Chapter 312: Whole Other Level

Hanchuan looked up the ramp before answering.

The slope was shallow enough to walk comfortably, with raised strips across the floor for tires to grip, but the door at the top stood well beyond the reach of their light.

Beside him, Zhiyi had begun rubbing her heel against the back of her other shoe.

"We’ll look at the door," Hanchuan told Zeyu, resting a hand against Zhiyi’s back. "If opening it involves machinery we haven’t checked, it can wait until morning."

Zeyu accepted the limit with a nod and pushed the cart aside so it wouldn’t block the passage. Jingwei led the way up, keeping the light low enough to show the floor.

Hanchuan followed with Zhiyi while Shichen brought the plan, still checking it against what they could see.

They reached a smaller door beside the broad vehicle entrance. Jingwei tried the handle, then leaned against it when it resisted.

The seal gave with a soft pull, and cool air reached them through the opening.

Beyond it lay a covered working deck. The last daylight came through the open side, falling across a coiled hose and several empty pallets secured against the wall. Rainwater had collected near the outer edge, but most of the space remained dry.

Zeyu stepped through and stopped beside a painted line running across the floor. He looked back at the ramp, then toward the open deck beyond the overhang.

"We can bring things up this way," Zeyu said, sounding pleased as he followed the clear route with his eyes. "The cart, the tools, anything we find below. We’ve been carrying everything up the steepest stairs on the ship."

"We still need to find out how that door opens," Shichen reminded him, examining a control box beside the entrance. "But at least we know where it goes."

Hanchuan left them to look while he walked toward the edge with Jingwei.

From there, he could see along the side of the ship toward the accommodation stairs. Their little boat rose and fell below the distant platform, too far away for him to judge how much water it had taken on since they last checked.

He watched through several waves. Even from here, it looked painfully small.

Jingwei rested his forearms on the rail beside him, following his gaze.

"I’ll take the next check with Qinghe," Jingwei said. "You and Zeyu did it earlier. Once we’ve eaten, I’ll go down before it gets any darker."

Hanchuan nodded, then looked toward the equipment mounted along the working deck. There were places to secure loads and a crane farther forward, but he had no intention of choosing one by appearance and hoping it could lift the boat.

"We’ll ask Shichen to look at this area tomorrow," Hanchuan replied. "If we can get it out of the water, we can repair it properly. I’d rather have two boats we can use than keep choosing which one to worry about."

Behind them, Zhiyi lowered herself onto a wooden pallet. Qinghe crouched in front of her while she loosened one shoe, and Hanchuan crossed the deck before she had finished untying it.

"I thought they weren’t rubbing," Hanchuan said, kneeling beside Qinghe as Zhiyi lifted her foot clear.

"They weren’t at first," Zhiyi replied, looking down at the sock. "It only started on the ramp."

Qinghe eased the fabric away from her heel. The dressing had shifted, leaving one edge pressed against the sore skin, but there was no fresh blood. He put it back in place while Hanchuan held the shoe.

"The shoe may be fine," Qinghe said, checking the heel once more. "The dressing needs changing, and she’s walked farther today than she has since we came aboard. Let’s give her feet a rest."

Hanchuan glanced toward the darkening sky before turning to the others.

"We’ve found enough for tonight," Hanchuan said. "Bring the tools and the plan. We can decide what to do with all of it after dinner."

He helped Zhiyi stand, then bent before she could put her weight on the sore foot. She caught his shoulders as he lifted her, her loose shoe still in his hand.

"I can walk back," Zhiyi told him, though she settled against his chest rather than trying to get down. "It isn’t bleeding."

"I know, sweetheart," Hanchuan replied, adjusting his hold beneath her knees. "You can spend the walk telling me what you want to look for tomorrow."

She thought about it while Jingwei led them along the deck toward the accommodation. Hanchuan could feel how tired she was now that she no longer had to keep moving. Her head rested against his shoulder, and her fingers loosened their hold on his shirt.

"Something to tie my hair with," Zhiyi said eventually. "This one keeps slipping, and the towels are too thick to twist around it."

Hanchuan smiled and kissed the side of her head.

"I think we can manage that," Hanchuan told her. "We’ll put it ahead of Zeyu taking every truck apart."

Zeyu’s protest followed them through the doorway, drawing a sleepy laugh from her.

By the time dinner was ready, Zhiyi’s heel had a fresh dressing and she had put the soft slippers back on. Hanchuan sat beside her while she ate, letting the others discuss the ramp over the open cargo plan.

Shichen had begun marking the places they had checked. The pencil lines looked sparse against the size of the ship.

Hanchuan followed them from the cabins to the bridge, down through the machinery spaces and across the cargo deck, remembering how long it had taken them to cover so little.

"We need to finish searching the living areas before we spend all our time opening cargo," Hanchuan said, drawing the plan closer. "Cabins, storerooms, workshops, and every passage between them. I want us to know where a door leads before we need to use it."

Jingwei reached for the pencil and marked the section beside the forward hold.

"We can start here in the morning," Jingwei replied. "We haven’t been through these rooms yet, and there’s another set of stairs farther along. We should carry the keys we found upstairs."

Hanchuan watched him write the reminder, then looked at Zhiyi. She had been following their conversation with her spoon resting against the side of her bowl.

"Can we bring the bedding up first?" Zhiyi asked. "The rest of the boxes we chose are still beside the container."

"We’ll bring them in tonight," Hanchuan assured her, moving her water within reach. "You’re staying here with Shichen while we do it."

She accepted that without arguing and returned to her meal.

Across the table, Shichen began sorting the papers into the order they would need tomorrow, stopping when Zhiyi pointed to a room beneath the stairs.

Hanchuan finished eating while they discussed it.

There would be another trip to the container, another climb down to the boat, and a watch to arrange before anyone slept. He was reaching for his bowl when Jingwei turned over the sheet beneath the cargo plan.

A drawing of the ship’s lower decks lay underneath. Stairs continued beyond the rooms they had just marked, connecting to passages that ran almost the length of the vessel.

Jingwei studied it before sliding it toward Hanchuan.

"We’re going to need more than tomorrow," Jingwei said, keeping his finger beside the first stairwell. "There’s another whole level under the one we searched."