Twelve years ago, my father Chen Haisheng went to sea and never returned, leaving only an empty boat and a polished conch.
Twelve years later, on the night of a typhoon, 22-year-old Chen Chaosheng jumped into the sea to save others and almost drowned himself. When I woke up after being in a coma for three days, there was a sound in my left ear——
He could hear the muffled sounds of fish moving underwater, crabs scratching at the mudflats, and the low roar of the sea before a storm.
Others rely on luck to catch the sea, but he relies on listening.
He can identify butter crabs three feet under the mud on the tidal flats by listening to their sounds; he can pinpoint the location of large yellow croakers a few hundred meters deep in the open sea five nautical miles away; and he knows which way a typhoon is heading two days ahead of the weather station.
A butter crab costs 8,000 yuan.
One net of large yellow croaker cost 280,000 yuan.
A 600-pound bluefin tuna was auctioned for 1.2 Million.
From the tidal flat to the offshore, from the open sea to the ocean, from a small sampan to a steel ocean-going fleet, from a debt of 30,000 to a net worth of hundreds of millions.
But he always remembered what his father said: Cherish what the sea gives you; don't force what the sea doesn't give you.
There was a series of numbers hidden in that conch, and there was a place called "Old Sea Eye" circled on my father's chart. Deep in the outer sea, there is a blue hole with black water. Twelve years ago, his father disappeared there. Twelve years later, he is going to find the answer.
This is the story of a man who chased the sea.
