Reborn As Super Heiress

Chapter 1055: Chapter 1051 Giant Sunken Ship

This body of water exceeds a depth of one hundred meters, which is generally the limit for ordinary divers due to ocean pressure. Further deepening by over ten or twenty meters could potentially cause decompression sickness, and in more severe cases, the blood vessels throughout the body might burst.

However, for Huo Sining, these issues are non-existent. Even if she were to dive into trenches two or three hundred meters deep, she could handle it. Yet, the underwater environment is mysterious and unpredictable, with too many unknowns, making her hesitant to venture alone.

It was nighttime, and the sea bottom was complex and changeable. The water was murky and dark, with low visibility, and there were many reefs and hard rock hills. Divers dared not move freely after diving but could only rely on overhead searchlights to slowly descend and cautiously advance.

Huo Sining had no such concerns. The Water-Repelling Pearl made her feel like she was wearing an x-ray visor underwater, practically seeing nothing as an obstacle. Even in the murky Yellow River, she moved effortlessly, let alone in the sea. No matter how turbid the seawater, it couldn’t be worse than the Yellow River.

After entering the water, following the divers, it wasn’t long before Huo Sining spotted a gigantic shadow about four or five hundred meters from the yacht. Though too distant to make out its details, just the sheer size and shape caused her to tremble. Her intuition told her that the shadow was undoubtedly the sunken ship Fujiwara Seiho came to find!

The divers continued to search around because the visible distance was not far, so they hadn’t noticed the sunken ship several hundred meters away. Huo Sining felt a surge of delight and, disregarding the divers, was the first to swim toward the sunken ship’s location.

The closer she got, the clearer the shadow’s features became, raising Huo Sining’s excitement.

Just as she had speculated, the shadow was indeed a sunken ship, and a wreck of an oil tanker exceeding ten thousand tons at that. Although much of the hull was buried in sand and mud, with only a part of the bow or stern exposed, that portion alone was enough to shock anyone.

Just a corner of the ship, compounded by surrounding seabed rock hills, gave the sunken ship a deceptive appearance, making it hard to distinguish. Without Huo Sining’s Water-Repelling Pearl, relying solely on the naked eye, it would certainly be difficult to differentiate the sunken ship from the hills.

Yet, this situation gave Huo Sining an advantage; the longer the divers took to locate the sunken ship’s exact position, the more advantageous it was for her.

The eight divers each wearing diving gear and holding propulsion devices formed four small groups. After diving, they spread out in four directions, using deep-sea torches to advance and quickly initiate an underwater search.

Underwater propulsion devices are an essential apparatus for sea salvage, equipped with thermal sensing and metal detection technologies. Utilizing these functions allowed them to rapidly locate the sunken ship.

With this tool, the divers weren’t slow either; almost as soon as Huo Sining arrived at the stern, a propulsion device detected the sunken ship’s presence, and its indicator light began flashing incessantly.

Noticing the warning light on the propulsion device, divers from all directions converged, quickly approaching the sunken ship.

Seeing this, Huo Sining wasted no time and swiftly searched for an entrance near the sunken ship. Without wearing diving suits and given her petite build, she quickly found a small opening leading into the ship’s cabin.

Because the sunken ship had been submerged for over sixty years, many structures were already corroded. After entering the cabin, Huo Sining gently reached out and easily bent a piece of the ship’s structure.

This made Huo Sining more cautious, afraid of accidentally stepping on a spot that might give way.

The ship’s hull was enormous, prompting Huo Sining, after entering the cabin, to extend her hand and activate the Heavenly Eye to probe the ship.

Her target was the Gold, so she wasn’t concerned about whatever Fujiwara Seiho was after. She meant to locate and take the golden hoard from the cabin first.

The ship had multiple decks, and Huo Sining moved inward quickly, soon finding a staircase that she took downward into the ship’s interior.

According to her calculations, if there were indeed 40 tons of Gold, it must be hidden in the tanker’s cargo hold. Therefore, upon entering the ship, she aimed toward the cargo hold’s location.

Huo Sining was unaware of wartime commercial ship structures but based on current cargo ship designs, the space between the inner bottom plate and the upper deck, stretching from the forepeak bulkhead to the aftpeak bulkhead, aside from housing the engine room, was generally arranged as cargo holds.

The space between the two decks is called a deck-hold; the cabin below the lowest deck is called a lower hold.

The cargo hold arrangement starts counting from the bow to the stern. Generally, a cargo hold’s length doesn’t exceed 30 meters, and usually, each hold has just one hatch. However, oil tankers and container ships often have longitudinal bulkheads, leading to 2-3 hatches being placed side-by-side.

These were things Huo Sining learned from textbooks, unexpectedly coming in handy during such a moment. Based on the textbook description, she quickly grasped the sunken ship’s structure and rapidly located the tanker’s cargo hold.

Reaching the cargo hold, Huo Sining eagerly pulled open the heavily corroded and rusted hatch. Although locked, she merely pulled hard, and the door, along with its lock, opened easily.

When the door opened, she saw moss, algae, and small fish and shrimp darting about inside the hold. But there were no large fish; Huo Sining estimated these creatures entered through the hold’s ventilation or drainage systems.

Because the cargo hold structure requires tidy arrangement and must not impede cargo loading or unloading operations, ventilation pipes, systems, and other facilities are installed, usually along deck beams or snug against cargo hold edges, giving fish and shrimp an entry point.

Nevertheless, due to the size constraints of the pipes, large fish couldn’t come in, making the massive cargo hold a secret base for fish and shrimp.

However, Huo Sining wasn’t concerned with these matters; she was focused on seizing the Gold in the cargo hold before the divers could enter the sunken ship. Otherwise, once they reached the cargo hold, it would be too late for her to act.