Chapter 62 Um... let's continue the countdown. "So this ship..."

"So this ship belongs to us?!" Barron looked at the giant ship in front of him. Although it was quite dilapidated, it was the Hope.

"This is the Hope!" John, standing beside him, exclaimed in amazement, voicing his thoughts.

"Yes, so hurry up and get someone on board to clean it up." Sang Zhitao looked at the people circling the Hope several times and couldn't help but twitch her lips.

"Okay, okay, right away." Even the usually calm Baron couldn't contain his excitement at this moment and completely ignored Sang Zhitao's words.

Seeing this, Sang Zhitao could only stand silently to the side, waiting for the crowd's excitement to subside.

Fortunately, they were all professional pirates who would occasionally rob one or two extremely wealthy ships, so they were quite adept at handling the excitement of seeing wealth fall from the sky.

After the Hope was cleaned up and the Anling's sails were hoisted back on, Sang Zhitao and her group finally had time to eat.

While enjoying the delicious food prepared by the chef, Barron looked at the former Hope, now the Anling, the main ship, and asked with some worry: "So we're going to the unknown now?"

"I'm not going yet," Sang Zhitao said, shaking her head with a piece of cake in her mouth.

"?" Baron looked at her in confusion.

Sang Zhitao couldn't help but roll her eyes at him before explaining, "You forgot? We promised to take Bayer and Bill to the Unknown Land."

Barron, reminded by her, immediately realized the same thing and then asked with a puzzled look, "So how do we notify them now?"

Sang Zhitao paused, looked at the box placed to the side, and after thinking for a long time, suddenly asked, "You guys said... how did you ask the Duke to inform Bayer and the others before?"

Eureka and Baron were taken aback by her question, looked at each other, and then shook their heads at her.

Seeing the two of them with almost identical blank expressions, Sang Zhitao couldn't help but twitch her lips: "That means there must be a way to contact them on the Hope."

"Then let's hurry up and look for it." Eureka quickly wiped her mouth and stood up.

Seeing this, Sang Zhitao and Balun did not hesitate. They quickly finished the food in their hands, stood up and started rummaging through things.

Anna and Susie, who were standing nearby, shook their heads helplessly, smiled at each other, cleaned the table, and went over to help tidy up.

"Is this it?" Barron pointed to a trumpet-shaped object.

Sang Zhitao stepped forward and tried it out. The thing was fixed on the frame. She touched it up and down, but there was no part that could move. It was just like an ordinary sculpture.

"It doesn't seem so." Sang Zhitao frowned, thought for a moment, and shook her head.

"Your Highness, what do you think of this bandit?" Anna asked, holding up something that looked like a microphone.

Sang Zhitao went forward to try it again, but shook her head regretfully. This was the microphone used to notify the entire ship.

"What about this?" Susie asked, holding up something as well.

"Mine is strange too..."

...

The five of them searched for a long time but found nothing. Looking at the room that they had turned upside down, they looked at each other and sighed.

"Never mind, let's get ready." Sang Zhitao shrugged.

Seeing this, what could the other four do but obediently turn around and clean up?

"Huh?!" The clanging and clattering sounds filled the captain's cabin until Anna uttered a soft question.

"Your Highness, come quickly!"

Sang Zhitao put the books she was holding on the shelf, then turned and walked to Anna's side.

“This…” She looked at the gaps in the wall, which together formed a frame about half a meter in size.

Sang Zhitao reached out and carefully stroked along the gaps, occasionally tapping the wooden board with her hand, which made a hollow sound.

Only when a more tangible voice came did she carefully feel around in that spot, hoping to find a suitable keyhole.

"careful!"

"ah!"

Baron's terrified voice rang out, and Sang Zhitao felt a tremendous force strike her back. Instinctively, she pressed her hand down hard on the spot where she had just been.

Ouch!

"Crunch."

Sang Zhitao's exclamation, along with the sound of the mechanism on the wall, reached everyone's ears.

Unfortunately, no one was paying attention to the mechanism on the wall; they all rushed forward to help Sang Zhitao and Eureka up.

"Eureka!" Baron's usually gentle face showed a rare expression of anger.

Eureka looked at Sang Zhitao awkwardly, scratched his head, and after a while stammered, "I'm sorry, I slipped just now."

"It's alright, it's alright," Sang Zhitao waved her hands repeatedly.

Eureka then stared at Baron's angry face and pointed in another direction: "I saw the same crack there, so I came back to call you."

After hearing this, Sang Zhitao held Anna's hand and stood on tiptoe to look over. Sure enough, she saw the same gap on the opposite wall.

“The wall seems to have opened,” Susie, who was standing at the back, said hesitantly, pointing to the wall where they had initially stood.

Seeing this, everyone turned their attention to the wall and discovered that the wooden board on the wall had been ejected about three or four centimeters, revealing a dark hole behind it.

Sang Zhitao, her ankles aching slightly, tiptoed forward to take a look.

"Let me do it, Your Highness," Susie quickly advised upon seeing the situation.

“Let me do it…” Eureka murmured, “It’s all my fault…”

"It's alright, Eureka. This situation only happened because we messed up the room." Seeing his guilty expression, Sang Zhitao couldn't help but recall his former arrogant and unruly demeanor, and quickly comforted him.

Eureka opened her mouth but didn't say anything, only silently taking two steps forward.

"Let him go," Baron said directly upon seeing the situation.

Hearing him say that, the crowd stopped talking and made some room for him.

"Be careful, Eureka," Sang Zhitao couldn't help but remind him from behind.

Eureka turned back to look at her and nodded silently before carefully pushing the wooden board outwards.

Because of his action, the space behind the wooden plank was completely exposed.

Everyone unconsciously leaned forward, trying to get a better view of the space behind them.

"What is this...?" Everyone looked at the things in the space and fell silent for a moment.

Sang Zhitao hopped forward, looked at the cabinet full of identical boxes in front of her, and couldn't help but twitch her lips: "Fine, let's take them out and look at them."

Upon hearing this, no one said anything more and stepped forward to take the box out.

The space in the wall was deeper and larger than they had imagined, and there were more boxes than they had initially seen. Except for Sang Zhitao, who twisted her ankle, it took the other four a long time to empty the boxes.

Looking at the nearly two or three hundred palm-sized wooden boxes in front of them, the group exchanged bewildered glances.

Sang Zhitao picked up the nearest box and opened it, only to find that it was empty.

"Empty?" Barron picked one up and looked at it.

Anna, Susie, and Eureka all picked up the boxes from the ground and opened them, only to find they were all empty.

“Captain?” Barron turned to look at her.

Sang Zhitao then looked in another direction: "Should we open that and take a look?"

“…Alright then.” Baron’s lips twitched as he looked at the pile of boxes in front of him. “But let’s organize these first.”

Barron glanced at the others, sighed, turned around and went out to call a few more people. Only then did they clean the entire captain's cabin, check each box, and put it back into the wall.

The other space wasn't as exaggerated as this one; it only had about ten boxes, three of which contained items.

Sang Zhitao looked at one of them, which had a small trumpet engraved on it, and tried it with the key given to her by the Duke of Hope.

"Click." The copper lock made a crisp sound and then opened.

"What's this?" Everyone looked at the tiny megaphone, no bigger than a fingernail, in the box, their lips twitching. Eureka, in particular, asked bluntly, "What can something so small do?"

Sang Zhitao didn't reply to her, but directly reached out and took the small trumpet out of the box.

The little trumpet was exquisitely made. Carefully pressing the button on it, a melody came out of the trumpet.

Sang Zhitao loosened her grip and placed it in her palm, intending to take a closer look, when the small trumpet emitted a faint light.

To everyone's amazement, the small loudspeaker transformed into a normal loudspeaker.

“This…” Sang Zhitao looked at the loudspeaker in disbelief, then looked up at the crowd.

Baron subconsciously pushed up his glasses and said somewhat helplessly, "The ocean is always magical, isn't it...?"

The room fell silent after he said that.

Sang Zhitao pursed her lips and carefully pressed the button on the speaker that had just been pressed to produce a sound.

The sound faded away, leaving only a familiar voice: "Your Grace, what are your orders?"

"Captain Bayer?" Sang Zhitao asked tentatively.

“Captain Sylph?!” Bayer’s voice was slightly distorted, but he couldn’t hide his surprise.

"You! You saw His Excellency the Duke?" He pressed on before Sang Zhitao could speak.

"Um, I..."

“The Lord gave you the Hope, didn’t he?” Bayer interrupted her again.

How did you know?!

"This is something the adults mentioned before, so can we go to the unknown place?" Bayer asked anxiously.

“Well, I’ll be returning to Cat Ear Port to rest for now. Could you inform the others?” Sang Zhitao replied.

"Don't worry, leave it to me. The master gave me a little trumpet before," Bayer replied with a light laugh.

The two exchanged a few more words before ending the call.

“Don’t we only have three treasure maps?” Eureka suddenly asked.

Everyone looked at him in surprise, and Eureka couldn't help but glare back at them before saying irritably, "It's not like I don't use my brain at all."

The crowd exchanged silent glances, unable to hide their inner thoughts: "You've never acted like someone who uses their brain."

Eureka naturally noticed this change in expression, and he crossed his arms in anger, letting out a heavy snort to express his dissatisfaction.

"Baron didn't tell you?" Sang Zhitao asked, her surprise unlike that of others.

Barron was taken aback at first, then suddenly realized and slapped his forehead, saying, "Oh right, I forgot!"

"Huh?" Eureka looked at him in disbelief.

Baron looked back at him somewhat embarrassedly before explaining, "At this meeting, I hope the Duke will give the remaining treasure map to the captain. I thought I had already told you that."

Eureka glared at him first, then looked at Sang Zhitao: "You're hiding it from me again?!"

Sang Zhitao shrugged and looked at Baron, meaning it was none of her business.

Seeing this, Eureka continued to glare at Baron.

Baron touched the tip of his nose, put his arm around his shoulder, and walked to the side.

Those words, spoken as if to coax a child, left others speechless.

Sang Zhitao ignored them and continued to look at the other two boxes. She then noticed that one box had a picture frame drawn on it, and the other had a beaded necklace drawn on it. She subconsciously opened the boxes and found that the contents inside were the same as those on the outside: a painting and a necklace.

She looked at the small box, recalling the pile of empty boxes on the wall, and a thought flashed through her mind.

Perhaps... these boxes could be used to collect the collection of artworks she had amassed.

Speaking of those artworks, she thought she could bring them back to Earth with her, just like she brought the fairy stones in the fairy world. But after the Dark Vortex last time, she tied the artworks together and fell asleep hugging them, and none of them came back to Earth with her.

Based on discussions with experts at the base, they believe one possibility is the size of the items, as items exceeding a certain size cannot be brought back; another is that these items themselves are incapable of traversing the area.

As for the second option, that's manageable. As for the first option, they finally decided to have Sang Zhitao bring something the same size as the original Elf Stone when she returns from the next Dark Vortex.

Looking at the wooden box in front of her, Sang Zhitao thought that perhaps she could try putting those things into the box.

"Alright, you two stop chatting and go to the warehouse to get some items we got from the Dark Vortex," Sang Zhitao called out to Baron and the other man not far away.

Although he didn't know what she was planning to do, Baron didn't ask. He nodded to Eureka and turned to leave.