A Candlelit Nighttime Conversation
After Tang San pushed the sketch over, he didn't rush to continue. He leaned back in his chair, the oil lamp light casting a distinct line of light and shadow on his face; the left side illuminated his cheekbones and nose, while the right side remained in shadow. He waited for Long Tian to finish looking at the sketch before speaking, "The Spirit Hall's old files were reorganized during the Elite Tournament. When I was negotiating team supplies with their data officer, I looked through the sealed catalog of those files and saw a document marked as..." The file for "The Ocean's Distant Journey: Never Returned" is stamped with the seal of 2633. Most of the content has been removed, leaving only three pages in the interlayer. One page mentions the unusual water color and inaccurate compass readings in that area; another is a fragment of a nautical chart, which largely matches my drawing. The third page is torn in half, leaving only a few lines of text at the bottom, the writing blurred, but the last word is legible—"altar."
Long Tian's gaze lingered for a moment on the word "altar." He turned the sketch around on the table, allowing the oil lamp light to fall more evenly on the paper, then looked up at Tang San: "The torn half of the third page was deliberately removed. A fragment of a nautical chart, an anomaly record, and a passage mentioning an altar—all contained in the same file and then deliberately separated. Whoever removed them didn't want anyone to connect these clues."
"The dragon pattern you brought back from the East Sea and the 'altar' described in this file appear near the same body of water. You know better than I what this means." Tang San picked up the pencil from the table, twirled it between his fingers, and put it back down, his tone calm. "That body of water is nearly a hundred miles from the mainland coastline, extending deep into the open sea. Regular shipping routes don't pass through it. If there really is an ancient structure there, the purpose of its placement, the time of its construction, and why it's been continuously erased from nautical charts—the answers to these questions are more numerous than the clues you currently have—they might be inside the structure itself, or they might be in other records scattered throughout the continent."
Long Tian listened to Tang San's words from across the table. He looked at the sketch one last time on the table, then stood up, supporting himself with his hands. He didn't say anything polite like "thank you," but simply reviewed the sketch's layout in his mind, confirming that the coordinates he remembered matched the information on the fragment of the sea chart provided by Tang San. Then he nodded slightly in Tang San's direction.
Tang San didn't see him to the door. As Long Tian turned to walk towards the door, he heard Tang San add behind him, "There's an ink mark on the edge of the nautical chart fragment in that file. It wasn't printed; it was handwritten later. The writing is so faint it's almost illegible, but it doesn't look like ink. It's more like some kind of mineral pigment, a grayish color, the same powdery color you saw in the East Sea. If you can find a fleet from that area, they might be able to provide you with the specific directions you need for your first dive. As far as I know, there's a place along the coast called Longfish Bay, where ship owners control a route that bypasses the outer sea currents."
Long Tian paused at the doorway, glancing sideways at Tang San. Tang San had already picked up the pencil again, his head bowed as he added something to the blank spaces of the sketch, without looking up. Long Tian withdrew his gaze, pushed open the door, and walked into the corridor.
Yu Jin stood against the wall in the corridor, straightening up when he saw Long Tian emerge. The two walked along the corridor they had come from, through the courtyard, and toward the gate. The night wind swirled in the empty courtyard, carrying a dry leaf that dragged across the paving stones with a faint scraping sound, as if something was moving at an unpredictable speed in the shadows. As they passed the clothesline, a corner of a garment, lifted by the wind, brushed past Long Tian's shoulder before falling back down.
After leaving Shrek Academy, they stood for a while under an old elm tree by the roadside. There were no other pedestrians around; only the occasional croaking of frogs drifted from the distant rice paddies, carried intermittently by the night breeze. Long Tian reviewed the outline of the sketch again, then turned to Yu Jin: "Longfish Bay. There's a boat owner along the coast who knows a waterway that avoids the interference of the currents."
When do you plan to leave?
"Tomorrow." Long Tian glanced westward. His sense of direction was less clear in the darkness, but he knew the way he'd come. Walking from nightfall to dawn would take him to the next town, and from there, heading towards the coast, he could reach Longfish Bay in about two or three days. "Tonight, I'll travel a bit further, then rest at the next town. I should be able to leave Shrek Academy's territory before dawn and avoid causing trouble here."
The two did not linger. They retraced their steps, passing the bridge, the field ridge, and the tree-lined road once more. The Dragon Shadow, which had been pressed against his back, rose again above his shoulders after he set off. Its wing membranes were spread wider than during the day, and in the moonless night, a layer of greyish-gold light shone continuously, like an old lantern carried by the wind, moving slowly and steadily along the road. Occasionally, travelers passing by would glance up at the moving light before quickening their pace to walk around it.
After walking for about two hours, they rested for half an hour in an abandoned melon shed by the roadside, each closing their eyes for a while against the shed pillars. The Dragon Shadow hung above the melon shed, its wings slightly drooping and its eyes half-closed, like a nocturnal bird constantly on guard in the dark. Before dawn, they set off again, arriving at a small market town at the first light of day. They ate breakfast in the town, replenished their water bags, and continued towards the coast.
Two days later, in the afternoon, more gravel and saline-alkali soil appeared on the road. The vegetation gradually changed from broad-leaved trees to drought-resistant shrubs, and the air once again smelled of sea salt. As Long Tian passed a high slope, he glanced ahead—a thin, dark line appeared on the distant horizon. It was the sea horizon, and in the afternoon sunlight, its boundary with the sky was clearly discernible. Like an edge line drawn by a ruler, it stretched across the end of his vision without any protrusions or bends, continuing to the extremes on both sides of his vision before being partially obscured by the distant terrain.
The outline of Longfish Bay appeared about half an hour after they descended the slope. It wasn't a formal port, but rather a shallow, semi-circular bay flanked by low cliffs on both sides. Several old fishing boats, their hulls coated with dark tung oil, were moored in the bay. The dock was made of a few rough pieces of wood, and stacks of old nets and ropes were piled up on the shore. Long Tian walked along the dock for a while and stopped in front of a fishing boat with a person sitting at the stern. The person sitting at the stern wore a faded blue cloth and was wiping water stains from the oars with an old cloth. When he heard footsteps and looked up, he saw the gray-gold Dragon Shadow behind Long Tian, which had naturally risen from its close-fitting position as Long Tian approached, its wing membranes spreading out slightly. The cloth in the person's hand paused for a moment as the Dragon Shadow's light passed in front of him, like a flag fluttering in the wind naturally attracting the attention of the retina as it passed by, before naturally resuming its movement as it continued to pass by.