When Yun Shui opened her eyes, it was already light outside.
The alarm hadn't gone off yet.
She rubbed her eyes groggily. How could something from so, so long ago resurface so easily, and be dreamed with such clarity?
She had finally, painstakingly, been forgetting it.
Actually, in the spring of her senior year, before her final thesis defense, she had seen Jiang Xie one more time.
Yun Shui wasn't a particularly ambitious student. She hadn't earned a spot in the graduate program. Her GPA was decent, her academic ability mediocre, her work skills unknown. Her daily routine was mostly attending classes, passing the Level 6 Alliance Common Tongue exam, writing group assignments, writing term papers, taking exams, going out with her roommates, and occasionally joining club activities.
She had fun when she played, crammed desperately before exams, and graduated without much fanfare. She was a bit of a looks person, which was why she never ended up in a relationship.
Then she took the civil service exam and got into Gaotang Fortress.
Such an upstanding, ordinary person!
The only unusual thing in her life was the military training where she got chased by a dog. In truth, through deliberate neglect, she had been on the verge of forgetting Jiang Xie.
But on the eve of her thesis defense, an electronic promotional poster scrolled on a screen beside the delivery rack where she usually picked up her takeout.
Mecha Engineering Department — Special Guest Lecture and Sharing Session. Speaker: Jiang Xie.
She stared blankly at those words until the takeout box burned her hand. Then she fumbled to snap a photo, went back to her dorm, and ate while reading it.
She didn't usually follow politics all that closely, and couldn't even name the ranks of the Alliance's famous generals. Especially for space-based branches like warship pilots — Yun Shui had simply remembered his name, then looked him up on a search engine, and was genuinely stunned.
A string of achievements: destroying such-and-such Star Pirates hideout, complete victory in a certain defensive battle. His list of honors was longer than Yun Shui's resume. He stood like a blade held before the Star Pirates, a name that struck fear into those who heard it. The Alliance's youngest Fleet Commander, soaring to the skies with boundless prospects.
Untouchably far away.
Yun Shui scanned the QR code to reserve a seat — it showed fully booked. In the end, she still went to the lecture with the thought of "just taking a look." Then she remembered that Jiang Xie had helped her before, and she'd never had the chance to thank him, so she hastily bought a bouquet of flowers.
But the crowd was packed solid. There weren't even seats inside, and no room to stand. Crowd control had set up barriers and wouldn't let anyone in.
Yun Shui didn't have a reservation code, so she could only wait for the lecture to begin, and through the sea of people, she peered far into the distance.
Her eyesight was very good.
Unfortunately, it was simply too far. She couldn't make out the face of the person on stage, but Yun Shui knew it was him.
He wore a full suit, composed and distant all at once.
This one-sided reunion was very brief. Yun Shui inched forward through the crowd, her shoe stepped on, jostled this way and that. For a moment she didn't know what she was even doing, and silently slowed down more and more. Yun Shui shook her head and sighed: how annoying.
But the crowd gradually thinned afterward. During the intermission, the first part of the lecture ended. Yun Shui had been leaning against the corridor, spacing out, when luck fell from the sky — Jiang Xie came out through the back door!
She couldn't react for a moment, then suddenly jumped. It was probably too strange, because the Fleet Commander stared at her like she was an idiot. She handed him the flowers. He shook his head expressionlessly, didn't accept them, and walked straight off.
Later, she entered the workforce. As it happened, her former superior had been transferred, and Jiang Xie had temporarily stepped back from the front lines due to injury, stationed at Gaotang Fortress. He was a cold-tongued Fleet Commander, so beyond her initial shock, Yun Shui suffered merciless social reality checks that shattered her rose-tinted view of him.
For a long time afterward, she regarded Fleet Commanders with complete indifference, utterly unruffled.
She even brought personal grudges and emotions into her work—whenever she saw posts criticizing Fleet Commanders, she would like them first, then delete them.
Until nearly a year into her job, the Fleet Commander inexplicably changed his tune, softening his sharp words and doing things no ordinary person could understand.
Then came the earthquake.
Yun Shui suddenly found it hilarious.
Though she would never admit it, she was still astonished by the workings of fate.
Fate was a master thief, always stealing precious moments of time for her.
But since they were stolen, they would have to be returned sooner or later.
Yun Shui sighed, got up to wash her face, applied sunscreen, headed to work, and was forced into morning drills.
Afterward, she still had time to spare as usual, so she went to the cafeteria for breakfast. She grabbed a cup of coffee first, then picked up a large vegetable bun, an egg tart, and a fried egg.
Xu Yuezhou from the adjacent audit department carried a tray over and sat across from her, puzzled: "Doesn't eating like that mix up the flavors?"
Xu Yuezhou was a year ahead of Yun Shui—a senior from the same school. Back then, she had shared her experience with civil service exams on the school forum. Yun Shui had come across the post, saved it, liked it, followed her, and privately messaged her some questions. Xu Yuezhou answered generously without holding back. They added each other on comms, and later Yun Shui treated her to a meal, and they gradually grew close.
Yun Shui reasoned with confidence: "I like combining savory and sweet. I eat the vegetable bun and fried egg first—savory—then the egg tart as dessert. The coffee goes to my workstation to fill the gaps in my stomach."
"Alright then," Xu Yuezhou could only give a thumbs up before sipping her congee, then whispered very quietly, "Yun Shui, do you know about that?"
She glanced around furtively and lowered her voice: "They're investigating for moles up top."
Yun Shui: "Pfft…"
She nearly spilled her coffee. Yun Shui whispered back: "That's absurd. Do we really need to load such a complicated module into our peaceful, laid-back lives? Where did you hear this? If they were really investigating, would they let word leak out?"
Xu Yuezhou snorted twice and said in an even lower voice: "Well, I wouldn't know about that. Anyway, they're using this earthquake as an opportunity to root out the Star Pirates' moles hiding in the Fortress. They've been planning bombings—that's insane. They're targeting the energy sector and even the official residences. Of course they're going to investigate hard. Anyone caught will be tortured for information."
What was this—an unannounced spy thriller channel?
Yun Shui didn't take it to heart. She chatted idly with Xu Yuezhou about this and that before they each went off to work.
Compared to other areas, the entire Central District had exceptionally robust earthquake and disaster defenses—after all, it was the Fortress's command stronghold. Occasionally a cabinet would topple or doors and windows would suffer damage, but everything was quickly repaired, and there were no explosions or attacks.
Yun Shui walked down the familiar corridor, glanced at the clear, cloudless sky outside, and pushed open the door to her office.
She set down her coffee, lazily wiped off the dust with an alcohol wipe, and powered on her computer. Suddenly, she noticed a fresh flower on her desk.
It was placed very, very discreetly on her light-colored desk mat, skillfully nestled among the small potted plants, almost blending seamlessly with the planters and the pattern of the mat.
But Yun Shui caught a faint, delicate floral scent. When she touched the petals, they were incredibly soft.
It was a gardenia still bearing dew.
Yun Shui carefully took it out and noticed a thin, small card tied near the bottom—only about the size of a fingernail, with a few wavy lines drawn on it.
It was so understated that no one knew about it, and no one had noticed enough to make a fuss. It had simply arrived before her, without warning, on this morning.
She stood there holding the flower, her mind completely blank.
For a moment, her thoughts short-circuited.
Was this a thank-you gift from the cleaning lady on this floor for helping her open the conference room door last time? Or a gift from some junior colleague? Or…
In a flash, Yun Shui's expression froze.
Xu Yuezhou's earlier words about catching the mole still weighed on her, and she couldn't help but grow tense. The more she thought, the more far-fetched it became, the more bizarre—her imagination running wild with baseless worries: Could this be some kind of signal or marker from a mole or spy! What if it dragged her into trouble!
Who was it, who was trying by every means to shake her position, who!
"Did you all hear that?"
Yun Shui snapped back to attention: "Hmm?"
The secretary-general called out across several workstations to everyone: "The donation QR code will be posted in the group chat shortly—remember to fill out the survey too. Logistics is setting up a temporary earthquake relief team, and every department needs to contribute personnel. Please keep an eye on your email notifications."
Yun Shui casually stuck the gardenia into her pen holder, looking worried.
The workload today was quite heavy. Absurd rumors about Gaotang Fortress were flying everywhere, with posts that couldn't be deleted fast enough, and she was even being subtly accused of having a "guilty conscience" or "something to hide." She'd only just started a new report when suddenly multiple departments were summoned to a big meeting. The leadership expressed condolences over the disaster situation, then rambled on about this and that for ages before adjourning.
Yun Shui was exhausted in both body and mind, and went back to writing her report.
A few days before the earthquake, several warship squads had suddenly collectively reported that the meals prepared by the nutritionists were unbearably awful, furiously complaining that even their daily rations were being made with nutritional paste.
They said that sticky, disgusting product should only be served when fighting Star Pirates. At the time, the Fleet Commander was responsible for responding to the complainants, but brushed off such demands dismissively, only replying with a single line of approval: "Eat it or don't."
When Yun Shui saw that in the system, she nearly lost her mind. Because her job was to take those four words and turn them into a formal written notice as a response.
Was she an AI, able to pad word count so casually? Give her a keyword and she could generate a serious, complete, well-structured article with no ill intent.
She also had to condense a thick, dozens-of-pages energy sector loss statistics report into a minimalist summary to send to the secretary-general.
Yun Shui wrote and read simultaneously, her eyes nearly crossing from the strain, until the keyboard clattered all day long and quitting time arrived.
She immediately rushed to the cafeteria.
The trays behind the counter were piled with prepared dishes. Under the warm lighting, the cooked meats gleamed with rich color, and the stir-fried seasonal vegetables were thoroughly cooked and flavorful—enough to whet anyone's appetite.
She felt especially hungry today. Pointing at the small bowls in front of her, she raised her hand to tap her card: "I'll take this cola chicken wings, vinegar cabbage, and minced pork with potatoes. Thanks." Then she carefully carried her tray away.
Yun Shui was eating happily when she received a message from her landlord, and her mood plummeted.
All her pots, pans, dishes, and everyday belongings were still left behind in the house in her old residential area.
The landlord said that the place was currently being subsidized by the Emergency Management Bureau and the Housing Security Bureau for reconstruction, so it was temporarily uninhabitable. The two of them nervously went back and forth discussing the matter.
Yun Shui asked cautiously if the rent she had paid in advance could be refunded to her.
The landlord was evasive, saying that if she continued renting afterward, she wouldn't need to pay rent anymore.
Yun Shui immediately flew into a small rage—if she wasn't even living there anymore, the rent should be refunded. The landlord said, "Well then, don't even think about renting this place again in the future." And so, at daggers drawn, the two of them angrily went to war.
Yun Shui was a pushover, but she wouldn't let her money go down the drain. After a heated exchange of sharp words, the landlord, furious and exasperated, refunded her half the money and cursed her out, saying that she'd barely moved in when an earthquake struck—she was cursed with bad luck. The area hadn't seen an earthquake this large in over twenty years, yet she'd encountered disaster in her very first year here. She was the most notorious jinx since the dawn of time. The landlord also declared that everything she'd left in the apartment would not be returned, and cursed her to go eat the northwest wind.
"Jinx" Yun Shui: "…"
She stared blankly at the few thousand yuan that had landed in her bank account.
She couldn't take it. She typed: You're the jinx. May your fortune be shaken down by the earthquake! May all Alliance funds go green! May all your stocks crash! Then she promptly blocked the landlord.
Looking back at the chat log, it was fierce, but she felt she hadn't cursed hard enough. Unfortunately, her upbringing was too refined, her character too noble, her personality too well-adjusted—so much so that her vocabulary of insults was severely lacking.
After finishing her meal, Yun Shui didn't feel like working overtime. She grabbed her bag and trudged dejectedly to the employee supermarket to shop.
The supermarket was fairly large, two stories tall, covering basically all daily shopping needs. The deli section was especially nice to browse, wafting with the aroma of baked bread and cold tossed salads. She "reviewed" every "loyal subject" like an emperor holding court—one roast chicken, and a box of lime cheesecake.
Before leaving, she noticed the supermarket was running a lucky draw: spend over 100 and you could participate. Yun Shui took her receipt to draw, only to find the staff quite retro and old-fashioned, using a box of ping-pong balls for her to blindly pick from.
For a split second, a flood of permutations and combinations flashed through Yun Shui's mind—drawing with replacement, drawing without replacement, the A's and C's formulas still chasing her down years later. She reached in and grabbed a ball. On it, written in marker, was a "1."
Still spacing out, the supermarket employee: "…"
Suddenly shouted: "You won!"