Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 380: Chapter 239: Underwater Shipwreck (Part 2)

He swam along the railing, collecting four nylon ropes. Without a basket to put them in, he had to return to the surface.

’Holy cow, I’m gonna be rich!’

He quickly grabbed the bamboo-fiber rope and pulled the fish cage over from a distance. After tossing the rope onto the bamboo raft, he took hold of the cage and dove back down.

This speedboat looked quite new. The only seaweed was on the metal hull outside the cabin, so the accident had likely happened within the last six months.

Judging by the fact that all the lifebuoys were gone, the crew had most likely evacuated safely long ago. Perhaps some of the tracks on the shore had even been left by them.

Of course, it was also possible they were picked up on the spot by another vessel.

There was nothing left on deck, so he went straight into the cabin and opened every drawer and cabinet he could.

’Band-aids... cold medicine... seasickness pills... a walkie-talkie...’

He pulled a pile of things that were clearly no longer usable from the drawers, but he stubbornly kept searching.

When he opened a cabinet behind the captain’s chair, two wetsuits suddenly floated out.

’?!’

His reflexes were sharp; he snatched them and swam over to the fish cage, then quickly followed the rope to the surface.

He didn’t even have time to inspect them. He tossed them onto the raft, took a few gasps of air, and plunged back into the sea.

After half an hour of scavenging, he had turned nearly every searchable part of the speedboat upside down. The haul was much smaller than he had imagined, but it had its pleasant surprises.

The two wetsuits were a men’s and a women’s. The cabinet they were in was clearly labeled ’Spare.’ They must have been kept there for emergencies.

This suggested that the speedboat was most likely used for commercial purposes—the kind that could be rented or chartered for outings, or for activities like diving and deep-sea fishing.

If this were the captain’s personal boat, there wouldn’t be spare wetsuits. After all, what coastal dweller can’t swim? He himself could easily go for a dip without any gear.

’Two wetsuits, two pairs of diving goggles, two snorkel mouthpieces, three bottles of red wine, three empty wine bottles, four coils of nylon rope, one toolbox, one set of cutlery, over a dozen rubber rings, one anchor...’

He leaned over the side of the bamboo raft, taking stock of his haul one item at a time. Of all the items, he felt the rubber rings were the most important.

These rubber rings still had some elasticity. They could be stretched to twice their length without breaking, which proved that they were either specialized marine-grade rubber products or they hadn’t been in the sea for very long.

You could find rubber rings like these all over a speedboat—on hatches, windows, the deck, drains, and more. They were essential for protecting these areas, preventing dust or seawater from seeping in and causing unnecessary corrosion that would shorten the vessel’s lifespan.

’Alright, I’ve picked the surface and interior clean. Time to check underneath.’

It would be a lie to say he wasn’t curious about how this speedboat had sunk.

More importantly, shipwrecks easily become natural habitats for marine life, especially where the hull makes contact with reefs. If there’s a crevice, there’s bound to be something living inside.

’A boat this heavy smashing into rocks? It’d be strange if it didn’t have a few cracks, right?’

He’d been in and out of the water for an hour now and felt physically exhausted, but his mind was buzzing with excitement. Donning the diving goggles he’d just salvaged, he took a deep breath and plunged back into the sea.

He’d already gotten a rough idea of the speedboat’s position while scavenging, so he swam directly to where the hull tilted up from the seafloor.

Soon, he found cracks near the stern. The propeller itself was also clearly bent out of shape from an impact.

In a crevice in the reef between the cracks and the propeller, a huge conch was slowly crawling.

As if sensing the beam of light on it, the conch stopped abruptly, camouflaging itself as an ordinary rock.

If he hadn’t just seen it crawling with his own eyes, he probably would have been fooled by the seaweed covering its shell.

He reached in and tugged hard a few times, but it didn’t budge an inch, as if it were welded directly to the rock.

He smirked, pulled out his combat knife with his other hand, and jammed the tip into the seam where the shell met the rock. With a simple twist, he easily pried it loose.

Under the bright beam of his light, the inner surface of the giant conch shell—which was nearly as large as two of his palms—glowed a faint pink.

The moment he saw the color, Lin Chen recognized its true identity.

A Queen Phoenix Conch!

It wasn’t that he’d done his research beforehand. There were far too many species of marine life; he couldn’t possibly remember them all.

The main reason he remembered it so vividly was that he’d encountered it before while looking for a restaurant with Andre in Panama City. The locals often passed it off as abalone.

At the time, he had actually believed it was meat from a large sea abalone, because the taste and texture were nearly identical.

It wasn’t until he saw one later at a seafood market and bought it to taste on the spot that he discovered the texture and flavor were exactly the same.

The Queen Phoenix Conch is very easy to identify because the inside of its shell is a pinkish-white color, a favorite among women. Furthermore, this conch can produce pearls, which are also predominantly pinkish-white, though they occasionally have orange or flame-like patterns. After being processed and polished, the finished jewelry is considered priceless.

The reason for its high price is the extremely low chance of finding a pearl—about one in ten thousand. Even when a pearl is found, it isn’t always usable.

Size, texture, color, and more all affect the value of a conch pearl.

And then there was the most critical factor.

Quantity.

The Queen Phoenix Conch has thick, meaty flesh and a long history of consumption in Central America, where it’s a perfect substitute for abalone. Coupled with its shell’s industrial and artistic value, it was once nearly harvested to extinction. Only recently have its numbers started to recover.

Its natural population is small, the probability of finding a pearl is low, and harvesting is regulated by local laws. All these factors make Queen Phoenix Conch pearls a rarity, priced by the carat just like gold.

And because of that, plenty of unscrupulous merchants create knockoffs to make a dishonest profit. It’s an incredibly lucrative business.

’Good thing I’m just getting this one for myself, not for commercial harvesting. The production team must have already cleared things with the authorities, so it should be fine.’

Holding the Queen Phoenix Conch, he continued to swim along the bottom of the boat.

As he rounded to the other side, a huge gash on a metal plate on the side of the hull came into view.

The gash was so large he could have swum right through it.

The water here was over ten meters deep, so it was unlikely the boat had run aground on a reef.

’So where did such a big hole come from?’

He stared at the hole, momentarily stunned, as a bold idea began to form.

’A... a torpedo?’

HISS!

’Even if it wasn’t a torpedo, it could have been a grenade or an RPG. Nothing else could have caused such a massive puncture in the sturdy hull.’

The thought of the Darien Rift, the region near Colombia teeming with criminals and gangsters, made him shudder. A chill shot up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head!

However, judging from the fact that there were no remains on the nearby seabed, their goal probably wasn’t murder, but rather kidnapping or robbery.

A flurry of chaotic thoughts raced through his mind. He quickly shook his head, forcing himself to focus on the boat’s interior again.

Peering through the massive hole, he could clearly see the surfaces of the internal machinery were completely encrusted with seaweed and shellfish. It finally looked like a real shipwreck from a documentary.

Small fish swam among the parts, completely unfazed by his light beam.

He carefully poked his head in and scanned the area. Suddenly, his eyes lit up.

’There!’

Tucked into a gap between some unknown piece of machinery and the cabin floor, two long antennae caught his eye.

Without dawdling, he braced one hand on a part and shot his other hand into the gap like lightning.

A powerful struggle met his grip, sending clouds of silt and sand billowing out.

He gave a sharp yank, dragging a huge Lobster out by its antennae.

Before he could even let out a sigh of relief, the thick antennae, pulled taut by the spiny lobster’s frantic struggles, broke in two with a sharp SNAP.