Chapter 311: Before We Go Upstairs

Zeyu held the plan beneath Shichen’s flashlight, trying to match the narrow lines on the paper to the stairs beyond the railing.

From above, the vehicles looked close enough to touch, but getting down to them meant following the walkway around the side of the hold. He traced the route before handing the plan back, already looking for the first step.

Hanchuan caught his sleeve before he passed.

"We’re looking tonight," Hanchuan reminded him, glancing toward the vehicles. "You’re not taking an engine apart while the rest of us wait for dinner."

"I haven’t even found the keys," Zeyu replied, smiling as he turned back. "Let me get that far before you start worrying about how to drag me out."

He had spent the afternoon opening boxes of clothes and carrying bedding upstairs. Useful work, and he had been glad to do it, but the sight of the vehicles had made him forget how tired he was.

He knew what to look for here and after struggling through the ship’s manuals, he wanted to open a hood and recognize what was underneath.

Jingwei went down first, checking the stairs before the others followed. Hanchuan kept Zhiyi ahead of him, and Zeyu waited at the lower landing until everyone had reached it.

The flashlight beams traveled across pale bodywork, catching protective film on door handles and paper labels behind windshields.

The vehicles were secured in rows, with little room between them.

Zeyu followed the marked passage alongside the first truck, examining the straps without touching them. Dust lay across its hood, but the tires looked new.

Through the window, he could see plastic still covering the driver’s seat.

Zhiyi stopped beside him and leaned closer to the glass.

"They haven’t been used," Zhiyi said, looking from the wrapped seat to the dark dashboard. "Were they going to be sold here?"

"That was probably the plan," Zeyu replied, wiping a small patch of dust from the window with his sleeve. "There should be a dealer name in the paperwork. These might have been ordered months before the ship left."

He had once known where entire fleets were supposed to arrive and which branches were waiting for them.

Someone would have called his office about a delay like this. There would have been revised dates, complaints about storage charges, and a manager insisting that customers were threatening to cancel.

Now the trucks were here, and there was nowhere to drive them.

Zeyu stepped back from the window before the thought could spoil the pleasure of finding them. They were still useful, even if their wheels never touched a road.

Farther along, the vehicle Shichen had spotted from above stood with its lifting arm folded behind the cab.

Zeyu walked around it while Shichen examined the space overhead. The arm was secured for transport, and the truck itself remained tied down among the other cargo.

"This won’t solve the problem with our boat," Shichen said, resting his hand on the side of the bed. "We’d have to get the truck out of here before we could put it anywhere useful."

"I wasn’t planning to drive it through the wall," Zeyu replied, crouching beside a storage box beneath the bed. "But I do want to know what came with it. There might be tools we can use without dismantling half the hold."

The catch wasn’t locked. He lifted it carefully, opening the lid to reveal fitted compartments with equipment strapped inside.

Most belonged with the truck, but he recognized the tool roll immediately and took it out to check the contents.

Shichen crouched beside him, bringing the light closer. There were sockets, spanners, and pliers that hadn’t yet lost their factory coating. Zeyu ran his thumb across a handle before laying it back in place.

"We’ll record anything we take," Hanchuan said, looking over his shoulder. "I don’t want us wasting a day searching for something because we left it in a cabin."

Zeyu nodded and waited while Shichen wrote down the truck’s position. T

hey had spent years knowing which cupboard held what they needed. On this ship, simply remembering where they had seen something was becoming a job of its own.

He closed the storage box and carried the roll back toward the passage.

Zhiyi stood beside a compact van, turning her head to follow something on its dashboard. When he came closer, she pointed through the window.

"The key is tied to the steering wheel," Zhiyi told him. "I thought it was part of the label at first."

Zeyu tried the door, and it opened with a quiet click.

He leaned inside without climbing into the seat, pleased to find the key exactly where she had said it was. A plastic tag joined it to the wheel, printed with numbers that matched the label on the windshield.

He showed her before putting it back.

"You’ve saved me from searching an office for those," Zeyu said, smiling at her. "I’ll check the others tomorrow, but I’d rather leave them with the vehicles for now."

Zhiyi looked past him toward the seats, and he recognized the interest before she spoke. He opened the door wider, holding it while she stepped up.

She sat with her feet on the sill, running a hand over the armrest.

The seat was wrapped, the van smelled of new upholstery, and for a moment Zeyu could picture showing her a vehicle at one of his branches.

He would have adjusted the seat for her, explained the controls, and asked which color she liked.

Instead, she looked toward the empty space behind the seats.

"You spent so long working on ours," Zhiyi said quietly, lifting her eyes to his. "I liked sitting beside you while you drove it."

Zeyu rested his hand against the door. He had thought about the mobile base often enough since the tower fell, usually while trying to keep the boat moving or wishing for something they had left inside it.

Hearing that she remembered those afternoons made the loss harder to dismiss.

"I liked having you there," Zeyu replied, reaching for her hand. "Although I’d rather have you out here complaining about wet shoes than still be wondering whether I could have got you out of it."

Her fingers closed around his, and she stayed seated for another moment before letting him help her down.

Hanchuan waited nearby, his attention on her footing as she stepped over the raised edge of the passage.

They found a wheeled service cart near the stairs, strapped beside a crate of workshop equipment.

Shichen checked the securing strap while Zeyu examined the wheels. Once it was free, they loaded the tool roll onto its lower shelf and added a box of clean work gloves from the same crate.

The cart would spare them another afternoon carrying everything in their arms.

Zeyu pushed it along the passage to make sure the wheels turned properly, then stopped where the rows of vehicles gave way to taller crates.

Behind them, a broad ramp led upward toward a closed door.

Shichen brought the plan over, unfolding it against the nearest crate while Hanchuan held the light.

Zeyu followed the ramp with his eyes, thinking of the cart, the supplies above, and the vehicles they had assumed were trapped below deck.

"This runs up to the cargo deck," Shichen said, comparing the drawing with the space around them. "We came down the crew stairs, but this is how they loaded the vehicles."

Zeyu left the cart beside the crate and walked far enough to see the whole ramp. Then he turned toward Hanchuan, unable to hide his smile.

"I know you said we’re only looking tonight," Zeyu said, pointing toward the door at the top. "But I’d really like to know what’s on the other side of that before we go upstairs."