170: Chapter 170 Beyond the Sea Chart

Half of the bow remained intact, still maintaining its posture of charging toward the open sea, but the cockpit had been torn apart by an invisible, immense force. The fracture was smooth and cold, covered in a layer of damp salt frost. The snapped tow cable was tightly wrapped around that black iron Fire Beacon, its fibers completely shredded. The casing of the Fire Beacon had split in two, its interior hollow and pitch-black, having long since lost the power it previously held to alter territories.

Deputy Captain He Yuan did not return.

Only two surviving crew members were rescued from the entire ship. One of them was still drifting in and out of consciousness when sent to the hospital, repeatedly muttering only three sentences. The words were clear, heavy with obsession.

"The captain did not lose control."

"He told us to get down and take cover."

"It was he who dragged the Black Shore away from the port."

In the temporary meeting room of the Linhai Maritime Patrol, Tide listened to this testimony over and over again. The recording echoed in a loop, every word striking at the heart.

She lifted her pen over the blank ledger, but hesitated to write. She would not follow protocol and mark it as an "accidental wreck," categorizing this heroic choice as a mere accident; nor was she willing to hastily write "lost contact/missing," letting Deputy Captain He Yuan's sacrifice fade into vague silence.

Finally, the pen tip touched the paper, leaving only a neat, calm, and unalterable line of text in the ledger.

[Deputy Captain He Yuan, Linhai Maritime Patrol collaborator. During the Black Shore port-docking incident, voluntarily dragged away the Fire Beacon. Confirmed deceased.]

After finishing the last stroke, she gripped the pen and did not let go for a long time.

Tang Zhiwei sat across from her, offering no superfluous words of comfort, nor hollow expressions of condolences. Those who have experienced countless life-and-death moments understand that all words at this moment are pale.

After a long silence, she gently pushed a manual verification registration form toward Tide.

"Sign it."

Tide looked up, the gloom still weighing heavily in her eyes: "What is this procedure?"

"It is not for casualty compensation, nor is it a routine filing," Tang Zhiwei's voice was calm yet resolute. "It is to bear witness and leave a name. You saw it with your own eyes, the crew saw it with their own eyes, and the port area has it fully recorded. Don't let him be reduced to nothing more than a string of cold ship numbers in the future."

Tide lowered her eyes and firmly signed her name in the witness column. Her handwriting was upright and steady, without a hint of trembling.

Yet, when she reached the final stroke, the pen tip paused briefly, unable to suppress the surging bitterness in her heart.

"He used to complain that I reported the Tide levels too quickly."

Tang Zhiwei watched her quietly, saying nothing.

Tide tugged at the corners of her mouth, the smile failing to reach her eyes, though her eye sockets were already turning red.

"Every time we patrolled, he would tell me to slow down, saying the ocean would always be there and wouldn't run away."

Of course, the ocean would run. It was just that the old Deputy Captain He Yuan never believed this ocean would become so bloodthirsty and treacherous.

The cleanup work in the Linhai Port Area continued.

The Black Tide outside Pier 7 had completely receded, leaving large patches of snow-white salt crusts on the mudflats and roads, crisscrossed with ink-black water stains, like countless dried-up old wounds branded by the traces of the Black Shore's invasion. The Black Shore had not completely dissipated; it had merely temporarily withdrawn from the shipping lanes, hiding in the depths of the dense fog where no one had surveyed. Radar could not capture its tracks, and the standard nautical charts remained a blank blind spot. Only when the sea breeze passed by would a dull, muffled sound occasionally drift from the distant sea, like a ship's cable slamming hard against a reef—hollow and eerie—reminding everyone that the crisis had not yet dissipated.

The wreckage of Wanghai No. 7 remained nowhere to be found.

It had last appeared in the navigation records of qingsuo no. 2, but the coordinates placed it in the uninhabited distant seas over seven hundred nautical miles outside of Linhai, completely detached from all conventional shipping territories.

Beside the window of the Safe House, Xingkong sat hunched over his desk, slowly organizing the navigation logs page by page, his pen strokes extremely light and steady.

"What do you plan to do in the future?" Jiaoyue asked him softly.

Xingkong raised his eyes to look at the dark, gloomy sky outside the window, his eyes filled with confusion: "I don't know."

"What about going home?"

He was silent for a long time, his voice carrying the melancholy of a drifter: "I don't know if my home would even recognize me now."

Not far away, Wu was wearing headphones, repeatedly listening to the old recording. Hearing this, he took off his headphones and turned to look at Xingkong.

"Don't be in a rush to go back yet."

Xingkong looked at him with confusion in his eyes.

"First, write down everything you saw."

Xingkong looked down at the paper filled with dense, bizarre trajectories and suddenly chuckled: "Does this count as work?"

"It counts." Bai Ya pushed the door open and entered, holding a few freshly printed route maps between his fingers, the ink still wet. His expression was much more solemn than usual. "And it's the most troublesome work. You have to sort out those ghostly scribbles that aren't on the nautical charts, one by one."

Xingkong took the charts, and the fleeting smile on his face completely vanished.

On the charts, the trajectory of the Black Shore's retreat this time remained clearly visible; it had not disappeared along with the black fog. It was a thin but striking black scar, extending eastward from the outer seas of Linhai, running through the entire uninhabited distant sea.

Relying on the residual rules of the black iron Fire Beacon, the final logs of Wanghai No. 7, and the incomplete nautical charts provided by Rhine from the distant seas, the Grey Net had managed to piece together a partial outline of this unknown territory.

That was not a naturally formed coastline at all.

The entire black line traced a huge, bizarre arc across the vast sea, connecting several black landmasses that did not exist on any nautical charts, constructing a strange, extra-territorial domain out of thin air.

What was even more spine-chilling was that the other end of this arc pointed precisely at the distant sea coordinates that Rhine had sent earlier.

"Is there any reply from Rhine?" Lu Chen's voice sounded in Xinhuo Hall.

Bai Ya nodded slightly.

The long-distance communication cut through layers of fog and connected to the hall. Rhine's voice was slightly clearer than during the first contact, still laden with the static of biting sea winds, carrying the desolate cold unique to the distant seas.

"I saw it."

"You have temporarily forced it back."

Lu Chen gazed at the floating global Fire Map, his tone calm and lucid: "It will come again."

"It will." Rhine's response was calm to the point of indifference, as if he had long been accustomed to it. "The Black Shore is never a fixed area of the sea. It is a bizarre boundary that spreads along the four seas. Whoever lights a beacon for it, whoever harbors obsession for it, it will grow toward that person's territory."

"How many have you seen on your side?" Bai Ya asked in a deep voice.

The other end of the communication was silent for a few seconds, the wind howling, drowning out the brief silence.

"I have seen three."

The hall instantly fell into a deathly silence.

What everyone had fought to the death to resist, paying the price of human lives to repel, was merely one of the three Black Shores. No one knew where the other two were lurking, nor did anyone know how much unknown darkness was still hidden throughout the four seas.

Lu Chen did not continue to ask for details about the distant seas.

He knew clearly that asking would not necessarily yield complete answers. The Grey Net's detection range could not yet reach the distant outer seas, the Linhai Third Anchor was in desperate need of rest after the catastrophe, and the Fire Map linking the three cities also needed time to recover its energy. To forcibly light up the path to the distant seas now would not only be useless, but would also provide an extra human beacon to precisely guide the unknown entities of the deep sea.

He raised his hand to adjust the parameters of the global Fire Map, switching all exposed Fire Beacons in Linhai to low-frequency watch mode.

Not extinguished.

But hidden into the heart of the city, guarding the human realm.

The day the port lighthouse lit up again, the rotating beam no longer scanned toward the vast outer sea. The light flowed slowly along the breakwater and the coastal evacuation routes, gentle and firm, illuminating only the path back to port, guarding only the living on the shore.

In the distance, Xingkong watched quietly for a long time, then stepped over to Tide's side.

"I can stay in Linhai."

Tide turned her head to look at him: "Stay to do what? Guard the sea?"

"Yes." Xingkong's gaze was clear and firm, "I will watch it."

Tide's tone carried a hint of cold warning: "Those words are too light. Guarding the sea is equivalent to courting death."

"I will not step into the deep sea, nor will I actively explore." He lowered his head and pointed to the thick logbook on the table, "I will only record its trajectory. When it approaches, when it stagnates, and when someone secretly lights a beacon of heart-lamp for it."

Tide instinctively wanted to refuse, not wishing for anyone else to be put in danger because of this treacherous sea.

But looking at the stubborn way the boy gripped his pen, the last calm and heroic words of Deputy Captain He Yuan suddenly echoed in her mind: "It was my choice." The human heart has its choices, and there is no fault in guarding.

She was silent for a long time, finally relenting: "You may stay."

"But remember, don't watch the sea alone."

Xingkong nodded solemnly, keeping this admonition firmly in his heart.

This arrangement was simultaneously transmitted back to Xinhuo Hall.

Lu Chen did not immediately grant Xingkong candidate status, nor did he let him touch the power of the Fire Seal. Those who survived the desperate situation of the Black Shore carried too many unclear traces of rules on them. The best arrangement at this moment was not to rush to grant power, but to let him stay behind to observe, continuously record, and settle his heart.

Wu also chose to stay in Linhai and did not leave.

On the white wall of the Safe House, he personally posted a piece of white paper, writing clearly in three lines, every word resonant.

[Wanghai No. 7.]

[Deputy Captain He Yuan.]

[Linhai does not forsake the shore.]

Chen Jue walked over, saw it, and pointed to the last line, asking: "What does this mean?"

Wu lowered his eyes to look at the paper, slowly stating the simplest yet firmest creed of guarding the city.

"It means that when there is a voice in the sea seducing you, or an obsession calling you, don't be in a rush to run into the darkness. First, turn around and see who is still waiting for you on the shore."

Chen Jue was silent, reaching out to gently smooth the corners of the paper.

When Deputy Captain He Yuan's name was officially entered into the Torch Monument of Remembrance, the sparks beneath the monument did not suddenly flare up, and there was no earth-shattering disturbance.

Lu Chen only had the Grey Net archive all relevant traces completely: the final recording from the public channel of qingsuo no. 2, the handwritten testimonies of the two crew members, the full Tide beacon records of the port area, and Tide's handwritten testimony—nothing was left out.

There were no empty titles, no exaggerated accolades.

Above the light and shadow of the stone monument, only a continuous, real, and burning navigation trajectory remained.

[qingsuo no. 2, turning in the outer shipping lane.]

[Fire Beacon has left the port.]

Tide stood before the projection of the monument, quietly gazing at the two extremely minimalist lines of records, remaining motionless for a long time.

She raised her hand to gently cover that navigation line, her eyes carrying a touch of melancholy tenderness: "If he saw this, he would definitely complain that it was written too briefly."

Lu Chen stood by her side, his tone calm yet resolute. This was not a comfort; it was a promise, a rule.

"In the future, someone will fill it in, bit by bit."

The night was deep and quiet, the turmoil temporarily subsided.

The Grey Net unfolded the global Fire Map of the three cities again.

The sparks of the three cities—Qinghe, Jiangbei, and Linhai—were still bright, but they had all restrained their sharpness, no longer as flamboyant as before. All the fire lines no longer extended straight toward the outer sea, but instead each curved inward in a gentle arc, as if the three cities were standing side by side, raising their hands to firmly protect the lights of ten thousand homes in their palms.

At the very edge of the Fire Map, that black scar symbolizing the Black Shore was slowly retreating toward the distant sea.

When it retreated to a certain critical point, on the navigation log that Xingkong had spread open, a brand-new black dot suddenly appeared automatically on the paper.

It was not a light, not a heat source, not any human track.

It was the name of a city.

Bai Ya leaned over, saw the handwriting clearly, and his expression instantly darkened.

"Beitong."

The simple two characters were quietly branded at the very front of the Black Shore's trajectory, as if they had just been written by an invisible Tide—fresh and glaring.

The communication from the distant sea had not been cut off, the howling wind piercing through the night.

Rhine's low voice came slowly, carrying a calm, prophetic warning.

"Don't think it has been defeated and dissipated."

"It has only abandoned Linhai and swapped to a new place, preparing to dock."

Lu Chen raised his eyes, his gaze piercing through layers of fog, landing on the city of Beitong on the Fire Map, which had not yet been lit and was devoid of any sparks.

Beitong was located deep inland, standing against the mountains, very far from the vast ocean. It should have been the safest inland city, far from the maritime disasters, uninvolved with the Black Shore.

But everyone knew clearly at this moment.

The Black Shore never follows conventional nautical charts and is not limited by territorial boundaries.

It does not travel by sea routes, but through the depths of the human heart, along that endless path of obsession, forever yearning to return home.