“Escape Boat 028 Has Long Since Lost Contact”
“Yes. I read it often, so after reading it for so long, I naturally memorized it.”
Hearing Liao Chengyu’s question, Wendy answered without changing her expression.
She never did anything she wasn’t confident about.
If there hadn’t been such a regulation, she wouldn’t have attacked Wang Tianci in front of everyone. She had ten thousand ways to make him regret everything he’d done that day. There was no need to take such a risk.
But since the regulations allowed it, she had nothing to worry about.
Hearing this, a trace of satisfaction flashed through Liao Chengyu’s eyes.
Something like the Guard Corps Regulations was required to be generally memorized, but only generally. There were hundreds of complicated rules, and no one could remember every single one clearly—not even her.
Liao Chengyu wasn’t one of those old-fashioned scholars from the military academy. She had always advocated improving combat capabilities. As long as a Guard Corps member could defend the escape boat and protect the Transferees, they were qualified.
As for those complicated and useless theories—this was the apocalypse. Who had the energy to check whether people had actually memorized them?
She hadn’t expected Jiang Qiao to remember them so thoroughly.
Just as the regulations stated, although this incident wasn’t particularly serious, it could indeed be classified as disrupting the management order of the escape boat.
When it came to a spark that could potentially cause a major disaster in the future, she actually approved of—and even appreciated—the Guard Corps stepping in to extinguish it instead of rigidly following old rules and allowing the flames to grow stronger.
The problem was that the person who had taken action was Jiang Qiao.
She had originally thought Jiang Qiao had acted rashly because she had lost control of her emotions. She was worried that the recent trauma had caused psychological problems, which was why she had kept her behind for a proper conversation.
But unexpectedly, Jiang Qiao knew exactly what she was doing.
Liao Chengyu began to reassess her student.
The short-haired, round-faced girl stood silently in front of the desk. She looked just as she had back in military school, yet somehow, she also seemed different.
“Jiang Qiao.”
After a moment of silence, Liao Chengyu suddenly asked, “In your opinion, do the management measures at Base 028 need to be changed?”
Wendy hadn’t expected Liao Chengyu to suddenly ask this.
She looked at Liao Chengyu, who was quietly looking back at her.
The moment their dark eyes met, Wendy detected the meaning hidden in Liao Chengyu’s gaze.
This was a test.
“Does the captain want to hear the truth or a lie?”
The girl suddenly smiled faintly.
“As a subordinate, I naturally have no right to interfere with the decisions of my superiors. But since you’ve asked me this question, Captain, I believe you aren’t looking for empty flattery.”
“Say whatever you think.”
Liao Chengyu rested her chin on both hands and couldn’t help smiling.
Brat.
“Then I’ll speak frankly, Captain. Base 028’s management measures are far too lenient for the apocalypse. We have to change them.”
“The apocalypse is different from the old world. With people’s hearts becoming unstable, major disturbances are bound to occur. In order to preserve the remaining spark of humanity, the Guard Corps should have the authority to use force as a deterrent.”
Liao Chengyu fell silent.
Wendy quietly watched her.
Base 028 was located in Wucheng, Wan Province, and was not near the coast. Therefore, unlike the Transferees from coastal regions, the Transferees at Base 028 had never experienced the mutations caused by the fish-scale disease.
Before the apocalypse arrived, they had smoothly entered the underground evacuation base.
They had never directly faced the world-destroying great tsunami.
After the tsunami passed, they safely boarded the escape boat and had enjoyed a relatively smooth journey. The only setbacks had been two attacks by alien species.
The first alien species had merely been a very weak water louse, which the Guard Corps dealt with easily, with almost no casualties.
The second was the Abyssal Giant Spider—the greatest disaster Escape Boat 028 had encountered so far.
The Guard Corps aboard Escape Boat 028 should have all died in the giant spider’s jaws, while the Transferees inside the boat would have become food for the alien creature.
But Wendy had happened to appear and helped the Guard Corps eliminate the giant spider.
Although the Guard Corps suffered heavy casualties during the battle with the giant spider, the Transferees had been protected extremely well.
From the Transferees’ perspective, the escape boat had merely shaken violently several times at first, as though something had jumped onto it, before quickly becoming safe again.
They didn’t know that the Guard Corps had used their own lives as bait to protect them.
Overprotection had caused some people to lose awareness of the dangers that existed everywhere.
Meanwhile, the collapse of the old order had given rise to unchecked greed.
Clearly, Liao Chengyu had realized this long ago as well.
After a long while, she raised her head. A trace of approval imperceptibly flashed through her dark eyes.
This girl really dares to speak her mind.
It seemed that after going through life and death, her state of mind had indeed changed considerably.
“All right. You can go back for now. Once you’ve recovered, resume your training and patrol duties.”
Wendy nodded and left the office.
Only after watching her figure disappear completely did Liao Chengyu let out a long sigh.
Her entire body slumped against the back of the chair as she irritably rubbed her temples.
No one knew how much time passed.
Eventually, she stood up, took a deep breath, and pressed the circular button on the desk.
With the heavy mechanical sound of machinery starting up, the metal door behind her chair slowly opened.
Liao Chengyu walked inside.
The chamber was filled with countless machines operating at high speed, while streams of complicated data flickered continuously across the various displays.
Amid the blue and green lights symbolizing normal operation, dots of glaring red light pierced into Liao Chengyu’s eyes like needles.
This was the Central Control Room—the heart of the escape boat.
Twelve years before the apocalypse arrived, the United Nations had confirmed the existence of the impending apocalypse.
Countries around the world began secretly constructing evacuation and transfer bases and escape boats.
As an apocalypse escape vessel developed using the highest level of technology available at the time, it possessed the most advanced and stable unmanned navigation, detection, and satellite communication systems.
It was supposed to safely transport everyone to humanity’s final hope—
Noah’s Ark.
It was a paradise for the apocalypse that had been built through the combined efforts of all humanity, consuming the wealth and resources of the world’s major nations and taking more than a decade to complete.
However, on the third day after the great tsunami ended, Liao Chengyu discovered that the connection between the escape boat and Noah’s Ark had begun to become unstable.
By the fifth day, communication had been completely severed.
From that day onward, Escape Boat 028 had become a lonely vessel at sea.
Amid the boundless ocean, it could no longer find any guidance toward a harbor, nor could it receive any news from its fellow escape boats.
The middle-aged woman in the dark navy military uniform clenched both fists tightly.
Her solitary figure looked incredibly small beneath the constantly flashing red warning lights, like a tiny pebble attempting to stand alone against a raging flood.
The escape boat had enough stored food to last a year if carefully rationed.
As long as they continued sailing, once the other escape boats noticed that 028 had mysteriously lost contact, they would surely come to investigate.
And then they could be rescued.
Then… they could be rescued.
When Wendy returned to the dormitory, Mingmei, who had been kept behind for extra training, still hadn’t returned.
A bag of compressed biscuits and a bottle of nutritional supplement had been placed on the table.
There was also a small note underneath.
Wendy walked over and picked it up.
[There wasn’t any food left, so just make do with this when you get back. Poor little thing who got kept after class. (Smirking face)]
Wendy smiled faintly and set the note down before opening the nutritional supplement and taking a few sips.
Each person was allotted a fixed amount of food every day.
Once it was gone, it was gone.
Even if there were special circumstances, they couldn’t receive additional rations. After all, supplies were limited in the apocalypse.
She wondered where Mingmei had managed to find these things.
The nutritional supplement had no flavor whatsoever, but at least it was filling enough.
She quickly finished it and walked over to Jiang Qiao’s bed.
The afternoon had been rushed. She had only familiarized herself with Jiang Qiao’s identity as a member of the Guard Corps, while she had gained only a superficial understanding of Jiang Qiao’s personality through Mingmei.
But a person had more than one side.
Other people’s impressions of someone weren’t necessarily their true self.
Mingmei had mentioned earlier that Jiang Qiao had a habit of keeping a diary.
Wendy opened the bedside cabinet and searched through it.
Sure enough, she found a somewhat old notebook.
Wendy opened it and carefully read through it from beginning to end.
The diary was written in a warm, gentle style. Anyone could tell that its owner had been a happy girl.
She came from a moderately well-off military family.
Her family was harmonious, her parents loved each other, and she was their cherished daughter born later in life. Her grandparents had also provided her with unwavering support.
Combined with her own natural talent, she had successfully been admitted to the Central Military Academy.
During military school, she had been taught by Liao Chengyu and received considerable attention because of her rare shooting talent.
Wendy raised an eyebrow.
She hadn’t expected Jiang Qiao and Liao Chengyu to have had a teacher-student relationship before the apocalypse.
Her family background matched Wendy’s speculation.
After all, a kind-hearted personality like Jiang Qiao’s could only have been cultivated in a healthy and loving family.
Just like Tong Yu.
Wendy quickly flipped through the pages.
The diary soon reached the period shortly before the apocalypse broke out.
As an insider, Jiang Qiao had received information about the coming apocalypse.
[The great tsunami will bring about the apocalypse. I was selected to become a member of the Guard Corps and can go to Noah’s Ark. But, but… Mom and Dad are getting old. They can’t go.]
…
[Today, 028 rescued a family—a pair of elderly husband and wife and their children. That’s wonderful. Looking at them makes me feel as though Mom and Dad survived too.]
…
“Why? Why have I been helping them all this time, yet they… That girl has injuries on her body. Perhaps… I helped the wrong people.”
The diary ended there.
Several messy scratches had been drawn across the final passage, making it clear that its owner had been extremely agitated at the time.
Wendy’s fingers gently traced those scratches, her eyes lowered slightly.
There was quite a lot of useful information in the diary.
Noah’s Ark should be the “land of hope” mentioned in Pei Xiao’s note.
As for the Wang family, the moment she saw Feng Jianan, everything clicked into place.
Mingmei had said that the Wang family had somehow obtained information about the approaching great tsunami and urgently purchased a civilian submarine.
Coincidentally, Feng Jianan’s boyfriend—the man she had been dating since her freshman year of college—was surnamed Wang. His family apparently worked in real estate.
With that kind of family background, they wouldn’t have been able to afford tickets for the Ark, nor did they qualify as Transferees.
However, they were still wealthy and well-connected enough to come into contact with people who had access to insider information.
Businesspeople were naturally sensitive to opportunities and danger.
If they had already heard some rumors, and their son’s girlfriend happened to receive an apocalypse warning from her missing college roommate, then all these factors combined would have been enough to prompt them to urgently purchase an affordable civilian submarine capable of keeping them alive.
Everything fit.
Wendy’s gaze fell upon the final line of the diary.
At first, Jiang Qiao had regarded Wang Guangzong and Mu Yan, whom the Guard Corps had rescued and brought aboard, as an emotional substitute for her deceased parents.
She had continually helped them, trying to make up for the regret in her heart.
But gradually, she began to realize that something was wrong.
The girl who had traveled with them—the girl Jiang Qiao initially assumed was the Wang family’s daughter—had become thinner and thinner after boarding the escape boat.
And strange injuries would constantly appear on her body.
In contrast, the members of the Wang family had quickly recovered their spirits.
This abnormality caught Jiang Qiao’s attention.
After observing them, she finally discovered that the girl was actually Wang Tianci’s girlfriend.
The Wang family had been treating her like a servant, using the fact that they had saved her life as justification.
Whenever anything displeased them, they would hit her.
Even the supplies allocated to her were taken by Wang Tianci.
Unable to believe what she was seeing, Jiang Qiao confronted the Wang family.
But Wang Guangzong and Mu Yan, who had always pretended to be kind and benevolent, immediately cursed at her and even attacked her.
As a soldier, Jiang Qiao naturally wouldn’t allow herself to be bullied by ordinary civilians.
She warned the Wang family, stood up for Feng Jianan, and made sure they understood that they couldn’t mistreat her.
But the incident still left her deeply troubled for a long time.
This was also why, when Jiang Qiao had first awakened, Mingmei had advised her not to get involved with the Wang family’s affairs anymore.
After finishing reading the diary, Wendy flipped it back to the first page.
Several group photographs were pasted there.
The one in the center was labeled:
“Commemorative Group Photo of the 83rd Graduating Class of the Central Military Academy.”
A majestic red star was embedded above the magnificent school gates.
The short-haired girl, dressed in a red-collared graduation gown and holding a bouquet of flowers, nestled happily between an elderly couple as she smiled with pure joy.
Wendy gently ran her fingers over the photograph of the happy family of three.
After pausing for several seconds, she picked up the mirror from the bedside table.
On the other side of the glass, the girl’s originally expressionless face slowly bloomed into a smile identical to the one in the photograph.
Her family background, upbringing, experiences, beliefs, personality…
Everything gathered and connected inside her mind, gradually forming a complete, brand-new set of memories.
From this moment onward, she was Jiang Qiao.
A completely new Jiang Qiao who had narrowly escaped death from the jaws of an alien species.
Author’s Note
Liao Chengyu: “Good. The child has grown. She can continue to be cultivated and developed further.”