My childhood friend is in her mature, sophisticated form again today. - Chapter 81

“If the next point also follows this pattern, we can narrow the search area to within two kilometers of the coast.”

“Theoretically, yes.”

A-Zuo drove the car to the door, the engine humming softly. Lin Jiqiu put on his coat and walked to the door. He glanced back at the living room; A-Hua had already rested her chin on the shoe cabinet, her eyes closed, the tip of her tail twitching slightly, as if to say, “I understand.” Lin Jiqiu pushed open the door and went out.

The car drove south along the coastal highway. The fog gradually dissipated, and the sea changed from grayish-white to light blue, then from light blue to dark blue. The villages on both sides of the road became increasingly sparse; sometimes, it would take more than ten minutes to see a single house. Sunlight pierced through the clouds, casting large patches of light and shadow on the sea, like someone slowly stirring a pool of clear water in the sky.

After driving for over an hour, they passed a small fishing port. At the entrance, fishing nets and plastic baskets were piled up, and the air was thick with the smell of fish mixed with diesel fuel. Lin Jiqiu rolled down the window, and a gust of sea breeze rushed in, carrying the salty, fishy smell and the engine oil odor, which was dispersed and then gathered again by the wind. Cheng Ran glanced over and said, “Not here.” A Zuo didn’t stop and continued driving.

After driving for about forty more minutes, a fork in the road appeared. It was narrow, paved with gravel, and overgrown with weeds on both sides; it was narrower and more dilapidated than the forks they had seen before. Lin Jiqiu told Azuo to stop the car and got out to look around for a while. There were fresh tire tracks on the road, the treads clear and the edges free of dust, as if a car had just passed through in the last few days. He squatted down and compared the width of the tracks with his hand; they were similar to the truck tire tracks he had seen in Hekou Town.

“A car has been passing by on this road recently.” Lin Jiqiu stood up and looked in the direction the fork in the road led. “It wasn’t an ordinary farm vehicle; the tire tracks were quite wide.”

Cheng Ran got out of the car and squatted down to examine the tire tracks. “If this road leads to the sea, there might be a new transit point nearby.”

“Let’s go in and take a look.”

A-Zuo slowly drove the car onto the side road. The road conditions were much worse than the main road, uneven and full of potholes, the wheels making a soft crunching sound as they rolled over the gravel. The trees on both sides of the road grew denser, their branches drooping low, brushing against the car roof several times. After driving for about ten minutes, a barbed wire fence appeared ahead. It wasn’t a wall, just a few horizontal wires strung between the posts. The barbed wire was rusty, broken in places, the ends curled up and reaching into the air, as if torn apart by some external force. There was a gap on one side of the barbed wire, and new tire tracks were visible on the ground at the gap, clearer than those seen before.

Lin Jiqiu and Cheng Ran got out of the car and walked through the gap. The broken ends of the barbed wire swayed gently in the wind, and the remaining old paint on the surface shimmered with tiny, dark red fragments in the sunlight. After walking for a while, the view suddenly opened up. The sea appeared before them, a grayish-blue color, shimmering with tiny white fragments in the midday sun. About fifty meters from the shoreline, a boat was moored. It was white, not large, and similar in model to the boat they had seen at point seven, but with a shallower draft, as if it had just unloaded its cargo. The pier was even smaller than the one they had seen before, with only a few wooden piles supporting a narrow walkway. At the end of the walkway was a tin shed, under which were piles of white boxes.

“Another spot.” Lin Jiqiu crouched in the grass and observed for a while. The boxes under the shed were already covered with waterproof tarpaulins, the tarpaulins stretched taut and flat. Judging from their shape, there should have been three or four layers underneath. The water near the pier was very shallow, and the boat was almost touching the seabed, with the waterline almost reaching the bottom of the boat. “This place is more hidden than the previous spots. If we hadn’t followed the tire tracks, we wouldn’t have found it at all.”

“The gaps in the barbed wire suggest that this spot may have been abandoned or is being abandoned.” Cheng Ran paused for a moment. “It could also just be that maintenance is infrequent.”

Lin Jiqiu didn’t answer. He continued to observe for a while, making sure there was no one near the shed and the pier, before standing up and retracing his steps. As he passed through a gap in the barbed wire, his coat got caught on a piece of wire. He stopped, untied it, glanced down at the wire end, and continued walking.

Back in the car, A-Zuo started the engine, turned around, and drove back along the side road. Lin Jiqiu sat in the back seat, took out a small notebook from his pocket, and wrote down the location and characteristics of this new checkpoint. The pages of the notebook were damp with sweat, and one corner was soft; he rubbed it with his thumb before turning the page. “The checkpoint in Hekou Town has containers, gray buildings with white boxes, and here there are also white boxes. This means the goods transported on this route haven’t changed—they come from ships, are loaded into boxes, and sent somewhere.”

“If we can find a box, let’s open it and see what’s inside—”

“That way we can confirm exactly what’s inside those boxes.”

“But there are people guarding these transfer points, and they won’t let us get close to the boxes. And if we open a box, they’ll find out very quickly.”

“So we can’t just open it directly. We need to find a spot where the boxes have already been moved, but the area hasn’t been completely cleared out yet.”

The car returned to the main road and continued south along the coastline. Lin Jiqiu opened the car window, letting in a sea breeze carrying the salty, fishy smell and dampness. He leaned back in his seat, looking at the sky outside—the clouds were thinner than before, and there were scattered white dots on the sea, like ships sailing far away, or perhaps seabirds. He thought for a while, then for a while more. The search area was narrowing, the distance was increasing. But the direction was right.

When he returned to the office in the evening, Ayou was tidying up flowerpots at the entrance. Seeing the car stop, he put down what he was doing and walked over. “Boss, how was today?”

“We’ve found another spot. It’s very small and well-hidden.”

Ayou nodded. “So how many points are there on this line?”

“I don’t know. Maybe there are many. But with each one found, the Heavenly Palace Division’s transportation network becomes clearer.”

Ahua jumped down from the windowsill, circled around his feet, and then walked away. Azuo went to park the car, and Chengran took his tablet upstairs; his footsteps echoed a few times in the stairwell before disappearing. Ayou went to the kitchen to get the dishes, and Lin Jiqiu stood by the window, watching the streetlights gradually illuminate the street. He was thinking about those white boxes, those boats, those barbed wire fences, and that path leading to the sea. They were like puzzle pieces, scattered along the coastline, waiting to be picked up piece by piece. He didn’t know what the final picture would look like—but he knew that the puzzle in his hands was slowly taking shape.