SES Chapter 50 V2

Gradually, the screen cleared up.

The underwater world was eerily still, like it could draw your soul out of your body. Luo Ren nodded. “Go on.”

The water eye sank inch by inch.

Everyone crowded around the screen. As the depth increased, so did their tension.

Yan Hongsha clutched Mu Dai’s arm. “Mu Dai… do you think there might be ghosts down there?”

Who knows? The ocean covers three-quarters of the Earth. Seventy billion people make a mess on land, but no one knows what’s in the sea. And even if there were ghosts… what could you do?

“I’m telling you now,” Yan Hongsha warned, “I have a weak stomach. I’m gonna scream.”

Screaming’s one way to release tension—but someone else wasn’t allowed to scream…

Mu Dai sneakily pulled the whistle from her collar.

The water eye kept sinking.

Luo Ren began to frown. He checked the depth meter and asked Yiwansan, “This spot is close to shore. You grew up here—shouldn’t there be fish in this water?”

The camera, dragged by the iron ball, rotated freely to offer a 360-degree view, but not a single living creature appeared.

Wasn’t the ocean supposed to be teeming with life? This place looked… dead. No fish. No shrimp. Not even plankton.

Yan Hongsha murmured, “It’s like the sea is dead.”

Yiwansan frowned. “I don’t get it. I remember this water used to be full of fish.”

And not just fish—he’d once dived down and brought up a blue starfish.

Silence fell.

The water eye kept descending.

It grew darker and darker. Sunlight doesn’t penetrate beyond 500 meters—but this was near shore, maybe only 200 meters deep. They were nearly at the bottom.

Something long and wispy flashed across the screen.

Yan Hongsha screamed, “What was that?!”

Everyone else was more startled by her than by the image.

Yiwansan snapped, “It’s kelp.”

Just some seaweed. But in those shadows, the waving fronds did look a bit eerie.

Luo Ren warned Yiwansan to be careful lowering the camera—it might get tangled.

Sure enough, the kelp grew denser as they went. Yiwansan said, “These are long… probably one or two meters. But we’re almost there. Kelp usually grows right on the seafloor.”

Just then, something odd appeared on screen.

Round, metallic-looking, and very close to the lens—too close to identify. The camera could go up or down, but not side to side.

Yiwansan suggested, “Maybe we should move the boat?”

They were just about to reposition when Yan Hongsha said, “It’s moving.”

Not quite moving—drifting with the current, slowly turning. As it turned, its surface gleamed, and then…

A pair of dead, wide-open eyes filled the screen.

Yan Hongsha screamed and jerked backward, crashing her wheelchair into Yiwansan, right in the crotch. He let out a strangled yelp and stumbled aside, the wheelchair rolling and slamming into the pilot cabin door.

At the same time, a sharp whistle cut through the air.

Luo Ren winced. It was the sailor’s whistle he’d given Mu Dai—designed for cutting through wind and waves to signal distress.

“Blow that again and I’m confiscating it,” he said, grabbing the whistle and covering the opening with his hand.

Mu Dai glanced at him sheepishly, her lips brushing the back of his hand like an electric shock, zapping straight to his heart.

Luo Ren yanked his hand away.
Holy crap.

The whistle swung down, the mouthpiece bearing a faint, wet imprint of her lips. Luo Ren quickly looked away.

Yiwansan was still doubled over. Yan Hongsha, suddenly panicked, cried out, “Mu Dai!”

She braced her hands on her wheels, trying to move, but they didn’t budge.

Then it hit Mu Dai—
Yan Jiuxiao!

Luo Ren realized it too. His whole body tensed as he turned back to the screen.

That helmet. A diving helmet. That meant Yan Jiuxiao was wearing a wetsuit with an oxygen tank.

He was standing on the seafloor?

Yiwansan groaned, “Maybe we should move the boat, get the camera a better angle.”

They shifted the boat slightly, one or two meters to the side. Now the view widened.

Yan Hongsha sniffled, tears streaming. She suddenly turned her face away. Mu Dai held her, patting her back like a child.

She didn’t dare look directly. Just a glance or two—and even that was hard to forget.

The men were much calmer. Mu Dai heard Luo Ren tell Yiwansan, “Lower it. Keep going. Stop.”

Then: “Look.”

Mu Dai stole another glance—at least the face was out of frame now.

Luo Ren turned on the camera’s built-in light. It barely helped, but it was better than nothing.

“Look at his legs—tangled in the kelp. But that’s not natural. Wild kelp doesn’t tie people up like that.”

Even Yan Hongsha stopped crying and looked at the screen.

Luo Ren was right. Yan Jiuxiao’s lower legs were bound tightly, like bandages.

Kelp doesn’t grow like that.

Yan Hongsha’s voice trembled. “I don’t know if my uncle had anyone with him… Could someone…”

Could someone have followed him down with scuba gear and tied him there? But he never said anything about a companion. And why would anyone go to such trouble?

Luo Ren said, “It might not be a person. I once read a news story about a guy raising a giant river clam in his yard. It escaped. He caught it and tied it up. The next day, he caught it sawing through the rope with its shell.”

He lowered his voice.
“You think… it couldn’t do this?”

Mu Dai imagined it—a massive sea clam, slowly clamping one end of the kelp in its shell, inching along Yan Jiuxiao’s legs, winding around and around with its blade-like foot.

You think it couldn’t do this?