The scorching sun scorched the twisted Longshu Spring water, and Su Chen stood in front of the Shouli Gate. Tang Ren chewed a piece of Okinawa brown sugar, and was suddenly dazzled by the reflection in the stone lion's eyes - half a jade lock stuck between the fangs, and it fit perfectly with the fragments found in Ningbo Port.
"This, this is the Ryukyu variant of "A Hundred Grandsons"!" Qin Feng unfolded the lock and rubbed it. The pattern on the belt of the child in the picture turned out to be the secret code of the Qi family army. The tomb keeper suddenly blew the conch shell, and the sealing stone of the royal tomb underground palace cracked in the vibration, and the fishy wind wrapped in star sand blew in his face.
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Torches illuminated the blood stains on the jade throne, and Su Chen used Lu Ban to measure the throne. Tang Ren kicked over the bronze lampstand, and the rolling fish oil on the ground solidified into a map of the East China Sea. Qin Feng suddenly stuttered: "The star map behind the jade disk is moving!"
Twenty-three jade disks were projected with changing angles of moonlight, piecing together the routes of Ryukyu tribute ships during the Wanli years. Su Chen inserted the lock into the groove of the jade disk, and the entire palace wall suddenly flipped over, revealing twenty-three child corpses soaked in medicinal wine in a dark room - each child had a unique poison sachet tied around his waist.
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The fishing market was bustling with people on the eve of the typhoon. The familiar smell of wormwood could be smelled in front of Tang Ren's fish stall. When the tarpaulin was lifted, bloody embroidery fragments were buried in the basket of dried bonito. Qin Feng soaked the fragments with seawater, and the gold thread revealed the secret code of the river channel in Xinshi Town.
"At 3:00 pm, the Dragon Palace appears." Su Chen recited the code, and suddenly a group of fluorescent jellyfish floated up on the sea. He rowed out to the sea following the light spot, and unexpectedly saw the reflection of a bronze gun barrel on the dark bottom of the water - it was the wreckage of the "Tiangong Chengping" that sank three years ago.
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The diving bell slowly descended into the abyss, and Su Shen's flashlight swept across the figurehead. The right eye of Qi Jiguang's statue fell off, revealing a cast iron secret letter in the secret compartment. Tang Ren used a crab clamp to pry open the rusted ammunition box, and a whole box of Japanese swords wrapped in the "Anti-Japanese Chronicle" was found, and the annotations on the margins were the same as the handwriting of the current prefect.
"Look at this anchor chain!" Qin Feng's bubble exploded in the dark blue sea. At the end of the chain entangled with seaweed, there was a skeleton wearing a Ming Dynasty flying fish suit, holding the end point of the "Genglu Book" marked with "Borneo Gold Mine".
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In the miasma-filled mine, Su Chen held up the Lu Ban sword passed down from his ancestors. The star map was projected onto the rock wall, and the missing "Tianxuan" was in the direction of the mining vein. When Tang Ren blasted the quartz layer, the whole mountain suddenly shook - in the secret passage mined during the Wanli period, twenty-three golden tiger squatting cannons glowed coldly.
A man in white walked out from the darkness, his mask split in two: "General Qi kept this as a backup plan to scare off the Japanese pirates..." Before he finished speaking, Qin Feng had torn open the gun cover, and the barrel was filled with gold ingots with the word "Cheng" on them - it was the tribute that had disappeared from the Maritime Customs' account book.
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Seagulls flew over the rebuilt Shibosi Wharf, and Su Chen burned the Genglubu. Tang Ren chewed on the newly roasted dried bonito and muttered, "This broken thing should have been..." Suddenly he choked - the unmelted mulberry paper in the ashes showed a new route, pointing directly to the Spice Islands in the depths of the South Pacific.
The albatross flew over the wreckage of the treasure ship, its wings glittering in the dusk. Qin Feng looked at the gradually emerging star map and whispered, "The route map back then was wrong..." In the far west, the outline of a Portuguese merchant ship could be vaguely seen. Su Chen held the jade lock tightly, and the dark patterns formed a strange sea monster totem under the moonlight - that was the "France Private Port" marked in the "Kunyu World Map".