My childhood friend is in her mature, sophisticated form again today. - Chapter 76

As dawn broke, he opened his eyes. A thin mist hung over the sea, blurring the bay’s outline into a grayish-white band. Distant hills appeared and disappeared in the mist, seemingly floating on the water. He got out of the car, stood at the edge of the earthen slope, stretched his shoulders and neck, and took out his thermos from his pocket. It still contained half a cup of water—filled by A-You—and was long cold, but he still drank a few sips. Cheng Ran also got out of the car and stood beside him. Neither of them spoke, simply gazing at the bay. The warehouse lights were already on, not the emergency lights from yesterday, but regular lights, shining warm yellow through the windows, appearing soft in the morning mist.

“They have activities in the morning,” Lin Jiqiu said.

“It’s probably preparation work. The ship won’t be back until the afternoon, but loading takes time, so they might move the goods out of the warehouse in advance and put them on the dock to wait.”

Lin Jiqiu looked in the direction of the warehouse. The door was still closed, but the lights in the windows were on, indicating that someone was moving inside. “When that ship returns, how many people will be waiting at the dock?”

“At least two. One to receive the ship, and one to operate the crane. There might also be a few stevedores.” Cheng Ran took out his tablet and glanced at it. “The exact number is uncertain, but the dock isn’t big, so there won’t be too many people.”

Lin Jiqiu glanced at his watch again. “It’s still early. Let’s wait until the sun is higher and the fog clears before we get closer.”

Cheng Ran did not object. He turned around and went back to the car, reopened the tablet, and swiped the screen as if checking some records.

Lin Jiqiu stood on the earthen slope, his gaze never leaving the direction of the bay. The fog on the sea was very thin, like a veil that had not been blown away by the wind.

The morning passed slowly. The sun rose from the east, gradually shortening the shadows of the hills. The warehouse door opened once, and a man came out, walked to the dock, and stood for a moment, as if inspecting something. Then he turned back, and the door closed again. Around ten o’clock, a dark-colored car drove in from the bay entrance, stopped briefly at the warehouse entrance, and a man got out and went inside. The car windows were tinted dark, obscuring the person inside. After a while, the man came out of the warehouse, got back into the car, and drove away.

“Here to check out the goods.” Cheng Ran put down his binoculars.

“Confirm that the goods are ready.”

“possible.”

The fog had completely dissipated. Sunlight shone on the water, illuminating the bay. Several boxes could be seen piled on the pier, moved out that morning. The boxes were small, white, and unlabeled, but there were quite a few of them, neatly stacked under the tarpaulin on the pier, as if they were ready to be loaded onto a ship at any time.

Lin Jiqiu came down from the earthen slope and returned to the car. “Chengran, let’s go to a closer spot. There’s a rocky area south of the dock that gets submerged at high tide, but it should be big enough for people to stand on now that the tide is out.”

Cheng Ran nodded. The two walked down the earthen slope, through a patch of low bushes, their feet sinking into a mixture of gravel and sand. They reached the rocky area; the rocks weren’t large, but they were enough to provide cover. From here, they could see the side of the dock, an angle better than from the earthen slope, allowing them to clearly see the shapes of the crates and the movements of the people on the dock, but because of the off-center angle, they were less likely to be spotted. They lay prone behind the rocks, the sea breeze blowing in their faces, carrying a damp, salty scent.

There were two people on the dock. One was wearing blue overalls and inspecting the crane’s ropes, while the other, wearing a gray jacket, held a form in his hand, as if checking something. They seemed unhurried, as if they had prepared for this many times before, their movements carrying a tacit understanding that required no communication—when one person was focused on doing something, the other knew what to do, avoiding collisions or delays.

More than an hour passed. The sun had moved from overhead to the west. Apart from the occasional seabird flying by, there was no other movement on the sea.

Suddenly, a white dot appeared on the distant sea. It was very small, almost swallowed by the background, and almost invisible unless you looked closely. But it was moving, heading towards the bay.

“The ship is back,” Cheng Ran said in a low voice.

The white dot grew larger, gradually revealing the outline of a ship. The white hull had a deep waterline, similar to the one moored at the dock. It wasn’t moving fast, as if it had already traveled a considerable distance, slowing down in the final stretch of its journey to prepare for docking. The ship slowly approached the dock, the sound of its engine echoing in the bay, deep and even.

The ship docked. The man in blue overalls threw the mooring rope onto the ship, which the crew caught and tied to the bollards. The man in gray jacket stood to the side, a form rolled up into a tube in his hand. He approached the ship, spoke briefly with the crew member who had disembarked, and handed him a few sheets of paper. The crew member bowed his head, signed the forms, tore off a copy, and handed it back to the man in gray jacket.

Loading began. The blue-clad workers started the crane, hoisting the boxes from the dock onto the ship one by one. The white boxes moved slowly through the air, their soft matte sheen in the sunlight resembling large white building blocks being lifted and steadily placed onto the deck before being moved into the hold. Lin Jiqiu counted the boxes—not many, but not few either, about a dozen, consistent with those seen in the warehouse.

The man in the gray jacket stood at the edge of the dock, watching the last crate being hoisted onto the ship, then turned and walked back along the dock. He stopped at the warehouse door, glanced back at the ship, and then pushed the door open and went inside.

Cheng Ran put down his binoculars and said in a low voice, “He signed that form, which should be the proof of the handover of supplies. The people on the ship took the receipt, which means they are the ones in charge of the transportation.”

“Captain or crew?”

“They might be crew members from the new base. The ship isn’t from point seven; it was sent by the new base to pick up cargo.”

Lin Jiqiu nodded, his gaze falling on the ship. The ship’s draft had increased slightly, its hull lower than when it entered the harbor, like a slowly sinking beak, quietly floating on the water beside the dock. Loading was complete. People on deck were organizing the mooring lines, coiling them into neat loops, and then covering the crates at the hatches with tarpaulins. Their movements were unhurried, as if it were a routine.

The boat remained at the dock for about forty minutes before the engines were restarted. The mooring lines were untied and retrieved. The boat slowly left the dock, turned around, and headed out of the bay.

“Let’s follow them.” Lin Jiqiu stood up.

Cheng Ran didn’t refute. The two retreated along the rocky area back to the car. A Zuo started the engine, drove the car out of the shade of the trees, and headed back along the dirt road towards the entrance of the bay. From there, they could see the ship had just left the bay and was sailing south along the coastline at a slow speed. It wasn’t straying too far from the coastline, as if it were following a fixed route.

Ah Zuo parked the car on a high point on the shore where he could see the ship, without turning off the engine. Lin Jiqiu got out of the car again, stood on the edge of the cliff, and used binoculars to track the ship’s trajectory.

“It moved south along the coastline, instead of heading directly into the deep sea.”

Cheng Ran also got out of the car and stood next to him. “It might be because there’s a shipping lane near the sea, or it might be that it needs to go to another supply point first before going to the new base.”

“Then follow it. See where it stops.”

The ship continued sailing south along the coastline at a steady speed. A-Zuo drove along the coastal road, occasionally his view obstructed by trees or hills, but once he reached a higher vantage point, the ship was visible again. The sun slowly set in the west, turning the sea a dark gold. The ship never strayed too far from the coastline.

Two hours later, the ship slowed down outside a small bay. The bay was small, smaller than Point Seven, with only a simple pier extending into the sea, at the end of which a crane and several containers were parked.

“Another transfer point.” Lin Jiqiu put down his binoculars. “It’s docking.”

The boat docked at the pier, and people jumped off the boat and began carrying things on the pier.

Lin Jiqiu glanced at the sky. “It’s getting dark. They might stay here overnight, or they might load up and leave.”

“Wait,” Cheng Ran said.

They waited for about an hour. While the ship was docking, a crane on the pier made a round trip, unloading several white boxes from the ship. These boxes were piled up on the pier for a while before being hauled away by a truck, which drove out of the bay and disappeared inland.

Lin Jiqiu watched the truck’s taillights disappear into the distance. “Those boxes have been taken away. Not to the sea, but to land.”

“It could be a land-based storage site, or it could be a processing plant.”

“Then there might be more than just one transfer station along this coastline, such as Point 7. There might be others.”

Cheng Ran opened his tablet and marked the newly discovered bay on the map. “Let’s go back first. We need to organize this clue tonight.”

Lin Jiqiu took one last look at the bay. The ship had finished unloading its cargo, the cranes along the pier had turned off their lights, and dusk was creeping in from the direction of the hills, slowly swallowing the bay’s outline. He turned and walked back to his car.

On the way back, Lin Jiqiu didn’t sleep, but just looked out the window. Night had fallen, and lights could occasionally be seen on the distant coastline—fishing villages, lighthouses, or perhaps some point of the Heavenly Palace Bureau. Those lights flickered in the darkness, as if breathing.

“Cheng Ran”.

“Um.”

“The ‘transfer chain’ we’re seeing could be quite long. Point 7 is one of them, and that little bay we just saw was another. There might be more.”

“Possibly. The Heavenly Palace Division’s material transfer system wouldn’t just have two points. It should be a complete coastal network, independent of each other, yet connected by sea.”

“Then to find a new base, we might not be tracking a single ship, but rather finding all the points along this chain.” Lin Jiqiu paused. “If we only know where the ship departed from, but not where it docked, then we’ll have to find a way.”

“Then when we get back, we’ll input the coordinates we saw today.”

“good.”

Lin Jiqiu looked out the window; the night flowed past the car window. The outline of the coastline appeared and disappeared in the darkness, as if drawn with a very fine brush. The lights grew farther and farther away.