Searching for someone in northern Myanmar, and you call that earning tuition fees?

7 PM, Jiangnan University cafeteria.

Su Ming carried his tray and found a seat in the corner.

The plate contained two meat dishes, one vegetable dish, and a serving of rice, costing a total of twelve yuan and fifty cents.

He felt it was worth it.

The braised pork in the cafeteria is stewed until tender and juicy, not greasy at all, and goes perfectly with rice.

I was eating when my phone vibrated again.

Su Ming put down his chopsticks and picked up his phone.

It was sent by Xiaoqi.

This time it wasn't a text message, but an encrypted email.

Email Subject: [SSS-Rank Mission Details - Subnautica]

He hesitated for a moment, but still clicked on it.

Mission Codename: Subnautica

[Mission Level: SSS (National Security Level)]

Mission Objective: Locate and salvage the missing cargo ship "Yuanhang".

[Task Background:]

The Yuanhang, a 8-ton cargo ship under Longguo XX Heavy Industry, departed from Longguo Donghai Port on August 15, carrying core components and supporting equipment for a deep-sea drilling rig to a research base in the South China Sea.

In the early hours of August 18, the Yuanhang encountered Super Hurricane Haishen in the marginal waters of the South China Sea (coordinates XXX) and subsequently lost contact.

The last images captured by the satellite showed that the Yuanhang appeared to have deviated from its course during the storm and sailed into unknown waters.

As of now, official search and rescue teams have been searching for 72 hours without finding any debris or signs of life.

[Task difficulties:]

1. The area where the disappearance occurred is located in international waters, with fleets from multiple countries operating in the surrounding area. A large-scale official search could easily trigger diplomatic disputes.

2. The ocean currents in this area are complex, and there are many reefs and deep trenches, making conventional search and rescue methods extremely inefficient.

3. The ship carries state-class classified equipment; if it falls into the hands of another country, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Task Requirements:

1. Locate the Yuanhang within one month.

2. Confirm the integrity of the ship's core equipment.

3. If conditions permit, salvage or destroy the equipment to ensure it does not leak out.

[Reward Amount:]

Basic reward: 1000 million (successful location tracking)

Bonus: 5000 million (for successfully salvaging the core equipment)

Special Bonus: An additional 2000 million will be awarded if the mission is completed without alerting other countries.

Platform Support:

1. Provides the latest satellite cloud images and meteorological data.

2. Coordinate the leasing of necessary marine equipment (the cost shall be borne by the client).

3. Provide 24-hour technical support and emergency rescue channels.

Special Note:

Given the difficulty and sensitivity of the task, the platform only extended the invitation to the person codenamed "Scholar".

If you accept the task, the platform will grant you the highest level of access, including but not limited to real-time satellite positioning, encrypted communication channels, and emergency evacuation coordination.

After reading it, Su Ming slowly put down his phone.

Starting at ten million, with a maximum of eighty million.

This is no longer an ordinary missing person search.

This is... a national mission.

He picked up a piece of braised pork and chewed it slowly.

He was quickly calculating in his mind.

A super hurricane hits the edge of the South China Sea, and a cargo ship weighing tens of thousands of tons...

If it were an ordinary shipwreck, the Chinese navy's search and rescue capabilities would make it impossible for them not to find it.

The only explanation is that the ship deviated too far from its course, or... sank into some extremely deep trench.

The high seas are a complex environment, and fleets from various countries operate in that area.

If the authorities launch a large-scale search, it will easily be monitored.

Su Ming knew very well that beneath that deep blue surface, not only schools of fish swam, but also packs of "deep-sea hyenas." These included foreign intelligence ships masquerading as scientific research expeditions, international salvage companies operating on the fringes of the law, and even special deep-sea submersibles from certain countries.

To them, a massive ship carrying China's top scientific research equipment is like a tempting piece of "fat meat" emanating an alluring aroma in the high seas.

The official large-scale search and rescue operation is tantamount to telling the world: There are treasures here, come and grab them.

Su Ming put down his chopsticks and stared absently at the last piece of braised pork on his plate.

He quickly sketched out a map of the South China Sea in his mind.

Water depth, ocean currents, the paths of seasonal hurricanes, the folds in the seabed topography...

If he were the captain of that "Voyage," facing a desperate situation with no power, no communication, and caught in Hurricane Poseidon, the only option to save the ship's equipment wouldn't be to drift with the current, but rather—

"Put yourself in a desperate situation and you will survive," Su Ming murmured.

He remembered his grandfather teaching him an ancient art of "water observation." His grandfather said that water has a personality, and the convergence of every ocean current follows a logic as clear as the grain of wood. Once you can see through the patterns of the water, you'll know where it will take things.

Conventional search and rescue logic is based on radar scanning and sonar searching, but in the face of complex deep-sea trenches, this is like trying to find a mosquito in a forest with a flashlight.

Su Ming's logic is a combination of fluid mechanics and the almost metaphysical "trace analysis".

He picked up the vintage Nokia again, his long fingers tapping rapidly on the scratched keys.

[Reply to: Scholar]

[Content: Acceptance. But I have two requirements. First, I don't need any official escort; I want absolute autonomy. Second, prepare a ship for me—the more dilapidated the better, the more inconspicuous the better, ideally a civilian supply ship that looks like a pile of scrap metal on radar.]

send.

Two seconds later, the screen lit up with only three words:

[Transaction completed. Money received.]

Su Ming looked at the character for "money" and smiled helplessly. The platform operator "Xiao Qi" clearly understood his pain points.

"Ding-dong."

Mobile banking messages came in one after another.

Su Ming put away his phone and slowly ate the braised pork that had already cooled down.

"This tuition fee is definitely enough."

He could not only pay his tuition for this lifetime, but he could probably also cover the maintenance costs of the orphanage for the next fifty years, the study abroad funds for his younger schoolmates, and even the retirement pension for the nursing home.

But he had a strange intuition.

This mission may be even more challenging than breaking through that industrial park in northern Myanmar.

The deep sea is a forbidden zone that humans cannot fully control. At depths of hundreds or even thousands of meters, any sophisticated instrument can become useless; the only thing one can rely on is the brain and instinct.

"Hey, Su Ming, what are you thinking about? The braised pork is getting hard if you don't eat it soon."

His roommate, Zhang Hao, patted him on the shoulder and leaned over excitedly: "The class group chat just exploded! Lin Xiaoyue, the campus belle of our department, just posted a picture of herself sweeping the streets from behind, insisting that some big shot is in our school. Do you want to see it?"

Su Ming calmly put his phone down, then looked up with a shy smile: "What are you looking at? The school beauty or the street sweeper?"

"Look everyone! The school beauty is gorgeous, and the big shot is powerful—that's a double whammy!"

Su Ming picked up his plate and stood up, saying calmly, "You guys can do what I'm doing. I'm going to the library to look up some information about...fluid mechanics."

"Holy crap, is this what a top student is like? He's already preparing for the first day of school?" Zhang Hao looked at Su Ming's back and shook his head with a sigh. "If everyone in our school were as studious as him, how would a nobody like me survive?"

Su Ming walked out of the cafeteria. The campus was shrouded in darkness, with streetlights casting a dim yellow glow in the distance.

He walked briskly and with even strides.

As he passed the artificial lake on campus, he stopped, glanced at the calm water, and then took out a one-cent coin from his pocket and flicked it with his fingertips.

The coin traced an arc, not plunging directly into the water as usual, but precisely cutting into the center of a whirlpool, barely creating a ripple.

"The water... has cracks."

Su Ming muttered to himself, then disappeared at the end of the path leading to the library.

Unbeknownst to him, deep within a military port in southern China, in an office marked "Top Secret," several elderly men in military uniforms were sitting around an electronic nautical chart.

"Did he agree?" an elderly man with a full head of silver hair asked in a deep voice.

"They agreed." The officer in charge of liaison looked complicated. "But he wants a wrecked ship and absolute freedom. That...is a bit ridiculous, isn't it?"

The silver-haired old man stared at the blank file on the screen, codenamed "Scholar," and remained silent for a long time before suddenly chuckling.

"Could someone who can manipulate those lunatics in northern Myanmar so easily be an ordinary person? Since he wants a wrecked ship, then prepare one for him. I want to see if this top scorer in the college entrance exam, who got a perfect score in science, can retrieve our 'national treasure' right under the noses of warships from multiple countries."

"What if he can actually get it back?"

The old man turned his head and looked out the window at the surging sea, his gaze heavy.

"Then we need to consider how to transform this 'advisor' title into a 'national hero' title."

……

That evening, in dormitory 407 of Jiangnan University.

Su Ming lay on the simple hard bed, listening to Zhang Hao's soft snoring, and opened the attachment of the SSS-level order on his phone—it was the last course deviation data before the Yuanhang went missing.

He stared at the screen, his mind racing through various data.

He didn't look at the coordinates, but stared at the wind attenuation value and the return point of the ocean current.

After a long pause, Su Ming smiled.

"Did it veer off course by thirty nautical miles? No, at that angle, the Voyage should be lying... in the abyss right now."

He slowly closed his eyes.