Thin sand-mud-coal interbedded layers and multiples caused by shallow water pose great challenges to conventional 3D multi-channel seismic techniques used to detect the deeply buried reservoirs in the Qiuyue field. In 2017, a dense ocean-bottom seismometer (OBS) acquisition program acquired a four-component dataset in East China Sea. To delineate the deep reservoir structures in the Qiuyue field, we applied a full-waveform inversion (FWI) workflow to this dense four-component OBS dataset. After preprocessing, including receiver geometry correction, moveout correction, component rotation, and energy transformation from 3D to 2D, a preconditioned first-arrival traveltime tomography based on an improved scattering integral algorithm is applied to construct an initial P-wave velocity model. To eliminate the influence of the wavelet estimation process, a convolutional-wavefield-based objective function for the preprocessed hydrophone component is used during acoustic FWI. By inverting the waveforms associated with early arrivals, a relatively high-resolution underground P-wave velocity model is obtained, with updates at 2.0 km and 4.7 km depth. Initial S-wave velocity and density models are then constructed based on their prior relationships to the P-wave velocity, accompanied by a reciprocal source-independent elastic full-waveform inversion to refine both velocity models. Compared to a traditional workflow, guided by stacking velocity analysis or migration velocity analysis, and using only the pressure component or other single-component, the workflow presented in this study represents a good approach for inverting the four-component OBS dataset to characterize sub-seafloor velocity structures.