Underwater Cleaner

Blue Island City is a coastal city located in Huaguo. 520 Official Website

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At six in the morning, Ye Yuan was no longer sleepy, staring blankly out the window.

He had been in this city for almost five years. He attended university here and stayed after graduation.

Ye Yuan's university was the best school in Blue Island City, Blue Island Ocean University, where he majored in Marine Science.

Because of his major, it was difficult to find a job after graduation.

He grew up in a fishing village and was a good swimmer. In university, he professionally studied diving.

His diving instructor introduced him to an underwater cleaning job at a marine amusement park.

Although the job didn't sound like much, the boss offered a base salary of six thousand yuan a month. Six thousand might not be a high salary in a big city, but it was quite a lot for a recent university graduate. Most importantly, accommodation was provided.

Looking out at the sea, he thought again about what his mother had said on the phone last night.

Ye Yuan's home was on an island over 200 kilometers away from Blue Island City.

Due to overfishing in previous years, the nearshore fishery resources were almost depleted. Many young fishermen no longer went out to sea to fish but instead worked in larger cities. Only the elderly and middle-aged remained in the villages.

In response to this situation, the local county government decided to relocate the fishing village where Ye Yuan's family lived. The island, after relocation, would be tendered to the public as a whole.

Ye Yuan's mother had called him yesterday about the relocation. She wanted him to go back, as he was a university student. The older generation still placed a lot of faith in educated people.

Ye Yuan's worry stemmed from this. The relocation was scheduled to begin during the fishing moratorium. However, there were still more than two months until the moratorium started. But because the local government wanted to finalize the matter as soon as possible, they had begun signing relocation contracts in the past few days. Families who signed the relocation agreement this month would receive compensation.

Going back was easy, but what about after signing the agreement? Although there was a two-month buffer, housing issues and other matters couldn't be settled in just a few days.

Because the marine amusement park where he worked was relatively small, there weren't many tourists. Cleaning underwater garbage didn't require many people.

There were only Ye Yuan and Brother Zhao, who was a few years older than him, at the entire amusement park.

Brother Zhao's family was also from a rural area in Blue Island. Due to his age, his family had arranged a marriage for him, and Brother Zhao had taken a week off to go home.

Currently, Ye Yuan was the only one cleaning the seabed for the amusement park. Don't assume that cleaning underwater garbage is an easy task; it's completely different from cleaning on land. If he also took time off to go home, would the amusement park agree?

Many people don't understand what underwater cleaning entails. Underwater cleaning mainly involves salvaging items that tourists accidentally drop into the sea and collecting garbage that tourists throw into the ocean. Of course, precise salvaging is quite difficult.

For example, last time a tourist accidentally dropped a ring. Ye Yuan and Brother Zhao searched for three days in the area where the ring was dropped but couldn't find it. Later, the tourist didn't have time to wait and left. Half a month later, Brother Zhao found the ring about a kilometer away from where it was dropped and mailed it back.

This was just one small incident among their many salvage operations. Ye Yuan had been working there for almost ten months, and he had retrieved countless mobile phones, cameras, DV players, and selfie sticks.

Since these items were unusable after getting wet, not many tourists requested them to be salvaged. However, valuable jewelry still needed to be retrieved. Not everything could be salvaged, as the seabed is not like land.

He decided not to think about it for now. At worst, he could quit, but he couldn't make his parents worry. Seeing that it was almost seven o'clock, Ye Yuan got up, washed up, and ate breakfast at the amusement park's staff canteen. He wanted to talk to the manager, but the manager wasn't there, so he would have to wait until the evening.

He went to the beach and changed into his diving suit. Yesterday, in Sea Area Four, a tourist accidentally dropped a diamond bracelet while taking a selfie by the yacht. Today, Ye Yuan was going to clean underwater garbage in Sea Area Four and help the tourist find the bracelet.

He drove the speedboat to Sea Area Four, put on his diving equipment, and with his back to the sea, he fell backward into the water. Sea Area Four was one of the deeper areas of the entire marine amusement park, reaching depths of about thirty meters in some places.

Underwater, watching the colorful small fish swimming around him, Ye Yuan felt much better. Perhaps it was because he grew up in a fishing village, but Ye Yuan had a deep affection for the sea.

As Ye Yuan was carefully observing the seabed, he noticed a Red Crab swimming past him. Seeing a crab underwater was a normal occurrence, but the size of this crab caught Ye Yuan's attention.

Red Crabs are very different from other crabs, making them easy to identify. Their shells are smooth with yellow markings, and their two claws are extended. Normal Red Crabs are about the size of an adult's palm, but this one was as large as two palms. Most importantly, the Red Crab's claw was holding a round stone bead.

Ye Yuan slowly approached and gently tapped the large Red Crab with the iron rod he was holding. He expected the Red Crab to drop the stone bead and run away, but to his surprise, the Red Crab accelerated, but the stone bead in its claw showed no sign of being dropped.

Children who grow up by the sea generally dislike eating Red Crabs because they have less roe and the meat isn't as good. That's why Ye Yuan didn't immediately try to catch it.

However, seeing the Red Crab tightly gripping the stone bead, Ye Yuan's interest was piqued. He followed the Red Crab, continuously tapping it. Finally, the Red Crab had no choice but to release the stone bead from its claw.

Ye Yuan reached into the seabed sand and picked up the stone bead that the Red Crab had dropped. Due to the poor light underwater, Ye Yuan didn't examine it closely and directly placed the stone bead into the net bag on his waist before continuing his work.

In the blink of an eye, he had been underwater for thirty minutes and needed to go up for a rest. During this time, Ye Yuan found three mobile phones and some metal bottles on the seabed. These metal bottles were packaging for high-end beverages, which some tourists casually threw into the sea.

Back on the speedboat, he removed his oxygen tank and took large gulps of mineral water from the bottle on the boat.

After resting for a while, he took out the stone bead he had found underwater.

The stone bead felt cool to the touch, very comfortable.

But at that moment, he felt an indescribable force, as if something was being drawn from his body. He experienced an unprecedented sense of fatigue, and then his vision went black, and he knew nothing more.

In the last moment before Ye Yuan lost consciousness, a cold mechanical voice sounded in his ear: "Host binding successful."