The next morning, after having breakfast, Liang En and his team went to the garden downstairs to meet with Nelson, where they began discussing the details of the treasure hunting operation.
The first topic of discussion was naturally about the compensation. Unlike the traditions in Northeast Asia, in Europe, even friends prefer to discuss payment upfront before starting any collaborative work.
Clearly, Nelson was very generous with the compensation. Even if they found nothing, he would still pay Liang En 100,000 euros. If they found the target, Liang En would receive one-third of the findings, with priority in choosing the items.
In other words, when selecting items, they would take turns choosing in rounds of twelve, with Liang En choosing at positions 1, 3, 6, and 10.
This compensation was indeed generous. If Liang En had not proven his abilities beforehand and established a good relationship with Nelson, such a high level of payment would have been impossible.
So, from a certain perspective, personal ability is the most important factor in this field. Without sufficient capability, no amount of favorable conditions can secure the job.
"Alright, this compensation is very satisfactory," Liang En nodded after reviewing the terms. "Now, can you tell me about the information you have? I assume you have some crucial data, otherwise, you wouldn't have initiated this search."
"Yes, I do have some important information," Nelson said, sending a file to Liang En via Bluetooth. "This is a notebook I found earlier."
"A notebook?" Liang En quickly opened the file on his phone and began to read. It was clear that these yellowed documents were quite old and could only be examined through photographs.
The first document was a diary. Initially, it recorded the mundane life of a colonist in a colony, but starting from October 1941, the diary took on a more fearful tone.
Although the Pacific War broke out in early December 1941, the shadow of war had already spread across the Pacific region in the preceding months, making even the most insensitive people feel uneasy.
For instance, the diary’s author noted this unease. His final entry, three days after the war began, mentioned abandoning all immovable possessions and boarding a ship to Australia with his family.
In this diary, he wrote about seeing a ship at the Batavia (now Jakarta) docks used for evacuating museum artifacts. The ship was transporting some small but heavy items.
"In other words, the things transported back then were not just antiques, but possibly some precious metal reserves as well," Liang En frowned upon reading this.
Based on the description, the items loaded onto the ship included not just cultural relics but also things like bank reserves.
Thinking about it, it made sense. It was a 1,200-ton ship and a rare fast cargo vessel, so transporting important items was perfectly normal.
Unfortunately, this supposedly safe ship never reached its destination. To this day, only a few clues about it remain.
The second document was a chaotic journal kept by an explorer in Papua New Guinea during the 1950s.
According to the journal, he went to the island to study the local primitive tribes, hoping to make significant contributions to anthropological research.
This was indeed a wise choice. Papua New Guinea, composed of Papua and New Guinea, literally means "land of the curly-haired people," describing the appearance of the indigenous people.
Located in the southwestern Pacific, Papua New Guinea includes the eastern half of New Guinea Island and about 600 other islands in the Bismarck Archipelago and Bougainville Island.
Due to its fragmented geography, the region is like a human museum with immense cultural diversity. Despite a population of just over seven million, there are around 800 different languages.
Even today, Papua New Guinea is one of the last places on Earth where indigenous people can maintain their traditional ways of life.
The island’s rugged terrain and deep valleys mean that modern civilization is confined to coastal areas, halted by the mountains, prompting many anthropologists to conduct research there even today.
Over half a century ago, this place was even more of a wild frontier, attracting numerous scholars, including the owner of the journal Liang En was reading.
At this point, Liang En realized that the document in his hand was essentially an academic notebook, and its chaotic nature was perfectly normal.
Being a scholar himself, Liang En had a similar notebook for recording fleeting inspirations.
Most of the document consisted of observations about the tribes, especially detailed descriptions of tribal customs, mixed with modern traces left by various armies during World War II.
In early 1943, after setbacks on Guadalcanal and the Papua Peninsula, the Japanese army increased its presence in northeastern New Guinea, attempting to establish a defensive perimeter around Rabaul.
Upon obtaining this intelligence, the Allied forces launched a series of attacks on the Japanese in New Guinea and nearby islands from June 1943 to July 1944, ultimately thwarting the Japanese plans.
Out of the 200,000 troops initially deployed, only 10,000 survived, with half dying in combat and the other half succumbing to the tropical jungle.
Due to this, the region was left with a large amount of military material, much of which was repurposed by the local tribes due to the challenging terrain.
To those in the immediate post-war years, this was normal, so the scholar merely recorded it casually. However, Liang En noticed something unusual in the seemingly mundane records.
"Judging by the accompanying photos, the items found by this tribe likely came from the missing ship, as the iron sheets used for their roofs bore the emblem of the lost vessel."
As Liang En read this, Nelson’s earlier words came to mind, and he glanced at the scholar inquiringly.
"If I'm not mistaken, you should have sent people to observe the tribe's location. Can you tell me what they found?"
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