The Legend of the Fishermen of Sicily

Chapter 129: Time is running out for the suspect to escape justice!

The investigation went quite smoothly.

Following "The Winding Light Trail," Leo solved several other major cases in succession.

they are, respectively:

Fingerprint-like water pressure marks—the pressure marks left by shellfish as they resist water flow by pressing their bodies against rocks; the center of the circle is the attachment point.

Crab claw marks resembling fine plum blossoms;

Discontinuous strip-shaped worm-like markings in sea cucumber;

Fluffy base marks—wild barnacles;

and many more.

From now on, these creatures will have to be careful if they cause trouble underwater.

Detective Leo has already tracked them down!

Although no trace of the suspect, Sea Urchin, has been found, the time left for Sea Urchin to remain at large is running out.

After investigating all of the above, Leo's next target was a suspicious sedimentary layer.

Why do I say it's suspicious?

Because these marks mostly appear in the lower half of rock crevices or holes, and judging from their shape they should be the excrement of marine life, he has always been reluctant to investigate them.

However, upon passing through a certain crevice, the sediment layer here only covered the upper half of the cave ceiling and walls, while the lower half was completely dry. This distribution overturned Leo's previous judgment.

With a meticulous approach, the great detective went over and touched it. It felt sticky, and upon closer inspection, it was a dark yellow, viscous, lumpy substance mixed with dark green. Leo took a little bit and smelled it...

"Is that awesome? It can spray poop into the sky?"

Leo washed his hands and climbed onto the small boat to rest.

I glanced at the time and realized I'd been out for over two hours.

The great detective decided to do a quick recap.

The two hours were filled with discoveries. Leo obtained many traces of marine life activity, and through the distribution and condition of these traces, he gained a deeper understanding of their habits.

But they haven't been able to find our suspect, the sea urchin, for a long time...

What does this tell us?

This indicates that his investigation was misguided.

Looking back over the past two hours, Leo first investigated the densely distributed and more easily identifiable traces.

He believed that this area was a dense reef zone, a breeding ground for sea urchins, and therefore their "traces" should also be very dense.

At this moment, there are still many unexamined traces, and there are still many gaps where more than one trace exists.

The difficulty is doubled if an investigation is conducted in a place riddled with unknown traces.

Leo believed his investigative logic was sound, as it was the most efficient approach, but the target might have been wrong.

Sea urchins shouldn't be that hard to find.

After much thought, I came up with a possibility.

In the recent investigation, his experimental sites were all large spaces, at least those he considered larger than the diameter of a sea urchin.

Can sea urchins really squeeze into places that are even narrower than themselves?

With this suspicion in mind, Leo went into the water again, targeting the narrow holes or tiny pits.

There are too many choices; it's like finding a needle in a haystack, even though we are indeed in the ocean right now...

Moreover, the narrower the space, the more complex the traces seen by the "microscopic eye," such as shells, crabs... it's difficult to summarize any patterns.

But underwater, there is no sense of smell, and hearing is useless; the only thing that can be used is the eyes.

Leo patiently examined each narrow hole and tiny pit, feeling them with his hands and gently probing them with a shovel.

What followed was a long search process; he went up to catch his breath countless times.

Several times he wanted to give up, but a voice inside him kept encouraging him: This is the darkness before dawn. Believe in yourself, Rio! If you find one, you can find many more. Summarizing patterns is what you do best. Don't give up! Keep going! The sea urchin might be right in front of you!

Heaven rewards those who persevere!

While searching for sea urchins, Leo discovered a crab's nest. The walls of the narrow rock pit were covered with many claw marks. Perhaps tired of searching, or perhaps frustrated by his inability to find anything, Leo poked around in the pit with his shovel to vent his frustration.

A miracle occurred at that moment!

The shovel stirred the seawater, and some fluffy seaweed, shell fragments, and a few black needles floated out from the gaps!

Leo pulled out two spines with a shovel, examined them carefully, and realized that they were the sea urchin spines he had been searching for.

Ignoring the risk of breaking it, Leo plunged his long-handled shovel inside and turned it upside down.

The second miracle has occurred!

He thought it was just a shallow pit, but when he used the shovel to lift the seaweed up like a blanket, the surrounding seawater instantly became murky. But when the murky water receded, Leo discovered that there was a hidden world inside!

The seaweed blocked the entrance to a cave, inside which was a very large and long space. The dark rock walls were densely covered with sea urchins, one on top of another, so crowded that there were almost no gaps.

The rock face here is covered with crisscrossing tiny scratches. It turns out that the sea urchins didn't leave no marks, but rather that the marks were so small that they were hidden.

Leo carefully scooped them out with a shovel, one after another... like little black grapes lining up to leave school.

The entire net bag was filled, and inside were countless others queuing up to be dismissed from school.

Leo surfaced to change the net, and as soon as he emerged from the water, he laughed: "This time we've struck gold, we've stirred up a sea urchin's nest!"

When Leo picked up the new net bag, he felt a prickling sensation on his hands. Looking down, he saw some sticky crumbs on it.

It looked familiar, so I held it to my nose and smelled it... and then I realized the important detail I had overlooked before!

He laughed even harder, like a madman: "I knew it! You couldn't have just hidden in such a small place."

This time, Leo didn't go to the sea urchin nest he had just visited.

Instead, they went to the crevice in the sediment layer from the previous investigation, used a shovel to lift up all the seaweed and sediment inside, and sure enough, they found a layer of sea urchins hidden under the seaweed.

While harvesting sea urchins from the two sites, Leo began writing his "Sea Urchin Survey Report" in his mind.

"The marks left by sea urchins under a microscope are tiny scratches, usually concealed by seaweed and other vegetation, making them impossible to spot directly."

.

"However, as a food source for crabs, sea urchins are likely to live alongside crabs, and the target area can be located by the 'plum blossom' pattern of crab claws."

"Sea urchins can pass through crevices smaller than their own diameter, and they can also appear in wide rock crevices. The method of finding them varies depending on the terrain."

"Sea urchins have their mouths on the underside of the rocks, their anuses on the top of their bodies, and their feces are expelled from the top, forming a sediment layer in the upper middle part of the body," in relatively open crevices or caves. This is key to determining the presence of sea urchins.

Sea urchins are typical gregarious organisms; finding one means finding an entire colony.

In some Mediterranean regions, the density can reach up to 100 birds per square meter.

The two nests that Leo found were well hidden, with no natural enemies to cause damage, and were also rich in algae.

When Leo boarded the boat for the second time to change the net, he couldn't help but count them again; there were 72.

"I remember that the merchants at the fish market bought sea urchins for 200 to 500 lira each, depending on their size."

After calculating the numbers, Leo immediately went back underwater to find the third nest.

These two broods of sea urchins can sell for more than 3 lira, but it only took three dives!

A new unit of time has been introduced!!