Chapter 303: Where This Ship Was

The knock came while Hanchuan was still asleep.

Zhiyi felt him move beneath her cheek before she understood what had woken them. His arm tightened around her waist, then loosened as he looked toward the door. A thin line of flashlight shone across the floor.

"It’s Jingwei," their friend said quietly from outside. "Nothing’s changed. I’m ready to hand over whenever you are."

Hanchuan rubbed a hand over his face, careful not to disturb her. "Give me a moment. I’ll meet you in the passage."

Zhiyi lifted her head while he eased his arm from beneath her. The room was dark, but she could make out his shirt where it had creased against the pillow. She caught the hem before he could sit up completely.

"Did you sleep?" she asked.

Hanchuan looked down at her and brushed her hair away from her cheek. "I did, sweetheart. And I’d like some more, so you’ll have to keep my place warm until I come back."

He bent to kiss her, staying close when she reached for his neck. She had missed having him like this, somewhere they could touch without needing one hand to keep themselves from falling.

When he drew back, she let her fingers slide from his collar and tucked them beneath the blanket.

He returned later with cold hands and a tired smile. Zhiyi moved toward the wall before he asked, and he settled beside her with a quiet breath, drawing her back against his chest.

The next time she woke, daylight filled the window.

For several seconds, she remained still beneath Hanchuan’s arm. Her feet were warm. She could hear someone speaking in the corridor, followed by the scrape of a chair, but nobody was lifting a bucket or asking her to move out of the way.

She turned carefully and found Hanchuan watching her.

"You’ve been awake longer than me," Zhiyi said, touching the crease near his mouth.

"Not long." Hanchuan caught her hand and kissed her palm. "How does your foot feel?"

She moved it beneath the blanket before answering. The skin pulled when she stretched, but the sharp ache from the ladder had eased. She told him so, then rested her hand against his chest again.

"I’d like to see where we are today," she said softly.

Hanchuan smiled faintly. "Then we’ll start with breakfast. You’re much easier to carry up stairs when you’ve stopped looking at me as though I’m keeping you from something."

Zhiyi frowned at him until he kissed her forehead, laughing softly against her skin. She hadn’t meant to look impatient.

She simply wanted to know what was beyond the rooms they had searched, and whether any window on this enormous ship would show her something she recognized.

Breakfast was crackers, canned fish and more peaches.

Zeyu had found bottled water in a cupboard beside the pantry, and he put one within reach of each place at the table. Zhiyi drank before opening her packet, enjoying the fact that she didn’t have to pass it on immediately.

While they ate, Shichen spread a folded drawing across the cleared end of the table.

"I found this outside the stairwell," Shichen explained, holding down one corner with his bowl. "It shows the accommodation decks and the exits. We can use it to keep track of what we’ve checked."

Zhiyi leaned closer. The print was small, but the rooms repeated in recognizable groups around the stairways. She found their cabin and followed the passage toward the mess room with one finger.

Hanchuan watched her for a moment before placing his hand over hers.

"We’re going together," he told her. "Jingwei will check ahead, and we’ll stop when your foot starts bothering you."

She accepted that more easily than she would have accepted being left behind. After breakfast, Qinghe checked her dressing and helped her into a pair of borrowed slippers, padding the loose one so it wouldn’t rub against her heel.

They worked upward through the accommodation block, checking cabins, offices and small sitting rooms.

Zhiyi waited with Qinghe while the others opened doors, then followed when Hanchuan held out his hand. In one room, Zeyu found a stack of magazines.

In another, Shichen collected pencils and a notebook with most of its pages unused.

Jingwei found keys hanging inside an office cupboard and brought them along without trying every lock.

By the time they reached the bridge, Zhiyi was leaning more heavily on Hanchuan’s arm. He noticed before she decided whether to say anything and lifted her onto a chair near the doorway.

"Sit here while we look around," Hanchuan said, brushing his thumb over the back of her hand. "You’ll be able to see everything in a minute."

The bridge stretched across the width of the building, with windows facing the long cargo deck.

Dark screens filled the consoles beneath them. A jacket hung over the back of a chair, and a mug stood in a holder beside a radio.

Zhiyi looked past the equipment toward the glass.

From here, she could see over the containers. Cranes stood above them with their hooks secured, and beyond the bow, water extended to a gray horizon.

She turned toward the windows on the other side, searching for the top of a familiar building.

Hanchuan came back and helped her stand. She walked beside him to the glass, keeping hold of his hand while she searched.

There should have been something.

She knew how high the water had risen. She knew streets and ordinary buildings lay far beneath it. Even so, she had expected the greater height to give her a shape she could place on a map.

Instead, she found floating debris and distant specks too small to identify.

"I can’t tell which way we came," Zhiyi admitted. Her gaze moved toward the stern, although that wasn’t necessarily where their old home lay. "The ship could have turned while we were asleep."

Hanchuan stood close behind her, his hand settling against her waist. "We’ll look at the records before we start guessing. We don’t have to leave here to find an answer."

She leaned back against him while Zeyu and Shichen examined the dark consoles. Neither touched the switches. Jingwei checked the doors leading outside, then returned to a small room behind the bridge.

When he called them over, Zhiyi followed Hanchuan to the doorway.

Charts lay inside broad drawers beneath a table.

Above them, a folder had been left open beside a clipboard, its pages filled with dates, coordinates and handwritten notes. Jingwei moved it into the light while Shichen brought the notebook closer.

Zhiyi read the latest entries twice.

There were positions recorded after the flooding began. She reached for a pencil, then paused over the first set of numbers, looking toward the chart drawers.

"Hanchuan, bring me a chair," Zhiyi said, pulling the folder toward her. "I want to see where this ship was before it appeared in front of us."