Did My Ex-Wife Agree to Remarry Me Today? - Chapter 11

Chapter 11: The Secret Code

At Shazhou Port, Li Zhou parked her truck at the pier where the ship was docking.

There were still fifteen minutes before the vessel arrived. Finding it tedious to wait inside the cabin, Li Zhou hopped out and leaned against the front of the truck.

The wind caught a corner of her white jacket, blowing the hem backward. Her elegant collarbones and smooth, graceful neck were exposed to the moonlight, braving the sea breeze. She didn’t feel the cold. Her mind was elsewhere.

She was thinking about the ex-wife she had seen ten minutes ago and the woman who had been chatting so animatedly with her. What was their relationship?

Then, a sudden realization pulled her back—they were divorced. Who her ex-wife had dinner with was none of her business.

Waves roared against the reefs. Li Zhou pulled her jacket tighter, crossed her arms, and looked up at the pale, hazy moon. The silver glow outlined her stunning face—the full forehead, the high bridge of her nose, and her thin, rosy lips, which were currently pressed into a hard line. Her skin was incredibly pale, as were her eyes. Her sharp, upturned brows set a tone of cold detachment for her beautiful features. Within a few feet of her, the air felt frozen; no one dared approach.

A string of questions bubbled up: Where did they go after dinner? Would they go home together? To that woman’s house, or back to Huijing Villa? Would they do… those things… right in front of her true form?

The more she thought, the hotter the fire of irritation burned in her chest. In a fit of pique, Li Zhou retracted her consciousness from her true form. She withdrew every shred of the magic she had left there. Since she and Chi Yun were no longer connected, she wouldn’t interfere. Chi Yun could be with whoever she wanted.

“Sister Zhou.”

A call and a shadow approaching snapped Li Zhou’s attention back. She focused on the cargo ship slowly pulling toward the pier. On the deck, a girl with short hair waved her arms vigorously. Li Zhou walked a few steps toward the ship, then gestured to the dockworkers resting on the stone bollards.

“Move it, move it! Quickly!” the foreman barked in a local dialect, and the workers stood up to begin their task.

The sailor, Chang Qi, tossed the mooring rope down. The workers caught it and secured it to the bollard. As soon as the gangplank was lowered, Chang Qi jogged down to Li Zhou. “Sister Zhou, the workers can handle the heavy lifting. Let’s go to the side to settle the transport fees.”

She held a document folder containing the bills for the captain and other things.

The two walked beneath the shadow of a tower crane, away from the bustling noise of the unloading.

“This is the settlement for the captain,” Chang Qi said, her voice dropping as she opened the folder. “And this… is the visual data recovered from the 0739 before it sank, along with the list of marine life that lost their vitals during this last hunting cycle.”

The bill was just a cover. The list of slaughtered animals and the encrypted storage card were the real reasons Chang Qi had come in person.

Chang Qi was a member of the Coast Guard. Among those working with Li Zhou, no one knew her true identity. To the outside world, she was a sailor recruited by Li Zhou; internally, she was an officer sent to investigate the illegal whaling organization “Whale Fall.” The data from the 0739 Black Pearl was encrypted and required a specific sequence to open a sequence only Li Zhou possessed.

“I’ll look through it first,” Li Zhou said. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“Understood,” Chang Qi replied.

Li Zhou signed the bills and handed the money and receipts back while pocketing the list and the memory card. The workers were busy unloading a haul of crabs, but Li Zhou was waiting for the “ghost nets” and fish bones she had asked the captain to bring back. Those would likely be the last things off the boat.

“How many were lost this time?” Li Zhou’s gaze returned to Chang Qi, her voice heavy. “I want exact numbers.”

“A total of 239,” Chang Qi whispered. “In the tracked waters, we’re missing 50 Blue Whales, 83 Sperm Whales, 47 Humpbacks, and 59 Grey Whales…”

Chang Qi saw Li Zhou’s eyes turn cold, eventually becoming two shards of ice. It wasn’t Chang Qi she was angry at; it was the numbers, and the monsters behind them.

“Where is the extracted whale oil being sent?” Li Zhou asked, her jaw tight.

“The black market,” Chang Qi said. “It’s being redistributed everywhere, mostly manufactured into… high-end lubricants.”

Li Zhou fell silent. International law and the IWC had banned the hunting of large cetaceans decades ago. Yet, rogue groups continued to use advanced technology to slaughter these animals for profit.

Last year, Li Zhou’s studio had exposed a seven-man whaling crew. When they found them, they were in the middle of killing a Grey Whale calf and its mother. By the time they arrived, the calf was already harpooned. The mother was in a frenzy. Ironically, the mother whale that escaped whom Li Zhou had tagged and entered into the anti-poaching system was on the list she was holding today.

In the 70 million years of their existence, whales had learned to evade natural predators. But no biological strategy could counter the harpoons and sonar of humans. Against nature, they had a 70% survival rate; against a whaling ship, it was only 5%.

“I’ll handle the follow-up,” Li Zhou said. “You’re on leave don’t you want to go rest?”

“I have several days off, no rush,” Chang Qi said, wanting to stay with her a bit longer. “Are you heading back to Wuzhou later?”

Li Zhou nodded.

“Can I hitch a ride? My hometown is in Wuzhou; I was planning to visit my mom during this break.”

It was on the way, so Li Zhou didn’t refuse.

Back at Huijing Villa, Chi Yun parked her car. She stepped out, her heart racing with a nervous anticipation she hadn’t felt in years. It had been so long since she had greeted A-Li—so long she wasn’t sure what to say.

As she entered the courtyard, she turned on the stone path lights. The soft glow looked like stars scattered on the ground. For the first time in years, Chi Yun looked up at the massive pear tree with true intent.

She had grown taller, and A-Li had grown even taller. As a child, she could wrap her arms around the trunk; as an adult, she still could.

This realization made Chi Yun bite her lip, a surge of guilt hitting her. She realized today that A-Li’s trunk had always adjusted its height for her. At age two, the trunk was low so she could reach it. At five, it grew just enough so the branches wouldn’t hit her head when she hugged it. Now, at twenty-two, the trunk was the perfect height for her to lean against.

The embrace should have happened at every moment of joy or sorrow, but it had been delayed for so many years.

Chi Yun stepped forward and hugged A-Li, burying her face in the grey-brown bark. But something felt… wrong.

She pulled back, stunned. She checked her watch and asked aloud, “It’s only eleven o’clock. A-Li, are you asleep already?”

There was no response. Not even a glimmer of that familiar “feeling.” To her senses, A-Li was currently nothing more than an ordinary, inanimate tree.

Chi Yun didn’t believe it. She circled the tree and returned to the front. She stared at the bark as if she could burn a hole through it with her eyes. Was A-Li ignoring her? Why?

In the past, when she stayed away for a while, A-Li would be grumpy, but it never shut her out completely. It might not let her hug it, but it would listen to her excuses. This time, it was doing neither.

Chi Yun pressed her forehead against the trunk, feeling lost. She remembered the secret code she used as a child. She looked up and whispered to the bark:

“Pear tree, pear tree, I am the Phoenix.”

No response.

“I have a request for your approval.”

The tree remained as silent as a stone.

“I want to bite you,” Chi Yun whispered, and then, acting on her own, she leaned in and bit the bark.

She used a bit of pressure. Then, the impossible happened. Usually, the bark was indestructible to her teeth, but now, a small piece of bark actually came loose in her mouth.

Chi Yun’s eyes widened in horror. She scrambled to catch the piece of bark in her lips. Oh no. I broke A-Li.

At that same moment, back in the “Stone House” village, Li Zhou pulled the truck into her warehouse.

Just as she was about to get out, a piece of skin flaked off her lip. Because she was leaning forward, she watched as the bit of skin fluttered to the floor.

She reached up to touch her lower lip. A small spot was wet, and she tasted the faint, metallic tang of blood.

She didn’t feel much pain, but why would her lip suddenly crack like that? Had she gone too long without water?

Li Zhou went upstairs, poured herself a glass of water, and began to drink through a straw.

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