My childhood friend is in her mature, sophisticated form again today. - Chapter 90

When Lin Jiqiu returned to the office, Ayou was already standing at the door. He wasn’t carrying anything; he was just standing by the doorframe. When he saw the car lights shining on him, he slightly stepped aside to let him through. Lin Jiqiu got out of the car and walked to the door. Ayou’s gaze lingered on him for a moment, then looked away, as if confirming something. “The food’s in the pot,” he said, then turned and went inside.

As Lin Jiqiu was changing his shoes, Ahua came down the stairs, stopped on the last step, squatted there watching him, and didn’t come closer. He bent down to change his shoes, then straightened up. Only then did Ahua jump down the step, walk half a circle around his feet, and then turn around and go back up the stairs.

He walked into the living room, placed his backpack next to the sofa, and sat down. Cheng Ran followed him in, but didn’t sit down. He first went to the counter, put the equipment case away, and then sat down opposite him. A You brought the dishes to the table. He sat down, picked up his chopsticks, took a piece of fish, put it in his mouth, and chewed slowly, as if the warmth in his mouth was reminding him that he was still on land.

“That wall has bends and corners, and its surface has slots for fasteners and maintenance interfaces. It’s not naturally formed, nor is it a meaningless load-bearing structure. It was built for long-term operation and maintenance. It should belong to the boundary of some large facility—not its center, but its edge.” Lin Jiqiu picked up the second piece of fish and looked at Cheng Ran. “I looked up from the bottom. I couldn’t see its top or its bottom. I could only see it extending to both sides.”

“The boundary is farther than we anticipated,” Cheng Ran said. “If that is the outer wall of the base, it means that what we are seeing is only a small section. It may cover a large area, perhaps the inner wall of the entire crater, used to isolate the interior, or it may be part of the structure itself.”

Lin Jiqiu didn’t reply and continued eating. Ayou brought over another bowl of soup and placed it beside him. The steam from the bowl rose steadily, as if waiting to be drunk.

After dinner, Lin Jiqiu went upstairs to take a shower. As the hot water washed over his shoulders, he looked down at the floor—the water swirled around his feet, flowing away through the drain and leaving a shallow, slowly fading watermark. He turned off the water, dried himself, changed into clean clothes, and returned to his room. He sat on the edge of the bed, not lying down, but simply sitting, his gaze fixed on the half-drawn curtain illuminated by the streetlamp outside the window. That wall still lingered in his mind, like an anchor that hadn’t been fully pulled out of the water.

The next morning, when Ayou brought out the porridge, Lin Jiqiu was already sitting on the sofa. He took the bowl but didn’t rush to eat; he first warmed his hands on his lap before picking up the spoon. “Have those photos been organized?”

“It’s all sorted out. You can see more details when you zoom in.” Cheng Ran pushed the tablet over, displaying a series of photos—close-ups of the wall he had taken underwater. Although the lighting was poor, the outlines were much clearer after post-processing. He pointed to a recess near the base of the wall in one of the photos: “This looks like a reserved interface, probably for connecting additional equipment or power lines. If the wall itself was intended to serve as an extension frame, then there should be similar structures distributed further away nearby.”

Ah Zuo peeked halfway in from the doorway. “We need to get even closer one more time. This time, not into the water, but with a probe that travels a greater distance along the wall to confirm its direction of extension.”

Cheng Ran nodded. “Okay.”

In the afternoon, Cheng Ran was upstairs adjusting the sonar module of the detector. Lin Jiqiu sat on the sofa downstairs, his gaze fixed on the window, but there was nothing particularly special outside—the florist was clearing away flowerpots from the shelves, carrying them back inside one by one, and the staff at the café across the street were moving chairs to tables to make way for the sweeper. He watched those actions, not thinking about them, just observing them as they unfolded, as if recording a certain rhythm with his eyes, so that time could be traced. Ahua squatted beside him, her chin resting on the sofa armrest, looking in the same direction as him.

Ah-you came out of the kitchen and sat down on the sofa next to him. After a while, Ah-hua moved her chin from the armrest to his knee.

“You need to go back again,” A-You said.

Lin Jiqiu did not deny it. “We need to confirm exactly how long that wall is.”

“Brother Cheng said that wall might be very wide.”

“It may be broader than we think now.”

Ah You didn’t say anything more. Ah Hua’s tail dangled from Lin Jiqiu’s knees, swaying gently at the edge of the sofa.

The next day, the ship sailed out of the harbor again, heading towards the volcanic crater. The sun was shining brightly, but the wind was stronger than the previous days. Lin Jiqiu stood at the ship’s railing, gripping the railing and feeling the ship’s rise and fall. He closed his eyes, and only opened them after a long time, as if he had pressed something down and then resurfaced.

The ship stopped at the designated location, and the probe was lowered into the water. Lin Jiqiu stood beside the control panel, watching Cheng Ran manipulate the tablet, where sonar data was generated in real time. The probe extended along the wall to one side, transmitting a set of images at intervals. There were no openings or corners on the wall, just a continuous, flat surface.

“We’ve already walked 500 meters,” Cheng Ran said. “The wall has never stopped.”

“Keep going.”

The probe continued forward. Seven hundred meters. Nine hundred meters. The wall remained unbroken, without any structural changes. Lin Jiqiu stood at the control console, watching the lines on the screen gradually unfold, forming a semi-closed outline. There were faint echo anomalies in certain areas within the wall, suggesting internal layers or channels rather than a solid structure. The wall itself exceeded his expectations; it moved along a smooth arc, extending at almost right angles at corners, as if the straight sections he had seen earlier were merely waiting for this turning point, drawing the unseen outlines back into their boundaries. After rounding an angle, the wall began to extend in a new direction, as if forming one side of a larger outline.

Cheng Ran zoomed in on the trajectory diagram on the screen. “If the wall continues to extend in this direction, it will form a fan-shaped area with the main structure. It’s not a simple rectangular facility, but more like a ring structure covering the entire inner wall of the crater. There may be more than one edge, but multiple layers, like an onion. Right now, this edge is just the outermost layer.”

Lin Jiqiu remained silent, continuing to watch the screen. The probe traveled approximately two hundred meters along the wall before Cheng Ran retrieved it. The outline of the wall gradually became complete on the screen; the arc resembled a section of a perfectly round circle laid out on the seabed with ink lines and then enlarged proportionally, extending in an undetermined direction, like a draft on an unfinished drawing, still retaining an unnamed edge area.

The ship began its return journey, adjusting its course. The engine’s hum was steady and continuous, as if it wanted to carry away everything floating on the water. Lin Jiqiu remained standing on the ship’s railing, looking at the waters ahead. In the distance, one or two blurry lines could be vaguely discerned on the sea surface—perhaps pontoons, perhaps something else—quietly resting between the edge of his vision and the reflection in the water, like a broken point whose direction was yet to be determined, floating not far away, waiting to be identified.