My childhood friend is in her mature, sophisticated form again today. - Chapter 28

The boat reached the buoy. Sun Yuan turned off the engine. Lin Jiqiu took off his coat, revealing a waterproof suit, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and clipped his walkie-talkie to his belt. “Communication test.” “Clear.” Cheng Ran’s voice came through the headset, sounding more distant than yesterday—he had already reached the quarry. Lin Jiqiu jumped out.

The water was cooler than yesterday. Sunlight streamed down overhead; the sky had cleared after the storm, and underwater visibility was much better than before. She descended faster: ten meters, fifteen meters, the cave entrance, she swam in, twenty meters, twenty-five meters, thirty meters, the metal door. She took out the matching device, unlocked it, the passage, the observation window, the small room—the monitoring room. The current was the same as yesterday, neither fast nor slow. She paused in front of a pillar, glancing at the screen. The man was still there—sitting on the edge of the bed, in the exact same posture as yesterday, as if he had never moved. She turned and swam towards the ventilation opening in the ceiling.

She pushed aside the mesh. She peered inside; the shaft remained the same, vertically upwards for about two meters, then curved. She swam up, gripping the ladder with her fingers, and began to climb—climbing a ladder underwater felt strange; gravity was counteracted by buoyancy, and with just a gentle pull, her body floated upwards. At the bend, the shaft became horizontal, about three meters long, then vertical again. She continued climbing; the current slowed, and the temperature rose, several degrees warmer than below. At the end of the vertical shaft was an iron cover—round, with rusted edges. She nudged it; the cover didn’t budge. She nudged it again; still no movement. She pushed with her shoulder, straining upwards; the cover made a harsh metallic scraping sound, then slowly opened. Light streamed in through the crack—not the blue of the underwater world, but white, warm sunlight.

She peeked out. A dry space. The floor and walls were concrete, and an emergency light overhead cast a dim yellow glow. It was a room, about fifteen square meters, with no windows, only a closed iron door. The room contained a table, chairs, and a filing cabinet. On the table sat a desk lamp, a water glass, and some scattered papers.

Lin Jiqiu climbed out of the well and sat on the concrete floor, catching her breath. Her gills closed automatically, her skin regained its original texture, and her webbed feet retracted. She looked down at herself—she was still wearing the waterproof suit, but her body was now in the state of an ordinary person. She stood up, closed the iron cover on the well, and looked around.

The filing cabinet was made of sheet metal, gray, with some peeling paint. She opened the cabinet door; inside were folders and file boxes. She took out a file box and opened it—inside were photos. Many photos. Photos of people, different people, different ages, different genders, each photo with a number and date written on the back. XK-03, February 2023. XK-04, May 2023. XK-07, January 2024—Fang Lin. Her finger paused on the back of the photo. She flipped to the next file box, which contained written records—experiment logs.

“Chengran.” She lowered her voice. “Yes. Your heart rate is a little fast.” “I’m here. A dry space, with photos and logs in the filing cabinets. Numbered XK-03 to XK-07, spanning a year.” “What about XK-01 and XK-02?” “Not found. Maybe elsewhere.” She flipped through the logs, reading a few paragraphs.

“Number 03, Day 7. Uncooperative, food intake stopped. Observation window continues to record. Vital signs are stable.”

“Number 04, entering day 12. Hallucinations have begun, repeatedly saying there are sounds coming from the walls. No abnormal sound waves were detected.”

“Number 06, Day 3. Initiated a request to speak with the observer. No response was received according to procedure.”

“Number 07, entering day 8. Begins knocking on the wall. Number 07 on the other side responds. Synchronization recording saved.”

Lin Jiqiu’s finger paused on the words “Number 07 on the opposite side.” The opposite side—the other side of Fang Lin’s room. Not the side with the observation window, but the other side. On the other side of the wall, there was another room, and another person.

“Cheng Ran, the log says ‘Number 07 on the opposite side.’ When Fang Lin was knocking on the wall, someone responded to her from the other side. It wasn’t the observation room, it was the room two doors down. It might be the man we saw on the monitor before.”

Is he still there?

“Yes. There’s live footage of him in the monitoring room.” She stuffed the log into her waterproof backpack and walked to the iron door. The door was locked, but the lock was a regular mechanical lock, not an electronic one. She took out her lock pick and turned it a few times. Click. The door opened.

Outside the door was a long corridor. It had no windows, and every few meters an emergency light cast a dim, yellowish glow. Several doors lined both sides of the corridor, all closed, numbered XK-01, XK-02, XK-03, XK-04, XK-05, XK-06, and XK-07. She walked to door XK-07; it was locked. Looking through the small window in the door—it was the room Fang Lin had been in: a table, chairs, and shelves. Dried water stains remained on the floor.

She continued walking forward. XK-08, XK-09, XK-10. The numbers on the doors kept increasing, but the doors after XK-10 had no numbers, only a single word—C.

At the end of the corridor, in front of C’s door.

She took a deep breath and pushed him away.

Inside was a larger room. The one seen on the monitor. There was a bed, a table, a chair, and a bookshelf. Several blueprints were pasted on the walls. A person was sitting in the chair—no, not sitting, but locked up. Shackles and handcuffs were attached to the armrests and legs of the chair. The man had his head down, his hair obscuring his face, and he was wearing a dark prison uniform; he was so thin that you could see the outline of his bones.

“Can you hear me?” The man slowly raised his head. His face was thin, with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. But his eyes—were bright, unlike those of someone who had been imprisoned for an unknown amount of time. He looked at Lin Jiqiu, his lips moved, and he uttered a hoarse voice. “Who…are you?”

“The people who came to save you.”

The man’s tears fell.

Lin Jiqiu crouched down to examine the shackles and handcuffs. The lock was a complex electronic lock, without a keyhole, only a small sensor area. She took out her key card and swiped it on the sensor area; red light, no response. She swiped it again; still red light.

“This card only opens the downstairs door,” the man said softly. “The upstairs door requires another card. It’s behind the pillar in the monitoring room.”

Lin Jiqiu stood up. “I’ll go get it. You wait here.”

The man’s lips trembled. “Hurry. They’ll be here today.”

“who?”

“People in black. They come to check the equipment. Once a week. Usually in the afternoon.”

Lin Jiqiu glanced at her watch—1:20 PM. She ran out of Gate C and ran back along the corridor. Passing XK-07, XK-05, and XK-03, she reached the iron gate, pulled it open, and rushed into the small room. The iron cover of the well shaft. She pushed it open and jumped down.

The underwater shaft. Vertical descent, a turn, and another descent. She restored her gill slits and webbed membranes in the water and quickly swam back to the monitoring room. On the shelf behind the pillar, she rummaged through it again and again, finding another key card under the file and archive boxes. White, the same as the previous one, but with a different number—LVL-3.

She gripped the card, swam back to the shaft, climbed up, and rushed back into the corridor. At door C, she swiped the card. The green light came on. The shackles and handcuffs sprang off, clattering to the ground. Deep red marks were visible on the man’s legs and wrists; in some places, the skin was chafed, revealing tender, pink flesh.

“Can we walk?”

The man nodded and stood up, using the chair for support. His legs were trembling, but he gritted his teeth and stood firm. Lin Jiqiu helped him, and they walked out step by step. Corridor, iron gate, small room.

“Go down from here,” she said, pointing to the well. The man looked at the dark opening and swallowed hard. “I can’t swim.”

“No need to swim. I’ll take you.” Lin Jiqiu took the walkie-talkie off her belt and handed it to the man. “Here. Don’t panic or struggle once you’re in the water. Just hold on tight to me. I can breathe, but you can’t. So we have to be quick.”

The man took the walkie-talkie, his fingers trembling.

“What’s your name?” Lin Jiqiu asked.

“…Song Yang”.

“Song Yang, are you ready?”

He took a deep breath. “Okay.”

Lin Jiqiu wrapped her arms around his waist and jumped into the well. When the water submerged them both, the man instinctively choked. She pressed her hand to his mouth and rested his head on her shoulder. His gills opened on either side of his neck, extracting enough oxygen from the water for both of them. She swam down the well, turning a corner, then continuing downwards. Passing the monitoring room, she glanced at the screen—two people in black diving suits had appeared in the corridor. They were here. She quickened her pace, pulling Song Yang out of the monitoring room, through the passageway, past the metal door, and into the tunnel. They surfaced. Song Yang held his breath, his face pale, but his eyes were open, staring at the increasingly bright light above. Lin Jiqiu held his wrist with one hand and clung to the rope with the other.

As they broke the surface, Sun Yuan’s boat was right beside them. Cheng Ran was there too—wasn’t he from the quarry? Lin Jiqiu didn’t have time to think about any of that. She pushed Song Yang to the side of the boat, and Cheng Ran leaned over and pulled him aboard. Then it was Lin Jiqiu’s turn. She lay on the deck, breathing heavily, her gills slowly closing. Song Yang lay beside her, gasping for breath, tears mingling with seawater and flowing into his mouth. “They’re here,” Lin Jiqiu said, propping herself up. “I saw two people in black diving suits in the monitoring room. Song Yang said they come once a week to check the equipment.”

Cheng Ran’s expression changed. He said to Sun Yuan, “Start the boat. The faster the better.” Sun Yuan started the engine, and the boat accelerated sharply, leaving a white trail on the sea. Lin Jiqiu turned to look at the white buoy, which bobbed up and down in the waves, getting farther and farther away, until it finally became a white dot and disappeared.

The boat docked. Several people on the pier looked over. Sun Yuan said, “We rescued another one,” and those people didn’t ask any further questions. Lin Jiqiu and Cheng Ran helped Song Yang ashore. Song Yang’s legs were so weak that he could barely stand and was practically hanging on the two of them.

A-Zuo drove the car to the dock. They helped Song Yang into the back seat, Lin Jiqiu sat down and let him lean on her shoulder, Cheng Ran sat in the passenger seat, and A-Zuo started the car.

“To the hospital?” A-Zuo asked.

“Let’s go back to the hotel first,” Lin Jiqiu said. “Take pictures of these lock marks on his body. Evidence.”

Song Yang rested his head on Lin Jiqiu’s shoulder, his eyes closed, his breathing gradually becoming more even. After a while, he spoke, his voice very soft. “Are you police officers?”

“no.”

“Then who are you?”

“They run a law firm. They specialize in handling these kinds of things.”

Song Yang remained silent for a long time. “Am I… already dead?”

Lin Jiqiu looked down at him. “You’re still alive. Being alive means you’re alive.”

Song Yang’s tears flowed again. The car drove through the town’s streets, passing white houses, blue window frames, the hotel, the flower shop, and the café. Lin Jiqiu looked out the window; the sphere on her wrist was vibrating, much faster than usual. She gently pressed her finger on the sphere—as if in response, as if saying, “I’m back.” The sphere’s vibration slowed down.

Back at the hotel, Lin Jiqiu and Cheng Ran helped Song Yang into A Zuo’s room. A Zuo went to call the town’s doctor. Cheng Ran took out his camera and photographed the lock marks on Song Yang’s wrists and ankles one by one. Red marks, broken skin, bruises. Song Yang sat on the edge of the bed, looking at his hands, without saying a word.

“Song Yang, how long have you been locked up?” Lin Jiqiu asked.

He thought for a moment. “…A year. Maybe longer. I don’t remember. There was no calendar, no windows. Only a lamp—that lamp never went out.”

Who arrested you?

“I don’t know. I was taking samples in the sea that day—I’m a marine geologist. I saw something I shouldn’t have seen.”

“What is that?”

“A door. Underwater, in a cave. A metal door.”

Lin Jiqiu’s fingers tightened slightly on her knee. She was looking at the same door.

“That was the last time I took a sample. After that, I was locked in that room. They didn’t talk to me or tell me why. They just kept me locked up, observed me, and recorded my data every day.”

Cheng Ran opened the tablet and pulled up the photos from the monitoring room. “Are these the people?” Song Yang looked at them for a few seconds and shook his head. “I don’t recognize their faces. They’re always wearing diving suits and helmets.”

“What did you hear? Voices, conversations, or something else?”

“I heard knocking on the wall.” Song Yang’s voice lowered. “There’s someone next door. I knocked three times, and she knocked three times. Then I knocked four short and one long, and she returned four short and one long. It was a rhythm we agreed on.”

That’s Fang Lin.

Song Yang lowered his head. “Did she go out?”

“He went out. Yesterday.”

Song Yang’s shoulders relaxed slightly, as if something heavy had been lifted. “That’s good.” He looked up at Lin Jiqiu. “Are you going back?”

“We need to go back. There are still many things we haven’t figured out about that place.”

Is anyone still inside?

Lin Jiqiu thought for a moment. “XK-01 to XK-06, and XK-08 to XK-10. There are at least nine more. Maybe more.”

Song Yang clenched his hands on his knees. “Please save them.”

Lin Jiqiu did not answer. She stood up and walked to the window. The ship was no longer visible on the sea. The white buoy was faintly visible in the distance.

“Cheng Ran”.

“Um.”

Will those two people from today go back to that room?

“It’s uncertain. But once they discover Song Yang is missing, they’ll definitely be on high alert. The equipment might be moved, and the records might be destroyed. Time is running out.”

“Go down again tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, I’ll go with you.”

Lin Jiqiu turned around and looked at him. “How are you going to go down? You can’t breathe underwater.”

Cheng Ran took a small oxygen cylinder out of his backpack—not an ordinary diving oxygen cylinder, but a very thin and long one, like a metal rod. “This is what A Zuo bought in the city yesterday. It’s compressed air and can last forty minutes.” He hung the oxygen cylinder on his waist and demonstrated how to wear it. “I won’t deform, but I’ll use the equipment.”

Lin Jiqiu looked at him. “Are you sure?”

“Sure.”

Song Yang looked at Lin Jiqiu and then at Cheng Ran, his lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he didn’t speak.