After fooling around for a while, Mo Qiong surfaced.
It was still dark. He lay on the surface with his eyes closed, thinking.
He imagined first firing a huge bubble, then crawling inside it and traveling along with it.
But that was ultimately just a fantasy. No matter how large the bubble was, the pressure of the seawater would crush it into countless smaller bubbles. It was like launching a ball of water through the air—the rushing air would batter it as it moved at high speed, turning it into countless tiny droplets.
Though the droplets would not be affected by drag on their way to the destination, they did not mind breaking into countless pieces along the way before arriving there together.
"I still need to buy a diving respirator. For now, I'll just lie on the surface and head back."
Mo Qiong blew out a breath, causing the air bags to accelerate him. Floating on the surface like a surfer, he sped toward Yan Da's seaside.
To make it easier to see where he was going, he inflated the air bags at his feet and waist. This let him move forward in a posture that was almost like gliding.
At such tremendous speed, he broke through a great deal of seawater, all of it surging toward shore at a certain speed.
Layer upon layer, it soon gathered into two enormous waves that followed behind Mo Qiong.
The waves grew larger and larger. When Mo Qiong rushed onto the beach, the giant waves caught up with him, knocked him over, and sent him skidding several meters.
This was not caused by waves piling on top of waves. Rather, as he broke through the seawater all the way here, he had deliberately maintained Landing Point at the shore, causing more and more seawater to surge toward it.
Mo Qiong realized from this that when he continuously maintained a certain Landing Point while moving rapidly through a medium, he would whip up towering waves or howling winds.
If enough seawater and air collided, the result would be a tsunami or a typhoon.
Mo Qiong was soaked through, and it was too late for him to return to the dormitory, so he simply got a room at a hotel.
After taking a shower and sleeping, the first thing he did after waking up the next day was rent a warehouse by the sea.
There was no way he could keep all that equipment in the dormitory. He needed a little place of his own.
The warehouse did not need to be very large. Thirty square meters would be enough. After completing the paperwork and putting away his equipment, he ordered a set of diving gear before returning to school.
He had taken three days off, without even an official leave slip. He had merely asked for leave by phone.
When he returned to school and went to his counselor to make up the paperwork, the counselor directly told him, "I'm marking you absent."
"..."
"I was planning to come back after one day, but I really ran into something that delayed me... I told you that over the phone, too." Mo Qiong said.
"You ran into human traffickers?" the counselor asked with a laugh.
"Yeah."
The counselor shook his head. "Forget it. I can only count one day as leave. Three days requires the department head's approval. A phone call to me alone is useless."
"I told the department head, too," Mo Qiong said.
"I know you did. The department head even came to verify the situation with me, but what was I supposed to say? That you had heroically fought human traffickers? Can I just say something like that? There's no official commendation afterward. What am I supposed to answer for?"
Mo Qiong sighed. He knew it would turn out this way. Helplessly, he said, "But I really did go after human traffickers."
"Oh, please. If you really had that commendation, it would be an honor for our whole school. The director would personally commend you, and even I'd get to bask in your glory." The counselor laughed.
Mo Qiong's eyes lit up. "If I really had that commendation, it would benefit you and the class too, right?"
The counselor froze, then said, "Of course."
"Then you'll have to approve my leave requests from now on," Mo Qiong said.
The counselor laughed. "You really are something. You don't focus on attending class and only think about taking leave. If you really have the commendation you mentioned on the phone, forget three days—you can take as many days as you want."
"It's a deal." Mo Qiong smiled.
"All right, stop messing around with me. If you had that commendation, the department head would have called me already."
"Ring, ring, ring..." The phone on the desk rang.
The counselor froze and looked at Mo Qiong.
"Don't look at me. It might not be about me, but I definitely didn't lie to you."
The counselor blinked and picked up the phone.
"It's me... Uh, Director... Mo Qiong? Yes, he's my student... You asked about him yesterday..." As he spoke, the counselor stared at Mo Qiong in astonishment.
Mo Qiong shrugged and mouthed, "My absence..."
The counselor took a deep breath and continued answering the phone. "He subdued five human traffickers? Then I was mistaken. This student of mine did ask me for leave. Yes, yes, he told you the same thing, right? Then I really was mistaken. Yes, we need to cancel the absence... He clearly did ask for leave."
"As for Mo Qiong's usual performance? His performance..."
"He's doing great! His grades are pretty good, and he works part-time to support himself. I remember he..."
As he spoke, he looked at Mo Qiong again. How would he know what kind of part-time job Mo Qiong usually did?
Mo Qiong smiled at him and mouthed, "Food delivery..."
"Mm... I believe he delivers food. Yes, he's especially hardworking. When he has time, he also participates in club activities. He's the..."
This time, the counselor did not need to give him a cue. Mo Qiong grabbed a pen and paper and rapidly wrote down his club, the class honors he had received, and everything else.
The counselor looked at it while saying, "He's the starting goalkeeper for the Football Club. He plays very well. I often go to watch him in person."
The counselor continued introducing Mo Qiong's academic performance and usual conduct.
In truth, how could he remember so much? He needed Mo Qiong to prompt him for most of it.
But the school leader on the other end of the phone did not know that. He assumed the counselor cared deeply about this student.
"Yes, he's already back... All right, all right. I'll notify him."
After hanging up, the counselor stood up excitedly.
Mo Qiong smiled. "Did they ask me to go collect five hundred yuan?"
"More than that!" The counselor slapped him on the shoulder. "The department is also rewarding you with two thousand. I'm telling you, the five traffickers you caught were connected to a much larger case."
Mo Qiong of course knew. The case had even been wrapped up.
But the counselor clearly did not know that yet, and Mo Qiong had no intention of saying more.
So he said, "We had a deal. If I need to keep taking leave in the future, you have to help me."
"Sure, but what do you need so much leave for?" the counselor asked with a laugh.
"To work part-time, earn money, and make a living..." Mo Qiong said.
Mo Qiong's counselor was very young, and Mo Qiong was his first class of students. This honor had benefited him quite a bit as well.
With him helping to cover for Mo Qiong, taking leave would no longer be a problem, as long as Mo Qiong did not take too many consecutive days off.
After settling things with his counselor in just a few words, Mo Qiong collected the money, accepted the award, and attended a class meeting. The next day, he went straight to look at boats.
"I have three hundred and fifty thousand left..."
That amount was only enough to buy a somewhat larger alloy fishing boat, the kind with a single cabin operated by one person.
But that was enough. After looking around for quite a while, he ultimately chose a pure-white, two-level fishing boat.
The upper level was for driving, while the cabin below was used for storage. It was only a little larger than an ordinary speedboat.
The boat itself was not expensive, costing only a few tens of thousands of yuan.
But outfitting it with top-of-the-line components, thickening the lower-level storage compartment, and replacing it with a sealed hatch made it very expensive.
Then there were all the boat's paperwork and registration, as well as filing everything with the Maritime Safety Administration.
In the end, Mo Qiong spent three hundred thousand yuan.
He was also unable to obtain a fishing license. Although the boat looked like a fishing vessel, it could only actually be used as a yacht.
But Mo Qiong did not care. He did not need everything to be legal.
Once he went out to sea, who would know whether he was only sailing in navigable waters?
Besides, who would know that this ordinary fishing boat of his could dive after he installed a sealed hatch?
Among Mo Qiong's equipment was also an ordinary sonar system. Combined with his ability, this could actually be a submarine...
"An air compressor is this big? Looks like I can only keep it in the warehouse."
Mo Qiong bought another air compressor. The machine could compress air into an air tank.
The air tank was not merely used to supply the diving respirator. It could also serve as a propulsion system... or even a weapon.
When high-pressure gas was released from the tank without passing through a diving respirator, its initial velocity was seventy to one hundred and fifty meters per second.
In other words, this could also provide speed for his boat, as long as he brought it into the sealed cabin and released some gas toward a wall.
The airflow would strike the cabin wall. Even with the engine turned off, the boat could still travel across the sea.
"I can go as far as I want. If I run into a maritime patrol vessel, I'll just dive. I won't even need to use fuel."
P.S.: Sorry, I'm really sorry about today.
Before you continue