Chapter 551 - Shipwreck Treasure

"Nothing strange about it," Lin Chuanqing shrugged. "Yugoslavia had a massive arms industry. When the country imploded, everything from rifles to tanks hit the black market. Seeing their gear in a smuggler's hold is par for the course."

Gao Xiaosong ignored the history lesson, his attention caught by a squat, ugly weapon with a folding wire stock. "And this?"

"VZ68," Lin Chuanqing identified it instantly. "The 9mm variant of the Czech Scorpion. A classic machine pistol."

Gao Xiaosong hefted it. It felt awkward—too large for a pistol, too small for a carbine. "It handles well, but the stock is a joke. How does it compare to the Type 85?" As a Coast Guard captain, Gao disliked the current SKS and cut-down Miniés; he craved something compact with high rates of fire for ship-boarding actions.

"Night and day," Lin Chuanqing smiled. "The Scorpion has been killing people reliably since the fifties. It's a proven man-stopper."

Gao Xiaosong caressed the cold steel, reluctant to put it down.

The unboxing continued, and the surprises kept coming. The real jackpot was hidden in the deeper crates: four M240 machine guns. Unlike the Eastern European surplus, these were genuine US military issue. The sight of the belt-fed beasts turned everyone green with envy. Security had to constantly remind the onlookers to stay back, lest they drool on the merchandise.

The final tally was impressive: 25 M77B1 assault rifles, 4 M240 GPMGs, 36 CZ99 pistols, 12 VZ68 Scorpions, 25 M72 LAW rocket launchers, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. There were also grenades and blocks of plastic explosive.

"Small-time operator," Lin Chuanqing diagnosed. "A ship this size could carry ten times this load. This feels like an amateur run."

Once the adrenaline faded, a sobering reality set in. The haul was a windfall, sure, but in the grand scheme, it changed nothing. Twenty-five rifles and four machine guns wouldn't win a war. The rocket launchers were useless without tanks to shoot at. The real value lay in the ammunition, which would keep their existing stocks fed for a while longer.

The rest of the cargo was a bizarre time capsule of 21st-century consumerism. Waterlogged bales burst open to reveal "Made in China" sportswear, fake Nike sneakers, and counterfeit luxury handbags. Deep within a hidden compartment, they found 200,000 cigarettes, forty cases of Scotch, and a library of pornographic magazines, all hermetically sealed against the ocean.

"The clothes were the cover," Lin Chuanqing explained. "The booze and smokes were the grease money. Smuggling 101."

The ship's physical evidence told a darker story. The crew quarters suggested five occupants. Most of their personal gear—clothes, toiletries—was left behind, abandoned in the haste of evacuation.

"That puzzles me," Gao Xiaosong said. "If you're abandoning ship, why leave your survival gear? That's suicide."

"Unless they left in a hurry," Lin Chuanqing pointed to the davits. "One lifeboat is missing. The other is still here only because its emergency kit was stripped. They took what they needed to survive and left the rest."

The chilling implication hung in the air: Did they take weapons?

The cargo was untouched, but smugglers wouldn't use their merchandise for self-defense unless desperate. "They would have had personal sidearms," Lin Chuanqing reasoned. "We found empty slots in the crew lockers, spent brass on the deck, and a half-empty box of 9mm. They were armed when they left."

"The ship is currently at a black site undergoing refit," Gao Xiaosong concluded his report to the Eight-Person Conference. "Location is classified."

"Classified by who?"

" The Executive Committee."

Ma Jia, presiding over the meeting, tapped the table. "We have two issues. One: do we tell the general population about 'Matter A'? Two: how do we handle these... intruders?"

"The Executive Committee delegated the assessment to us," Chen Haiyang noted.

The consensus was swift: Tell them. Keeping the existence of other modern humans secret was dangerous. If a transmigrator stumbled upon an armed rival faction unaware, the results could be catastrophic.

"There are only five hundred of us," Ran Yao argued. "We can't afford secrets that affect our collective survival."

As for the intruders, the Conference adopted a ruthlessly pragmatic stance. The policy was simple: "Submit or Die."

1. Organized Rivals: If the intruders had established a power base, they were to be annihilated without warning.
2. Individuals: Small groups were to be captured and "persuaded" to join. Resistance would be met with execution.
3. Total War: In the event of conflict, no prisoners would be taken. Families and associates would be purged. No trace would be left behind.

Yi Fan proposed a "Witch Hunt Squad" to actively track these potential threats.

"Too expensive," Ma Jia shot it down. "We can't chase ghosts. Issue a general alert. Raise vigilance levels. If they're out there, we'll find them."

When "Matter A" hit the internal network, it detonated like a depth charge. The realization that they were not alone—that other moderns were out there, potentially armed with machine guns—shattered the collective sense of security. Phones at the Executive Committee rang off the hook.

Then came the backlash. Shan Liang and the opposition block savaged the administration for concealing the information for months. "The People's Right to Know" became the rallying cry on the BBS.

The General Affairs Office responded with a stroke of bureaucratic genius: That happened under the previous administration. The Second Executive Committee believes in transparency and released this immediately upon review.

It was a masterstroke of deflection. The anger dissipated, replaced by the usual greed. The transmigrators stopped caring about the constitutional crisis and started arguing over who would get dibs on the whiskey and the M240s.

(End of Chapter)