Chapter 304: More Than A Bucket

Hanchuan brought a chair from the next room and held it steady while Zhiyi sat.

The borrowed slippers slipped off her heels beneath the table, and she tucked her feet onto the chair’s lower rail before pulling the folder closer.

Someone had used a coffee cup on the cover often enough to leave several overlapping rings.

She rubbed a finger over one while Jingwei opened the drawers beside her, looking for the chart that matched the numbers on the page.

Outside the bridge windows, rain ran down the glass and blurred the far end of the ship. From here, their little boat was hidden beneath the hull.

Zhiyi was glad she couldn’t see it. She had spent enough time watching water collect around her feet without being able to stop it.

"Let me have that corner, sweetheart." Hanchuan lifted the folder before she could trap it beneath the chart Jingwei brought over.

He set it beside her and leaned against the table, close enough that she could rest against his leg while she read.

The early entries were neat, with a different hand appearing every few pages.

Zhiyi followed the dates backward until she found the ship’s departure, then checked the place against the printed names along the coast.

It had begun its journey overseas, carrying deliveries for several ports. Some stops had been crossed off, but the destination nearest Yunzhou remained on the list.

Zeyu bent over the other side of the table, holding down the curling paper with his palm.

"So it was coming our way before the water rose." He looked toward the windows, where nothing remained of the roads they had once driven. "If we find the last place they wrote down, would that at least tell us which direction we came from?"

"It would tell us where the ship was." Zhiyi moved the folder so he could see the gap after the final entry. "I can put that on the chart, but I can’t fill in everything that happened afterward. We don’t know whether they kept the engines running or how long it’s been drifting."

She had already checked the dates twice, hoping she had missed another page.

There were blank sheets at the back and a loose receipt folded into the cover, but nothing that could bring the record up to this morning.

Hanchuan noticed her going through them again. He rested his hand over hers, stopping her before she turned back to the beginning.

"We’ll keep what we’ve found," he told her. "You don’t have to work out where we are before we can eat lunch."

Zhiyi looked up at him. "I wanted to know whether we’d passed Beichen."

"I know you did." His thumb brushed her knuckles before he let her hand go. "But I’m not taking us off this ship to search for a building we can’t see."

She hadn’t been about to suggest leaving, though she understood why he said it.

For years, she had known where they would go if one shelter failed. Now she could name two places filled with everything they needed and couldn’t point toward either of them.

Shichen pulled the spare chair alongside hers and opened his notebook. He had drawn a rough outline of the accommodation levels, leaving spaces where they still needed to look.

"We can mark the last recorded position and leave the rest until we have something useful to add," he said, placing a pencil beside her hand. "I’d rather know where the drinking water comes from. There are enough bottles downstairs for now, but I’d like to wash without feeling guilty about it."

Zhiyi smiled as she picked up the pencil.

His hair had dried badly after yesterday’s towel rub, with one section still sticking out above his ear.

She reached up to flatten it, and he lowered his head for her without interrupting his examination of the chart.

"That isn’t going to stay down," she warned him when it rose again.

"Then we’ll put a shower ahead of a haircut." Shichen glanced at her, smiling. "Unless you’ve found somewhere on that chart where I can get both."

She left his hair alone and marked the position instead. Once she had copied the date beside it, she put the pencil down.

The small cross sat near a coastline that no longer matched the water outside, and she folded the chart carefully rather than trying to make it tell her anything else.

While Jingwei returned it to its drawer, Qinghe found a cupboard of manuals beside the bridge entrance.

He carried several over, their covers dusty beneath his hands. Shichen took the one with the ship’s name printed across it and began turning the pages.

Zhiyi watched him stop at a drawing that spread across two sheets. Pipes ran between labeled tanks and machinery she couldn’t identify from the small symbols, but she recognized the words beside one of the lines.

"There’s equipment for making fresh water," she said, leaning closer.

Shichen followed her finger, then checked the next page before answering.

"There is, but we’ll need to see what condition it’s in and what has to run with it. I’m not switching something on down there because the manual makes it look simple." He folded the drawing back into place and kept the book under his arm. "The tanks are worth checking first. We might already have water we can use."

Zeyu straightened from the table with more interest than he had shown in the coordinates. "If we can get water to the kitchen, I’ll stop complaining about breakfast. I found rice, noodles, and enough pots to feed half the city. I’d like to cook something that doesn’t come out of a tin."

Hanchuan gathered the remaining papers before Zhiyi could reach for another folder.

"Then we’ll start there. We check the water and the machinery before anyone tries to use them, and we stay together while we’re doing it."

He offered Zhiyi his hand, waiting while she found her slippers. When she stood, he bent to kiss her temple and quietly asked about her heel. She moved her foot inside the soft slipper before telling him it wasn’t rubbing anymore.

They took the manuals downstairs with them.

At the mess room, Zeyu stopped to collect the cargo list, reluctant to leave it where a spilled drink might ruin it. Zhiyi waited beside the doorway while he tucked it beneath the notebook Shichen carried.

Across the passage, Jingwei opened a heavy door they had passed earlier.

Cool air rose from the stairwell beyond it, carrying the smell of metal and old oil.

Shichen switched on the flashlight and angled it downward, revealing steps that continued below the accommodation floors.

Hanchuan moved in front of Zhiyi before they started down. She held the rail and followed him, listening to their footsteps change as the stairwell narrowed.

At the bottom, Shichen lifted the light across a room crowded with pipes, valves, and silent machinery.

Zeyu came to stand beside him, looking from the equipment to the manual open in his hands.

"Well," Zeyu said, taking the book so Shichen could hold the light steady, "we wanted more than a bucket. Let’s find out how much of this we actually understand."