Lu Zhiqing was in charge of food, and also checked everyone’s health when they were exhausted.
Ren Xiaohuan was scrupulously cleaning every corner of the boat.
Shen Mo patrolled the deck every day.
And Old Chen, with two sailors in tow, maintained the engine room around the clock.
It was another night; at four in the morning, in the latter half of the night, Jing Chaoyi climbed up to the flying bridge.
At this moment Huang Xiaoyang was frowning, wearing headphones and listening intently to the messy traffic on the radio.
Seeing Jing Chaoyi come up, he shook his head and said, "Nothing’s happening. Get some more rest."
Jing Chaoyi shook her head. "I can’t sleep. It’s my turn to take over."
Huang Xiaoyang was silent for a moment, then took off the headphones.
He was very clear that in times like these, forcing yourself meant nothing; they might be in for a long campaign, and conserving strength, allocating energy reasonably, was crucial.
He sighed faintly, stood up, lightly patted Jing Chaoyi on the shoulder, and said, "Then I’ll have to trouble you."
Jing Chaoyi nodded, sat down in the chair, and was just about to put on the headphones.
Huang Xiaoyang had already taken a step out, but suddenly stopped, turned back and asked, "If—just if—that kid is still alive, what are you going to do?"
Jing Chaoyi was taken aback. "What do you mean?"
Huang Xiaoyang was silent for a beat, then sighed. "Forget it, this isn’t the time to talk about that."
With that, he turned and left.
Jing Chaoyi let out a bitter little laugh. She more or less understood that Huang Xiaoyang had already seen through her feelings.
But what could she possibly do about it?
Jing Chaoyi stopped letting her thoughts wander, put on the headphones, and began to work in earnest.
Four in the morning; the air over the nearby sea was congealed and sticky.
The night curtain wasn’t pitch black, but a brooding inky blue; starlight blurred by thin clouds, the surface of the sea a matte, lightless dark, with only an occasional firefly-like flicker of bioluminescence quietly appearing and dying away.
Right now, Jing Chaoyi naturally had no mood to appreciate such a scene.
An immense stillness shrouded everything.
The yacht’s steel hull had long since dropped anchor, lying motionless in this warm stretch of water; only the anchor chain, strained and slackened by the surging tide, gave off a monotonous, muffled "clack-creak" that sounded almost like a sigh.
In the headphones, every different sound made Jing Chaoyi’s nerves twitch.
But most of the time, all she heard was the familiar maritime-band background noise, the "shhh-shhh" like an endless night rain.
Just as her consciousness was about to slide toward some edge, "di-di-di, dah-dah-dah, di-di-di—"
Jing Chaoyi snapped upright, her spine tensing as if electrified, sweat instantly beading at her temples.
It wasn’t the heat that caused it, but a kind of icy jolt.
SOS—there was absolutely no way she’d mishear that!
The rhythm pierced through the static with a strangely sharp clarity.
Jing Chaoyi clenched the headphones, her skin seeming to feel the throbbing of her own temples.
The signal repeated; every cycle of three short, three long, three short was followed by a burst of urgent, precise dots and dashes—numbers, coordinates!
Jing Chaoyi grabbed the phosphorescent sticky notes and a pencil; her wrist trembled slightly from tension, the pencil rasping on the paper, weaving eerily together with the code in her ears and the anchor chain groaning beyond the window.
The tropical humidity made her eye sockets feel damp.
She checked and rechecked the coordinates she’d heard several times; once she was sure there was no mistake, the broadcasted code was still going.
Jing Chaoyi’s whole body seemed to lose strength, collapsing slackly into the chair.
"It’s you, it has to be you..."
Before she knew it, her face was streaked with tears.
The sound kept on echoing, until an hour later it finally began to fade away.
Jing Chaoyi gently wiped the tears from her cheeks, then, without the slightest hesitation, switched on the ship’s PA: "Everyone, please assemble on the flying bridge in five minutes!"
The vast bulk of the Brave was driving steadily through the velvet-warm southern equatorial night at a cruising speed of eighteen knots.
In the wheelhouse, only the glow of the electronics was lit, outlining the calm profile of Second Officer Jason.
On the HF radio public band there was only white noise hissing, until that sequence of rhythm, like an icy needle, suddenly pierced the stillness.
Jason’s back went rigid in an instant.
SOS!
What followed close on its heels were precise, rapid numerical dots and dashes; he snatched up a pen, focusing all his attention on recording those strings of Morse code.
The signal was faint, yet stubbornly repeating.
Once he had the coordinates, he threw himself at the integrated navigation system, fingers sliding quickly over the touch screen as he entered the decoded latitude and longitude into the electronic chart, enlarging the charted area.
The coordinate point lit up on the screen, and his brows knit tightly together.
The point clearly fell on a tiny patch of land.
It was an uninhabited islet, practically off every main shipping lane.
Then he checked the distance: a little over a hundred nautical miles from their vessel, more than two hundred kilometers.
Jason’s heart sank; he swiftly checked the radar, shifting the scan center to that distant coordinate.
After a long scan cycle, there was only a smear of vague sea clutter and the static echo of what might be the island—no moving or distinctly strong target signal.
"Captain!" He pressed the internal comms button, his voice tight with strain and doubt. "Bridge urgent report: we’ve received a continuous Morse-code SOS signal. Decoded coordinates are in a remote sector northeast of the Vava?u group in the Kingdom of Tonga, about 180 kilometers from Vava?u main island, 110 nautical miles from our vessel. Radar at extreme range shows no clear suspicious targets, only the island’s own echo."

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