Chapter 790: The Struggles of an Ama
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Brooks raised his hand to hit his wife again. In the end, when he swung his hand down, he realized that he was unable to move his arm, and that there was a huge hand grabbing onto his wrist.
Brooks was taken aback. He turned his head and saw Hans's cold face.
This scene was straight out of Hollywood. Just when the antagonist was about to hit a woman, some superhero protagonist would reach over and grab hold of the antagonist's arm. Every time such a scene was shown, the audience would always heave a sigh of relief and cheer for the righteous protagonist.
Hans was now the protagonist, while Brooks was the antagonist.
However, before Li Du and the other onlookers had a chance to heave a sigh of relief, and cheer and applaud Hans, an accident occurred. When Brooks forcefully swung his arm, Hans could not grab hold of it, and he fell to the ground!
There was nothing Hans could have done. As Brooks was plump and had a large physique, ate his meals on the sea all year round, was actually very healthy, and was relatively strong, Hans was unable to grab onto his arm when he swung it.
Lu Guan mumbled, "Jesus, this is f*cking embarrassing."
Hans, who did not feel embarrassed, stood in front of the ama and shouted, "Hey, fatty, touch me if you dare!"
Brother Wolf, Godzilla, and Big Quinn quietly took a step forward. While pointing at Hans, Li Du said, "Whoever dares to touch my brother, please go ahead. If he is still standing after one minute, I will admit defeat!"
Although Brooks did not dare make a move, he also did not want to look weak. As such, he bellowed, "What has me hitting my wife got to do with you guys? What right do you guys have to interfere?"
Hans replied, "Domestic violence is illegal, idiot. We are Australia's heroes. Of course we're going to intervene!"
Hans looked over at the ama and asked in a caring manner, "Hey, miss, are you alright? Do you need us to call the police?"
All of a sudden, the ama, who had been keeping quiet, raised her head and looked directly into Hans's eyes.
While staring at Hans in such a manner, she suddenly asked, "Domestic violence is illegal. If I request a divorce, would the court grant it?"
After hearing her question, Hans immediately perked up.
Earlier, Hans was still worried that whatever he had done was seen as being nosy by the ama. For the ama to say those words, it was clear that she approved of and was grateful for his actions.
Hans replied, "Of course. Not only did he abuse you, he humiliated you in public. We are all witnesses. The court will grant you the divorce!"
After hearing Hans's answer, the ama said firmly, "I want to divorce him, he constantly abuses me!"
While speaking, the ama pulled up her sleeves and clothes, revealing large patches of bruised skin.
Brooks became anxious at once. He shouted, "Hey, Christie, what do you mean? You want a divorce? No, don't even think about it! Don't even think about it!"
The ama did not look at Brooks. While still staring at Hans, she asked, "Could you help me call the police? Even though I have been in Australia for many years, I'm treated like a prisoner and have been kept at his side without a means to contact the outside world. I don't know how to handle such matters."
Having been stared at by the woman's sad, watery eyes, Hans's blood immediately began to boil, and he quickly felt more and more manly, more so than when he was called a hero during the interview by the reporters earlier.
"I will handle it for you," Hans promised.
Although Li Du felt that something was amiss, he could not put a finger on it.
After Hans called the police, they arrived and intervened in the matter.
Subsequently, Hans became occupied with helping the ama find a lawyer. During the missing children case, Hans met quite a few exceptional lawyers. Since the lawyers were based in Tasmania, they easily took over the ama's case.
While Hans was busy being a righteous man, Li Du was busy getting ready to go into the sea to search for black gold abalones.
The level of the sea surrounding Tasmania and King Island began decreasing rapidly on the night of Li Du's return to King Island.
While standing atop a rock on the island's shore, Li Du and the others looked ahead and watched the sea level gradually decrease, as though an invisible giant was draining the seawater.
After waking up once the sun rose on the second day, they walked to the harbor to have a look. In one night, the sea level there had already decreased by a huge amount.
The decrease in the sea level by the shoreline a bit farther away was much more obvious. With the shoreline having retreated such a long distance, large sections of reefs and the seabed were exposed, and there were seaweeds and seagrass every three to five steps on the shore.
There were lots of small fish, prawns, and crabs left behind on the shore that had not managed retreat in time.
Since the small crabs were still able to survive and move about on land, they were fine and were running amok on the shore.
The small prawns and fish were worse off. Unless they were lucky enough to be in a puddle where they could wait for the sea level to rise, they were pretty much fated to die under the scorching hot sun.
There were also some sea turtles on the shore, including some leatherback sea turtles that the department of fishing and hunting were monitoring. Those leatherback sea turtles were astonishingly huge, and some were even as big as a dinner table.
In addition, there was a large number of enormous black gold abalones among those that were on some of the exposed reefs.
Those were the treasures that harvesters were going after. Since the decrease in the sea level had exposed the seabed, harvesting black gold abalone was much easier than normal, so everyone would be racing against the clock to harvest them.
There was a unique term for this period of harvesting black gold abalone: the ebb war.
Black gold abalone harvesters were among the earliest to enter the sea. Subsequently, while carrying baskets and dragging bags, the tourists and residents on King Island also came over to the shore one after another to search for valuable seafood.
Soon after, officers from the department of fishing and hunting hurried over to prevent people from damaging the exposed coral and picking up protected marine animals.
At the same time, the officers also had to warn the crowd to be careful of the sea snakes and poisonous jellyfish that were left behind on the shore after the tide had subsided. Due to the change in environment, the sea snakes were extremely aggressive.
As the residents on the island were more experienced, they had prepared highly reinforced rubber rafts in advance.
Due to the shore having lots of mud pits after the tide had subsided, walking on the shore was very dangerous. In order to avoid sinking into a mud pit, one had to travel in rubber rafts to distribute the pressure they were exerting on the shore.
As Li Du and his group had not made the necessary preparations, they could only stand next to the sea and watch.
Having been through many ebb wars, the other black gold abalone harvesters were well-prepared. Not only did they prepare rubber rafts, they had also prepared various tools, such as iron hooks and forks, that were suitable for use in a variety of environments and for harvesting a variety of seafood.
Evidently, besides harvesting black gold abalone, the harvesters were also harvesting other valuable seafood.
Cruz showed up, and seeing Li Du and his group standing on the harbor, he asked curiously, "Why are you guys standing here? Quickly go down and find the black gold abalones that have emerged on the shore first."
Li Du laughed bitterly. "I didn't prepare the right tools. I was prepared to dive straight into the sea."
Cruz asked helplessly, "You didn't make any preparations after I informed you? You came empty handed?"
"Yeah."
"Great!"
Unable to help them, Cruz could only wave his hand and say, "I have to go. As you know, the sea levels won't remain low for long and will start rising in the afternoon. This period is very precious. I have to grab hold of it. Bye."
Li Du waved his hand and said, "We should go, too. Let's go out to sea."
When Li Du and his group were about to leave, Hans came over with the ama, whose name he had discovered was actually Christie. Both Hans and Christie drove over in a pick-up truck that had a few large inner tubes in its cargo compartment.