My childhood friend is in her mature, sophisticated form again today. - Chapter 79

“There’s a fork in the road ahead. The left one leads to the old road along the coastline, while the right one leads into the mountains. Based on the distance, if there’s another point, it should still be on the left-hand road.”

“Go to the left,” Lin Jiqiu said.

The car turned left onto the road. The road narrowed a bit, and the trees on both sides became denser, their branches and leaves weaving a green tunnel above the car. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dancing spots of light on the hood, shifting with the car’s speed. After about fifteen minutes, a building appeared by the roadside. Unlike the ones we’d seen before—this building wasn’t gray, it was white, with freshly painted walls. A dark-colored sedan was parked in front, its windows spotless. People were moving around in the yard; a man in blue overalls was carrying a box out of the warehouse and placing it on a small cart, while another man in a gray jacket stood at the door, holding a clipboard, seemingly checking something.

“There’s an activity going on,” Cheng Ran said.

“We didn’t see anyone at those other spots. This place is alive.”

A-Zuo parked the car under the shade of a tree by the roadside. Lin Jiqiu didn’t get out immediately, observing through the car window for a while. The white building wasn’t large, about two stories high, with a small yard in front, surrounded by an iron fence, neater than the ones she had seen before. A truck was parked in the corner of the yard, its bed covered with a tarpaulin. The edges of the tarpaulin were blowing in the wind, revealing stacks of white boxes underneath, exactly the same as the ones she had seen at point seven. A man in blue overalls loaded the boxes onto a trolley and pushed it into the warehouse. A man in a gray jacket followed behind, turning a page on his clipboard, as if he had just finished checking off an item.

Lin Jiqiu got out of the car, and Cheng Ran followed. The two walked along the roadside ditch to the side of the iron fence and squatted behind a clump of bushes. From here, they could see most of the yard—the warehouse door was open, and inside were more white boxes, neatly stacked on shelves like rows of goods waiting to be inventoried. The man in the gray jacket walked to the center of the yard, paused, looked up at the sky as if checking the weather, and then turned and went into the warehouse.

“This place is more like a distribution center than point seven,” Cheng Ran said in a low voice. “The warehouse at point seven is mainly for storage, but here people are sorting and moving things.”

“So there are different types of points along this line. Some are for storage, some for transshipment, and some for sorting. Point number seven is a dock, Hekou Town is a transit point, and this is a distribution center.”

“If we go further south, there might be other types of points.”

Lin Jiqiu observed for a while until he was sure no one else was coming out of the yard before standing up and walking back to the car along the drainage ditch. Cheng Ran followed behind, and the two of them got into the car. The sound of the car door closing was very soft in the quiet shade of the trees.

“Let’s go,” Lin Jiqiu said. A Zuo started the car and continued driving south.

His gaze never left the window, occasionally sweeping over every building along the road. He and Chengran discussed the different stations along the route—docks, warehouses, distribution centers—how they were connected by road and sea, how goods were transferred from the deep sea to land, and then distributed to different places. Those white boxes underwent counting, repackaging, and loading on trucks during their southward journey, like a silent assembly line. In the evening, they stopped for dinner in a small roadside town.

The town was quiet, with only one small restaurant still open. The proprietress, a woman in her fifties or sixties wearing a faded apron, greeted them as they entered, brought over tea, and asked no further questions. Lin Jiqiu ordered a few simple dishes and, while waiting for their food, sat by the window, watching the street gradually darken outside. Cheng Ran sat opposite him, a tablet on the corner of the table displaying a partial nautical chart, marking the points they had found that day. A Zuo sat on the other side, a cup of tea in front of him, untouched, merely watching the steam rising from the rim.

“If this line continues to extend south, where will it eventually lead?” Lin Jiqiu asked.

Cheng Ran’s finger traced across the nautical chart. “If the spacing pattern remains unchanged, about a hundred kilometers further south, you’ll enter an area without roads. There’s a gap in the coastline there, and the terrain is quite steep, making it unsuitable for building a dock. If the Heavenly Palace Division wants to continue setting up points further south, they either need to bypass that area or establish a new transshipment line further south.”

“If they go around that area, they will break away from the main line. If they skip that area and continue setting up points, it means that the line is not continuous, but segmented and independent.”

“That’s certainly possible. Different people are responsible for the points in different paragraphs, and there’s no direct connection between them.”

The proprietress brought the dishes over, put the plates down, and then went back to get the rice. Lin Jiqiu picked up a piece of food with his chopsticks, chewed it twice, and swallowed it. “If we can’t find the end of the road, we’ll have to find the breakpoint using other methods.”

“A ship,” Cheng Ran said. “The ship we saw at point seven was traveling by sea. If the land route is cut off, the sea route might still be open.”

Lin Jiqiu thought of the white ship—its waterline was deep, it sailed along the coastline, docked at point seven, and disappeared somewhere further south. If the road was impassable, that sea route might still exist. There might not be any ships following them, but the route that ship had taken could be another clue.

After finishing their meal, the three of them left the restaurant. Night had completely fallen, and the streets of the small town were deserted, the streetlights casting long shadows. A-Zuo went to get the car, while Lin Jiqiu stood by the roadside, gazing at the distant sea. It was utterly dark, and through the gaps in the trees, a faint light could be seen on the distant sea, moving slowly close to the coastline. It wasn’t a lighthouse, nor a fishing light; it was a ship.

“Chengran, look.”

Cheng Ran followed his gaze. “It’s similar in model to the ship we saw at point seven.”

“It’s heading south, parallel to the highway.” Lin Jiqiu watched the faint light slowly move across the sea. “If the highway ends, the sea route can continue. Let’s go back tonight and sort out today’s gains tomorrow.”

A-Zuo drove the car over, and the three of them got in. The car turned around and drove back the way they came. Lin Jiqiu looked out the window; the ship was no longer visible in the night, only a vast expanse of black sea remained, with occasional white foam rising from the crest of a wave, quickly swallowed by the darkness. He looked away and leaned back in his seat. The ship’s light in the distance was no longer visible; the sea and sky merged into one, indistinguishable from each other. He memorized the trajectory of that light in his mind, like adding a stroke to an unfinished map.