Chapter 1

Lan Island City, a coastal city in Hu Country. 520 Official Website

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At six in the morning, Ye Yuan, no longer sleepy, stared blankly out the window.

He had been in this city for almost five years, attending university here and then staying after graduation.

Ye Yuan's university was the best in Lan Island City, Lan Island Ocean University, where he majored in Marine Science.

Due to the nature of his major, finding a job after graduation was not easy.

Having grown up in a fishing village, he was a good swimmer and had learned diving professionally in school.

His diving instructor introduced him to a job as an underwater cleaner at a marine park.

Despite the job not sounding impressive, the boss offered a basic salary of 6,000 yuan per month. While 6,000 yuan might not be a high salary in a big city, it was quite a lot for a recent college graduate, especially since the job provided accommodation.

Looking out at the sea, he thought about what his mother had said on the phone last night.

Ye Yuan's home was on an island about 200 kilometers away from Lan Island City.

Due to overfishing in recent years, the nearshore fishery resources were almost depleted. Many young fishermen no longer went out to sea to fish but instead went to work in large and medium-sized cities, leaving the elderly and middle-aged people at home.

In response to this situation, the local county government decided to relocate the fishing village where Ye Yuan's family lived. The relocated island would be put up for public tender.

Ye Yuan's mother called him last night about the relocation, asking him to come back home. After all, he was a college graduate, and the older generation still trusted educated people.

Ye Yuan was troubled by this, as the relocation would only begin during the fishing moratorium, which was still more than two months away. However, the local government wanted to finalize the matter as soon as possible, so the contract signing for the relocation had already started. Families who signed the relocation agreement this month would receive a compensation payment.

Going back was easy, but what about after signing the agreement? Although there were two months to prepare, housing and other issues couldn't be resolved in just a few days.

Since the marine park where he worked was relatively small and had few visitors, there weren't many people needed to clean the underwater debris.

The entire park only had Ye Yuan and an older colleague named Brother Zhao.

Brother Zhao was also from a rural area in Lan Island. Due to his age, his family had arranged a marriage for him, and he had taken a week off to go home.

Currently, Ye Yuan was the only one cleaning the underwater areas of the park. Don't think that cleaning underwater debris is an easy job; it's completely different from cleaning on land. If he were to take a leave of absence, would the park agree?

Many people don't understand what underwater cleaning involves. It mainly involves salvaging items that tourists accidentally drop into the sea and cleaning up the garbage they throw into the ocean. Accurate salvaging is quite challenging.

For example, a tourist once accidentally dropped a ring, and Ye Yuan and Brother Zhao searched for three days without finding it. The tourist eventually left because they couldn't wait any longer. Half a month later, Brother Zhao found the ring about a kilometer away from where it was dropped and sent it back by mail.

This was just one of many such incidents. Ye Yuan had been working there for almost ten months and had salvaged countless phones, cameras, DVs, and selfie sticks. Since these items were unusable after being in the water, few tourists requested their retrieval. However, valuable jewelry still needed to be salvaged, though not everything could be retrieved, given the nature of the ocean floor.

Not thinking about these issues for now, he couldn't let his parents worry. Checking the time, it was almost seven. Ye Yuan got up, washed up, and went to the park's staff canteen for breakfast. He wanted to talk to the manager, but the manager wasn't there, so he had to wait until the evening.

At the seaside, he changed into his diving suit. Yesterday, in the fourth sea area, a tourist accidentally dropped a diamond bracelet while taking a selfie from a yacht. Today, Ye Yuan was to clean the underwater debris in the fourth sea area and help the tourist find the bracelet.

He drove a speedboat to the fourth sea area, put on his diving gear, and dove in. The fourth area was one of the deepest parts of the marine park, with a maximum depth of about 30 meters.

Underwater, surrounded by colorful fish, Ye Yuan felt much better. Perhaps because he grew up in a fishing village, he had a deep connection with the sea.

While carefully observing the underwater area, he noticed a red crab passing by. Seeing crabs underwater was normal, but the size of this crab caught his attention.

Red crabs are very different from other crabs, making them easy to identify. They have a smooth shell with yellow spots, and their claws are extended. A typical red crab is about the size of an adult's palm, but this one was twice as large. Most importantly, the crab's claws were holding a round stone bead.

Ye Yuan slowly approached and gently tapped the large red crab with his iron rod. He expected the crab to drop the stone bead and run away, but instead, the crab sped up without letting go of the bead.

Children who grew up by the sea generally didn't like eating red crabs because they had little crab fat and poor meat quality. This was why Ye Yuan didn't immediately try to catch it.

However, seeing the red crab holding onto the stone bead, Ye Yuan became interested. He followed the crab, tapping it continuously, and finally, the crab had no choice but to release its claws.

Ye Yuan reached into the sand and picked up the stone bead the crab had dropped. Due to the poor underwater lighting, he didn't examine it closely and placed it in the net bag on his waist, continuing his work.

After half an hour underwater, it was time to rest. During this period, Ye Yuan found three phones and some metal bottles. These metal bottles were high-end drink containers that some tourists had carelessly thrown into the sea.

Back on the speedboat, he removed his oxygen tank and drank a large mouthful of mineral water from a bottle on the boat.

After resting for a while, he took out the stone bead he had found underwater.

The stone bead felt cool and very comfortable to the touch.

At that moment, he felt an indescribable force, as if something was being drawn from his body. An unprecedented fatigue overcame him, and his vision went black, and he lost consciousness.

In the last moment before losing consciousness, he heard a cold, mechanical voice: "Host binding successful."