Chapter 3: A Foothold on the Docks

Lin Yuan clutched the crumpled note, his knuckles white from the grip. Rain hammered down on the dock yard like lead weights, cold droplets tracing lines off the eaves and kicking up dense clouds of dust and grime on the ground.

Su Wan was hiding in the massive shadow of a shipping container, her silhouette blending almost seamlessly with the pitch-black metal. Her voice was dropped so low it was barely a whisper, the only background noise the sharp crack of rain hitting the tin.

“Old Chen has a proud streak, but he respects the rules. Zhao Tai’s spies are just two blocks away. Don’t let them clock you.”

Lin Yuan’s fingers were ice-cold. The ink on the note bled and blurred, looking like a bad omen. He scanned his surroundings; the humid air reeked of rust and sea salt. In the distance, Zhao Tai’s men were combing the waterway, their flashlight beams slithering and twisting through the dark like snakes.

The beam swept over the muddy ground, each pause accompanied by the muffled crunch of boots. He had to move immediately. Any hesitation could get him killed. This note was his only way out, the only key to a trap that no one else knew existed.

To buy food and find a place to hide from the search, Lin Yuan had to swallow his pride and slot in with the loading crews. The yard was stacked with scrap metal boxes shipped in from all over, each one weighing over fifty pounds and caked in thick layers of scale.

He gritted his teeth, pressing his shoulder against the freezing iron wall. Sweat ran down his spine, soaking through his rough cloth shirt, while the cold rain mixed with it to send shivers through his bones. The workers around him cursed and grumbled, their eyes filled with contempt for the fallen young master, but Lin Yuan didn’t dare stop. The moment he paused, Zhao Tai’s reach would creep in and crush him.

He dragged the iron boxes through the mud, his muscles screaming as if being cut with a knife, his soles throbbing from sharp stones underneath. He didn’t dare show a shred of weakness. This was the first cornerstone for getting a foothold in this chaotic dock.

While hauling a rotten, oil-slicked cable, Lin Yuan’s fingertips brushed the rough hemp surface. Three seconds later, the Echo of All Things kicked in. It wasn’t the sound of wind in his ears; it was the piercing shriek of a cable snapping three years ago, like a blade slicing through his eardrums.

Memories flashed in his mind. He saw the close-up of the rusted steel core breaking, the specific frequency of the snap accompanied by the mournful wail of metal fatigue. Lin Yuan’s pupils shrank to pinpricks, cold sweat instantly soaking his back. The noise around him seemed to be sucked away in an instant.

That main anchor cable had long since passed its limit. The internal steel core was brittle. One significant load and it would snap completely. Right now, it was holding onto a massive ship that was about to dock.

On the eve of a storm, the cargo ship Haishen loomed over the port, its huge shadow pressing down. Massive waves slammed against the sea wall, sending dull thunderous booms that vibrated through his bones. Ignoring the workers’ protests, Lin Yuan sprinted like a madman toward the winch area next to the control panel. His voice was hoarse from the gale, but it was rock solid. He pointed at the main cable, which was vibrating faintly: “Stop!

That cable can’t take it! Keep winding and the whole ship goes overboard!” The deckhand at the console frowned at him, eyes full of mockery and disdain. He clearly didn’t think this mud-caked laborer had a point, and kept blindly cranking up the winch speed to pull the ship in closer. The grinding of the gears was shrill in the wind.

Foreman Wang Biao rushed over, his face twisted with anger. He grabbed Lin Yuan by the collar and spat curses. “You useless piece of trash Zhao Tai sent! What do you know? That’s the main line for the Haishen. They’ve replaced it three times. How could it have a problem? I’ll throw you in the sea to feed the sharks!”

The workers around them burst out laughing. One even picked up a stone and hurled it at Lin Yuan. Lin Yuan was shoved to the ground, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He didn’t struggle. He just stared, dead set on the cable thrashing violently in the wind, his heart pounding like a drum against his eardrums.

“Thirty seconds.” Lin Yuan wiped the blood from his lip, his voice terrifyingly calm. “The vibration frequency on the cable’s surface matches the breaking Voiceprint I hear. The steel core is seventy percent rusted. Tidal surge plus the ship’s momentum? It snaps in thirty seconds. Either you lock the safety brake right now, or you wait for the ship to wreck. No one survives that.”

Wang Biao blinked, the sarcasm in his eyes freezing up. He looked at the cable. It was indeed trembling with a weird, unnatural tension. The air seemed to hold its breath, the only sound the waves crashing against the shore.

Wang Biao was brutal, but not stupid. The instinct of self-preservation made him half-believe, half-doubt. He slammed the call button on the console and roared at the stunned crew, “Fire up the backup power! Fast! Offload the cable! Everyone, manually lock the safety gates in Sector A! If you’re slow, I’m docking your pay for the whole month!”

Lin Yuan didn’t stick around. He sprinted to the nearest mechanical gate. Relying on his previous life’s understanding of industrial structures, he operated the handles with precision, jamming the heavy iron gate securely onto the track. His movements were fluid and cold, a professionalism that didn’t fit his current status, making him stand out as unnervingly calm in the chaos.

Before he could even finish his sentence, the cable, taut to its limit, finally let out a heart-stopping crack. It burst like a thunderclap in the night sky. The steel core shot out. The massive inertia rocked the Haishen violently; the hull nearly tipped over and slammed hard into the sea wall. If the safety gates hadn’t locked in time, that giant ship would have capsized, and half the dock would have been wiped out.

Debris sliced through the air, hitting Wang Biao in the shoulder as he tried to pull back. Blood instantly soaked through his work uniform. Wang Biao howled and collapsed, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief. He looked at Lin Yuan like he was a lifesaver in the middle of a drowning.

Lin Yuan knelt beside Wang Biao, tearing open his shirt and quickly applying pressure with a first-aid kit he carried on him. His technique was clumsy but decisive, pressing on the artery with efficiency that silenced the围观ing workers. Wang Biao convulsed in pain, but in a lucid moment, he grabbed Lin Yuan’s wrist with surprising strength. “How... how did you know it would break?

Who the hell are you?” Lin Yuan didn’t answer. He just calmly bandaged the wound and propped Wang Biao up against the container. The rain washed away the blood, but the fear in Wang Biao’s eyes had shifted into something complex—awe. This man could save a ship, and he could kill you just as easily.

Once Wang Biao regained his senses, his attitude took a one-eighty turn. He struggled to sit up, clutching his shoulder, and whispered orders to the nearby foreman. “From now on, he has free access to the secure storage. No registration. Anyone who gives him a hard time gets their position.”

Murmurs of shock rippled through the crowd. Lin Yuan just nodded calmly. He knew he’d cleared his name. He wasn’t just a drifting laborer anymore. With this prediction, he had stepped into the dock’s inner information circle, his status quietly rising.

From that moment on, he no longer survived on brute strength. He stood his ground in this dark dock using his brain and that invisible sword of the Echo, navigating the shadows.

Late into the night, Lin Yuan used a routine inspection as cover to slip deep into the storage area. It was piled high with sealed wooden crates, the air thick with the smell of rot and danger. He lightly touched one of the boxes. The Echo of All Things triggered again, but this time it wasn’t manufacturing noise. It was a low-frequency, non-human tremor, as if something inside the box was breathing.

The sound pierced through the iron walls, striking the back of his brain and causing intense discomfort. Lin Yuan’s pupils dilated slightly, alarm bells ringing in his head. The contraband here wasn’t ordinary cargo. The unknown power hidden inside was far more troublesome than Zhao Tai’s gang, and he had unknowingly walked right into the eye of the storm.

Lin Yuan forced himself to take a step back, the chill from his fingertips snapping him back to reality. He couldn’t expose his secret here. Zhao Tai’s men were everywhere on the dock, and two fully armed guards stood around that "contraband" box, guns trained on the shadows.

He suppressed his surging curiosity, turned, and pretended to check the ventilation ducts. In the cover of darkness, he pulled a special micro-recorder from his pocket and quietly stuck it into the gap in the box’s wall.

The night was long and agonizing. Back in his shabby dorm, Lin Yuan’s head was filled with that non-human low hum. It didn’t sound like a mechanical fault. It sounded like a conscious, caged beast struggling in its cell.

He dug up old files from the dock’s massive explosion three years ago. It turned out that day, it wasn’t just cargo that went missing. A batch of “special containers” that had never been registered with customs had vanished too. Maybe Wang Biao promoted him not just out of gratitude, but because he valued this ability to “hear” the anomalies.

The next morning, Lin Yuan sought out Wang Biao and handed over a seemingly routine report: “Abnormal Noise Assessment in the Storage Area.” He hid the truth about the Echo, describing it merely as “high-frequency vibration causing a risk of metal fatigue,” and recommended immediate Voiceprint isolation for the zone.

Wang Biao narrowed his eyes, studying the report for a long time before a meaningful smile curled his lips. “Little Yuan, you’re getting better too fast. You see through everything. Some things are luck if you don’t know them, but trouble if you do. Zhao Tai’s side has been watching that batch of cargo lately. They say it’s being shipped to a remote island in the South Pacific.”

Hearing “Zhao Tai” and “island,” a knot tightened in Lin Yuan’s chest. Zhao Tai was the actual puppeteer behind the dock, and his layout was deeper than he imagined. Just then, a disorderly shuffle of footsteps echoed from the end of the corridor.

Two thick-faced foreign thugs walked straight up to Wang Biao. The leader shouted in heavily accented Chinese, “Boss, the cargo owner is pushing hard. It has to clear customs tonight. Otherwise, don’t blame us if we stop playing by the rules.”

Wang Biao’s face turned grim. He looked at Lin Yuan, his gaze now carrying a layer of scrutiny. “Looks like your warning beat mine. Thanks for that.”

Lin Yuan lowered his eyes, masking the sharpness in his gaze. He knew tonight was the moment of decision. If that contraband was what he suspected, it wasn’t just ordinary illegal goods. The energy contained within was enough to shake the entire port district.

He had to infiltrate the core area tonight to confirm exactly what was in those boxes and how they were connected to the explosion three years ago that took his mentor’s life.

Deep night fell again, the dock sinking into deathly silence. Lin Yuan, wearing his inspection uniform, slithered along the pipes to the deep storage area. The box emitting the low-frequency tremor was still in place, but the guards had been swapped out for Zhao Tai’s personal bodyguards, wary and armed with stun batons.

Lin Yuan held his breath, sliding along the cold wall of the container until he reached the back of the box. He pulled out a homemade resonant screwdriver and gently pressed it against the box’s lock.

Just as he was about to crack the final password lock, a cold dagger suddenly pressed against the nape of his neck.

“Don’t move.” A raspy, familiar voice whispered in his ear, heavy with unyielding pressure. “Lin Yuan. Three years. You finally came back. But this time, you’re not escaping.”

Lin Yuan’s body went rigid. He didn’t turn around, only feeling the breath of the person holding the knife against his neck, rapid and heavy with years of suppressed anger and killing intent. Those arms that had once protected him were now a sword of Damocles hanging over his head. He slowly raised his hand to signal surrender, but his brain was moving at high speed: Who?

Was it his mentor, who was supposedly “dead”? Or a third observer lurking in the dark? Whatever the answer, the storm had arrived. In this life-or-death game, he had to find the only path to survival.