The paper ash from the New Year's Day swirled on the stone pavement. Su Chen stood in front of the Jinyu Pavilion and looked up at the eaves. The Chaofeng beast head on the first eaves was missing its right eye, revealing the copper core corroded by acid. Tang Ren came over with a bamboo stick in his mouth: "This hole looks like it was pecked by a bird?"
"It's the beak mark of a wood ibis." Su Chen took out half a bronze gear from his sleeve and inserted it into the groove of the animal's head. The whole roof ridge suddenly shook, and blue-black mucus oozed out of the seams of the tiles. Qin Feng used a silver needle to pick up the mucus and sniffed it: "Tung oil mixed with oyster paste, this, this is the preservative used by Ming Dynasty ships!"
When the secret door opened on the west side of the roof, twenty camphorwood boxes slid down along the tilted tiles. Tang Ren jumped up to catch the wooden box that was about to fall. The wax seal on the box melted in the heat, revealing the words "Yongli 9". Su Chen used a thin blade to cut open the box cover. On the damp pages of the "Genglu Book", the route of Zheng He's fleet was changed into fragments by cinnabar.
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When the gong sounded at midnight, Tang Ren was already squatting in front of the wonton stall, slurping the soup. Su Chen's eyes swept the crowd passing by, and suddenly fixed on a stall selling antique watches - the jadeite buckle hanging from the watch chain was exactly the ornament on the wrist of the skeleton at the bottom of the well in Longlian Temple.
Qin Feng pretended to ask for prices, his fingertips brushing the time on the dial: "Chou, Chou hour, stop..." As soon as he finished speaking, the stall suddenly flipped over. A miniature compass popped out from the falling pocket watch, and the magnetic needle pointed directly to the coffin shop at the end of the alley. When Tang Ren chased after it, the soul-suppressing nail on the coffin was oozing dark red liquid, which condensed into the reflection of the Big Dipper under the moonlight.
"Dou Kuigang." Su Chen dipped his palm into the coffin liquid and deduced, "This is to reverse the Yin and Yang situation." The moment the coffin lid was opened, twenty puppets rose into the air, each joint tied with a thread soaked in corpse oil. When Qin Feng broke the thread, a silver coin with tooth marks rolled out of the puppet's mouth, and the tooth shape was exactly the same as the tin ingots in the Beipan Mine.
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At dawn, Su Chen stood in front of the abandoned "Shuangxi Building" stage. The two stages on the left and right were mirror images, and the heads of the beasts on the eaves were missing their eyes. Tang Ren threw a bronze gear to the left stage, and the beast head on the right stage suddenly turned, revealing a gilded key hidden under its tongue.
"The mirror game in Qi Men Dun Jia." Su Chen spread the remaining pages of "Geng Lu Bu" on the table, and reconstructed the route of Zheng He's fleet through the mirror. Qin Feng suddenly broke the dressing mirror in the backstage, and the boxes of Siamese rice in the dark room exuded a musty smell. Tang Ren opened the rice pile, and on the Chaozhou lace underneath, there was a complete map of the South China Sea coral reefs embroidered with gold thread.
"This is..." Su Chen's finger stopped at a reef mark, "The coordinates of my uncle's shipwreck!" The rice bag suddenly burst, and white powder condensed into the letter Q in the air. Tang Ren sneezed repeatedly, and the powder stained his clothes, revealing a blood-colored hexagram.
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The setting sun dyed the sea amber, and the fishing boats dropped anchor at the location recorded in the Genglu Book. Qin Feng used the Luoyang shovel to dig into the mud on the seabed, and the shock of the shovel hitting the hard object made his palm numb. Tang Ren dived into the water wearing a copper coin amulet, and when he surfaced, he was holding a coral-carved yin-yang fish in his arms.
"There's a coral city down there!" Qin Feng stammered as he adjusted his diving goggles. Su Chen pressed the Yin Yang fish into the groove on the deck, and the fishing boat suddenly changed course. In the dusk, the coral reefs exposed above the sea formed a Xiantian Bagua formation, with half of the mast of Zheng He's treasure ship standing at the center of the formation.
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The rusted iron anchor was tangled with seaweed, and Su Chen stroked the muzzle of the gun on the side of the ship. The inscription on the inside of the copper cannon was corroded by the sea water, and only the mark of "Yongle 18th Year" was clearly visible. Tang Ren pried open the iron cabinet in the captain's room, and a yellowed marriage certificate was sandwiched in the tide-soaked "Navigation Log" - the groom turned out to be Su Chengye, the second son of his great uncle who died young according to the family tree.
"Look at this!" Qin Feng used a flashlight to illuminate the star map on the wall. Su Chen used a candle to bake the star map, and the hidden "Sea Prohibition Policy" appeared under the heat. All the words "open the sea" between the ink marks were circled with cinnabar, and the foot of the page was covered with the Jinyiwei's Xiezhi seal.
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At the pier where heavy rain was pouring down, the water marks on the surface of the container suddenly formed hexagrams. Su Chen used an oil-paper umbrella to catch the rain, and the twenty-eight constellations painted on the umbrella were shining. Tang Ren kicked open the container numbered Q23, and among the boxes of Ming Dynasty blue and white porcelain were mixed the blood-stained Jinyiwei Feiyu suits.
"This, this is..." Qin Feng ripped open the lining of a flying fish suit, and found the prophecy of the 40th image of "Tui Bei Tu" embroidered with silver thread. Su Chen dipped the porcelain bottle into the sea water, and the dark pattern that emerged on the glaze turned out to be the current Bangkok's underground network map. A certain intersection was marked with cinnabar, which was the Su family's ancestral home on Shilongjun Road.
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At the sound of the night watch drum at the beginning of the first month of the lunar calendar, the yin-yang fish-shaped bricks in the courtyard of the ancestral home turned over by themselves. Su Chen entered the palace holding a candle, and the Jinyi Guards on the mural were burning a sea map. Tang Ren knocked over the bronze tripod, and the jade seal that rolled out was engraved with "Chengye Yutian", but Yin Niu was in the shape of a Western angel.
"So that's how it is." Su Chen pressed the jade ring into the groove of the altar, "They want to make the sea power last forever." The palace suddenly shook, and the navigation maps of twenty dynasties rotated on the wall. Qin Feng broke the control chain, and the phantom of Zheng He's treasure ship crashed into the star map. When the morning light penetrated into the palace, the Q-shaped totem was slowly melting on the surface of the jade ring.
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The roar of the Chao Phraya River's rising tide, twenty antique treasure ships floated down the river. Su Chen stood at the bow, watching the ship of the leader of the Q organization turn into a torch facing the sun. Tang Ren dug out the charred bronze box from the ashes, and Qin Feng rinsed it with well water to reveal a line of small characters: "Sea power belongs to the people, forever inherited."
A month later, during the Obon Festival, Su Chen burned the "Chengyelu" in front of the Zhengwang Temple. Amid the scattered ashes, Tang Ren suddenly pointed at the river and exclaimed - the wreckage of the treasure ship from a hundred years ago was floating on the surface of the water, and the new "Cheng" flag on the mast was fluttering in the wind. Qin Feng smiled at the flag, and his stuttering voice was filled with relief: "This, this is the real successor."