Just as the three months were up, Liang Qiao and Xi Yan received a notice from the Union Security Agency allowing them to end their evaluation period within a week and return to Landu to participate in the final qualification review.
Liang Qiao told Chu Hui about this, and he immediately called her, asking: "Really? What day can you come back?"
Liang Qiao twirled the pen in her hand and said, "Not sure yet, within a week or two."
Chu Hui asked, "Are there any more procedures to go through after that?"
"We might need to make a trip to the main base, and then we can return to Landu."
"Then let me know when you're coming back, and I'll pick you up."
"Coming back might fall on a workday." Chu Hui's evaluation period had ended last week, so he was now officially employed at the Shipborne Research Institute, with four fixed workdays per week.
"That's fine, the new project hasn't started yet, so I'm pretty free right now," knowing Liang Qiao would be back soon, it was hard for him not to be in a good mood, and even his tone had become much lighter. He asked in a coaxing manner, "Don't you miss me?"
On the other end, Liang Qiao was multitasking, writing her duty report, and upon hearing this, she replied flatly, "Mm."
He wasn't satisfied with this answer and asked again, "Don't you miss me?"
She still said, "Mm."
"Tsk," Chu Hui frowned and asked, "What does 'mm' mean?"
"Mm just means… mm."
"Say you miss me."
"…"
"Say it!"
"…"
"I'm angry now."
"…Then I'll hang up."
"I'll cry for you to see right now."
"Three, two, one…"
"Liang Qiao!"
A faint, soft chuckle came from the other end.
Chu Hui rolled his eyes on his side, laughing as he scolded, "Annoying."
"Who are you talking to?" A voice came from behind him—it was a colleague who had just arrived at the break room.
Chu Hui didn't hide anything at all and said frankly, "My wife."
The other person said in surprise, "You're married?"
"Fiancée," he said without changing his expression, "She's checking up on me."
The other person gave a teasing smile and asked, "An Alpha?"
"How did you know."
"I've dated one, a bit controlling," after saying this, he added, "You've got it on mute, right?"
"It's on, it's on," Chu Hui pressed his lips together to hold back a laugh, picking up on his previous remark, and said, "A little, yeah."
The other person smiled and said, "I won't disturb you then, I'll find another spot."
Once the voice faded into the distance, Liang Qiao had also finished writing her last few words and spoke up again, asking, "I'm controlling?"
Chu Hui raised an eyebrow and said, "A little, I guess. Pretty controlling in bed."
"…"
After a few more rounds of playful banter, Chu Hui walked over to the window and sat down. Outside the break room was the institute's courtyard, with a large expanse of lush green lawn and flowering trees. The weather was nice today too, and the sun fell warmly on him. He propped his chin on his hand, squinting comfortably, and asked instead, "So when you come back, will you stay in the dorms or at North District 3?"
Liang Qiao was an honor graduate of Langria, with many rewards and privileges, one of which was permanent residency rights in North District 3. Although the place wasn't big, Chu Hui had grown fond of it after living there for a while and wasn't too keen on moving away.
Liang Qiao said, "Depends on how work goes."
"You're not going to get a second place and then stop coming home, are you?"
Liang Qiao found it a bit hard to understand his leaps in logic and asked, "…Why do you always think of me that way?"
Chu Hui said bluntly, "Because I'm too controlling."
"…" Liang Qiao fell silent, then said, "Drink two bottles of Suppressant."
He felt like he'd said this before too. Chu Hui couldn't quite remember, but his mouth was quick to respond anyway: "That stuff tastes awful. You could just fuck me senseless instead—same result."
"…I'm really going to call the police."
"What if it's you who comes? Can I resist arrest?"
"Hung up."
"Don't hang up—" Chu Hui quickly softened, drawing out the words in a long, winding tone before finally adding: "I can do the moving myself."
This time, Liang Qiao cut the call without hesitation.
Chu Hui laughed out loud, then sent her a kissing emoji, followed by the word "wife."
After a two-second wait, she still replied: "Mm."
Chu Hui said, "Talk to me a little longer."
Hearing a knock at the door, Liang Qiao tucked away her report and stood up, replying to him: "I need to go submit my duty report."
"Alright," seeing that she was genuinely busy, Chu Hui didn't push further and barely suppressed the curve of his smile, saying: "I'll call you tonight then."
"Mm."
"Miss you. Kiss kiss."
…
Opening the door to her dorm, Xi Yan was standing at the entrance holding a report. Seeing her come out, she said, "Let's go."
Liang Qiao glanced down at her Terminal to confirm: "Did you finish uploading the report?"
"Long ago," Xi Yan said. "Let's head to the archives. We can rest once this is done."
The duty report required two copies—one handwritten to be submitted to Cangshan City, and one entered into the Terminal to be uploaded to the Union Security Agency's database. Liang Qiao did a final check of the report in her hands for anything missing, then walked with her toward the archives at the end of the corridor.
Although life here was dull and filled with unknown contamination and danger at every turn, Xi Yan still felt a twinge of reluctance when it came time to leave. She asked Liang Qiao, "When are we heading back?"
Liang Qiao said, "After the last patrol rotation ends."
The Delta River patrol area was divided into nine zones, with each group checking one zone and rotating every three months to prevent anyone from growing complacent after becoming familiar with their area. Liang Qiao and Xi Yan had always been responsible for patrolling Sub-zone 2 of Zone C4. According to the schedule, next Tuesday would be their final one.
"Good," Xi Yan thought the same. "After it's done, we can take the team leads out for a meal."
Liang Qiao had no objection and gave a hum of acknowledgment.
"My little sister said she wants to come pick me up," Xi Yan said with a laugh. "She still doesn't believe I'm on the same team as you."
A month ago, Xi Yuan had caught a glimpse of Liang Qiao once during a video call with Xi Yan, but because Liang Qiao had only said a flat "hello" before walking off, Xi Yuan had been convinced it was just a holographic projection her sister had made—after all, the two had pranked each other endlessly since childhood, and there was absolutely no foundation of trust between them.
"Your sister?" Liang Qiao recalled what she'd said the first time they met, and also remembered that Chu Hui had said he wanted to come pick her up too. She paused, hesitating: "Is she really…"
Before she could finish her sentence, a piercing alarm suddenly blared from overhead. The smile on Xi Yan's face froze, and she stopped in her tracks alongside Liang Qiao.
The two exchanged a glance, reading the same confusion and gravity in each other's eyes. As hurried footsteps echoed from the floors above and below, they swiftly changed direction and rushed out of the building.
Within a single minute, crowds converged from all directions at the staging point outside the door. Chai Yuan, Kaios, and several other squad leaders rushed out as well, shouting loudly: “Contamination source detected spreading into the water network—all combat units, head to the Wind Platform!”
After shouting, Chai Yuan also sprinted toward the Wind Platform. As she passed the two of them, her pace slowed slightly, and the look she cast upon them weighed like a thousand pounds. After half a second of hesitation, she gave the decisive order: “You two, come as well.”
The two immediately followed.
Contamination spreading was hardly a rare occurrence for the Old Third District. Liang Qiao had witnessed it many times back in Qianshai City—its frequency and patterns somewhat resembling coastal typhoons or torrential rains. If the source was cut off in time and handled properly, it wouldn’t threaten public safety. But on the way to the contamination site, as Chai Yuan briefed the squad members involved in this operation, she realized this leak was far from that simple.
At the root of it all, Cangshan City was simply too close to Forbidden Zone 3.
The dense network of Delta waterways couldn’t isolate the two areas—instead, it bound them tightly together. The contamination layers buried deep underground all those years ago had never been fully cleaned up; they had merely been sorted and buried in place by designation. This method of treating symptoms rather than the root cause had temporarily pushed the biohazardous materials into Forbidden Zone 3, but the city on this side of the river remained under constant influence.
And those materials, hastily sealed back then, relied on geological stability rather than complete isolation. The Federation had subsequently adjusted and reassessed the registrations multiple times, yet never reopened that node for proper treatment. Now it had suddenly leaked, and it wasn’t until it entered the water network’s circulation that the system detected and reported it.
“From this moment on, we have entered the contamination extension zone. Until this mission is fully complete, no one—alive or dead—is permitted to leave this area without authorization, nor make any deliberate contact with any crowds, animals, or plants.”
“HZ-17, the current sealed node,” Chai Yuan said, coordinating with Kaios to share the coordinates to each person’s protective suit wrist-device, adding: “The contaminants in this area are industrial catalytic byproducts, and they’ve been under high-pressure conditions the entire time. Hazard level 7. If mishandled, they could cause an explosion.”
Kaios continued: “This operation is divided into three parallel lines: underwater sealing of the contamination seepage paths, cutting off the aerosol exchange channels between the urban area and the river network, and establishing a stable zone to prevent secondary spread.”
“I’ll emphasize this one last time—the gaps in the water network are extremely narrow, most only wide enough for a single person to pass through. Combined with the complex underwater environment, you may encounter difficulties maneuvering through. Once you’re underwater, if you discover a wound anywhere on your body, abandon the mission and return immediately! I don’t want to deliver last words for any of you.”
With that, Kaios’s finger swept across Liang, Xi, and the others seated to the side, saying: “Give them recording chips.”
At this moment, the purpose of the chips went without saying. The only participants in this operation were the five newcomers, and they were also the only five who hadn’t written farewell letters. Now, with the situation critical, this was the only alternative.
“I don’t even know what to say.” Xi Yan’s voice was a bit rushed. After taking a few quick breaths, she placed the recording chip into the wrist-device of her protective suit.
It happened too suddenly. Even though they had participated in rescue operations in Landu, land and underwater were two completely different environments. Wearing protective suits to enter heavily polluted deep waters meant that even the slightest deviation could cost them their lives.
"Confirmed internal communications. We're almost there," Kaios said, also donning his protective helmet. His gaze swept across their varied expressions before he finally nodded. "Good luck to you all."
Everything happened too fast—from receiving the Union Security Agency's notice in the morning, to getting through that calm day, to now descending into the murky water. It felt like many things had happened in between, yet also like nothing had happened at all. All the noise gradually faded away as the sound of water flooded in, leaving only an immense silence behind.
Liang Qiao and Xi Yan followed Chai Yuan and were assigned to the first operation line—sealing off the pollution seepage paths underwater. But since they had never participated in actual combat, they were shielded in the middle by all the veterans. A group of about a dozen, they followed the route indicated by their wrist-devices and dove against the current, with even the highest-intensity searchlights barely able to illuminate the toes of the team members ahead.
River water, return pipes, water cavities formed by collapses.
This was the structure of the river's shallow layer, and the area they frequented most during patrols.
When they reached 972 meters below the surface, they entered the deep, heavily polluted waters. They would pass through a complex network of transport pipes before hitting the bottom—this riverbed was the location of the HZ-17 node.
Fortunately, aside from Liang Qiao and Xi Yan, everyone else was a veteran who had dealt with this river for years. And the two of them had also participated in several underwater drills, completing them quite admirably. Thanks to Chai Yuan's extensive experience and route guidance, the group successfully reached the bottom 73 minutes after entering the water.
Unlike the holographic drills, this was Liang Qiao's first time truly going this deep.
Chai Yuan's voice came through the comms, telling them to stay close to the teammates ahead and wait quietly. About three minutes later, a vague blue strip of light flickered on up ahead, barely discernible through the turbid river water.
It was… a door.
The searchlight shifted direction, its beam falling onto the door. Before their eyes were rows of metal doors embedded in the riverbed, arranged neatly and uniformly. Each door was only about one meter wide, its edges wrapped in heavy sealing structures, with the node number at the center of each door—which was what had just lit up ahead.
The next second, another door's number lit up, starting from beneath Xi Yan's feet. All the numbers seemed to awaken simultaneously, spreading outward from the team's position into the distance. Cold blue light unfolded through the dark water, following the river channel and terrain, flowing farther and farther away.
Everyone knew that behind this endless expanse of metal doors lay the same thing—the New Federation's discarded old garments, buried here like garbage, exchanged for the rare minerals and high-pressure fluid energy beneath the riverbed. The massive cavity clusters had been filled with pollutants, becoming their new stratum.
The dense blue lights were like countless open eyes, eerily watching them from beneath the riverbed—this was the source of pollution on both banks of the Delta River: a precisely scaled, massive system, a carefully planned underwater landfill.
Before them stretched the cold, ethereal blue shimmer of water, while behind them lay a black river so dark that one could not see their own hand before their face. Their figures rose and fell with the current, drifting like specks of dust, utterly insignificant.