Chapter 41. Questioning

     Zheng Xuan and Sun Fen stayed in Xingzhou Island until the afternoon and then left. Li Yaolin had no time to see them off because she had to receive a senior engineer who had just come from the Huizhou Sea Turtle Reserve.

 

 

 

     This senior engineer has very rich experience in related fields. This time she not only brought an assistant, but also brought more professional equipment, preparing to do a more in-depth research and investigation here.

 

 

 

     For this reason, Li Yaolin built two mobile cabins near the incubator as their temporary work place.

 

     Senior engineer Wan Min asked Li Yaolin: “Mr. Li, I want to collect some biological samples from the waters of Xingzhou Island to investigate and analyze the pollution in the nearby waters. Is it possible?”

 

 

 

     “Yes.” Li Yaolin nodded, “It just so happens that the fishery department is also preparing materials for applying for a protected area recently. It needs to evaluate the ecology and water quality of Xingzhou Island and the surrounding waters. Your survey results will be another material that can actively promote the establishment of a protected area for us.”

 

 

 

     Wan Min and Long Feng looked at each other and laughed: “It sounds like we are at a disadvantage!”

 

 

 

     Li Yaolin climbed up the pole: “After our protected area is established, you come to guide the protection work, so it won’t be a loss. “

 

 

 

     Wan Min joked with her: “You’ve made a good calculation.”

 

 

 

     Suddenly, Wan Min paused and asked: “By the way, I heard that you are going to develop a diving project. Will this damage the environment or endanger sea turtles?”

 

 

 

     “The reserve is not close to the diving spot, and we have been carrying out ecological protection work. We will not violate the original intention of applying for the establishment of the reserve in pursuit of profit. We will also monitor diving activities. Once we find any behavior that damages the environment, we will report it and punish it severely. We will never tolerate it.”

 

 

 

     Hu Bingchang, who pulled seaweed last time, has received a lawyer’s letter and has also been investigated by the fishery department. It is said that after the fishing season started, he dared not even go out to sea.

 

 

 

     Speaking of the fishing season, there have indeed been more fishing boats going out to sea recently, and a considerable number of fishing boats will openly invade the waters of Xingzhou Island. Sometimes patrol officers will expel them if they see them, but there are always thick-skinned ones.

 

     Under the automatic avoidance of fishing in the [No Fishing Zone], Li Yaolin was not worried about what fish they could catch, but Long Feng and his friends were inevitably heartbroken, thinking that their behavior could easily harm the turtles living in this sea area.

 

 

 

     Li Yaolin also felt that he could not leave it alone, so she gave the little mermaid a task. Once a fishing boat was found to have invaded, she would immediately call the fishery department and ask law enforcement officers to expel them.

 

 

 

    After three or four times, the fishing boats that illegally invaded the waters of Xingzhou Island were no longer driven away by law enforcement officers.

 

     They thought they had won, and then something very strange happened. Every time they closed the net, they felt heavy and had a big harvest, but as the fishing net became tighter and tighter, more and more garbage was salvaged with the fishing net. In the end, they found that there was no fish in it, only garbage!

 

 

 

     There were plastics, glass, and various waste metals in it, a large net full of them, and the fishing boat suddenly became a cleaning boat for cleaning up garbage.

 

     The crew kept muttering that it might be more profitable to switch to cleaning up marine garbage in the future, and the captain was so angry that his face turned green.

 

 

 

     At this time, the fishery department received a report that someone was going to dump garbage in the waters of Xingzhou Island.

 

 

 

     The patrol officers came quickly and saw with their own eyes that the fishing boat was about to dump the garbage back into the sea. Now the criminals were caught red-handed and were directly prosecuted by the procuratorate for the crime of “illegal dumping”. If convicted, the fine is estimated to be more than the 6,000 yuan fine for “illegal fishing”.

 

 

 

     The two bloody lessons completely put an end to the nearby fishermen’s thoughts of going to Xingzhou Island to try their luck or make trouble for revenge, and no boats dared to approach the area designated as a protected area.

 

 

 

     Li Yaolin didn’t expect things to develop like this. She asked the little mermaid: “Did you throw those marine garbage?”

 

 

 

     The little mermaid blinked innocently: “How could someone litter? These garbage are the work of humans themselves.” It just took this opportunity to let the fishing boat clean up by the way.

 

     Li Yaolin: “…That makes sense.”

 

 

 

     She stopped worrying about it, as long as these fishing boats would not invade the waters of Xingzhou Island again.

 

 

 

     While the little mermaid was fighting wits and courage with the fishing boats, the diving center was finally renovated!

 

 

 

     The appearance of the diving center was built like a Holiday Inn. On the left side of the gate was a huge custom-made wall, three meters long, five meters high, and only ten centimeters wide. It was like a large fish tank, and the landscape plants and the moving fake fish and fake jellyfish inside could be seen from both inside and outside.

 

 

 

     After entering the door, there is the lobby. A small area on the right is placed with a sofa and coffee table. On the wall behind are various certificates, diving photos and posters taken by diving coaches, etc. To the left is the area for displaying and selling diving equipment.

 

 

 

     Behind the front desk is a 70-square-meter office area divided by a glass partition wall. To the left is the training swimming pool on the second floor. The huge glass can clearly see the situation in the swimming pool.

 

 

 

     Going up from the corridor here is the terrace on the second floor. To the left is the swimming pool, and to the right are the rest area, locker room and conference room. There is a bar in the rest area, but Li Yaolin is not going to sell alcohol, for fear that someone would drink and go diving.

 

     The conference room is used for diving instructors to take classes and take exams.

 

     The decoration style of the diving center is cool, but the light is warm, giving people a bright and warm feeling.

 

     On the day of acceptance, Liang Ying also came. She looked at Li Yaolin nervously and asked, “Manager, how is it?”

 

     Li Yaolin smiled slightly: “Don’t be nervous. I decided on this plan at the beginning. After the decoration effect came out, I was of course the most satisfied. You are a designer who has designed independently and completed many works. You must have confidence in yourself.”

 

     “I will, thank you, manager!”

 

     Seeing that the manager of the diving center looked at her frequently, Li Yaolin smiled and said, “You may have to change your words. I am not the manager of this store.”

 

     Liang Ying then realized that the manager probably thought she was calling him, so he looked at her frequently. She smiled awkwardly and went to greet the real manager.

 

     When a tourist went to the convenience store to buy something, he saw that the store was open, so he walked over and asked, “Is the diving center open?”

 

 

 

     Li Yaolin said, “It will open next week. Welcome to come and experience diving and enjoy the fun of diving.”

 

 

 

     Li Yaolin asked the store manager to put up a notice that the diving center will open next week, and then she had to spend some money on promotion. She asked Zhou Yingying and others to record several videos of them diving under the sea for promotion. Once the videos were released, they immediately attracted many complaints from peers:

 

 

 

   1L: “Isn’t the filter of this promotional video of Xingzhou Island a bit too much? You told me this is the bottom of the sea? It looks like a fish tank to me.”

 

 

 

   2L: “This video is so fake, do you think I have never dived? Sipadan Island, a world-class diving spot, is not so beautiful. How can an island that is heavily polluted by industrial wastewater have such water quality?”

 

 

 

   3L: “The above person is talking about the matter at hand. I dare not say anything else, but the water quality of Xingzhou Island is indeed good. It seems that it has been nominated for some kind of ecological civilization demonstration area. If the environment is not good and the pollution control ability is not outstanding, it will not have a chance to be nominated.”

 

 

 

   4L: “What a joke, just check the geographical location of Xingzhou Island and you will know. There is an industrial port nearby, and there are industrial waste discharged by the ethylene plant. Water. Oh, by the way, the villagers living there often discharge domestic sewage into the sea, not to mention the pollution caused by the aquaculture area there, how good can the water of Xingzhou Island be? “

 

 

 

   5L: “Upstairs, your news is from many years ago. In recent years, the government has been controlling sewage discharge and managing the environment, and the water quality there has improved a lot. Moreover, Xingzhou Island is separated by several nautical miles, and those sewage have not affected Xingzhou Island at all. If you pay attention to the news, you will know that the official has taken the lead in praising the pollution control results of Xingzhou Island, and the official media has reported it!”

 

 

 

   6L: “Why are there so many water troops of Xingzhou Island?”

 

 

 

   7L: “Is it a water army just to talk about the facts?”

 

 

 

…

 

 

     Tourists who have been to Xingzhou Island and those netizens who questioned and belittled Xingzhou Island started a round of verbal battles on the Internet, which completely pushed Xingzhou Island to the forefront.

 

 

 

     As time goes by, the voices of doubt prevailed.

 

     Just as the wind was gradually turning in a bad direction, the results of the sampling and research analysis that Long Feng and his team had conducted to investigate why green turtles chose to live here came out.

 

 

 

     After preliminary analysis, the waters of Xingzhou Island are rich in seaweed resources, which attract green turtles. At the same time, there are reef-building corals on the seabed. Given that corals have very high requirements for the marine environment, it can be seen that the water quality here is not as bad as rumored.

 

 

 

     The water quality of the waters of Xingzhou Island fully meets the national Class I seawater quality standards, and even many values (such as pollution concentration) are far lower than the standard, which is much better than the results of two large-scale sampling tests conducted by the Ocean University more than a decade ago.

 

 

 

     Although the research work will take a long time, the preliminary evaluation is enough to show that the sewage has not affected the waters of Xingzhou Island.

 

 

 

     As for how this was done, there are many different opinions on the Internet. Local fishermen say it is a miracle and Xingzhou Island is blessed by gods.

 

 

 

     Some tourists who don’t know the reason say that this is because Xingzhou Island has been salvaging marine garbage. The evidence is that one day, they saw a fishing boat that was salvaging garbage, and the fishing boat finally took the garbage away.

 

     ——Fortunately, these fishermen who were charged with “illegal dumping” did not know about the rumors on the Internet, otherwise they would be so angry that they would beat their chests and stamp their feet. Not only would they be fined, but they would also be rumored to be cleaning boats for Xingzhou Island to clean up garbage. How aggrieved!

 

 

 

     No matter which statement is correct, everyone has a consensus that this may be the mystery of Xingzhou Island and the place that oceanographers want to study.

 

 

 

     Li Yaolin directly asked someone to release this analysis and evaluation. 

 

     ——She knew that no matter how she explained, the voice of doubt would not disappear easily. It was just that now was a sensitive period for applying for the construction of a protected area. If these negative public opinions were allowed to continue to ferment, she was worried that the relevant departments would cancel the application qualification in order to reduce the negative impact, and then the efforts made by her and Long Feng and others would be in vain.

 

 

 

     As expected, this evaluation was a bit professional, and not many people could understand it. Moreover, they did not believe it, and stubbornly believed that Li Yaolin had paid these scholars and experts who were seeking fame.

 

 

 

     Only a few people raised questions:

 

 

 

   1L: “Back to diving itself, even if the weather on Xingzhou Island was very good and the visibility of the seawater was high, how could the seabed emit such light? Who can explain it scientifically?”

 

 

 

   2L: “Could it be the luminous plankton in the sea, such as Noctiluca, dinoflagellates, krill, etc.”

 

 

 

   3L: “There are indeed many luminous plankton in the ocean, but it is difficult for a few plankton to emit such a dazzling light. The brightness visible to the naked eye can only produce this effect when they gather in large groups. And it looks beautiful, but it actually has a very negative impact on marine life. In short, this area of water is not suitable for diving at all.”

 

 

 

   4L: “To be honest, do you think this visibility looks like a large number of plankton gathering? And it’s daytime now.”

 

 

 

     Netizens: “…”

 

 

 

     This is indeed a point that is difficult to understand.

 

     Li Yaolin took the opportunity to advertise and posted a V-blog on the official account of Xingzhou Island: 

 

     “Do you want to know if the water quality is really clear? Do you want to know the truth about the glow on the seabed? Instead of hearing it from others, it is better to experience it yourself and find the answer… Poseidon Holiday Diving Center is waiting for you! Repost this V-blog and draw five friends to experience a free one-day diving trip (including a relaxing snorkeling trip worth 108 yuan and a romantic experience diving trip worth 598 yuan)!” 

 

     As soon as this advertisement came out, no matter how netizens questioned it, they only saw the content of “lottery” and “free experience” and immediately forwarded it: “Draw me, draw me hard, I can do it!”

 

     Outside the V-blog, other tourists were still hesitating and watching, but those divers with diving experience and researchers in related research fields had already taken action. There were several scholars in the fields of oceanography and aquaculture who called Li Yaolin, all of whom wanted to come to her for a large-scale sampling survey.

 

     Wan Min, who seized the opportunity, also said to Li Yaolin: “Well, now it seems that a sample must not only analyze the pollution situation, but also conduct an investigation on the distribution of zooplankton.”

 

 

 

     In fact, Wan Min did not think that the situation here was as bad as what was said on the Internet. She could see with her naked eyes that the water quality here was good, not to mention the specific data support.

 

 

 

     Li Yaolin did not stop the experts from investigating the water quality of the sea area, because she knew they could not find out anything. Moreover, let them adapt first, so that they would not be too shocked when she launched the “Sea Fire” in the future.

 

 

 

     As more and more eyes focused on the diving project on Xingzhou Island, August 24th soon arrived.

 

 

 

     On this day, the Poseidon Holiday Diving Center officially opened!