The entire ocean is my fishing ground.

The sky was just beginning to lighten.

A series of muffled thuds echoed from the courtyard.

Lin Chen pushed open the door and saw Lin Jianguo gripping a hammer, frantically nailing wooden boards to the doors and windows.

"Dad, what are you doing?"

Lin Jianguo ignored him, just panting heavily, and swung the hammer again.

Under the big banyan tree at the village entrance, Zhang Cuihua was cracking sunflower seeds, craning her neck to look this way, and whispering to a few idle men next to her.

"Oh dear, look what's happened to the Lin family."

"Did you encounter something unclean while at sea, and now you're possessed?"

"Why would a perfectly good boss like him want to shut himself off from the world?"

"Who says otherwise? He was perfectly fine yesterday, but he went crazy today."

"What a pity about that large ship; I heard it was worth a hundred million."

Ignoring the gossip, Lin Chen walked to his father's side and tried to take the hammer away, but Lin Jianguo pushed him away.

"Leave me alone."

"From this day forward, no one will leave through this door. No one will ever set foot in that sea again."

Lin Chen's heart sank. His father's appearance clearly showed that he was in a state of collapse.

Just then, a dilapidated secondhand van stopped at the village entrance, and a middle-aged man with a pointed mouth and monkey-like face poked his head out and shouted obsequiously into the yard.

"Brother Lin. Is Brother Lin there?"

"I heard... your Poseidon is going to be sold?"

The visitor was Chen Bapi, a well-known secondhand boat dealer in town.

Lin Chen's expression turned cold.

Lin Jianguo threw down his hammer and walked over, pointing to the Poseidon at the distant dock.

"Sell. One price, five million. Sign the contract now."

Five million?

That ship, which cost over 100 million to build, is only being sold for five million?

Fearing that Lin Jianguo might change his mind, Chen Bapi quickly got out of the car and took out the contract and inkpad.

"Oh, Brother Lin is so straightforward."

"This price is non-negotiable. Sign it. Sign it right now."

Fearing he might change his mind, Chen Bapi shouted at the top of his lungs, and the news spread in no time.

Sun Heizi and his group rushed over and surrounded the courtyard, their faces filled with shock and confusion.

"Uncle Jianguo, are you crazy? That's Brother Chen's boat!"

"Uncle Lin, our lives have just started to look up, how could you do such a thing?"

"We can't sell it. We'd rather die than sell it."

The crowd was agitated, but Lin Jianguo, with red eyes, roared at everyone.

"Get out of here, all of you."

"This is a matter for my Lin family."

"From this day forward, the Lin family will seal off our ships and return to shore, never to sail again. Whoever wants to follow him to their death may go."

In the crowd, a man in an ordinary jacket, with an unfamiliar face, gave a cold smile.

Lin Chen's gaze happened to sweep over that face, and a thought struck him.

Instead of arguing with his father, he stopped Lin Jianguo, who was about to put his fingerprint on the document.

"Dad, don't worry."

"The boat is yours, and I have no objection to selling it. But before I sell it, I need to go up and check it one more time. All the equipment on the boat needs to be inventoried. I can't let Chen the Skinflint get a good deal."

Lin Jianguo glared at his son resentfully, but ultimately did not object.

Chen Bapi was burning with anxiety, but he didn't dare offend Lin Chen, so he could only force a smile.

"Of course, of course, Mr. Lin is very thorough in his work."

Lin Chen jumped onto the Sea God and pretended to inspect the cockpit and deck. Finally, using the ship's hull as cover, he quietly slid to the side of the ship and stuck half of his body out of the water.

He fumbled around for a moment in a hidden weld seam below the waterline of the ship, and his fingertips touched an object that was cold and smooth to the touch.

Without making a sound, he pried it off; it was a round device, about the size of a fingernail, shimmering with a faint blue light.

It is a deep-sea naval-grade sonar beacon.

Lin Chen did not destroy it; instead, he returned to the cockpit.

"System, exchange for a signal simulation disguise device."

[Ding! 100 points have been spent. The Signal Simulation Disguise Device has been redeemed, which can simulate and graft any signal source.]

Lin Chen's hands moved rapidly below the main control panel, connecting the sonar beacon to a disguise device the size of a matchbox.

He looked at a green dot slowly moving on the system's nautical chart; it was an elderly sea turtle on its migration route.

"Signal grafting, target, coordinates XXX, XXX."

[Signal grafting complete.]

After doing all this, he stepped off the ship and quietly put the sonar beacon back in its original position.

He shook his head at Lin Jianguo.

"Dad, the boat is fine. But are you really sure?"

"I understand this better than anyone else."

Lin Jianguo snatched the contract and was about to put his fingerprint on it.

Just then, Lin Chen's phone rang; it was Chu Tiankuo calling.

Lin Chen immediately switched to speakerphone.

"Brother Lin, I heard you're going to sell your boat? That old bastard Shao Kun just fell from grace, and the position at the provincial chamber of commerce is still vacant. A lot of people are eyeing it. Are you trying to hand over the market to someone else by abandoning your responsibilities now?"

Lin Jianguo froze as he pressed his fingerprint.

Lin Chen said calmly.

"Mr. Chu, my father is unwell and it's not advisable for him to go to sea recently. Let's discuss business matters later."

After saying that, he hung up the phone.

Chen Bapi was overjoyed, and Lin Jianguo finally made up his mind and pressed his red handprint firmly.

Hundreds of kilometers away, in a dimly lit monitoring room, a blond, blue-eyed mercenary suddenly stood up as he watched the light spot on the screen suddenly accelerate.

"The target is moving at high speed. Direction: international waters. He's trying to escape."

"Order Stinger Squads One and Two to immediately dispatch speedboats and intercept him. Alive."

Three black speedboats cut through the sea, racing at full speed toward the direction where the sonar signal had disappeared.

At this moment, Lin Chen, with Sun Heizi in tow, was piloting the old speedboat, taking advantage of the increasingly large waves and sea fog, turning the boat around and heading back towards the forbidden area that even fishermen dared not approach—the Dragon Ridge Trench.

The sky darkened completely, and large raindrops pounded on the boat awning with a pattering sound.

The speedboat was tossed about in the raging wind and waves. Sun Heizi clung tightly to the gunwale, his face pale.

"Brother Chen, this...this storm is too big. Where are we going? Uncle Jianguo, he..."

"Shut up, set sail."

[Warning: A storm is approaching.]

[Hint: The underwater safe house coordinates have been unlocked. Gravitational tide window remaining: 29 minutes and 47 seconds.]

He had to get to the place his grandfather had left behind before the gravitational tide window closed.

That coordinate is engraved on the strange coin that was seized last night.

The speedboat struggled to reach a group of reefs at the edge of the Dragon's Back Trench.

Without further hesitation, Lin Chen took out the deep-sea pressure-resistant diving suit he had already redeemed from the system space and quickly put it on.

"Kuroko, wait for me here."

"If I don't come up in half an hour, you should sail back and tell everyone to forget about me."

After saying that, without waiting for Sun Heizi to react, he jumped into the icy seawater.

He began to descend.

Ten meters, twenty meters, thirty meters...

The surrounding light dimmed rapidly, and the water pressure squeezed his body.

Guided by the system map, he arrived at a giant underwater rock the size of a truck cab.

The rocks were covered with seaweed and shellfish, and looked no different from the surrounding reefs.

Lin Chen stretched out his hands and pressed them against a groove on the side of the giant rock. He took a deep breath and suddenly exerted force with his muscles.

"Boom..."

With a dull thud, he slowly pushed the boulder aside.

Beyond the rocks, instead of a cave, lay a semi-mechanical pressure-resistant hatch gleaming with a metallic sheen. The hatch was circular, cast from an unknown black alloy, and engraved with a spiral fish-shaped emblem identical to the bronze fish symbol.

This...this is technology from thirty years ago?

Lin Chen's heart skipped a beat.

He reached out and gently pressed the captured coin into the groove in the center of the hatch.

"Click".

Perfectly fitted.

"Hiss... Buzz..."

A soft hissing sound came from inside the hatch as it released pressure, and then slowly spun open with a low mechanical hum.

A dry, stale air rushed towards me.

Behind the hatch, a row of emergency lights lit up in sequence, illuminating a sealed space of about 20 square meters.

This place doesn't resemble a ship's cabin; it's more like a small laboratory.

Outdated nautical charts and geological diagrams hung on the wall. On a nearby metal table, some rusted tools and several notebooks wrapped in oilcloth were scattered about.

Lin Chen stepped forward and unwrapped the oilcloth from one of the notebooks.

Inside were not diaries, but pages of manuscript paper filled with complex formulas and mechanical diagrams.

The titles of the manuscripts are "Principles of Deep-Sea Sonar Countermeasures" and "Application Analysis of Underwater Shape Memory Alloys".

In the lower right corner of the manuscript was my grandfather's signature: Lin Dafa.

Lin Chen's breathing almost stopped.

Grandpa... that old fisherman who only knew how to cast nets and catch fish, thirty years ago, he was actually researching these things in a place like this?

Lin Chen picked up a thick technical manual, turned around, and rushed out of the safe house.

As he broke through the water, the rain was already pouring down.

Sun Heizi was pacing anxiously on the boat when he saw Lin Chen emerge, and he was so excited that he almost cried.

"Brother Chen, you're finally up here! You scared me to death!"

Not far away, a small fishing boat braved the wind and waves and headed towards them. Standing at the bow was Lin Jianguo, who was soaking wet.

"You brat. Do you have to die in this sea to be satisfied?"

The moment Lin Jianguo saw his son, tears streamed down his face along with the rain.

Lin Chen didn't explain. He climbed onto the speedboat, wiped the seawater off his face, held the wet technical manuscript high, met his father's gaze, and shouted loudly.

"Dad. Look carefully."

"Grandpa... he never admitted defeat."

"He didn't go to his death. He left us with the weapons to fight back."