Good heavens, he's just been rescued and he's already run into some tough characters. He was hoping to fool them, but he's encountered a group that's not easy to fool!
“I…I got on a smuggling ship. The captain wasn’t a good person. He wanted to sell me. I…I climbed out of the cargo hold window.”
"Smuggling boat?"
Fu Wan frowned, and Boss Fu's face darkened even more.
So, what this kid was talking about last time—doing big things and making a fortune—was actually smuggling!
Maritime smuggling has been rampant since ancient times. Especially in the 1980s, there were significant price differences between domestic and foreign goods, and the regulatory system was not yet perfect.
Therefore, many unscrupulous people came up with crooked ideas, using fishing boats as cover to smuggle smuggled goods such as electronic watches, cigarettes, home appliances, and nylon fabrics into the fish hold or the hidden compartments of the fishing boat and secretly bring them to the dock.
Especially now, late at night, is when these smuggling boats are out and about. Those bad guys use the darkness as their camouflage, meeting with the smugglers' large ships in international waters, loading the goods onto small fishing boats, and then returning to the dock overnight.
In the eyes of honest fishermen like Boss Fu, this kind of thing was considered crooked and evil, and they found it utterly disgusting.
If you're going to smuggle, then smuggle! But pretending to be fishermen is just smearing the fishermen's reputation!
"So this is how you make your fortune?!"
With a dark expression, Boss Fu kicked the kid over. This kid called him cousin, so he had to teach this wayward fellow a lesson on behalf of Boss Fu.
"Do you know this is illegal? Do you know this will get you arrested and sent to jail?"
Have you forgotten how we cracked down on smuggling a few years ago? You still dare to smuggle? Are you really not afraid of death?!
Fu Laoda got angrier and angrier as he spoke, kicking the smuggler several times. Since 1981, the radio had been broadcasting the determination of the higher authorities to crack down on smuggling.
In 1983, the Public Security Bureau established a maritime anti-smuggling team, which was publicized in newspapers and on the radio at the time.
Village Chief Fu even held a special meeting at the ancestral hall to repeatedly emphasize that no one was allowed to participate in smuggling.
Just two years ago, Guangdong province arrested a lot of smugglers; in more serious cases, they were sent to eat peanuts.
Now is a good time for economic recovery, there are so many good things to do, but this guy insists on smuggling.
Zhang Fugui was also crying his eyes out at this moment.
He slumped to the ground, completely devoid of the smugness that Fu Wan had shown him a few months ago.
"Brother Gouwa, do you think I don't know that smuggling ships are illegal?"
I had no idea they were doing this!
They told me they were going out to sea to fish. We went around the boat for a bit, but it wasn't until they started unloading the cargo that I realized something was wrong. The boxes were full of Marlboro cigarettes, televisions, and a lot of other things I didn't understand. I panicked!
Zhang Fugui's eyes darted away as he spoke, still grumbling about his injustice.
"I wanted to report it to the police, but I tried to escape and got caught. In the end, I was thrown into the sea to feed the sharks!"
"Didn't you say you escaped on your own? How come it's now that someone threw you into the sea to feed the sharks?"
Fu Wan raised an eyebrow, and Boss Fu glared at her, "You're lying again, kid?"
"Still not telling the truth! I think you should go to the sea and clear your head!"
As he spoke, Boss Fu stood up and grabbed Zhang Fugui, pulling him outside.
Zhang Fugui hurriedly grabbed the table leg, hunched his shoulders, closed his eyes, and decided to give up entirely.
"Yes, yes, they lost it, I didn't run away on my own!"
"I'll tell you everything, I'll tell you everything, please don't throw me into the sea!"
Zhang Fugui was trembling uncontrollably; it was clear he was terrified of being thrown into the sea again.
"I only realized it was a smuggling ship after I boarded it. The captain saw that I was clever and really wanted to get me involved."
I saw they were just TVs and cigarettes, nothing special, all the same stuff, and they were selling them for half the price of what they were in the county town. Even if I took a few back to the village, I could make a few dozen yuan just by reselling them.”
Zhang Fugui pinched his palm, trying to stop his hands from shaking.
"Then what?"
Fu Wan sensed something was wrong.
Zhang Fugui's hands stopped trembling, but his voice started shaking again.
"Then...then when I was moving the goods, I found a few wooden crates at the very back of the cargo hold. I tried to open them, but the person next to me wouldn't let me."
I figured there must be something really valuable inside, so while I was in the outhouse, I sneaked over and opened it to see what was inside…
Zhang Fugui swallowed hard. "Inside, there are a few vases and incense burners, the kind of things that landlords used to have, and some gold and silver jewelry."
Beneath the gold and silver jewelry, there was... there was a human head!
"That leader, that leader's eyes were just staring at me, which startled me. I made a noise that alerted the people outside, and then they locked me up."
"I took off my clothes, tore them up, tied them into knots, and tried to use them to escape by hanging them on the window, but I was still discovered. They knocked me unconscious, and when I woke up, I was already in the water..."
So that's how it is.
Fu Ming finally found a chance to interject. He rubbed the goosebumps on his arms and clicked his tongue.
"Heads? Did those people commit murder?"
Zhang Fugui shook his head, unable to give a clear answer, while Fu Wan thought about it and felt that it was unlikely that the head was a real human head.
How could something placed alongside gold and silver jewelry be a bloody human head?
Fu Wan speculated that those people used boxes to pack honeysuckle vases, probably for smuggling purposes.
But they weren't smuggling goods in; they were smuggling goods out of the country.
That head is most likely an artifact.
"Artifacts related to human heads..." Bai Qianzhou said calmly, "Could it be a Buddha head from the Shanxi or Gansu provinces?"
Fu Wan suddenly realized, "That's right, if we're talking about heads with cultural relic value, aren't they things like Buddha heads?"
The Buddha statue is extremely large and difficult to transport, but the Buddha head is small and easy to smuggle across borders.
Those damned smugglers will do anything for money, even smuggling cultural relics left by our ancestors out of the country.
Aren't they afraid of incurring karmic consequences and suffering retribution in the future?
"Ah Wan, what do you think we should say about this? Should we go back and report it to the police?"
Boss Fu pulled Fu Wan aside and asked in a low voice.
Fu Wan pondered for a moment. If they went back and reported it to the police now, and the police sent people out again, the back-and-forth would probably mean that the smuggling ship had already completed the transaction.
"Dad, I'll send a radio message to the camp and see if they can receive it."
Go ask Zhang Fugui if he knows where the smuggling ship was planning to make the transaction, and roughly where the accident happened.
Boss Fu did not immediately agree after hearing this.
"Ah Wan, do you want to get involved in this?"
It wasn't that Boss Fu was a coward; it was just that those people were capable of throwing Zhang Fugui directly into the sea to feed the sharks, so they must have been some desperate criminals.
"Dad, go and ask first. Even if we don't chase after them, we can still send the information to the camp. What if we can intercept the cargo on the smuggling ship?"
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