74 Kun Wu (1/2)

This three-masted ship had been so badly eroded that it took Chen Fan a day's work to drag it back carefully to Zhongyun city.

In the night, Chen Fan quietly opened the gate of the dock and controlled the electric eel to drag the boat into it. The whole base of the dock was made of cement and water could reach up to ten meters high during high tide.

This ship was 50 meters long and was an absolute masterpiece during the Qing Dynasty. The maritime trade was banned for a few hundred years during this Dynasty which left the shipbuilders feeling tormented.

After controlling the electric eel to pull off the ship's wire rope in an extremely violent and cruel way, it then 'rewarded' the ship with a few 'furious charges' and 'war tramples' until the eroded ship finally turned into a piece of junk. After getting the electric eel out, Chen Fan slowly turned the wheel and closed the two doors. When the gate was completely closed, he activated the water pump to drain out the seawater from the dock. The two diesel pumps that were 50 centimeters wide in diameter had to keep on pumping out the seawater for a long period of time before they emptied the dock.

Every good was worth its price. Due to the sealing performance of the dock that was very below standards, Chen Fan still needed to get a small water pump and place it in the doorway to ensure all the water that leaked in flowed back into the sea even after the high-power pump had completed its task.

Squatting on the concrete steps, Chen Fan looked greedily at the remains of the ship that was even more abstract than the drawings of the Dutch abstract artist, Mondrian. The tea and silk that had decayed a long time ago were not the targets that Chen Fan was concerned about. Instead, the silver ingots that were slightly corroded by the seawater that were sandwiched in between the teas and silks were Chen Fan's true aim.

With a shout of joy, Chen Fan ran down the steps, picked up a few sycees that had 30 years of Daoguang printed on the surface and kept examining them in his hands. Five tons of silver seemed like a lot but it was actually only a small pile. Looking at the blackish silver ingots that were corroded by the sea water, Chen Fan couldn't help but smile widely like a Cheshire cat.

Of these pieces of silver, Chen Fan planned to keep a dozen as a collection and melt the rest of them in the furnace to sell as ordinary silver.

Although Chen Fan could double up the price and sell these antiques, he was worried that it would be the police knocking on his door first, not the dealers due to the sudden increase in the number of antiques in the market.

However, only somebody like Chen Fan, who was the black sheep of his family, could do something despicable like this. Although the silver ingots were not of the best quality and wouldn't fetch a good price in the market, they would still be far more valuable than the melted pieces of silver if Chen Fan sold them off slowly.

Rubbing his hands, Chen Fan threw the silver ingots onto the concrete floor piece by piece and decided to melt them. To dig out silver ingots from a pile of rotten wood and corroded nails that were mixed with all sorts of decay was not easy. After a busy night of digging, Chen Fan walked over to the entrance of the dock and washed his hands that were covered in black dust until they were clean.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Chen Fan threw the sack in the corner of the wall and decided to sleep until noon.

.........

Twelve o 'clock noon!

”Wake up you lazy pig, wake up you lazy pig...” Still fast asleep, Chen Fan was awakened by the alarm on his mobile phone.

”... Ha...” With a big yawn, Chen Fan rubbed his sleepy eyes, got up from the sack and headed to the back door after shaking off the dust from his clothes.

After stopping a cab, he went to the hardware market and spent 2,570 RMB on two pieces of corundum crucibles, a porcelain ladle, a long iron plier, a fire stove used for hotel use, two bottles of liquefied gas, two bottles of industrial oxygen, a connecting hose and four pieces of ceramic mold that can cast up to six kilograms of silver. After buying the apparatus, Chen Fan bought a few more barrels of distilled water and a lot of food and drinks to prepare him for the next five to six days of work.

The melting point of silver is very low, it only needs about 950 degrees to melt it into a pool of white water whereas the combustion of a mixture of gas and oxygen could achieve a temperature of more than 1500 degrees.

Because he bought so many things, Chen Fan spent 200 RMB and rented a Great Wall Wingle to transport the stuff to Sea Road. After refusing the driver's help politely, Chen Fan carried all the things slowly to the dock by himself.

If he had to carry all those things a half year ago, he would have been afraid that he wouldn't have been able to do it even if someone pointed a knife at his neck and threatened him. But now, the only effect on Chen Fan was that he was starving after the task and it was all because of the strength of the electric eel!

..............................

After installing the fire stove, Chen Fan added water into a pot, placed it on the stove and started his first ”melting” experience.

Of course, the first thing he melted was not silver. Instead, he ”melted” three packets of KSF instant noodles with eggs. The 'fierce' fire that was produced with oxygen, managed to boil the water in less than a minute.