The stories Yu Xiaobo told were more bizarre than the last, and both Uncle Mei and I were breaking out in cold sweats listening to them.

I couldn't help but ask, "Brother Bo, how did this family of nine suddenly die? Did they just drop dead for no reason?"

Yu Xiaobo said, "No one knows the specific cause of death. Otherwise, it wouldn't be called sudden death. In any case, there were no signs of a struggle at the scene, and the deceased had no external injuries. They just died silently like that. It was very strange!"

Although more people died in this second incident, it wasn't as eerie as the first.

Uncle Mei thought for a moment and asked, "What about the pure gold jewelry that was salvaged? Was it still on the person?"

"It shouldn't be." Yu Xiaobo shook his head and said, "When this case of sudden death was reported, there was no mention of pure gold jewelry being found in the house. If such a valuable antique had been found, it would definitely have been reported in the news."

"That makes things easier."

Uncle Mei had an expression as if he saw through everything. He took out a cigarette, offered one to Yu Xiaobo, lit one for himself, and said while smoking, "I reckon another diver from the same boat had his eye on the treasure and wanted to kill and rob him. That's why he snuck into his house and wiped out the whole family!"

Hearing Uncle Mei's explanation, I thought it made a lot of sense.

As the saying goes, wealth should not be flaunted. This guy salvaged such valuable pure gold jewelry, which must have made a lot of people jealous. It was possible that someone would kill his whole family for the treasure.

Even Yu Xiaobo nodded while smoking and said, "Uncle Mei's explanation is plausible. Several of my colleagues guessed that it was because this guy was too flamboyant that he ended up inviting disaster. So, from then on, when we picked treasures, we kept it to ourselves and didn't ask each other about it. We kept it a secret what treasure anyone picked. We learned a lesson from that."

"That's right." Uncle Mei nodded and said, "Wealth should not be flaunted. You can't show off your wealth, or you'll suffer!"

Yu Xiaobo nodded, guessing that the second story hadn't scared us, and said, "Oh, right, there was another time when a diver on our boat salvaged a mirror."

"A mirror?" I immediately showed a disdainful expression.

I thought to myself, a mirror is such a common daily item. Is it worth mentioning? Doesn't everyone have one?

Yu Xiaobo immediately saw through my thoughts and said with a smile, "Little Chen, don't look down on mirrors. Nowadays, every household has a mirror, but in ancient times, glass was a type of gem. The manufacturing cost was very high. Mirrors were treasures that only nobles could use."

I suddenly understood that ancient mirrors were considered treasures.

Then Yu Xiaobo continued, "That mirror wasn't an ordinary mirror. After it was salvaged, many people said they saw a figure in the mirror."

"Damn, really?" I couldn't help but shiver. I'm most afraid of ghost stories related to mirrors.

"I don't know if it's true or not, since I didn't see it myself, but several people said they saw it. They said there was a green-eyed, long-haired person in the mirror, peering out. He would come out every night and disappear at dawn," Yu Xiaobo said while smoking.

"Damn, you're scaring me to death..."

The first two stories didn't scare me much, but this story about the mirror scared me right away.

Uncle Mei wasn't afraid and sneered, "I've heard too many of these ghost stories. I'm used to them. Even if these treasures are unlucky, we still have to pick them. It's too much of a loss to choose 50,000 yuan instead of an antique treasure."

"That's true," Yu Xiaobo said with a smile.

As we were talking, a burst of footsteps suddenly came from not far away, followed by a deep voice, "Xiaobo, I heard you telling ghost stories from a long way away. What? Trying to scare someone?"

The man was speaking Chinese, not Thai, so Uncle Mei and I perked up.

Several people had passed us earlier, but they were all speaking Thai, and I couldn't understand a word.

We looked up and saw a skinny man with dark skin and small eyes, who looked like he was squinting at first glance, walking towards us.

When Yu Xiaobo saw him, he quickly smiled and introduced us, "Oh, speak of the devil, here he is. This is the master diver I mentioned to you."

"The master diver? The one who participated in the salvage of the Nanhai One?" I asked.

"That's right, that's him!" Yu Xiaobo said, "His name is Ma Hailong. I usually call him Brother Long."

The master diver Ma Hailong quickly shook his head and said, "You don't have to be so polite. Just call me Hailong. We're all compatriots, and we should take care of each other when we're abroad."

Ma Hailong was about the same age as Yu Xiaobo, between thirty and forty years old. I was younger, so I quickly called him "Brother Long." Uncle Mei was older than him, so it wasn't appropriate to call him Brother Long, and it would be a little disrespectful to call him Hailong directly. After thinking about it, he called him Teacher Ma.

Ma Hailong chuckled and said, "I don't dare to be a teacher. Just call me Hailong, old brother."

Uncle Mei saw that although he was a master diver, he wasn't pretentious at all. Eventually, after they got to know each other well, he just called him Hailong directly.

After chatting for a few words, Ma Hailong heard that Uncle Mei and I were corpse fishermen from the Tuo River and had never been to sea before. He was both surprised and admired.

Uncle Mei quickly said, "This is our first time at sea, and we don't have much experience in many areas. We'll have to trouble you two to help us out."

Ma Hailong was a very enthusiastic person and said warmly, "Don't worry, the four of us will work together. We two experienced guys will guide you two newbies. We'll definitely be able to come back safely."

Yu Xiaobo also nodded and said, "Yes, yes, yes."

Uncle Mei and I quickly thanked them. Then I asked, "Brother Long, so that means the four of us are the only Chinese people on this boat? Is that right?"

Sure enough, Ma Hailong nodded and said, "Yeah, just the four of us. Most of the rest are locals, and there are also two foreigners who came from the United States."

When I heard that, I felt even more that the four of us Chinese people had to unite and stick together so that we wouldn't be bullied.

But later, I understood a principle: sometimes, the more you are abroad, the less you can trust Chinese people. I think friends who have been abroad will definitely have a deep understanding of this. At least eight out of ten people who go abroad have been scammed by their own people. And that's still a conservative estimate.

Of course, those are all things that happened later.

In short, for now, I got along quite well with Brother Long and Brother Bo.

Around midnight, all the divers on our boat had arrived. After everyone arrived, no one greeted us. The boat immediately set sail and headed deep into the sea.

My and Uncle Mei's gold-digging journey in a foreign country officially began...