the giant squid's tentacles, probing from the propeller gaps, were searching for prey where we had just been, clinging to the hull. The narrow space behind the blades was a blind spot it couldn't easily reach.

I put away my dive knife. Under the beam of the dive flashlight mounted on my chest, I looked at the writhing tentacle before me and pointed at the propeller blades for the others, signaling them to help push. The others immediately understood my intent: they began to rotate the blades underwater, using them like a capstan to shear off the giant squid's extended arms.

The forward shaft of the wreck's propeller had already broken; the unsecured blades could spin freely with the water flow. Turning it underwater wasn't difficult, and knowing the giant squid's immense strength, we doubted the propeller could sever its tough arms. Thus, from the start, we exerted maximum force—no holding back, no mercy, fighting for our lives, using every ounce of strength we possessed. The giant squid deep in its lair was completely unprepared. As the blades spun, its arm was instantly caught. Streams of dark blood flowed out. In pain, it panicked, but instead of struggling against the churning meat-grinder at the stern, it tried to pull its injured arm out by following the rotation. Unfortunately, this only wound the blade tighter, severing one tentacle at the root, and leaving the other only half-attached. By the time it understood, it was too late. The other shorter tentacles inside the lair quickly shot out, twisting the blades in the opposite direction, finally freeing the severely wounded remnants of its arms.

The water bottom was churned into darkness by its blood, and in its shock and pain, it spewed clouds of thick ink, making it impossible to see one's hand in front of one’s face. With its main arms severed, the remaining short tentacles posed less of a threat. I felt for my companions and pushed them upward. Having received the signal, everyone quickly climbed along the wreck in the chaotic darkness toward the surface.

Having escaped near-death, everyone was somewhat shaken. My own heart was pounding wildly. Swimming out through the intensely bloody water, I checked that the other three were uninjured and quickly signaled to each other to leave this dangerous underwater realm as soon as possible. But returning to the surface after a dive required a slow, rhythmic ascent according to plan, with stops near the decompression line. Otherwise, the rapid pressure change could cause decompression sickness, forming bubbles in the blood, which could be fatal. So, despite the urgency, I dared not ascend recklessly.

We clung to the hull of the wreck and swam toward the break in the Mary Selena’s central hall, where the force of the underwater turbulence and surge began to weaken. I wondered if the sharks inside were still present. The massive cracks in the hull allowed them free movement, or perhaps they had been drawn away by the blood in the water. In any case, swimming directly across that gap was extremely risky.

I saw shadowy shapes of sharks above in the water, seemingly everywhere dangerous. A few meters away was a cluster of massive, submerged stone pillars. Judging by the wreck's position, our own ship, the Hai Liu Trident, must have run aground above that area of pillar ruins. The gaps between the pillars were narrow and tight; if utilized properly, they offered a safe retreat. I led the team into the ruins of the stone pillars.

By this point, the oxygen in my scuba tank was depleted, so Shirley Yang and I had to take turns using one regulator. I illuminated the surrounding terrain with my dive flashlight. The ruins were unimaginably grand. I couldn't fathom what structure these many enormous pillars belonged to or how they were built in that primitive production environment. Even underwater, where the full scope was obscured, one could feel an intangible deterrence spanning thousands of years. I truly didn't know what the Heaven-Dwellers who once lived here intended.

I signaled the others to prepare to ascend slowly through the gaps in the pillar ruins as planned. I noticed Gu Cai trembling intermittently, his short knife clenched in his teeth. I knew he was likely experiencing tremors from extreme nervousness—not fear, but a reaction where his nerves, stretched too tight by immense danger and pressure, caused uncontrollable muscle spasms. The US military considered this phenomenon different from the psychological condition known as shell shock; they viewed it as a suggestive reaction of nerves and muscles under tension, linked to the body's innate neural coordination system, much like how some people's hands shake after their first kill. They managed this through medication or prevention. When I led troops on the front lines, younger soldiers in my company occasionally experienced this. Back then, we usually relied on psychological counseling to relieve the pressure, such as cursing or telling jokes, which brought noticeable relief. But underwater, there was no recourse. Worried he might get hurt, I just told Fatty to hold onto him to ensure his safety.

The dive team was nearly exhausted by this point. We had barely managed to hold on until we reached the decompression line. Suddenly, the water flow became erratic, and the ghost-like gray-backed, white-bellied great white shark materialized before us. It tried to squeeze between the pillars to bite, but its massive body was too large to enter. It had to turn and circle the pillar cluster. It swam rapidly, stirring up currents. The already leaning and collapsed ruins, stacked on top of each other, began to sway precariously in the water. Stones and rubble continuously tumbled down. The white shark, startled by the falling debris, became extremely agitated. Its body brushed against the edge of the ruins, causing a large pillar to shake before slowly toppling into the water.

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