143: Chapter 143 Dawn Landing

The rain in Linhai stopped just before dawn.

However, an old, unlit fishing boat sailed in from the waters outside the port area.

The boat was small, its engine quiet, yet it managed to pass through the already blockaded sea.

The patrol boat hailed it twice from afar, but received no reply.

Only when the boat neared the Seventh Pier did people see a man in a long grey trench coat standing at the bow.

He carried a black cloth bag on his back and held an old, unlit lamp in his hand.

"Twilight." Bai Ya reported a codename over the Grey Net. "He is occasionally mentioned in the grassroots anomaly circles. He doesn't recruit members, doesn't sell artifacts, and only takes jobs that require 'sealing things that need to be sealed.'"

Zhao Ye stood on the embankment. Seeing the man step ashore, his first words were blunt: "This place is sealed."

Twilight glanced at him: "I know. It isn't sealed enough."

He took an object out of his black cloth bag.

It was a rusted boat anchor, only the size of a palm, but its tip was wrapped in a circle of dried seaweed.

When the Tide approached it, it actually parted on its own.

"Dusk-Ash Anchor." Twilight said, "It will nail down the Seventh Pier along with the interlayer beneath it. Part of the port area will collapse, and not everyone might get out, but the sea won't crawl into the city anymore."

Zhao Ye's face darkened instantly.

"There are still people inside."

"I know," Twilight said, "That's why I'm doing it now."

Shen Qinghe heard this conversation from the other end of the Fire Beacon. She didn't immediately tell Zhao Ye to act, but instead asked Twilight: "Where did you get that anchor?"

"From a place that has already been flooded."

"How many times have you used it?"

"Once."

"Why don't you dare use it a second time?"

Twilight fell silent.

He couldn't say, because the Dusk-Ash Anchor was not a stable force. The first time, he had sealed an anomalous river into a mountain gully; the river didn't come out, and neither did the people living in the gully. Since then, every night he would hear the sound of the anchor tip scraping against stone, as if someone underneath was asking him if he had any regrets.

That was why he believed even more firmly that some doors should be blocked off directly.

"You want to save people." Twilight looked at the Black Sea above the port area, "But every time you light a lamp, the sea records another path it can use to enter the city."

Lu Chen's voice came from the Fire Beacon.

"So you intend to cut off both the path and the people."

Twilight looked up.

There was no face of Lu Chen in the Fire Beacon, only a mass of quietly burning, grey-white Purifying Flame. Yet, this flame made him hesitate to drop the anchor for the first time.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Someone who is unwilling to decide the final destination for others."

This sentence made Twilight's expression shift slightly.

He gave a mocking smile: "Wait until you have guarded a city that couldn't be saved, then say such things."

"I have," Lu Chen said.

Twilight didn't respond.

The sea surface suddenly churned up a reverse wave, and a bone-white compass emerged from the crest. The compass had no needle; its face was entirely covered in tidal level markings. Twilight's eyes flickered, and he reached out to grab it.

Zhao Ye raised his fist first, fire patterns exploding along his arm. Twilight lifted the Dusk-Ash Anchor; the rusted anchor collided with the force of the punch, emitting a dull, bell-like sound. Zhao Ye was forced back half a step, but Twilight didn't gain the upper hand either, his thumb-web splitting open.

"Can that anchor of yours suppress it?" Zhao Ye asked.

"It can't," Twilight looked at the Black Sea, "That's why I came to get something that can suppress the Tide levels."

Bai Ya's Patrol Lamp suddenly emerged from the sea, wrapping around the compass. Twilight didn't continue to fight for it. He glanced at Zhao Ye, then looked toward the Fire Beacon.

"You will see me again."

He turned to board his boat, but before leaving the shore, he threw the Dusk-Ash Anchor onto the embankment.

The anchor didn't fall into the sea; it struck exactly in front of a water line that was crawling toward the residential area.

The water line, pinned down by the anchor, emitted a sound like weeping.

Twilight didn't look back.

"This time, consider it me lending it to you for one night."

The old fishing boat sailed into the fog.

And that tidal bone compass, under the guidance of the Grey Net's fire lines, slowly turned a full circle toward the deepest part of the Seventh Pier.

After Twilight left the Dusk-Ash Anchor, Zhao Ye stared at it for a long time.

The water line pinned by the anchor tip was still struggling gently, as if something underwater was biting it and dragging it back. Yet every time the anchor vibrated, the boat Twilight had left in would sway in the fog; clearly, he hadn't completely relinquished control.

"He wants to see how far we can go," Bai Ya said.

"If he dares to come back and snatch it, I'll beat him up first," Zhao Ye said.

Shen Qinghe, however, was looking at the dried seaweed wrapped around the anchor tip. She heard a very faint sound from within, not like people talking, but more like many doors in a city closing at the same time. It might not have been a lie that Twilight had only used the Dusk-Ash Anchor once. Every time such an object is used, it requires a real place to be used as a "Twilight" to weigh it down.

"He didn't come to save people," Shen Qinghe said.

"And he didn't come to harm them either," Tide added, "He just feels that people and places can be calculated together as costs."

This remark made Cao Gui, who was standing nearby, fall silent. In the old Archives, every missing person report had a number, a date, and a conclusion. Sometimes those papers were like costs: write down "confirmed dead," and the matter is over; write down "long-term missing," and the family will keep waiting.

Twilight clearly didn't believe in waiting.

But Torch could not use his methods.

Bai Ya placed the tidal bone compass within the range of the Fire Beacon, and the Patrol Lamp moved bit by bit along the compass markings. The needleless face finally turned a tiny angle, pointing toward the deepest part of the Seventh Pier. That place was originally an abandoned freight line, and the Archives only wrote "backfilled."

Cao Gui dug out an unstamped construction record. In the record, there was a sentence crossed out with a red pen:

"The downward station office is still in operation; non-construction personnel are not allowed to approach."

Tide looked at that sentence, her back turning cold.

"Someone knew ninety years ago?"

"They knew, but no one could deal with it," Cao Gui said.

Bai Ya sent the footage of the compass turning back to the Grey Net. After watching it, Lu Chen gave only one order:

"The entrance shouldn't be guessed. First, mark out all the points in reality that can be held."

This was not a retreat. It was to deny the Tide-Reversal Bureau a second chance to use the "unknown" to write the rules.

Twilight's boat had completely disappeared. But before the fog dispersed, an old piece of paper floated on the sea surface, pinned down by the anchor tip.

A faint line of text was written on the paper.

"Sacrifice one city to preserve a hundred."

Zhao Ye took one look at it and threw the paper into the fire.

"Whoever wants to protect them, let them."

"Linhai is not for sale."

After Twilight left, the anchor chain of the Dusk-Ash Anchor remained on the embankment. Tide wanted to have someone put it away, but Shen Qinghe told them to leave it for now. Although the anchor was dangerous, it was helping Linhai pin down an outermost water line.

"Why didn't he take it with him?" Tide asked.

Bai Ya watched the boat receding in the Grey Net: "Because he is also afraid. Afraid that if he really seals this place off completely, he might want to return one day in the future, only to find that he has already blocked the door himself."

Zhao Ye didn't respond, only burned the "Sacrifice one city" paper next to the anchor even more thoroughly.

In the flames, a string of coordinates appeared on the back of the paper.

It wasn't the Seventh Pier.

It was the foundation of Linhai's earliest lighthouse.

After seeing the coordinates, Cao Gui dug out the old port map, and his expression changed instantly.

"To light the third anchor, we must first make the lighthouse acknowledge that the port area still exists."

And beneath the lighthouse, it just so happened to be pressing down on a section of the backfilled old downward station line.