Two-thirds of the lower hold were flooded, and the space was choked with equipment and supplies we couldn't possibly carry away. To get into the cargo hold, one had to either lie flat on top of the crates or wade through water that only reached above the shoulders, making movement incredibly difficult. Just then, a black hand dropped out of the breach in the bulkhead, so withered it was almost entirely bone. With every twitch, it extruded black fluid and clamped onto the diving pack that Shirley Yang hadn't managed to unload yet. Murmuring voices seemed to emanate from the crawlspace behind the inner plating, and hearing those sounds in the pitch-dark hold was enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine.

I shone my dive light directly on it. Underwater lighting isn't suited for a dry environment, but it offered some meager illumination. In that dim, uncertain beam, I yelled, "Watch out!" but realized it was already too late. Fatty and I immediately splashed and stumbled through the water toward the commotion.

At that moment, Shirley Yang felt something hook onto her shoulder like a monstrous claw. Eager to wrench free, she tried to pull away, but the deck plating, already damaged by the shark impact, gave way further. As she braced her foot on the floor, she struck a crate jammed in the lower hold. She gasped in pain, her body instinctively recoiling, and became wedged precisely in the opening of the crawlspace. Seeing her about to tumble into the void, her reaction was lightning-fast: she jammed her dive knife into the bulkhead wall, instantly halting her backward momentum. When she tried to pull herself up and out, another hand, slick with black, viscous fluid, reached out from the crawlspace and grabbed her other arm. The suddenness of the attack startled her, causing her gear to snag even tighter on the ruptured bulkhead. Trapped precariously against the wall, she dared not make any sudden movements, yet her body continued to sink slowly into the recess behind the plating.

I saw that Gu Cai, next to Shirley Yang, had somehow woken up, looking disoriented and clueless about what was happening. I shouted desperately for him to help free Shirley Yang, all while stumbling and scrambling through the water to reach them. Gu Cai heard my shout and looked to his side, finally grasping a fraction of the situation. Thinking a Jiangshi was dragging Shirley Yang through the wall, and knowing he was far less agile and formidable on dry land than in water, and being unarmed with just his fists, he reacted in desperation: he lunged forward and bit the monstrous hand clinging to Shirley Yang.

Gu Cai pulled and bit furiously, and Shirley Yang seized the opportunity to rise, using her dive knife to sever the diving rope and the strap of her pack. But Gu Cai had pulled too hard; one of his legs was now caught in the crawlspace. Something inside seemed to be dragging him down, trapping him against the wall plating. Just then, Fatty and I caught up. Fatty held onto Gu Cai, trying to haul him out, and yelled at me, "Why in hell are there Zongzi in this ship's inner compartment? Did Ruan Hei hide bodies in the hull when he couldn't make ends meet as a Danmin, maybe after making ban dao mian and wontons? Now they've risen, looking for payback, and we walked right into it!"

I mused that dealing with a corpse at sea meant just tossing it overboard to the fish; there was no need to hide it in the lower hold’s recess. There must be something else on this Hai Liu ship—it might not even be a Jiangshi. Besides, given how devoutly Ruan Hei and the other Danmin were about maritime superstitions, I could bet my life he wouldn't dare hide a dead body aboard. Whatever it was, we needed to yank it out and see first.

While Fatty and I wildly speculated, our hands were anything but idle. Shirley Yang and I moved to assist in freeing Gu Cai. Once we pulled him clear, all movement from the crawlspace opening ceased. The churning undercurrent welling up from the deep water beneath the hull vanished, and the water level in the lower hold dropped significantly. I told Shirley Yang to gather all her flashlights and anything that emitted light, directing the beams squarely at the opening. Then, gripping my Long Hu short blade, I began slashing at the bulkhead plating. In moments, I pried open the entire section of the partition to the crawlspace. This recess in the lower hold was extremely narrow, less than half a meter wide. When the panel fell away, we saw a dark, amorphous mass inside. Its surface was rough, riddled with pits of varying sizes—it was a massive bloom of Hai Shi Hua (Sea Stone Flower) growing on fossilized ancient Hai Liu.

Clinging to the Hai Shi Hua was a stark white human skeleton, completely stripped of fabric, likely rotted away long ago. This white skeleton lay motionless within the growth. Black fluid continuously dripped from the sockets of its eyes, nasal cavity, and the joints of its bones. This thick, dark liquid resembled the seepage found in ancient coffin chambers, though it was odorless; it seemed to flow entirely from the Hai Shi Hua, pooling at the hold floor before slowly seeping into the Hai Liu wood.

Dozens of creatures, half-fish and half-shrimp, crawled in and out of the black Hai Shi Hua. The upper half resembled a fish, possessing scales and fins, with a smooth, rounded head; the lower half was like a shrimp, with a carapace and claws. They appeared to have made a home among the growth, occasionally licking the black fluid off the human bones, sucking it up with faint, sibilant hisses, looking thoroughly greedy. When the flashlight beams hit them, they tumbled onto the floor, striking the metal plating with their heads, producing a "thump-thump-thump" sound, much like the wooden fish knocked by monks in a temple. They also made clicking noises from their mouths, as if chanting incantations or sutras, mumbling something inaudible.

Shirley Yang and I exchanged glances; none of us knew what these things were. Suddenly, a patch of shadow within the Hai Shi Hua began to move under the combined beams of our lights. All four of us instinctively backed up a step. From the heart of the Hai Shi Hua, a human-shaped shadow trembled slightly, like a reflection on disturbed water, seemingly on the verge of manifesting.

I thought to myself, "Since the Trident was acquired and refitted by the British, Ruan Hei has always worked on board. Gu Cai followed the captain, Ruan Hei, for so many years; maybe he knows what this Hai Shi Hua thing actually is." But one look at Gu Cai confirmed his ignorance; his face held a degree of panic, as if he expected a ghost to crawl out of the growth. He pointed at the opening and stammered to me, "Ghost... ghost..."

I raised my hand and clamped it over his mouth. "Stop that damned nonsense. Don't you know some things shouldn't be mentioned? The more you talk, the more real it becomes, even if nothing was there to begin with. The secrets of seafaring are as numerous as those in tomb raiding, perhaps even more so. Maybe the Hai Shi Hua hidden in this recess, and these strange fish that bow their heads, are some kind of shrine dedicated to a deity aboard the vessel." The captain certainly did accumulate all sorts of trinkets that he deemed lucky, but why were they forbidden from being mentioned or even seen at sea? Was the death of the British explorers who refitted the Hai Liu ship truly connected to what was inside this hidden compartment?

Shirley Yang said, "None of us recognize these things, but that skeleton seemed to grab Gu Cai's leg earlier, and now it's still. That vague human shape in the Hai Shi Hua is unsettling. I think we need to be cautious about everything. We’ve already abandoned ship; let’s just leave this hidden compartment alone and get out of here."

I told Shirley Yang, "We're on the same page. I don't like the look of this Hai Shi Hua either. Let's finish what we started: we’ll go up top, fetch some explosives, and blow this entire thing to oblivion. Then we won't have to see it anymore, and I won't have it nagging at my mind wherever I go." With that, I grabbed Gu Cai, intending to lead everyone back to the deck to regroup with Uncle Ming and Duoling who were waiting above, so we could retrieve explosives and destroy this bizarre Hai Shi Hua.

Before we could even turn to leave, the strange fish, which had been producing that sound like knocking or chanting, suddenly stopped. Their mouths opened, spitting out tiny, inky-black beads. Though only the size of a fingernail, they were pitch black and brilliantly glossy. When illuminated by the flashlight, they immediately radiated a rare, unusual halo. I gasped internally, "Black!"

In the South China Sea, the crystalline Moon Pearls are extremely valuable; they form when mollusks are influenced by Yin essence and lunar light, secreting nacre from their pearl sacs, transforming essence into substance—treasures condensed from the spiritual essence of the sea. Those born under the moon vary in color—silver, white, pale yellow, pink—with the purest, those whose luster surpasses the moon and can illuminate a hundred paces after the light is extinguished, being the finest grade. However, superior even to these Moon Pearls are the rarest treasures of the deep: Black Pearls. No one expected the strange fish nesting in sea stone and human bones to be spitting out black pearls; everyone stopped in their tracks.

But never mind the tomb raiders like me and Fatty, who rarely go to sea; even the local Danmin fishermen have seldom been fortunate enough to see a Black Pearl. Only Uncle Ming had ever mentioned them, calling them "Wu Qiu" () in the Danmin dialect—a rare, elusive underwater wonder. Yet I found it incredibly strange. Many creatures in the world have inner elixirs or calcifications, like ox gallstones (Niu Huang), dog bezoars (Gou Bao), or donkey stones (Lü Shi). Fatty and I had even seen a reddish, tumor-like inner elixir inside a dead weasel, formed by absorbing the essence of the sun and moon, intentionally or not. But these things never matched the Moon Pearls produced by ancient oysters and clams in the sea. Fish living for centuries in large oceans or lakes can also play with pearls under the moonlight, but the divine Wu Qiu cannot simply materialize from fish or dragons. Only a very specific type of ancient oyster can conceive of this object. If these weren't Wu Qiu, what were the pearls spat out by these fish?

Fatty stared intently at the black pearls on the bulkhead, rubbing his eyes hard. He exclaimed with delight, "Commander Hu, I remember when we were broke, we were like the White Haired Girl waiting in the deep mountains for liberation—we wished and wished for nothing more than to stumble upon a Dog-Head Gold piece to strike it rich. Now that we're at sea, we must have burned the right incense! Right after getting our hands on the Nanyang Buddha gear, these little black treasures came delivering themselves to our doorstep. Wealth is pressing upon us; why should we be polite?" With that, he reached out to pick up the Wu Qiu, muttering a fantasy with each one he pocketed: "Fatty's yacht in the Pacific... This one is a villa in California... And this one... this is Fatty's little lady friend in America..."

Seeing Fatty completely consumed by greed, a thought flickered in my mind. I suddenly remembered the deceased Ruan Hei, and the inherent, almost instinctual greed of the Dan people—perhaps "greed" isn't the right word; perhaps it's a habit, a conventionally accepted rule. In their tradition, whenever they discovered a Dragon Lair, they would engage in "Death Harvesting," taking everything until nothing remained; the concept of leaving anything behind was alien to these desperados who chased treasure even at the cost of their lives. Given this, why wouldn't the old Danman Ruan Hei take the hidden Wu Qiu in this lower hold? Unless...

Just as this realization began to form in my mind, Shirley Yang reached the conclusion a step ahead of me. "Fatty, stop taking them! These things might not be the Wu Qiu from the deep sea!" she exclaimed. But Fatty paid her no mind, continuing to gather the remaining black pearls.

At that moment, Gu Cai pointed toward the pried-open secret compartment. "Brother Hu, there’s a ghost, believe me, there really is a ghost..." His Mandarin pronunciation wasn't as clear or accurate as Ruan Hei's, and he often couldn't articulate what he wanted to say, becoming agitated and repeatedly insisting there was a ghost.

I was focused on Fatty, watching to ensure nothing happened while he was busy gathering the "green heads," and offered a perfunctory reply to Gu Cai: "I believe your egg, you just talk nonsense. What ghost? There are only eggs in the sea, no ghosts. I can't recall the last time I saw a ghost, but it's been ages since I've had scrambled eggs either..." Though my words were thoughtless, the effect of my reflexes made Shirley Yang and me glance where he was pointing. The blurry black human figure in the Hai Shi Hua had solidified at some point. Its facial contours were now discernible, but like a reflection in water, it was impossible to tell if it was male or female. The apparition seemed to be a patch of deep black seawater, flickering between the solid Hai Shi Hua and the Hai Liu. Suddenly, it flowed into the pile of human bones. Black fluid immediately began to stream from the deep eye sockets of the skull, like two streams of black tears pouring forth—the sorrowful wail of a vengeful spirit. I felt as if the entire Hai Liu ship was being enveloped by the shadow of death. The situation looked grim; from the moment the lower hold was breached, our escape was sealed. We were about to follow the same fate as that entire company of British explorers.