Chapter 58: Port No. 7

In the early hours before dawn, faint lights flickered at Port Seven of Songdu. Everyone knew that Songdu, with its coast, boasted six large transportation ports—Ports One through Six—operating ceaselessly day and night, ferrying goods and people.

Yet, few locals were aware of the existence of a seventh port—Port Seven. Once the city’s first port, now abandoned, it had been secretly repurposed for clandestine use. It operated only in the earliest hours of every Friday, moving cargo and passengers that could never see the light of day.

Unlike ordinary smuggling, it had a peculiarity: all passengers required advance reservation, and in any given slot, only one guest would be transported.

Tonight was that single night in the week when Port Seven came alive.

Beneath the starlit sky, a figure shrouded entirely in black cast a wavering shadow under the ghostly, uncertain light. He tugged at his coat, ducked his head further into his collar beneath his mask, and strode quickly toward the port. But for reasons he could not explain, though the port seemed just ahead, he walked and walked, yet never drew closer.

Instinctively, his hand went to the object hidden in his coat, and the touch of it soothed him. He quickened his pace.

Then, a sudden breeze swept past him from behind.

His lips blanched in a flash, and before he could sense what was wrong, all strength drained from his body as if some unseen force had torn it away; he collapsed, limp, to the ground.

Through blurry vision, he saw someone approaching—dressed in a tracksuit, a baseball cap pulled low. The stranger crouched before him and, with unerring precision, snatched the wooden box from his arms.

Eyes wide with shock and helplessness, he tried to reclaim it, but his body refused him. All he could do was utter a weak, incredulous whisper, “Are you here for the treasure map? How did you know about it? I was supposed to be the only one…”

Treasure map?

Gu Ci’s steps faltered, a faint throb between her brows. That last opponent, even gravely wounded and losing blood, had fought viciously and without mercy. Yet this man’s reactions were… troublingly slow. Gu Ci narrowed her eyes, her thoughts racing.

Amid the barren stretches near the port, Qin Yu lay in wait, shivering in the biting chill of the autumn night. He glared at the ship, so close he could almost touch it, as if willing it to reveal something, but the person he was meant to intercept never appeared.

Still watching the port, he lowered his voice and asked the man beside him, “What’s going on, Ye? Hasn’t the target arrived? Was the information wrong?” Or—could it be the person had lied, even under Ye’s questioning?

But Qin Yu quickly dismissed that last idea. Anyone could make a mistake, but not his Ye—not like the time at the southern villa. Even when the assassin claimed ignorance about the night’s visitors, and surveillance footage showed nothing amiss, and the patrols noticed no anomalies, Ye had seen through it all at a glance. If not for the unidentified substance later found in the suspect’s blood, Qin Yu might have thought Ye was wrong. But facts proved otherwise—Ye was right.

Still, no answer came from Ye, and after a long wait, Qin Yu muttered and turned his head.

But Ye was nowhere to be seen.