We four successively squeezed into the cabin of the Ayutthaya treasure ship through the opening chiseled by Ma Hailong, and soon arrived inside.

After being submerged for hundreds of years, the cabin of this ancient ship was in terrible shape. After I went in, I looked around and saw that because the ship had capsized, the cargo in the cabin had piled up on one side of the ship. The other side was clean, with nothing but some aquatic plants and shellfish.

Ma Hailong, who had entered first, gave us a thumbs up and nodded.

From his expression, he seemed very satisfied with the condition of the cabin.

We couldn't talk, so we could only communicate through gestures. When Mei Shu and I saw the wooden boxes in the cabin, we originally wanted to open them, but Yu Xiaobo immediately stopped us.

Yu Xiaobo made a "pause" gesture to us, then pointed at Ma Hailong. I immediately understood that he meant we shouldn't rush to take action; this work should be left to Ma Hailong, the professional.

Ma Hailong was very efficient. He immediately began to take out tools from his backpack to clean up the cargo boxes. Because the location of the cabin we were in was relatively close to the seabed, a thick layer of sand and soil had accumulated on the cargo boxes.

Ma Hailong carefully swept away the sand and soil with a brush, and then used a crowbar to pry open a wooden plank of the cargo box, looked at the goods inside, and then waved to us excitedly, signaling us to come over.

Seeing this, I knew he must have found something good.

"We're rich! We're rich! Xiao Mei's medical expenses are secured!" I thought to myself in ecstasy.

We came to the side of the cargo box. Ma Hailong directed Yu Xiaobo and me to stand on the left and right, respectively, and asked us to work together to lift the cargo box aside.

We quickly followed the big shot's instructions, grabbed the wooden box, and slowly lifted it down, placing it in an empty space in the cabin.

Because of the buoyancy in the water, a wooden box that looked quite heavy didn't take much effort to lift. After the wooden box landed, I couldn't wait to look inside.

By the light of my headlamp, I saw many yellowish, exquisitely shaped, and lifelike small Buddha statues neatly arranged inside. Each of these Buddha statues was about the size of a palm, but the details were all complete.

Wearing diving gear, I couldn't figure out what material these Buddha statues were made of, but it was clear that the material of these Buddha statues was definitely unusual, and they had been preserved intact for hundreds of years.

The Ayutthaya Kingdom was known as the "Land of a Thousand Buddhas," and the whole country believed in Buddhism, so it was not surprising to see Buddha statues on their ships.

This box of exquisitely shaped Buddha statues would obviously sell for a good price.

At this moment, Yu Xiaobo took out a Buddha statue from the cargo box, looked at it carefully, and then pointed to the Buddha statue and made a strange gesture to me.

He put two fingers to his mouth, and then pulled his nose, indicating to lengthen the nose.

I understood immediately. Yu Xiaobo was pretending to be an elephant; he was imitating an elephant.

Thinking about it again, I suddenly realized that Yu Xiaobo was telling me that these Buddha statues were made of ivory. I had heard him say before that the Ayutthaya Kingdom was rich in ivory and rhinoceros horns, and these two items were their main export products. These yellowish Buddha statues were obviously carved from ivory.

At this time, Ma Hailong had cleared the second cargo box. He gestured for us to come over and move it. Yu Xiaobo and I went over again and moved the second cargo box over.

Prying open the wooden planks and looking inside, I saw that this cargo box was also filled with small ivory Buddha statues. The design types and styles of these Buddha statues were very similar to those in the previous cargo box.

Although there was no industrialization in that era, these Buddha statues were definitely handmade, not produced on an assembly line, but their craftsmanship looked almost the same, with minor differences.

After that, we moved two or three more cargo boxes, all of which were filled with similar ivory Buddha statues. It could be seen that the Ayutthaya Kingdom at that time made money from these small ivory products.

After these cargo boxes were cleared out, Yu Xiaobo pried them all open, and then picked and chose from them, selecting the ones with the best color, the highest carving skills, and no flaws, and divided them among us.

Because everyone's backpack space was limited, we certainly couldn't take all these Buddha statues out, so in the end, we each only took three or four of the best quality Buddha statues.

After everyone packed the Buddha statues, Yu Xiaobo suddenly borrowed a crowbar from Ma Hailong, and then he did something I never expected.

He took the crowbar and smashed the remaining Buddha statues in the cargo box!

He was merciless, smashing them to pieces. The degree of destruction was such that even if this box of Buddha statues were handed over to文物专家 (wénwù zhuānjiā, cultural relics experts), it would be basically impossible to restore them.

Although I was just here to earn extra money, and in theory, we couldn't take these Buddha statues away anyway, so whether they were broken or not had nothing to do with me, but maybe because I had been with Jiang Yongguang, Xiao Liang, and other cultural relic protectors, I also had some awareness of cultural relic protection.

Seeing these historical relics being directly destroyed, I felt very distressed.

At that time, I guessed that the reason why Yu Xiaobo did this was because he was thinking that "肥水不流外人田 (féishuǐ bù liú wàirén tián)," meaning "rich water shouldn't flow into other people's fields" (one shouldn't let others profit at one's own expense).

Since we can't take these treasures away, we might as well destroy them all, so as not to benefit others.

Later, after a while, I realized that Yu Xiaobo's move had a deeper meaning.

As the saying goes, "物以稀为贵 (wùyǐxīwéiguì)," meaning "rarity increases value."

The reason why something is valuable is because it is rare.

For example, those who collect coins all know about the Da Qi Tong Bao. Why is the Da Qi Tong Bao so famous? Why does everyone want it? Because there are only two Da Qi Tong Bao in the world, only these two, and all the others are fakes.

The same principle applies.

If these Buddha statues were not destroyed, then there would be hundreds of the same ivory Buddha statues in the world. In this way, the Buddha statues we took out would definitely not sell for a high price.

But if Yu Xiaobo smashed these hundreds of Buddha statues, leaving only the six or seven we had on us, then the value of these Buddha statues would definitely skyrocket, and be hundreds or thousands of times higher than before.

This is economic thinking, and it's also what I admire about Yu Xiaobo.

While Yu Xiaobo was smashing the Buddha statues, Ma Hailong found the cargo boxes below. In these cargo boxes under the Buddha statues were some natural treasures.

Among them were several boxes of ivory and several boxes of rhinoceros horns.

As soon as I saw these boxes of ivory, I suddenly remembered that I had seen similar ivory in the ancient Shu tomb. In theory, there are no elephants living in the geographical location of the Shu Kingdom. These ivory might have come from Southeast Asia.

In this way, it is possible that as early as four thousand years ago, there was frequent trade between countries. It's just that we underestimated the ancients, and only now have we realized this.