Chapter 460: Bustling Island
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
After news of Fang Zhao’s dinosaur fossil discovery broke, many island owners put their plans for selling their islands on hold. Instead, they contacted professional surveying teams to search their own islands and the surrounding seabeds.
Some even checked with three different teams for the surveying before giving up.
“Quick quick quick! See whether there are any buried fossils on the island I bought!”
In no time, the struggling ground surveying industry that had always been neglected was reinvigorated!
However, academic researchers still focused their full attention on Fang Zhao’s little island. They didn’t know whether there would be fossils on other islands, but the one on Fang Zhao’s island was confirmed. It was a large one!
Thus, anxious island owners could only hire ground surveyors and other non-scientific teams. Although, some teams en route to Fang Zhao’s island changed course for another island after being offered a large amount of money.
The most dejected was the previous owner who had sold Fang Zhao the island.
He knew very clearly all the flaws of that little island. Due to its remote location, it was hard to manage and remodeling incurred large transportation costs. With the previous market situation of islands, the previous owner had felt very happy getting rid of the inconvenience.
But, how long had passed after it was sold?
Had it even been half a month?
The previous island owner nearly coughed out blood when he saw the headlines. Regret turned quickly to depression.
However, business transactions were just like this. It was hard to say who would be the winners or losers. Yesterday, he was a big winner, but today, he discovered he had lost thoroughly. How many people were joking about the person who had sold the island to Fang Zhao?
The previous island owner felt his heart tighten each time he thought of the buried fossil.
How regrettable!
I should have just done another survey of the island back then!
Fang Zhao!
Treacherous!
Too treacherous!
I don’t believe that you didn’t know about this when you bought the island!
Surely he had rushed to buy the island because he knew there was a dinosaur fossil buried there!
Indeed, every action of Fang Zhao’s had a purpose! Every single action had to be studied. Nobody knew what he was going to do next!
As news about Fang Zhao this time affected too many circles, discussion about this news could be heard around the world. Even Mo Lang, who didn’t really pay much attention to news, also found out about it.
Mo Lang thought that Fang Zhao was making preparations for the concert on the small remote island. Yet, he had never imagined that Fang Zhao would be making waves after just a few days!
Mo Lang didn’t feel at ease so he hurriedly called up Fang Zhao to remind him not to forget about the upcoming concert. The concert was extremely important and would concern his future prospects!
Fang Zhao hadn’t forgotten about that important concert. While handling fossil matters, he had still been preparing for the concert.
Fang Zhao placated Mo Lang, and after ending the call, he saw Curly Hair coming over.
Curly Hair ran over to Fang Zhao and raised his chin to look up at Fang Zhao.
“The new collar is not bad. It looks good,” Fang Zhao said.
Curly Hair yelped happily and said, “I will change a spot to dig for bones next time!”
“You like digging bones?” Fang Zhao asked.
“Yeap!” Curly Hair replied without any hesitation. He had gotten his gaming console from digging bones! Just digging out the broken half of a bone had earned him a gaming console and personal terminal. How great was that?!
Fang Zhao seemed to have thought of something. He nodded his head and said, “Good.”
Originally, Fang Zhao had intended to sell the fossil off for dog food. But now that Curly Hair could control his transformations and find food in the ocean, Fang Zhao could cover Curly Hair’s food costs as long as he didn’t transform for too long.
There wasn’t as much urgency to sell the fossil any longer. If Curly Hair found any other fossils or special items, he planned to keep them.
His old comrade Su Mu had said in his book, “Treat every present you receive earnestly.” Fang Zhao found that these words made quite a lot of sense.
Perhaps he could build a personal collection room for Curly Hair to store the stuff he brought back.
The longer he thought about this, the more Fang Zhao felt this was a good idea.
Excavating bones would be better than playing games at home all day.
Fang Zhao had already told Curly Hair that there would be many strangers coming to the island. Curly Hair wasn’t worried. He was already able to control his interference so he wouldn’t suddenly transform and scare others. He wasn’t concerned about accidentally revealing this.
However, with so many outsiders coming to his territory, Curly Hair decided that he would do more patrols, both on land and underwater!
“Is this personal terminal waterproof?” Curly Hair asked uneasily.
“Waterproof to a depth of two hundred meters,” Fang Zhao said.
“Only two hundred meters?” Curly Hair decided not to wear it when he went into the ocean. It was better to be safe than sorry.
There was the sound of a flying transport landing. Curly Hair looked in the direction, then ran over.
It was Nanfeng, Zuo Yu and Yanbiao.
Nanfeng and the other two rushed over right away upon receiving Fang Zhao’s call. Before landing, they saw that the northern part of the island was already riddled with holes.
But it was fine!
For the sake of excavating fossils, they wouldn’t feel any heartache even if the entire island was dug out!
Nanfeng saw Curly Hair running towards them the moment they got off the flying transport.
Curly Hair raised his head to let them see the new personal terminal around his neck.
Nanfeng probably would have noticed it any other time, but now his mind was preoccupied with everything about dinosaur fossils. He didn’t catch Curly Hair’s subtle actions. Instead, Nanfeng was staring at Curly Hair as though he was a golden hen that laid golden eggs.
“Our little Curls has done a great deed! You can stand proud with your chest out! Well done, Curly Hair!” Nanfeng said excitedly.
Curly Hair watched him through his innocent black dog eyes.
Nanfeng then continued, “Your owner is going to be rich this time. That is a dinosaur fossil! And a humongous one at that. Millions of years ago, even ten little dogs like you wouldn’t fill its mouth!”
Curly Hair glanced at them once more, then turned to leave.
Nanfeng didn’t care about this. He first went to Fang Zhao to understand the situation. Then, he excavated two more fossil bones with Yan Biao and Zuo Yu. He excitedly shared a lot of photographs with his friends and social media.
Since others were already on the way there, the three of them didn’t have too much leisure time. After excavating the fossils and taking pretentious photos, all of them quickly got down to business.
It was possible that the fossil under Fang Zhao’s island was the first complete fossil of a large prehistoric creature over twenty meters tall to be found in the five hundred years of the New Era. Its fascinating appeal drew in lots of teams and organizations.
However, the island was still Fang Zhao’s personal property. The island and a small area of water around it was considered personal property of the owner. Fang Zhao could take action against trespassers.
Nanfeng was responsible for communicating with these parties.
Fang Zhao also employed some men to maintain order on the island and its surroundings. The Yanzhou Navy expressed that they would send a squadron to help.
There were too many people from all the various continents coming. The Yanzhou Navy couldn’t ignore this. Even if the island’s owner wasn’t Fang Zhao, they would still help out.
Ever since Fang Zhao had sent out information that he was seeking cooperative partners, professional research teams had voluntarily requested to participate in this excavation operation. They were even willing to offer their services for free as long as Fang Zhao would allow them to participate. Some groups even set aside budgeting and made plans to fight for a slot.
Media outlets weren’t willing to be left behind. Yanzhou Television Station even made an appointment to interview Fang Zhao.
This originally lonely island quickly became extremely lively. Some temporary housing facilities were built. Ships of all shapes and sizes appeared in the surrounding seas and were still increasing in number. For those that couldn’t set foot on the island, they were still willing to live on ships.
Some even chartered boats to stay outside of the private waters.
There were also many flying transports in the sky. Since many of them didn’t have authorization to land, they circled around in the sky. There were even some on board these flying transports using binoculars to observe or broadcasting to a live stream.
The competition between teams on the excavation operation was intense.
From all these groups, Fang Zhao chose twelve teams from each of twelve continents. The majority were research teams.
At first, the various teams weren’t too pleased at sharing such a big project. However, they understood Fang Zhao’s intent. Anyone who wasn’t pleased could leave.
The teams and private organizations that weren’t picked still hovered around, hoping to squeeze in should any team leave.
Thus, even if they were unwilling to share with others, those twelve teams still agreed. Nobody was willing to give up this opportunity, so they could only cooperate now.
Fortunately for them, Fang Zhao didn’t take charge and give any orders. He said that he would leave the professionals to do what they were best at.
Fang Zhao also got to meet people from the Brian Family, the top collector in the entire world. They had taken the initiative to seek Fang Zhao out.
Fang Zhao had some impression of the Brian Family. This family had rose to prominence on the Huangzhou battlefield during the Period of Destruction. Now, Huangzhou possessed the largest private museum——Brian Museum.
The Brian Museum possessed the only Tyrannosaurus skull in the entire world as well as a complete and intact Velociraptor fossil.
Besides their rare and precious collections, the Brian Family was also famous for their people.
Regardless of whether they were men or women, members of the Brian Family were very attractive. However, people in the know knew that this family didn’t actually care much about their appearance.
Sometime back, a family member nearly turned into a savage just for the sake of finding an insect amber from 100 million years ago.
The leader of the Brian Family delegation was also the Brian Museum’s curator. He knew that it would be difficult for private teams to participate alone so he had contacted Huangzhou Museum to send an excavation team to cooperate with Fang Zhao.
He had sought out Fang Zhao in hopes of Fang Zhao renting out the dinosaur fossil to Brian Museum a month each year after it was excavated. It would be even better if they could purchase it directly, regardless of cost. However, Fang Zhao had explicitly told them that he wasn’t selling when they had first arrived. Therefore, they could only settle for the next best thing which was to rent.
Fang Zhao still didn’t want to talk about it now. “Let’s discuss after excavation is complete.”
He had to see the performances of these teams before deciding.
Different museums prioritized their collections differently based on their administrative capabilities. Fang Zhao didn’t want this dinosaur fossil to be ruined by any careless museums.
The Brian Museum curator didn’t count on Fang Zhao agreeing now. He just hoped that Fang Zhao could consider them first when looking for cooperative partners after the fossil was excavated. They had really shown him the greatest sincerity!
There were five people from the Brian Family that had come with the curator. Regardless of gender, they participated in the excavation work themselves. Their faces couldn’t even be seen clearly with all the dirt and perspiration on them. However, the burning passion in their eyes was undeniable.
They didn’t care about those cameras filming them. Nor did they bother about their appearances being shown to global audiences. After all, the operating style of their family was already well known.
Who cared about face? The important thing was the fossils!
With so many professional teams, work progressed quickly.
While the teams were busy excavating, Fang Zhao was being held up by reporters.
A reporter from Yanzhou Television was the first to arrive because of their geographical advantage.
“How did you discover the fossil initially? Was it really your dog who discovered it?” The reporter smiled as he watched the cute little dog squatting beside Fang Zhao.
“Yes, the first bone was dug out by him.”
The camera turned to focus on Curly Hair. Curly Hair raised his head showing the neck strap as well as the personal terminal engraved with little dogs. He didn’t let a single strand of fur cover it.
After filming the dog for a bit, the camera lenses turned back to Fang Zhao.
The reporter asked some questions the public was very curious about. For example, how had Curly Hair discovered the fossil buried underground?
Fang Zhao replied, “There was some construction carried out when the island was purchased. Because of this construction, some subterranean rock layers were exposed. Curly Hair dug out the bone from there.”
Nanfeng and the others watching the interview: “…”
The boss even pushed this onto Curly Hair to play down his hearing ability?
Other people wouldn’t know, but how could the three of them not? Since when had there been any large scale construction works on the island?
As for the reporter’s question on why Fang Zhao would purchase this island, Fang Zhao just said that he wanted to find a quiet and peaceful place without many disturbances. Discovering the fossil was really down to luck.
Luck?
Most people didn’t believe that.
Hehe, luck my *ss!
1Does he still need to be secretive about those ears?!
Even though the reporter found this ridiculous, he still adopted an understanding expression and praised the obedient Curly Hair by Fang Zhao’s side.
Curly Hair was especially delighted to receive praise from everyone!
After the interview concluded, Curly Hair ran all over the place to patrol his territory. When the interview was about to be aired, Curly Hair went to sit in front of the TV.
As Yanzhou’s official television station, news was taken quite seriously. The original interview was broadcasted in its unedited form.
Curly Hair knew the camera had been on him for quite a few seconds. Even smaller new channels were in high definition now. No doubt Yanzhou’s official television channel could capture him.
However, the personal terminal on the neck strap was blurred out, probably to prevent any product placement.
Curly Hair seated before the TV: “…”
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