SES Chapter 51 V1

Chapter 51

For a moment, everyone on the boat was at a complete loss.

Yan Hongsha kept sobbing quietly. Sometimes she spaced out, other times she seemed to suddenly recall something kind her uncle had done for her, and tears would stream down her cheeks all over again. But what worried her most was Old Yan—she kept muttering, “What will we do when Grandpa finds out…?”

There was a loud clunk, like the winch on the boat’s railing had slipped. Yi Wansan hobbled out to tighten it up, letting out a pained exhale with each step—he hadn’t recovered from earlier.

Luo Ren had been slowly panning the underwater camera feed up and down. After a long while, he finally said, “There are no visible injuries on his body—or at least, nothing obvious. I suspect that when he reached the ocean floor, he was still alive.”

He pointed to the oxygen tank in the footage. “This kind of tank typically lasts around two hours, but the deeper the water, the shorter that time becomes. At this depth, I’d estimate it could last about an hour.”

Yan Hongsha suddenly froze. Her head snapped up. “There was one night… my uncle called me. My phone—”

She reached instinctively for her phone, trying to pull up the call history, only to remember it had long since been lost to the sea.

She struggled to recall that night in detail.

It had been in the middle of the night—she was already asleep. She dreamed she saw her uncle deep underwater, desperately trying to claw his way out. His hands were buried in the sea sand, his face pale, eyes bloodshot, crying out to her, “Hongsha, I don’t want to die down here…”

She jolted awake and found that the call was still connected. On the other end, all she could hear were loud, crashing waves.

Mu Dai had never heard this story before. At some point, Yi Wansan had quietly come back inside and was now leaning against the doorframe, listening intently.

Luo Ren asked, “And then?”

Yan Hongsha bit her lip. “He didn’t respond after that. The line eventually cut off. When I called back, sometimes it was turned off, other times it said it was out of service. I never got through again.”

She looked at everyone, worried they wouldn’t believe her. “It’s true. I thought I was dreaming too, but my phone showed that call.”

She was filled with regret—if only she still had that phone. It was the best proof. But now it was gone.

Luo Ren thought for a moment and said, “It’s plausible.”

Everyone turned to look at him.

“There’s a thing with close relatives,” he said, “where in moments of life and death, they can experience a sort of psychic connection. Before we saw the underwater footage, we could chalk it up to a dream born from guilt and worry. After all, her last call with Yan Jiuxiao was near the ocean, so maybe her subconscious turned that memory into a nightmare where he drowned.”

“But now that we’ve seen the footage, that dream becomes a lot more interesting.”

He turned to Yan Hongsha. “In your dream, did you see your uncle crawling a certain distance underwater, or just struggling to move?”

She wiped her tears. “He was trying hard to crawl out, but… he didn’t seem to be going anywhere.”

Mu Dai let out a short gasp.

Yi Wansan voiced what she couldn’t: “Let’s say, just hypothetically, that the big clam dragged your uncle under. He struggles—panicking, terrified—burning through oxygen. His tank is running out. His legs are trapped, so all he can do is claw at the sand. From your dream, it sounds like he was using all his strength, but couldn’t move an inch.”

Yan Hongsha trembled. That scene was terrifying. Her uncle hadn’t drowned—he’d suffocated, slowly, as his oxygen ran out?

Luo Ren’s voice softened. He didn’t want to dwell on that too long. “It makes sense that he made a call. He’d filmed the clam before, right? He would’ve prepared his diving gear accordingly—his phone was probably sealed in a waterproof, pressure-resistant case, which meant it could still make calls underwater. But he probably didn’t consider the fact that the signal is terrible underwater. To connect to a cell tower, the phone would’ve used up a lot of battery. And since sunlight can’t reach that deep, the water was cold, further draining battery life.”

Yan Hongsha stared blankly. So… the battery running out made sense? She’d silently blamed her uncle for not charging his phone before diving…

Now, everything blurred in front of her. Had he called her… from the ocean floor?

Yi Wansan frowned. “If he could call, why not dial Old Yan? Fathers and sons are closer, right?”

Luo Ren had told him about Yan Hongsha’s background the night before, so he had a general idea. At first, he’d wanted to say: Why not just call 911? But then realized—at that depth, in that state, help wasn’t coming. Yan Jiuxiao had likely known that. So he’d saved his final moments for a last goodbye.

Yan Hongsha choked up. “My grandpa has bad eyesight. He can’t see screens well. We don’t usually let him touch phones much. The screen is so small…”

Everyone understood then, so he had chosen to call her.

She broke down sobbing. “It’s all my fault. I sleep so soundly—I should’ve stayed awake… I could’ve talked to him…”

Luo Ren gently interrupted, “No, listen. After your uncle dialed, the phone left his hands.”

“Because you heard wave sounds on the line. You wouldn’t hear waves at the bottom of the ocean. That means the phone must have reached the surface—or even washed up on shore.”

Yi Wansan felt a chill. “The clam… it took the phone?”

Luo Ren nodded. “Normally, phones are worn on a lanyard around the neck during dives. I think after he made the call, for whatever reason, the clam passed by and snagged the lanyard on part of its shell—and took the phone with it.”

“So if I’m right, that clam still has the phone.”

Then where was that clam?

Mu Dai suddenly thought of something. She grabbed Luo Ren’s arm and gestured—first upright, then flat—struggling to speak, “The camera… tilt it flat…”

Luo Ren understood, though he was still unsure. “You mean the underwater camera should be aimed downward?”

Yi Wansan got it. “Right. The camera shows a full 360 degrees around, but not the ocean floor. We should tilt it down. And clams, when they rest, usually half-bury themselves in sand. That’s why we didn’t see it—it’s probably right beneath us!”

Luo Ren left the cabin and looked up at the sky. The dark clouds were heavy, the sun barely hanging on by a thread of gold, like a tightrope about to snap.

“It’s too late today,” he said. “It’s pitch black down there now. We’ll have to wait until morning.”

Everyone agreed to head to shore. No one dared sleep on the open sea with that monstrous clam lurking below—what if it attacked the boat while they were sleeping?

Just imagining it gave them chills.