Chapter 414 Returning Fully Loaded
There was no doubt that the trench was deep, and no one knew what was on the bottom of the sea.
But Zhang Han did notice that flash of light.
The intuition he had developed over the years made him feel that there had to be something precious there.
The last time he looked down at the edge of the trench, he got a sense of oppression. Now, as a cultivator in the early perfect Building-Base stage, he didn’t have a sense of that kind of oppression and was confident to go on exploring.
But the three girls were still here, and Zhang Han couldn’t let them take the risk. After thinking about it, he chose to go back to the s.h.i.+p first.
As soon as they returned to the yacht, Zhang Li cried out excitedly, “Ah, it’s so cool. The sunken s.h.i.+p is so big. We just took the treasures out and it suddenly fell into the trench, as if it was swallowed by the darkness. It’s really scary yet so cool…”
Mengmeng pursed her lips and said, “Hmph! I don’t like PaPa anymore. You didn’t take Mengmeng there!”
“Hahaha.” Zhang Han shook his head with a smile while rubbing Mengmeng’s little head. “I’ll play with you later. It’s dark below, and there’s nothing beautiful down there. Daddy will take you to a nice place then.”
“Well. Let’s, let’s drag the hook and you should keep your promise.”
“OK.” Zhang Han held out his little finger.
“Drag the hook and… Hmm… Aunt Lili, what’s next? Oh, I see. Drag the hook and hang them up to keep to the promise for one hundred years…”
This sentence was taught by Zhang Li. Mengmeng didn’t know what it meant, so she would ask whenever she forgot.
Zhang Li was confused as well.
“Drag the hook and hang them up to keep to the promise for one hundred years” was a nursery rhyme pa.s.sed down from generation to generation, and she didn’t know why it meant to keep a promise.
So she searched the Internet for this sentence and realized it was an allusion. “Drag hook” derived from the sentence “The hook is curved and can be used to hang things”. While “hang them up” didn’t mean to kill “them” because “them” referred to ancient copper coins. Therefore, the whole sentence described the process of stringing copper coins, which implied that the promises made would never be changed.
Zhang Li felt a little guilty because she always believed that “hang them up” meant to kill them.
Zhao Feng was now on the yacht, waving to let the cargo s.h.i.+p beside him hoist up the chain.
At the same time, the first salvaged treasures, together with the original broken treasure box, were put into containers with layers of protection. Some treasure boxes were highly damaged, and Zhang Han could see a whole box of ancient gold coins inside, but he didn’t know their specific years.
Some boxes were filled with porcelain. Although the workers carrying the boxes were very careful, they could still hear that many of the porcelain inside were broken.
Some of the bronzes were also corroded by the seawater, and only the jewelry was in good condition.
There were many treasures in the first batch, whose value was amazing!
“Wait for me here and I’ll go down again. I’ll be back in 10 minutes to an hour,” Zhang Han checked the time and said.
“What are you going to do?” Zi Yan asked.
“I found something,” Zhang Han replied with a smile.
“Then, please take care. If it’s dangerous, don’t go down.” Zi Yan was worried.
Just at the bottom of the sea, there was a dark area around, and nothing could be seen. If she was left alone, she would feel panicked.
“Don’t worry, I’m just going down to have a look.” Zhang Han smiled.
“Huh?” Mengmeng, who was next to Zi Yan, observed them for a while and found something unusual. She said in an anxious tone, “Oh, it’s dangerous. PaPa, please don’t go, don’t go down.”
“Hahaha.” Zhang Han couldn’t help laughing. He was so happy to be cared about by his daughter.
While touching Mengmeng’s little head, Zhang Han said, “It’s not dangerous. Daddy will go to check something out and be back soon. Mengmeng, you should behave well here.”
“…”
After chatting for a few minutes, Zhang Han went to the side of the s.h.i.+p and jumped into the sea.
This time, Zhang Han, who didn’t have a load, was swimming fast and diving deep like a real fish.
He soon reached the position where the s.h.i.+pwreck was, and the stone house had disappeared.
Without stopping, Zhang Han kept swimming into the trench, aiming at the place where the light had just s.h.i.+ned from.
At the same time, Zhang Han’s soul sense was spread outside his body, which could have covered 50 meters under normal circ.u.mstances and 30 meters in the deep sea. The same thing happened to his spiritual force, which could cover 50 meters and maintain its peak attack or defense capability within 30 meters. But the farther away he got, the lower Zhang Han’s control of his spiritual force was and the weaker it would be.
Zhang Han had confidence in himself because of his soul sense, and he would retreat as soon as possible if there was any crisis.
To be honest, he also knew that his performance after becoming a father was quite different from that in the Cultivation World.
In the Cultivation World, there were some extremely dangerous places that he could enter regardless of his own safety, because the more dangerous it was, the more opportunities there would be. In addition to his skill, Zhang Han relied on his spirit of not being afraid of death.
But now, he was afraid of death.
Zhang Han was no longer alone. He had Zi Yan, Mengmeng, Zhang Li, and his parents, so he had to be careful.
Zhang Han used to be cautious, but now he was even more cautious.
So when he reached a certain depth, Zhang Han slowed down.
He felt close to the bottom of the trench.
“Zoom!”
All of a sudden, his soul sense touched something and began rippling below him.
“Hmm?”
The surprising light flashed in Zhang Han’s eyes, and then he suddenly froze!
“Spiritual farmland on the seafloor?”
Zhang Han couldn’t hide his delight anymore.
He was a little surprised because the spiritual Qi in that spiritual farmland was rich, which meant that a certain amount of spirit treasures, such as spiritual herbs, were still growing there!
So Zhang Han moved down and illuminated the area with the main light. He saw that there was a small underwater hill below, about one-tenth the size of Mount New Moon.
“Sky Covering Array? That cultivator who set this array and owned the spiritual farmland must be at the stage of Innateness or above!”
Zhang Han shook his head slightly.
The farmland was just below that stone house, so it should also belong to the house owner. Zhang Han tried to light up the whole area, but he couldn’t find the border of the darkness.
The trench seemed to be funnel-shaped. While its entrance was about 100 meters wide, the middle was about 30 meters wide, and the bottom was much wider.
It was dark all around, without any light. Apart from up and down, Zhang Han had no other sense of direction.
It was like the Otherworld.
But for Zhang Han, this scene was not uncommon.
“The array is not bad, it should be difficult for someone else to break it…”
Zhang Han smiled faintly, stretched out his palm forward, and let his spiritual force rush out. Suddenly, a gap appeared in front of him, emitting a soft light as if there was a Xanadu in it.
Zhang Han flashed into the gap without hesitation.
When Zhang Han landed, he found that there was a hill surrounded by plants, and the seawater was blocked by a transparent bowl-shaped cover with a radius of about 30 meters. On this hill, there was a tree every few meters, and the total number was in the thousands. At the top of each tree was a night-luminescent pearl, which gathered into a sea of lights.
“Not bad!”
Zhang Han’s eyes narrowed slightly as he found that there are many spiritual herbs on the hill. Most of them were first-stage spirit treasures, 20% were second-stage spirit treasures, and nine of them were third-stage spirit treasures.
Although these spiritual herbs were not of great use to Zhang Han, they were top-level resources and a huge fortune for those in the security group.
In particular, the elixirs made from the nine third-stage spirit treasures could be given to Dahei and Little Hei, or to Zi Yan, Zhao Feng, and Zhang Han’s aunt. As for the remaining large amount of resources, they were enough to enhance the strength of the security team.
“Huh?”
All of a sudden, Zhang Han’s eyes were fixed on the stone tablet on top of the hill.
A few words were engraved on the stone tablet: “Controlling the Clouds and Rain!”
“Is there such a thing here?” Zhang Han smiled faintly, his eyes twinkled, and his feet stomped on the mountain. “Come out!”
His spiritual force rushed at the stone tablet and hit it hard.
All of a sudden—
“Ow!”
Zhang Han suddenly heard a voice, and there seemed to be ripples s.h.i.+ning in the stone tablet.
After checking it with his soul sense, Zhang Han found it was a flood dragon’s soul.
The flood dragon, also known as Jiao, a water beast, belonged to the dragon family. It had scales and the ability to overturn rivers and seas.
An adult flood dragon should be at least above the level of Innateness.
It was a pity that the dragon in front of him was just an unconscious soul specially arranged to guard here.
Even so, the flood dragon soul had the strength of the Grand Master Early-stage.
Obviously, it must have been at the level of Innateness before its death.
“It seems that I underestimated the owner of the stone house. He should be at least a middle-stage Innateness master.
“I wonder what cultivating method could kill such a master.”
“Ow!”
While Zhang Han was thinking, the flood dragon soul suddenly moved and rushed at him.
Zhang Han’s eyes flashed green fluorescence as he transformed his spiritual force into a 10-meter-high giant palm and swatted the flood dragon soul.
“Slam!”
The flood dragon soul was reeling and lost 30% of its energy.
According to Zhang Han’s experience, another two slaps along with a soul sense attack would destroy it.
Just when Zhang Han was about to slap it a second time, he suddenly froze.
“Why not keep the flood dragon soul?
“I can integrate it into the card weapon.”
As Zhang Han activated his soul sense, a black card in his jacket flew out and hovered in front of the flood dragon.
Then Zhang Han raised his right hand.
99 night-luminescent pearls, dotted on nearby trees, rose into the air.
Zhang Han’s eyes were s.h.i.+ning and his right hand was clenched.
“Qing Ming Steal!”
At the moment he clenched his fist, Zhang Han’s spiritual force mixed with a little soul sense rushed out.
The 99 night-luminescent pearls burst into pieces, and under the control of Zhang Han’s energy, suddenly formed an imprint made up of complex Chinese characters with cyan light over the dragon soul. The imprint instantly smacked the dragon soul, making it smaller and smaller, and finally absorbed into the black card.
The moment the dragon soul was fully absorbed, a dragon-shaped pattern appeared on the card. The pattern constantly swam and struggled, trying to break the prison and escape, but each time it was suppressed by a cyan light that suddenly appeared.
Qing Ming Steal was a method specially used to suppress the soul, provided that the strength of the executor was much higher than that of the oppressed, or the soul was very weak.
Clearly, Zhang Han at this time could easily suppress the flood dragon soul.
“It’s time to harvest.” Zhang Han looked at the patches of spiritual herbs on the mountain.
His palm moved as he began to harvest them directly.
With the method of the farmers, Zhang Han controlled some first-stage spiritual herbs with a height of more than one meter to tie up other high-stage spiritual herbs pulled out by their roots, and then tied up the bundles of spiritual herbs into a string. In this way, in about 40 minutes, all the herbs planted in this small field were harvested.
Of course, Zhang Han wouldn’t neglect those night pearls. He directly rolled some large-leaf herbs of ordinary quality into a cylinder, each of which was filled with more than 20 night-luminescent pearls, and then strung these cylinders with long herbs.
After all this was done, Zhang Han grabbed one end of the long rope-like spirit gra.s.s, jumped into the sea, and swam quickly.
If someone else could see this scene, they would be stunned.
It’s so funny to see a man swimming in the deep sea with something as long as 100 m, like a whip.
For Zhang Han, the spiritual farmland was really a surprise.
Just as Zhang Han swam up a hundred meters…
“Zoom! Zoom! Zoom!”
All of a sudden, a deep, heavy noise came from his right.
The noise was particularly loud and clear in this dark world.
It sounded like metal rubbing together.
What sound could be heard in this place?
Of course it was mysterious and weird!
“What’s that?”
Zhang Han looked in the direction of the sound.
Zhang Han adjusted the sensitivity of his soul sense to the maximum, and began to scan 30 meters ahead.
All of a sudden—
A huge shadow rushed into Zhang Han’s soul-sense scanning area.
“Hmm?” Zhang Han flinched to the side.
“A s.h.i.+p?”
Zhang Han frowned and turned on the flashlight.
He saw a huge, mountain-like s.h.i.+p moving sideways in front of him!
The s.h.i.+p was as large as a mountain, but it was very dilapidated and even had many holes in it.
The s.h.i.+p was dead and empty.
The whole s.h.i.+p was sending out extremely freezing Qi like an iceberg!
“An unmanned s.h.i.+p?
“No!
“Not that kind.”
Zhang Han had a feeling.
He was being watched by many things.
There were a lot of sight lines coming from the s.h.i.+p!
There was not nothing on the s.h.i.+p. There was something, and even a lot of things!
Zhang Han’s eyes were s.h.i.+ning.
His eyes moved with the s.h.i.+p, and he saw dim figures looming and disappearing on it.
Obviously, those lines of sight came from them.
It seemed that they wanted to tell Zhang Han something.
Or they just wanted Zhang Han to go aboard the s.h.i.+p.
After a long time, the s.h.i.+p went sideways in front of Zhang Han and gradually disappeared in the dark.
“Boat of Curse?” Zhang Han raised his eyebrows slightly.
It was extremely dangerous to get on such a s.h.i.+p, but it was possible to get something on board.
If it was Zhang Han before his rebirth, he might have gone to explore the s.h.i.+p.
But now he decided to let it go.
Zhang Han shook his head slightly and continued to swim up.
As a cultivator at the early stage of the Building Base, Zhang Han realized it was too risky for him to explore the s.h.i.+p recklessly, and he was not sure that he could guarantee his safety. Furthermore, a s.h.i.+p that could be cursed like this might not have anything valuable on it.
Meanwhile, on the yacht…
Zi Yan, who kept checking her watch every two minutes, was chatting with the others absently, and the atmosphere was much more serious than before.
“It’s been more than 40 minutes. Why hasn’t he come up yet?” Zi Yan bit her lips anxiously.
Just then, Zhang Han’s voice came from the entrance of the deck. “Well, I’m back.”
“Swish, swish, swis.h.!.+”
Everyone looked over and fixed their eyes on Zhang Han.
“PaPa is back!” Mengmeng cheered.
Everyone else was also relieved.
But they soon froze again.
Zhang Han was holding an herb rope with the other end extending into the sea. When he got on the deck, bundles of plants were pulled out from the sea behind him.
“What’s that?” The crowd went up to him curiously.
“It’s so long.” It was a bit of surprise to see this bunch of plants start to extend to the next deck after circling the top deck.
“Are these what he went down for?”
“Hiss, hiss, hiss!”
w.a.n.g Ming took a few deep breaths, picked up a small pink leaf, and looked at it carefully. His face soon changed and a few words came out of his mouth. “Natural precious materials”
“Han, are all these natural precious materials?” w.a.n.g Ming’s eyes widened.
“Yes.” Zhang Han nodded while continuing to pull up the bundles of herbs.
Soon after, w.a.n.g Ming’s exclamation was all that was left in his ear.
“A lot of herbs. It must be a great trip with so many natural precious materials!”
“Not over yet? That’s enough!”
“? ? ? You’re not done yet?”
“Still not over? My gosh, so many herbs!”
“This, this, this… So many? Anything else? Hoo… It’s over! There are so many of them!”
w.a.n.g Ming stood beside Zhang Han and jumped up and down.
At first, he just exclaimed in a low voice, but at last, he shouted directly, “It’s the first time in my life that I have seen so many natural precious materials!”
“Oh, there’s no room on this deck!” w.a.n.g Ya grinned in surprise.
“My master is amazing!” Zhao Feng felt himself stiffen.
The quant.i.ty here was more than five times that of Instructor Liu from last time, but Zhang Han just tied them up in bundles at will. “It’s really my master’s style!”
Zi Yan was also a bit dazed, for she hadn’t expected Zhang Han to take so many things back.
“PaPa, PaPa.” Mengmeng, who had been looking left and right, suddenly pointed to one side and said, “There seems to be a ball in it!”
“There are b.a.l.l.s in it. Do you want to play?” Zhang Han clapped his hands and went to hug Mengmeng.
“Yes!” Mengmeng’s eyes lit up.
“Let’s open one of them.” Zhang Han went over there with Mengmeng in his arms, opened the cylinder containing the night-luminescent pearls, and poured out 26 of the pearls.
“Wow, it’s beautiful. What is it?” Zhang Li went over to pick up one and asked curiously, “It’s so round, isn’t it a night-luminescent pearl?”
“Yes.” Zhang Han nodded.
“Night-luminescent pearls of such high quality?” w.a.n.g Ya picked up one and exclaimed, “It’s so beautiful.”
So they all took one and looked at it carefully.
Zhao Feng didn’t follow them. Under his arrangement, the cargo s.h.i.+p and yacht began to return, and Lin Xue was informed.
Lin Xue would arrange someone to pick up the goods at the port.
Hearing that there were about 30 tons of jewelry, Lin Xue was shocked and told her father. Therefore, Chairman Lin arranged someone to come along with her.
When the yacht was heading back, Mengmeng blinked and asked, “PaPa, what is a night-luminescent pearl?”
“It’s a kind of gem. It can s.h.i.+ne,” Zhang Han explained.
“It wasn’t s.h.i.+ning.” Meng Meng was confused.
“In this way, you can see it s.h.i.+ning.” Zhang Han chuckled, put the pearl in his coat, let Mengmeng put her head in, and immediately heard Mengmeng’s cry of surprise. “Wow, it’s s.h.i.+ning. PaPa, it’s s.h.i.+ning! It’s so interesting…”
“…”
After playing with Mengmeng for a while, everyone sat back in their reclining chairs. The deck was almost full of spiritual herbs, and there was no place for activities.
When Mengmeng was playing with Zi Yan and Rong Jiaxin, w.a.n.g Ming found an opportunity to approach Zhang Han and ask, “Han, what’s the level of these natural precious materials?”
“Most of them are at the level of Profound-grade, less than 20% are Earth-grade and nine are Heaven-grade,” replied Zhang Han.
“Really?” w.a.n.g Ming was stunned.
He kept shaking at the corners of his mouth, then looked at Zhang Han in a daze and murmured, “So…
“Han, you just went down and brought back so many natural precious materials?
“Hiss! Why are you so lucky?”
w.a.n.g Ming was completely confused.
“Have I been living in a fake martial arts world before?
“What have I experienced in this period of time?
“Natural precious materials?
“How come they are not precious?
“No, they are not precious in Han’s eyes at all.
“Divine objects, holy objects and Heaven-grade, Earth-grade, and Profound-grade treasures… Han is lacking none of them.
“Are they still treasures?
“Haha!”