144: Chapter 144 The Seventh Dock

The Seventh Pier was thoroughly sealed off before dawn.

The official reason for the blockade was a hazardous chemical leak and foundation subsidence; police cars, fire trucks, and engineering vehicles blocked the perimeter tightly.

Gu Xingzhou's people didn't ask Torch for authorization; they simply sent over every available document, list of port workers, and structural diagram of the old pier, truckload after truckload.

This time, Linhai was no longer a matter of just a few people sneaking into a building to solve a problem.

Tide stood in the temporary command vehicle, staring at the Tide levels, wind direction, and evacuation routes.

Space Venerable had blueprints spread all over the floor, his fingers tracing back and forth between several structural lines.

Cao Gui was responsible for cross-referencing the missing persons files, Jiaoyue led the medical team guarding the last Lamp-Keeping Zone, and Wu Ze sat leaning against a Fire Beacon, his face paler than paper.

Everyone knew that those who entered the Seventh Pier might not all come out.

Zhao Ye took off his jacket, revealing the fire patterns on his arms that hadn't fully faded.

After his Suppression Domain advanced, it was the first time he could control five Fire Nails separately: two to pin the ground, two to pin the walls, and the last one to nail down the most dangerous rule-based opening.

But the cost was also obvious; for every additional Fire Nail he activated, the blood in his body felt like it was being drawn out by fire.

"Don't open them all at once," Shen Qinghe said.

"Until it leaves me with only one?" Zhao Ye asked.

Shen Qinghe ignored his sarcasm.

A faint layer of fire patterns had appeared on the edge of the bronze bell in her hand.

The Illumination Realm no longer just revealed true or false doors; it could now clearly illuminate the "questioning method" of a rule within a short time.

However, she could only use it three times; after the third time, the bronze bell would go completely silent for a period.

Bai Ya divided his Patrol Lamps into twelve points, pressing them respectively into the pier's cranes, the tops of shipping containers, drainage outlets, surveillance poles, and temporary Fire Beacons.

Every fire point was like his eyes, able to see how the ticket stubs flowed, where the Black Sea was rising, and whose name was currently being registered.

"I used to only be responsible for telling you where something was happening," Bai Ya said, "Now, I can give them a mouthful of fire first."

Lin Zhao was checking the bronze lamps outside the Lamp-Keeping Zone and smiled upon hearing this: "That sounds quite like Zhao Ye."

"I'm more civilized than him."

"Neither of you is civilized," Shen Qinghe said.

Tide handed the walkie-talkie to Zhao Ye: "Don't run around after you go in. The Tide level inside the Seventh Pier flips every seven minutes. When it flips to the top, all the stairs will turn downwards."

Zhao Ye took it and asked: "How do you know?"

"I've been dispatching in the port area for ten years," Tide pointed to her Tide chart, "When the sea is lying, I can hear it."

Space Venerable shoved a silver Boundary-Setting Ruler into Shen Qinghe's hand.

This wasn't an Ability Seed, just a tool temporarily made by the Core of the Torch based on his structural diagrams.

Once the ruler was inserted into a physical wall, it could fix a section of the structure as "real" for ten minutes.

"Don't lose it," Space Venerable said, "I only have two."

Shen Qinghe nodded.

The freight elevator door deep in the pier slowly opened.

Inside wasn't the Black Sea, but a corridor extending upwards.

As soon as everyone stepped inside, the ground beneath their feet began to tilt.

The safety exit signs on the walls all turned into downward arrows, and the sound of Tides surged from the ceiling.

The voice of the Tide-Reversal Bureau came from every lamp.

"Tide inspection complete."

"Linhai, beginning to sink."

Zhao Ye was the first to nail a Fire Nail into the ground.

The Suppression Domain expanded, and the pillars of fire propped up the corridor.

As Shen Qinghe's bronze bell rang, the staircase that had originally folded downwards had its true boundaries illuminated, and Space Venerable immediately inserted the Boundary-Setting Ruler.

Bai Ya's twelve Patrol Lamps lit up simultaneously, and the ticket stubs took shape in the air, like damp spiderwebs.

"Left!" Bai Ya shouted.

Zhao Ye threw a punch, shattering not a wall, but a fake elevator door.

Black water exploded behind the door, and over a dozen registered names floated out from the water.

Cao Gui stood at the back, holding the file and checking them one by one, his voice hoarse with tension: "Chen Li, Li Shuanghe, Xie Guangming... they are all still here."

These names were not dead.

They were clamped in the register pages of the Tide-Reversal Bureau's downward station, waiting to become the next batch of passengers.

Wu Ze suddenly looked up and saw the shadow of the Nameless Wall at the end of the corridor.

On the blank space of the wall, new strokes were growing bit by bit.

The strokes growing on the Nameless Wall were quickly seen by Bai Ya.

"It's not a name," he said, "It's a new registration line."

The line passed through the station office from the Nameless Floor and fell into the deepest freight shaft of the Seventh Pier.

The Tide-Reversal Bureau wasn't just waiting for the downward-bound passengers.

It was using those written names to supplement a main line that could enter reality.

After hearing this, Shen Qinghe directly cupped the bronze bell in her palm.

"We cannot let it bring the list out."

After the action team entered the freight elevator, every ten meters they walked, the number on the Tide chart jumped once.

Tide couldn't go in too deep, so she could only report the difference between the real Tide and the false Tide at the entrance.

Hearing the numbers, Space Venerable led the engineering team to prop up the steel beams one by one on the reality side.

Jiaoyue, outside the door, applied fire-return records to every person entering, preventing them from being unable to even find the list after being erased.

When Zhao Ye's Suppression Domain reached the third Fire Nail, the floor of the corridor suddenly cracked.

A dozen wet hands reached out from the cracks, grabbing at the nearest people.

Zhao Ye didn't charge blindly; he kicked the fourth Fire Nail into the crack, and the fire patterns crisscrossed into a net over the fissure.

The wet hands made a hissing sound upon hitting the fire net, then retreated into the black water.

"Three meters to the left, real wall," Space Venerable shouted in the earpiece.

Shen Qinghe inserted the Boundary-Setting Ruler, and the wall instantly became solid.

Bai Ya's Patrol Lamps swept along the real wall, revealing a door covered in seaweed.

Behind the door were piles of dense old luggage tags, each engraved with a name.

Cao Gui stood outside reading the file and suddenly stopped.

"Cao Zheng's tag is also here."

His voice was very soft, yet it was still heard by something behind the door.

One of the luggage tags flipped over by itself, revealing his brother's name.

Cao Gui's breath hitched, and he stepped forward.

Tide grabbed him: "Don't go in."

"I'll just take one look."

"It's waiting for you to say that."

Cao Gui didn't struggle.

He stared at the tag, finally clutching the file folder tightly.

"I know."

A sound of wheels rolling suddenly came from inside the door.

A freight elevator without a front carriage was slowly driving from the deepest darkness.

The elevator was piled high with registers.

The book on the very top opened automatically.

[Linhai, sinking main line confirmed.]

After the driverless freight elevator stopped, an old work ID card fell out of the door crack.

The name of the warehouse worker who went missing last night was written on the ID.

When Cao Gui picked it up, the card was still warm.

"They are inside," he said.

Shen Qinghe did not promise to save them.

She only held the bronze bell close to the ID card, and the Illumination Realm let a blurry direction emerge from behind the card.

It wasn't leading to the deepest part of the sea, but to the freight shaft where the registers were piled.

"Get the names back first," she said.

Zhao Ye's Suppression Domain pressed forward, and Bai Ya used his Patrol Lamps to cut the ticket stubs on the outside of the freight elevator one by one.

With every one that snapped, a muffled sound rang out in the elevator, like someone knocking on a box from under the water.

Chen Jue's face turned pale upon hearing this from the perimeter, but he didn't ask again if he could rush in.

He only recorded every sound on his clipboard, marking the time and direction.

The new strokes on the Nameless Wall also stopped at this moment.

It wasn't a person's name.

It was the first character of the entire Linhai Port Area.