Chapter 8 Prelude to Xisha

At that time, archaeological expeditions and grave robbing were on the rise, and a large number of foreign expeditions came to Asia, hoping to get in on the wealth.

Marine archaeology was almost nonexistent in China at that time, so a large number of national treasures ended up being stolen by other countries. Seeing this, the Chinese archaeological community became anxious, and several old professors wrote a joint letter to the Central Committee, asking them to take action. Due to the internal and external pressure, they eventually put together several “expedition teams”, though they lacked both funds and personnel. One of these teams was sent to Xisha under Chen Wen-Jin’s leadership.

The unexpected thing Uncle Three mentioned happened about a month before the archaeological team set off.

At that time, Uncle Three was helping Chen Wen-Jin prepare the equipment for the expedition, such as water pumps, diving equipment, and other things, since the higher-ups didn’t want to deal with it. One day at noon, when Uncle Three was busy checking over the equipment to make sure there weren’t any issues, a student suddenly came up to him and said that someone was waiting for him outside.

Uncle Three wondered who it was, since not many people knew that he had been living here recently.

When he went out to look, he was surprised to find that his visitor was a man named Xie Lianhuan. His name probably came from Zhou Bangyan’s poem “Break the Chain; Unfounded Bitter Feelings”.⁽¹⁾ This man was Uncle Three’s maternal second cousin, which made him a distant cousin of mine.⁽²⁾ Since they both lived in Changsha, they would sometimes contact each other, but it wasn’t often.

That was just how things were back in those days—Uncle Three had a good relationship with the family, but the older generation usually only visited during the Chinese New Year and other holidays. It was the kind of relationship that was as light as water, so it made sense that Uncle Three was a little surprised when such a relative suddenly decided to pay him a visit.

But they were still related, so Uncle Three knew that he had to be polite. Instead of asking him what he wanted upfront, Uncle Three stopped what he was doing, exchanged greetings with him, and then took him out to lunch. It was only after they were halfway through their drinks that Uncle Three asked him why he was there.

With six brothers, the Xie family was not only rich, but much larger than Grandpa’s family. Generally speaking, they were never short of money, so if one of them was coming to Uncle Three, that meant that they must need help with something. Moreover, the matter must be very special; otherwise, they would have handled it themselves.

Xie Lianhuan prevaricated for a long time before telling Uncle Three that it wasn’t a big deal. He just wanted to go out to sea and thought that he could use Uncle Three’s connections to join Chen Wen-Jin’s expedition team.

As soon as he heard this, Uncle Three immediately became suspicious. Chen Wen-Jin was so sweet and lovely that everyone liked her. Plus, she had met the Xie family a few times since they were somehow related as well. But she was very good at putting up boundaries—rather than becoming close with them, she felt that it was enough to see them on the rare occasion. She didn’t even keep in regular contact with them. So, the fact that Xie Lianhuan suddenly came here with such a strange request must mean that he was up to something.

Uncle Three shook his head and asked, “Why do you want to go out to sea? If you want to see something, can’t you just go to Hangzhou to do it?”

Xie Lianhuan scratched his head awkwardly and said that he couldn’t tell him. But if he had to know, then he could just assume that he had been hired to take care of some business over there.

Uncle Three asked him why he didn’t try to do it himself. After all, chartering a fishing boat wasn’t very expensive. Xie Lianhuan explained that since China was now engaged in a military confrontation with Vietnam, the situation in Xisha had become very delicate—ordinary ships couldn’t enter the region unless they had permission from the coastal defense. That was why he asked Uncle Three for a favor. It was more convenient to blend in with the expedition team, and it definitely wouldn’t affect Chen Wen-Jin in any way.

The more Uncle Three listened, the more suspicious he became. A grave robber going to Xisha? No matter how much he thought about it, it was just too strange. Xie Lianhuan said he was going there for business, but what could possibly be in Xisha? There was only water, sand, and sunken ships. But if he wanted to loot a sunken ship, why go to Xisha? Ningbo or Bohai Gulf would be much better.⁽³⁾ Moreover, the Xie family was very prominent at that time, and had been around for hundreds of years. It was impossible that they had suddenly become destitute to the point that they’d be looking for undersea treasure.

Xie Lianhuan, seeing Uncle Three’s expression, said that if it didn’t work, that was fine. He would simply think of another way.

If it were me, I would have breathed a sigh of relief when he said that and immediately refused, but Uncle Three thought differently—there was something strange about this matter, and it raised his suspicions even more. But if he refused, this guy would definitely find another way. This line of work was dangerous, and it was difficult to prepare for unexpected situations that might occur. Now that Chen Wen-Jin was involved, he couldn’t let Xie Lianhuan do whatever he wanted. He had to find out what the other man was up to.

So, he said that it wasn’t necessarily impossible, but he couldn’t make a decision on this matter since he wasn’t the one in charge of the expedition. Could Xie Lianhuan give him some time to ask Chen Wen-Jin first?

Xie Lianhuan hurriedly thanked him and then took out a bunch of foreign goods that were in short supply at that time and asked Uncle Three to hand them over to Chen Wen-Jin.

The two of them, each with their own plans in mind, talked about other things for a while before Xie Lianhuan eventually left. Uncle Three immediately went to find a few of the local hooligans he knew and paid them to follow the other man and find out what he had been doing recently.

At that time, the local hooligans were the most well-informed group in the area, so it didn’t take long before they had some news. They followed Xie Lianhuan for a few days and found that he was just like any other second-generation heir— he had no hobbies, except that he liked to listen to Flower Drum Opera,⁽⁴⁾ and his friends came from all walks of life. Basically, everything was very normal. There was, however, one strange thing they noticed—for some reason, he had recently been in close contact with a foreigner. Every now and then, he would meet the foreigner in a teahouse, talk for about ten minutes, and then leave.

When Uncle Three heard this, he was very surprised. In this line of work, it was normal to do business with foreigners, but Xie Lianhuan was different. People like him basically didn’t participate in the family business anymore and just focused on spending money. So why was he suddenly meeting with a foreigner?

Uncle Three, realizing that this was his chance to figure out what was going on, immediately decided to go and see for himself.

He asked the hooligans when Xie Lianhuan usually had his meeting with the foreigner, and then picked a time to go. On the designated day, he woke up early in the morning, changed into an inconspicuous outfit, and then went to Xie Lianhuan’s house and squatted a short distance away from the entrance, waiting for him to come out. After about an hour, Xie Lianhuan finally came out. Uncle Three stealthily followed him through half of Changsha before they reached a teahouse in front of the old market. Xie Lianhuan furtively looked around and then pushed aside the curtain and went in, apparently not noticing that Uncle Three had followed him.

Feeling excited, Uncle Three jumped the three steps to the window and looked inside—Xie Lianhuan was just taking a seat across from a foreigner.

The foreigner had white hair and a tough, stocky build that made him look like a bear sitting in the teahouse. Uncle Three couldn’t tell which country he was from, but his complexion was fair. He was wearing slippers and drinking his tea in such a composed manner that it became obvious he had lived in China for a long time, and was long accustomed to Changsha’s laid-back lifestyle.

As Uncle Three looked at the foreigner, he suddenly realized that he looked very familiar. It seemed like he had seen him somewhere before, but he couldn’t remember.

The number of foreigners Uncle Three had done business with could be counted on one hand, so he knew this person wasn’t one of them. He definitely wasn’t one of his customers, either. But the chance of meeting foreigners in Changsha at that time was very slim, so he must not have seen him during his day-to-day life. Who was this man?

He tried hard to remember, thinking back on all the occasions when he saw foreigners in recent years. With a jolt, he suddenly realized that this man was among the group of foreigners he saw at the Dart Summit a year ago! What he experienced at that time was so shocking that the memory was still fresh in his mind, and as soon as he made the connection, he immediately recalled everything.

He felt chills run up and down his spine as he looked at the two people in the teahouse. There was a sudden feeling that he was on the brink of realizing something, but then it slipped away before he could catch it, leaving a bad premonition in his heart.

At this point, I raised my hand and interrupted Uncle Three, asking him to stop him for a while—I needed time to think about everything before I could continue listening.

Based on what Uncle Three had said so far, things were already very clear. There was no doubt that Xie Lianhuan wanted to go to Xisha to help this mysterious foreigner do something. And this thing must have been very special because they were being so secretive despite the fact that everyone openly did business with foreigners at that time.

In addition, this foreigner was part of a group of people who wanted to dig up the blood corpse tomb at the Dart Summit a year ago. Uncle Three had already thought it was very strange at the time because the Dart Summit was deep in the mountains in inland China, a place where foreigners normally wouldn’t appear. And now, this group obviously wanted to hire people to go to the sea around Xisha, which was also a place where foreigners shouldn’t appear due to the war at that time.

Back then, Uncle Three didn’t know that there was an ancient tomb under Xisha’s waters, so he was full of doubts and had no way of guessing what was going on. But I knew what had happened, so I could put the pieces together and conclude that the foreigner hired Xie Lianhuan to do something related to the Ming Dynasty tomb at the bottom of the sea.

Based on all this, it seemed that the first person who knew about the existence of undersea tomb was the foreigner, who then told Xie Lianhuan about it.

All of these questions seemed to form a vicious circle, with a new question popping up before you could answer any of the others. Where did this foreigner learn about the existence of the Dart Summit tomb and the Xisha tomb? These two kinds of tombs were so rare that even my grandpa had only heard a little bit about them. How could a foreigner know more than him?

I also recalled that when Xie Lianhuan’s body was found, he was holding the snake-eyebrow copper fish in his hand. This was the first time the copper fish had appeared in the modern world. It had obviously been brought out of the ancient undersea tomb, so did that mean that this mysterious foreigner had hired Xie Lianhuan to retrieve it?

In other words, the foreigner not only knew in advance that there was an ancient tomb under the sea, but he also knew what was inside of it? This definitely fit in line with the U.S. principle of “intelligence is supreme”.

But how?! How, dammit?! How the hell did they know?

Even the Dart Summit recorded in Grandpa’s journal could only be found after Uncle Three talked with the local villagers and did a lot of research. And that wasn’t even mentioning the ancient undersea tomb—I figured no one except for Wang Zanghai knew that it existed at all.

When I thought of this, doubts started creeping into my mind and I suddenly shuddered. There was a saying that when you eliminated the impossible, whatever remained, however improbable, must be the truth.

The story didn’t add up, which meant only one thing: everything Uncle Three had just told me was a lie.

This man already had a bad track record, so it was totally possible. Feeling a little more doubtful, I looked at him to see if anything in his expression would give him away.

Uncle Three saw the uncertainty in my eyes, but he couldn’t tell what I was thinking, so he asked me what was wrong.

Deciding to sound him out, I said, “Uncle Three, stop deceiving me. I know that everything you said is a lie. Why don’t you be nice and tell me the truth from now on?”

Uncle Three gave me a strange look and asked me why I thought he was lying. As I told him about my concerns, he suddenly frowned and looked at me.

When I finished, his reaction made my heart sink—he didn’t have anything to say, as if I had exposed him.

Then, to my surprise, he looked away for a while before returning his gaze back to me and saying, “Your way of thinking is too absolute.⁽⁵⁾ That’s not what was going on. In fact, those foreigners didn’t know what was in Xisha’s waters at that time. They just knew that there was something down there.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“They told me later,” Uncle Three answered. “In fact, those foreigners now run A Ning’s company. Do you know who the founder of that company is?”

When I shook my head, Uncle Three said, “It’s the American who swindled the silk book of the Warring States Period from your grandfather.”

I felt my jaw drop, “Really?”

Uncle Three nodded and said, “Just before I made my recent trip to Xisha, I saw him with my own eyes. He’s dying, and currently on life support. At that time, he personally told me why he had spent decades investing in operations in China.”

“Why?” I asked.

“It all started with the silk book of the Warring States that he swindled from your grandfather,” Uncle Three said. “At that time, he was a middle school teacher at a church, and he would occasionally trade in stolen antiques. One year, acting on the pretext of charity, he conned your grandfather into giving him the original silk book of the Warring States Period. At that time, he was very proficient in Chinese culture, so in order to raise the value of the silk book, he decided to decipher the information in it.” Uncle Three paused. “It took him two years, but what he deciphered really surprised him.”

I felt my heart thump, “So this American was actually able to decipher the silk script of the Warring States Period that we’ve been unable to decipher for so many years?”

Uncle Three nodded, “It’s because he’s an American. He was able to decipher it because the arrangement of the characters was based on a mathematical principle. People like us, no matter how proficient we are, would never think of deciphering it from a mathematical point of view.”

“So what was written in the silk book?” I asked curiously.

“The information recorded in it…” Uncle Three said. “You’ll never guess what it said—”

But before Uncle Three could finish, someone suddenly knocked on the door. I wondered if it was the doctor again, telling me that there was someone here for a visit. But everyone had already come, so who the hell was interrupting now? When I turned to look, I saw that it was an express courier.

He walked into the room and asked, “Is there a Mr. Wu Xie here?”

I nodded, “That’s me.”

He took out a large package from his bag and said, “Package for you.”

Uncle Three, also surprised that I had suddenly received an express package, asked me who sent it.

I flipped it over and looked at the sender’s name: Zhang Qiling. I suddenly panicked, wondering why he would send me an express package. When I looked at the date, I realized that it had been sent pretty recently. Did that mean he had come out of the underground ravine? I quickly opened the package and found two black things inside—they were two videotapes.

<Chapter 7><Table of Contents><Chapter 9>

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TN Notes:

(1) Zhou Bangyan (1056–1121) was a Chinese musician, poet, and politician of the Northern Song Dynasty. The title of the love poem《解连环·怨怀无托》(what I translated as “Break the Chain; Unfounded Bitter Feelings”) contains the same characters used for Xie Lianhuan’s name (解连环), although the Xie character can also be read as “Jie” depending on the context. Page 88 of this thesis has an interpretation of the poem.

(2) Grandpa Wu married Grandma Wu, who was Xie Jiuye’s cousin (there’s an extra here talking about their first meeting). I believe Xie Jiuye was Xie Lianhuan’s father so that makes him and Wu Sanxing 2^nd cousins. I think this also means Wu Xie and Xiao Hua are 3^rd cousins.

(3) Ningbo is a major port and industrial hub in east China’s Zhejiang province that lies south of Shanghai on Hangzhou Bay. The Bohai Gulf is a marginal sea on the east coast of Mainland China. It’s the northwestern and innermost extension of the Yellow Sea, to which it connects to the east via the Bohai Strait.

(4) Flower Drum Opera (aka Huaguxi) is a form of Chinese opera originating in Hunan province. Info here.

(5) Absolutist thinking, or thinking in terms of totality, refers to the cognitively detrimental habit of describing feeling and circumstances in concrete, absolute terms. So kind of like all-or-nothing. You only see one way and not any other.