0675 Gone Again

"monster?"

A group of idle sailors suddenly crowded over. They stood beside Connie and looked at the sea in the distance.

Generally speaking, when people stand on a boat, their eyes cannot penetrate the sea surface, because people cannot see things under the sea surface due to the refraction of light and other reasons.

But for things above the sea, it will be more conspicuous. It is like a black patch with no light reflection on a piece of silvery water.

People saw the thing at once, and some young men even yelled and guessed what the thing was.

"Maybe it's a whale..."

"Maybe it's a sunfish..."

The sailors speculated happily, and Connie also actively joined in, "It might be a submarine..."

The laughter and laughter of the surrounding sailors disappeared instantly. Everyone looked at Connie with a "do you know what you are talking about?" look. The curves of their mouths and clenched fists made Connie realize Until I said the wrong thing.

"Hey, I mean..."

Before he could explain anything, a violent explosion sounded, and the armed escort ship was overturned.

The explosion did not have the sky-high flames like in the movie. You could only see a huge water splash suddenly blooming under the waterline. There was black smoke in the water splash, and then the armed escort ship was directly flipped over, head down. The ones pointing upward begin to sink slowly.

The armed men who fell into the water swam frantically to other places. While the ship was silent, it would cause a turbulent current. If they were unlucky, they would be dragged to the bottom of the sea by this suction.

Fortunately, the ship capsized and it would take some time for them to sink, enough for them to escape from the fatal area.

What happened in a short period of time was so shocking that everyone lost the ability to speak.

The Federation people are not a "breeding" nation, at least not yet. When faced with this situation that is almost like a war, the only thing they can do is to run away desperately.

But this is the sea, where can people escape to?

With the sound of "pop" falling into the water, people seemed to wake up, and a sailor lowered the lifeboat.

According to relevant federal laws, the carrying capacity of lifeboats on seagoing ships must be twice the number of people on board the ship.

This is a cargo ship with not many people on board, so there are only one lifeboat hung on each side of the hull.

Just as Connie ran to the other side of the ship, he looked back and accidentally saw something like a swordfish under the sea quickly hitting the freighter...

There was a loud bang, but it was actually more of a wail as the metal twisted. When the water that almost covered the sky fell, the hull had begun to tilt, and a hole was blown out of the bottom of the ship. Sea water poured in quickly, and the sound was all around my ears. Siren……

When the explosion occurred, the sailors were knocked down on the deck. After waiting for a few seconds, they all got up, held their noses and jumped into the water.

Connie also jumped into the water with everyone, followed by the cursing captain and first mate, and almost everyone got on board, except those in the boiler room.

Together, they rowed the lifeboat very far and watched the freighter capsize little by little. Everyone had a very complicated expression on their face.

The very embarrassed captain patted the young man next to him on the shoulder, with a smile on his face, "This is not bad news, at least for us."

Everyone's eyes were focused on him, and he responded to everyone with his eyes, "Look, twice. The first time we encountered robbers, the second time we encountered this...", he said I don’t know how to describe it, “But, we survived.”

"That's the best part, we've faced the worst twice, but now we've survived and there's nothing more exciting than this, a narrow escape."

"Each of you is already a 'Legendary Sailor.' You can brag to anyone on any ship about what you have experienced, and no one can argue with you."

It was indeed quite unlucky at first, but after the captain said this, everyone felt that they were really lucky.

Connie, who was still dazed, suddenly asked, "That submarine won't attack us, right?"

The originally harmonious atmosphere suddenly dropped to freezing point. The captain clenched his fists. Considering that now was not the time to beat people up, he forced a smile and said, "According to international conventions, even belligerent countries cannot massacre civilians..."

In the end, these people managed to get together with the people who escaped from the armed escort ship. With the help of the simple compass on the old captain's neck, they rowed hard towards the coast of Amelia.

After more than a day, everyone was exhausted. The appearance of the coastline cheered up some people who were already desperate.

Yes, despair, it only took one day from the excitement of survival to despair.

Behavioral scientists once did a time when they built two passages, one was dark and nothing could be seen, and the other was full of light.

They divided the people who participated in the experiment into two pairs, one walked from the invisible channel, and the other walked from the bright channel.

The length of the two passages is the same, and there are no obstacles. As long as you stride forward, you can walk out of the passage in just fifteen minutes.

However, among all the people who participated in the experiment, only one person walked out of the invisible passage, and everyone else failed. On the contrary, all those who took the light-filled passage eventually came out.

Being visible and invisible will give people two extreme feedbacks, just like these sailors floating on the sea.

They rowed hard but could never see the coastline. It didn't take much time to go from excitement at the beginning to depression, numbness and even despair. As long as there was no hope for their efforts, they would despair.

Not to mention that the lack of fresh water and food will aggravate people's emotional decline. In fact, it is a great thing that these people can persist until now without an emotional breakdown.

If any of them were extracted and left alone in a lifeboat, they would have collapsed long ago.

And this just proves the role of collective power.

A few hours later, these people finally got ashore and found the people from the company who came to pick up the goods in the port hotel.

"I thought you would come earlier. Did you encounter a storm?" The person who spoke had a...slight mockery on his face. The captain was very embarrassed at this time. He was first wet by the sea water and then exposed to the sun. His face was black and red, his neck was even covered with skin, and he was in a miserable state. He didn't look much better than the locals.

So this sentence seems to be asking whether the other party is in such a mess because of a storm, but it is actually just a taunt.

The captain took out his pipe, unceremoniously opened the other party's cigarette case on the coffee table, took out two cigarettes, rolled them into pieces and stuffed them inside, and also used the other party's lighter.

He looked at the other party's unhappy expression, took a couple of puffs, and spit it out slowly. His whole body seemed to be sublimated and reborn at this moment.

He said lightly, "The ship sank, along with our cargo!"

…

At half past eleven, it was time to go to sleep. Mr. Wardrick, who was wearing pajamas, had just played a friendly game with his wife and was about to sleep contentedly when the ringing of the phone disturbed him.

He whispered a few words to his wife, asking her to sleep first, and then walked to the study wearing a piece of clothing.

"What happened?" He put his shoulder against the phone and took out a solid color to light it. He knew that it was definitely not a joke to bother him with the call at this time.

There is a particularly clear boundary between the public and private sectors in the Federation. As long as they enter private time beyond the last working time, they are not willing to be disturbed.

They don't want to be disturbed, and they don't want to actively disturb others unless they have to.

The phone call at this time didn't look like a prank. Pure smoke particles rolled in his mouth. The nicotine was absorbed through the mucosa and began to take effect quickly. He was already prepared, "I hope it's not a bad thing."

There was silence on the other end of the phone for two seconds, and the voice was slightly heavy, "Our ship sank." Perhaps because the description was not too detailed, the person on the other end of the phone added, "The ship heading to the Amelia area sank." Yes, along with our goods."

It took about ten seconds for Mr. Wardrick to react, "Does anyone else know?"

"The board of directors has held a meeting overnight. If you have time, come to the company. If you don't have time, join this conference call. The number is..."

Mr. Wardrick thought for a while, "I'll come to the company and help me prepare the car."

After hanging up the phone, he sat on the chair without moving. Instead, he took a few sips of pure color, and an unknown expression appeared on his face. There was no doubt that it was Lynch's handiwork.

His evaluation of Lynch is higher. If the military's friendship with him has reached the point where it can attack its own merchant ships, then Lynch's value must be re-evaluated.

Half an hour later, Mr. Wardrick appeared in the board meeting hall dressed in leather clothes. At this time, many people had come, and some people were not in Bupen because of the incident, but they also joined the conference call.

After waiting for a while and the last person was contacted, the meeting officially started.

"I just asked the shipping company. If we need to salvage our ship, it will cost us about 10 million." The chairman of the board of directors pressed his temple. He now had a headache.

"There were various other losses. This time we reimbursed another 20 million, gentlemen, 20 million!"

"In addition to the 16 million we lost before, we lost so much without doing anything. Who can tell me how much more we will lose next?"

His voice was neither violent nor loud, but no one dared to ignore it.

Wardrick sat on the side with a serious expression, but his eyes were filled with an elusive smile. He had almost won this round.

-

①, a slang term similar to "manly".