After finishing his thought, he skipped over the topic and handed over his chat records with Liu Chuanwu to Song Yuyan, then asked, "Sister Yan, do you remember this bracelet the director mentioned?"
Song Yuyan thought for a moment and shook her head, "I've been at the institute for ten years and have never seen this bracelet."
"Is that so?" Lin Zichen said regretfully, "Then it looks like we'll have to search slowly."
Song Yuyan smiled and said, "It's okay, I'm very familiar with the storage room at the institute. I can rule out many places; it probably won't take long to find it."
"That's true, then I'll have to trouble you, Sister Yan, to help me search."
"What trouble, don't be so polite."
"..."
After a brief chat, the three of them quickly began searching the institute.
Half an hour passed, and they found nothing.
An hour passed, and still nothing.
An hour and a half...
Two hours...
Two and a half hours...
Under Song Yuyan's leadership, Lin Zichen and Shen Qinghan searched for a full two and a half hours, turning the entire research institute upside down, not even sparing Liu Chuanwu's office.
However, they came up empty-handed, not even a shadow of the bracelet to be seen.
"How is this possible? We've turned over every place where miscellaneous items are stored, how can we not find the bracelet that the director mentioned?" Song Yuyan said with a slight frown.
She thought for a moment and then said, "Do you think it's possible that the director has senile dementia and there actually isn't such a bracelet at all?"
Lin Zichen didn't respond but simply said, "Let's keep looking. If we really can't find it, we'll wait for the director to come back and see."
Having said this, he continued searching through the pile of miscellaneous items.
Your eyes may deceive you; pick up where you left off and search even more carefully than before, lest you miss any corner.
So they searched for over ten minutes more.
Shen Qinghan's gaze then fell on an aquarium in the corner.
It was a discarded fish tank.
Its surface covered with dust.
Inside, there was a thick layer of soil.
Upon closer inspection, the soil inside was so dry it was cracked, looking as though it was ground that had been drought-stricken for decades.
For some reason, Shen Qinghan felt this abandoned fish tank was drawing her in, as if there was an intuitive pull.
Looking at the soil in the tank, she proposed to Lin Zichen as if possessed, "Xiao Chen, do you think the bracelet we're looking for could be buried in the soil of this fish tank?"
Lin Zichen looked towards the abandoned fish tank upon hearing her words.
A sense of puzzlement emerged in his heart.
In the soil of the fish tank?
Why on earth would a bracelet be buried in the soil of a fish tank?
It made no sense.
Lin Zichen felt that his Qinghan might be letting her imagination run a little too wild, her creativity quite abundant.
It looked shiny and smooth, as if it had just been meticulously cleaned, truly untainted by its muddy origins.
He didn't care much about whether it was clean or not.
Soon, Lin Zichen's attention was drawn to the mysterious patterns on the bracelet.
The bracelet was made of pearls and seashells.
Each pearl, each piece of seashell, was engraved with mysterious patterns that appeared to be characters.
These mysterious patterns, which resembled the patterns formed by the water droplets that had surrounded Shen Qinghan, were so similar that it was almost certain they were of the same type.
"Xiao Chen, the patterns on this bracelet really do look like the ones we saw before," Shen Qinghan leaned in and said as she looked at the bracelet.
Song Yuyan asked, "You've seen these patterns on the bracelet before? Where did you see them?"
Lin Zichen casually lied, "We saw them on some items belonging to Divine Plant Cult members when we were attacked by the cult."
"Did you manage to capture any of those items?"
Song Yuyan was interested in unknown ancient scripts and wanted to collect more related items for research, to see if she could decipher the ancient text herself.
Lin Zichen: "We didn't capture any, those items sank into the sea and were carried away by the currents."
Song Yuyan shook her head, "What a pity, such a pity."
After saying this, she added, "In the future, we should pay close attention to the heretics from the Divine Plant Cult, see if we can catch a few and dig up some related items from them."
While they were talking,
Liu Chuanwu, who hadn't been to the research institute for almost an entire day, finally returned.
With dark circles under his eyes, he yawned wearily and came in at a leisurely pace, saying, "You're all here, did you find that bracelet?"
"We found it."
Lin Zichen raised the bracelet he was holding in his hand.
Standing beside him, Shen Qinghan called out reservedly, "Director Liu, hello."
Liu Chuanwu responded cheerfully, "Hello to you too."
Song Yuyan teased, "Director Liu, your dark circles are so heavy, you didn't spend all of last night working, did you?"
Liu Chuanwu rubbed his lower back and said, "It wasn't just all night; it was the whole day."
"From noon yesterday until now, I haven't slept a second."
"I've been busy pile-driving, helping an old flame fix up her garden; it really wore out these old bones of mine."
"..."
Lin Zichen wasn't interested in what Liu Chuanwu did last night at his old flame's place, he was only interested in the bracelet he was holding.
Quickly, he asked, "Director Liu, where did you get this bracelet from?"
After thinking it over, Liu Chuanwu said, "If I remember correctly, it should have been excavated from an underwater relic back in '04."
Underwater relic?
Lin Zichen sharply caught the word "sea" and continued to ask, "What was that underwater relic like exactly?"
"It's been nearly twenty years from that time to now, I've forgotten many details."
After finishing, Liu Chuanwu added, "But I recorded it back then, it's stored in my office; I'll take you to see it now."
...
PS: Holding out my bowl, asking for monthly and recommendation tickets!