The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 161: Undersea City

She mouthed words to me, and I made out the first one; it seemed to be the three characters for dust avoidance bead.

The second word also seemed to involve some kind of bead. It appears that the two large bulbs at the bow and stern are the treasures she mentioned.

"Miss Leng, Miss Wang..." Beauty Snake called out softly.

Bi Shi and I both turned to look at her, but her eyes weren’t on us. She was looking at the outside of the ship wall to our left.

I glanced obliquely at where she was looking and caught sight of a white thing peering into the ship from outside.

It looked like a white fairy dress, except it had a head and a face. Its face appeared like a sheet mask, with features made of several black holes.

Overall, it looked like a paper person stuck against the ship under the pressure of the ocean water.

The ghost Cong Zhibo saw earlier must have been this thing. It resembled a dress floating in the sea, and having a head and facial features, its abstractness made it even more terrifying.

"It’s probably some type of jellyfish, right? Creatures in the deep sea all look bizarre. And they’re phototactic—our ship’s lights must have attracted it," Bi Shi said indifferently.

Just as her voice fell, the Shell Ship began to slow down, sliding across the seabed like an airplane landing.

The white creatures swam to the front of the ship, and at the end of a crevice in the abyss, a large group of these white creatures was gathered.

I hadn’t seen any information about them, so I decided to temporarily call them dress jellyfish.

The one returned into its group, and soon the entire group began to move. They unfurled like a blooming white lotus, revealing the sea-floor stone gate in the middle!

The stone gate slowly rose, and the Shell Ship slid inside. Soon after, the stone gate descended, sealing off the outside world.

The large bulbs at the bow gradually dimmed, like car headlights about to go out.

However, the space inside the stone gate was embedded with many white glowing stones, providing ample light.

"Wow..." Bi Shi murmured in admiration, "When all seems lost, a new path emerges."

The space inside the gate was similar to a submarine dock, with a central water channel and paths on both sides.

The upper part of the Shell Ship floated to the surface, resting on the water like a normal boat would.

It was extremely quiet all around. Bi Shi and I exchanged a glance, neither of us speaking a word.

A centuries-old ancient ship, captained by corpses, returning to its homeland...

If nothing had gone wrong in their homeland, why would the residents of White Jade City have fled?

So I wasn’t optimistic about the return this time. A ship arriving at the port without anyone inspecting was not a good sign.

Bi Shi and I tacitly said nothing and didn’t move. We quietly observed the outside environment.

Once the Shell Ship left the water, it returned to an opaque milky white state. However, the wall in front of the seat hadn’t reverted and we could still see outside.

"Do we go down and see, or turn back immediately?" Bi Shi asked, with a hint of anticipation.

"Of course, turn back. This place surely isn’t good. Don’t forget, the residents of White Jade City escaped from here," I shot her a look.

"There’s no way back. Entering and exiting the Sea of Sunken Ships requires human sacrifice. Even if you killed me, it wouldn’t be enough to open the barrier. You can’t return," Beauty Snake smirked coldly.

"Have you forgotten that someone successfully escaped? Do you think he carried several corpses on his back to jump into the sea?!"

Since the escapee was a friend of Professor Liu, it wasn’t surprising that Liu knew the escape method.

Professor Liu learned the escape method from a diary, which was conveniently recorded on the last page, likely after the escapee wrote it down following his escape.

Professor Liu burned the diary, leaving only a few hand-drawn maps. So except for him, no one else in the team knew the method.

The method wasn’t easy to implement. Perhaps Liu thought that compared to this method, leaving with Meng Qingyu was easier, which is why he didn’t tell Guan Hai and the others.

He likely told me the method because he had seen what I was capable of and thought if anyone could succeed, it would be me.

I had used the method before, and it worked. It involved pretending to be a creature.

Professor Liu only told me to hide inside a creature’s corpse. It sounded simple, but later on when they encountered the sea monsters, had we not rescued them, they would have been annihilated. It showed that hiding inside the creature wasn’t hard, but surviving in the jaws of the monster was the challenge.

"How do you know he didn’t toss his partner’s corpse to sacrifice to the sea monster?" Beauty Snake countered.

I couldn’t prove it, but if Beauty Snake’s theory held, Professor Liu’s friend would need to collect his teammates’ bodies all the way.

Setting aside how difficult that would be, what condition were the bodies in? Either reduced to bare bones or nothing left at all. Throwing such clean-picked bones to the sea monsters would only anger them—who are you insulting?

Since she was so certain, I didn’t argue further. Facts speak louder than words. If we could escape the island using Professor Liu’s friend’s method, the truth would unveil itself.

But the current issue was whether we could return. Could the corpses keep piloting the Shell Ship repeatedly, or was it a one-time journey?

Bi Shi wanted to disembark and look around, but I reminded her that if the corpses set off automatically later, she’d be trapped in this underwater structure, thousands of meters deep.

This place was far more concealed than her Tomb Prison, hardly visited by anyone over the eons.

Bi Shi was also wary of being trapped once more and suppressed her curiosity, sticking with me to wait.

We waited for several hours, but the Shell Ship showed no sign of restarting.

Meanwhile, Chen Qinghan and the team leader woke up and, seeing the ship had stopped, asked where we were.

"Undersea City," I pointed to the dock outside the window.

"No water, I’ll check if there’s any oxygen," the team leader said, then walked out of the pilothouse.

In the outer space, there was no water, but at such depths underwater, it was hard to say if there was oxygen.

The channel stretched endlessly, with branches on both sides. One could guess this place was built to accommodate a large number of Shell Ships.

If it were all filled, it would be spectacular. Unfortunately, only this lone ship now rested at the entrance.

The team leader returned a few minutes later, confirming the outside air was safe.

"Look at its hand," Chen Qinghan gestured for me to check the corpse’s hand.

It was then I stood and approached the seat, seeing that the corpse’s hand had moved from the armrests at some point.

"Perhaps it’s a signal for docking," he continued.

The hands being on means to start the ship, and taking them off means docking—Chen Qinghan’s theory had some merit.

Beauty Snake didn’t reveal how she got the Shell Ship moving. In hindsight, she might have simply repositioned the corpse’s hand.

I glanced at her immediately. Upon hearing Chen Qinghan’s words, she frowned.

Our conversation awoke Guan Hai and Cong Zhibo. They had been asleep for hours. Feeling slightly reenergized, they rubbed their eyes and, noticing the ship had stopped, inquired about the location.

"This is the underwater architecture constructed by the White Jade City residents’ ancestors—the Undersea People—known as Undersea City," Bi Shi explained in her rather amateurish broadcasting voice.