25: Chapter 25 A Bright Moon Rises Over the Sea, Monsters Lurk in the Deep Sea

Donghai City, 3:00 PM.

Sunlight blanketed the entire sea area, the surface shattering into ten thousand points of golden light that made it impossible to keep one's eyes open.

Dozens of fishing boats hoisted their white sails, slowly drifting out of the harbor and leaving long white wakes upon the azure water.

"A little lower! Right, squat down! At this angle, you've made me look like I'm five feet tall!"

On the deck of the chartered fishing boat, a girl in a white dress stood with her hands on her hips, directing her boyfriend who was half-squatting on the ground, holding up a phone.

Zhou Yu grimaced. In the frame, his girlfriend, Shen Nian, was backlit, her hair blown by the sea breeze and gilded with a golden rim.

He admitted she looked beautiful, but he had been holding this pose for five minutes, and his knees were about to give out.

Captain Old Zhao, chewing on a half-smoked cigarette, leaned against the gunwale. His face, tanned dark by the sun, was full of wrinkles, and when he smiled, his teeth were stark white.

"You young folks sure know how to have fun. When it gets dark, I'll take you to catch some squid. Freshly caught and cooked on the spot—that kind of freshness is something you can't buy in the city no matter how much money you spend."

Shen Nian finished taking photos and hopped over to check her phone's photo album. Zhou Yu finally straightened his back, leaning against the gunwale and letting out a long sigh of relief.

Old Zhao squatted on the deck to organize the fishing nets, his movements quick and practiced as he chatted away.

"I've been sailing these waters for over thirty years."

He untied a tangled knot, his fingernails caked with dried salt.

"When I was a kid, I went out to sea with my dad on a wooden boat with sails that had been patched over and over again. Times were tough back then; if a cast of the net didn't bring anything up, the whole family would go hungry for two days."

Zhou Yu leaned in.

"Uncle Zhao, what about now?"

"Now?"

Old Zhao laughed, revealing a missing front tooth.

"Things are good now."

He raised his hand and pointed toward the harbor.

"Look over there. Ten years ago, it was just a row of tin sheds where fishmongers squatted on the ground to sell their catch, and there were more flies than people. But now? We've got seafood wholesale buildings and cold-chain logistics. I've barely pulled up my nets before the orders start coming in on the phone."

He stacked the organized fishing nets at his feet, fished out another cigarette, and struck a match twice before getting it lit.

"My son opened a seafood noodle shop in the city. He and his wife run it, and they pull in thousands a day. Last year, they paid off their mortgage—three bedrooms and a living room, facing south, and you can see the sea as soon as you open the window."

Old Zhao took a drag of his cigarette, squinting at the distant horizon where the sun had seared the line into a golden rim.

"Last month, he brought me to the city to stay for a while and told me, 'Dad, stop going out to sea. You're getting old.'"

He shook his head.

"I came back after three days. I couldn't get used to it. I was born to fish; if I can't hear the waves, I can't sleep."

Shen Nian listened from the side, having forgotten all about her phone.

"Uncle Zhao, you're living a pretty good life."

"It is good."

Old Zhao nodded, flicking ash into the sea.

"Don't mind that I'm out here in the wind and sun all day, looking dark and weathered. I'm content."

He patted the gunwale.

"I got this boat six years ago. It's got a diesel engine, GPS, a sonar fish finder, lights for the night, and a canopy for when it gets hot."

"Back in my father's day, sailing was a matter of life and death. Now, going out to sea is like going to work—you leave on time, come back on time, and can even video call the wife at night."

Old Zhao stubbed out his cigarette and crushed it under his foot.

"I often tell my son that we've caught up to good times. Your grandfather's generation couldn't even dream of a life like this."

The sea breeze tousled his white hair. Sunlight shone on his face, and his wrinkles were filled with smiles.

In the distance, a sea-foraging streamer had set up their phone and was showing off a freshly dug razor clam to the camera, the chat in the livestream scrolling by rapidly.

"So envious! This is what life is all about!"

"Don't leave, streamer! Wait for me to buy a plane ticket and I'll be there!"

Dozens of boats, large and small, were docked in the harbor.

There were trawlers that had just finished unloading, charter boats carrying tourists out to sea,

and several old sampans tied to the pier pilings, rocking gently with the tide.

At the end of the pier, a tin shed had been set up at the entrance to the fish market.

Two women in aprons were sorting swimming crabs, the plastic crates stacked higher than a person.

Next door, at a folding table, an old man with his shirt off was eating noodles, the steam from his bowl dispersed by the sea breeze.

3:40 PM.

Everything was so perfectly normal.

Then the air raid siren blasted.

There was no warning, no transition.

The shrill, prolonged wail surged out from every corner of the city, slicing through the sea breeze, the crashing waves, and the sounds of people.

The three people on the deck froze simultaneously.

The cigarette in Old Zhao's mouth fell into the sea and went out with a hiss.

The phone in Zhou Yu's hand nearly slipped from his grip.

Shen Nian's phone vibrated violently. It wasn't a text message or a phone call.

It was a forced push notification from the National Emergency Broadcasting System, turning the entire screen into a piece of blood-red iron.

[Emergency Notification: Abnormal geological activity has been detected in the Donghai City sea area. A tsunami warning has been issued. All coastal residents are requested to evacuate to higher ground inland immediately. All vessels at sea must return to port immediately. Repeat, this is not a drill!]

Vendors at the fish market dropped their electronic scales and ran; the freshly arrived live fish and shrimp were scattered all over the ground, flopping about on the concrete.

A bus full of tourists swerved violently, its tires grinding against the curb with a screeching sound.

At the street corner, the sea-foraging streamer's face drained of color, and he shouted at the camera,

"Guys, we're out of here! Something's wrong!"

The chat went wild.

"Run! Forget the livestream!"

"Holy crap, is this for real? It's a notification from the state!"

There were still trolls stirring up trouble,

"Don't go, streamer! Stay and see what the tsunami looks like!"

The streamer hesitated for half a second.

Three camouflage-painted armored personnel carriers roared past the street corner, kicking up dust that hit him in the face.

Machine guns were mounted on the roofs, and a full squad of armed personnel with live ammunition followed behind.

The streamer's hands shook.

The livestream signal was forcibly cut.

Black screen.

The speed of the lockdown was far beyond anyone's imagination.

Traffic police, patrol police, firefighters, and the armed police—four systems cut in simultaneously from four directions.

Every street, every intersection, and every beach within three kilometers of the coast was sealed off within half an hour.

Three helicopters swept low over the city, their rotor noise making the windows buzz. The loudspeakers broadcast on a loop,

"...evacuate immediately, this is not a drill..."

Donghai City, this small city famous for its seafood and tourism, had turned into a military exclusion zone within an hour and a half.

Weibo's trending list exploded.

#DonghaiEmergencyEvacuation#, #DonghaiTsunamiWarning#, and #DonghaiMilitaryExercises# occupied the top three spots.

Tourists who were being forcibly evacuated uploaded videos, and images of the flood of military vehicles and armed blockades filled the homepage.

"I've lived for thirty years and never seen a spectacle like this!"

"It's a state-issued notification, run!"

Some people felt something was off.

"Donghai isn't on a seismic belt; where would a tsunami come from? Look at the configuration of those military vehicles—this doesn't look like disaster relief; it looks more like a military operation."

"The blockade line only allows people out, not in. My uncle is a port dispatcher, and all the cargo ships were driven out to the open sea, causing losses in the hundreds of millions."

"Is it really to defend against a tsunami, or something else entirely?"

No one answered.

The speculations in the comments section piled up, but not a single person guessed the truth.

Because the truth was even worse than the worst-case scenario they could imagine.

---

West of Jingzhou, an old residential building, third floor.

Lin Xiaoman sat cross-legged, curled up in a gaming chair, a freshly unwrapped watermelon-flavored lollipop in her mouth.

On the wall of light supported by three monitors, data streams flowed silently.

Left screen—real-time footage from over three thousand street surveillance cameras in Donghai City, all showing military vehicles and silent armed personnel.

Center screen—the tower dispatch system for the Donghai airspace; all civil aviation routes were blood-red, with all flights grounded. Only one military encrypted frequency was still operating.

Right screen—the flight path of a Gulfstream G650, its arrow pointing steadily toward Donghai.

Lin Xiaoman pulled the lollipop out of her mouth.

A female CEO who ignored a three-billion-dollar business negotiation was flying on a private jet to a city that was being completely blockaded and cleared of all civilians by the military.

It was even more exaggerated than the "explosion accident" at the Eastern Chemical Plant a week ago.

Warships, armored vehicles, city-wide evacuation.

Lin Xiaoman tilted her head, her hat pulled down to her eyebrows.

There was no sign of tension on that baby face; the blue light of the screens reflected at the bottom of her pupils, swirling with something completely incongruous with her age.

"You wouldn't need this kind of setup just to catch a terrorist, would you?"

Her voice was soft and sweet.

The female CEO, the military, the highest level of lockdown,

and that secret extending from the courtyard house in the west of the city—a secret she had been chasing for two weeks without ever finding the bottom of.

All the threads were twisted together.

"This is so interesting."

Lin Xiaoman tapped the keyboard rapidly, code flowing beneath her fingertips.

All the cameras in Donghai City that she could hijack began to adjust their angles at an extremely concealed frequency.

All lenses pointed in the same direction.

That stretch of empty, deserted sea about to be swallowed by darkness under the setting sun.

"Let me see..."

She popped the lollipop back into her mouth, her voice muffled.

"What on earth are you all up to?"

The blue light of the screen shone on her face.

The last ray of sunlight filtered through the gap in the curtains, landing on the potato chip bags and empty cola cans scattered all over the floor.

In this rental room west of Jingzhou, the world's number one hacker sat curled up cross-legged in her chair,

with a lollipop in her mouth, tracking a storm whose full picture she could not yet see.