Fate's Choice: Livestream at the Start Summoning Billions of Ravens

When Zhou Ruo heard the words "he will explain himself," his gaze was still fixed on Mirror One's face.

That face overlapped with the black figure in the last frame of the Tokyo Bay live stream, and was gradually peeled away by the deck lights, the seawater, and the gray-blue light of the morning sky, becoming a real person standing in front of her.

It can breathe.

It will drip water.

He will stand next to Funina.

It would also leave someone like Chen Jianguo frozen at the cabin door, unable to utter a single word.

Funina sat on the edge of the light membrane at the stern of the boat, her wet hair sticking to her cheeks, and the blue teardrop mark between her eyebrows was so dark it looked like it was about to go out.

She looked at Zhou Ruo, her tone finally showing a hint of impatience.

"Zhou Ruo, cream puffs."

Zhou Ruo gasped for breath as if she had been pulled up from underwater.

She glanced down at the notebook in her hand. The last line of her record was still "Target rises, dual entities confirmed," and the pen tip pressed a blot of ink that had been dried by the sea breeze onto the paper.

She closed the notebook and put it in her jacket pocket.

My fingers were still trembling, not because the sea breeze had lowered my body temperature after sixteen hours, but because there was someone in front of me who shouldn't be there.

She finally swallowed the syllable that was stuck in her throat and managed to squeeze out a complete sentence.

"Louis has been working on it in the lower deck; I'll go get it now."

She turned and ran towards the lower deck. Her legs had been numb for more than three hours. She almost tripped over the drain cover on the deck with the first two steps, and it wasn't until the third step that she regained her normal stride.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chen Jianguo still standing at the cabin door, clutching the walkie-talkie in his hand as if it were welded into his palm.

The voice of Mirror One came from behind her, half of it torn apart by the sea breeze, but she still heard the sentence clearly.

"Uncle Chen, do you have any cigarettes?"

Zhou Ruo paused for a moment at the top of the stairs.

Chen Jianguo's hand gripping the walkie-talkie visibly trembled, the tightening of his fingers was clearly visible to the naked eye.

He knew Jiang Ming didn't smoke.

The Ninth Bureau's personal file clearly states: no smoking or drinking habits, never seen smoking in his dormitory during his four years of university, no related consumption records during his stay in the safe house, and no such entry in the mirror world's copied data.

Mirror One chuckled as it saw the fleeting wariness on Chen Jianguo's face.

"Just kidding, Uncle Chen, I don't smoke."

His smile carried a peculiar sense of relaxation, like the first few words exchanged between two old acquaintances meeting at an alleyway.

"I just wanted to see if you still remembered this."

Chen Jianguo's Adam's apple bobbed, and his vocal cords tensed for two seconds before vibrating.

"Remember."

He stepped out of the hatch, one step, two steps, and stopped about two steps away from Mirror One.

He raised his right hand, palm outstretched, as if to pat his shoulder.

His hand was suspended in mid-air.

one second.

two seconds.

three seconds.

The fingertips were less than ten centimeters from the shoulder seam of the black trench coat, but in the end, they withdrew and tucked into the pocket.

"It's good that you're back."

The four words were spoken in a hoarse voice, as if they were scraped out layer by layer from the depths of the throat with coarse sandpaper.

Mirror One stared at the retracted hand for a moment, and the smile on its lips slowly faded.

"Yes, I'm back."

He stopped joking and took a half-step back barefoot, giving Chen Jianguo a distance that wouldn't be awkward.

Seawater continued to drip from his sleeves and the hem of his shirt, making a steady, rhythmic patter on the iron deck, like some kind of unhurried timer.

Chen Jianguo stared at him for five seconds.

"Thirsty?"

"I'm so thirsty I feel like I'm about to burst."

Chen Jianguo turned around and called out into the cabin. In less than half a minute, a sailor jogged over and brought a bottle of mineral water.

He unscrewed the cap of Mirror One and poured half a bottle of water into it. Water spilled from the corner of his mouth and dripped into his collar, but he didn't wipe it away.

"I'm so thirsty."

He held the bottle in his hand and twirled it halfway around, looking at the brand logo printed on the bottle.

"I spent a month and a half underwater, and only after coming up did I realize what thirst really meant. It's quite ironic."

Chen Jianguo didn't respond, but his gaze swept over Mirror One's face three times, as if he were trying to determine how much credibility the features of an old photograph soaked in seawater still retained.

In the galley below, Louis Bernard stood at the control panel.

The apron was covered in a mixture of flour and cream, the sleeves were rolled up above the elbows, the right hand held the piping tip, and the left hand supported the freshly baked cream puff shell, the angle of the wrist was as steady as if it were screwed in place.

The warming cabinet contains 42 finished products arranged in seven groups, each labeled with its baking time accurate to the minute.

Louis didn't even look up.

"She's up here?"

"We're up."

Zhou Ruo leaned against the door frame and took a breath.

"The forty-third one is finished, and the forty-fourth one is one minute away."

Louis's speaking speed and hand rhythm were completely unaffected. He kept the piping tip at a 45-degree angle to the bottom opening of the puff, poured in the cream at a steady pace, and precisely controlled the filling amount to about 85% of the shell's volume.

"I threw away the first six; their shells rebounded too slowly by 0.3 seconds, which was a failure."

He pressed lightly on the side of the freshly baked cream puff with his thumb, and the difference between the speed at which the shell rebounded and the time it took for his finger to leave was less than half a second.

"This batch has been approved."

He placed the two cream puffs on a white tray and wrote "Number 44, 04:17" on the label.

"In the seventh edition of the recipe, the proportion of butter was increased by half a percent and the filling temperature was lowered by two degrees, with a theoretical deviation of less than five percent."

Louis put the piping tip back on the shelf and glanced at Zhou Ruo as he wiped his fingers with a cloth.

"If she still says it's 20% short, I'll revise it to an eighth version."

Zhou Ruo picked one up and took a bite.

The moment the cream touched my tongue, I knew it was better than last night's batch. The buttery aroma was more rounded, the whipping was just right, and the two-degree lower filling temperature allowed the cream to stay on my tongue for almost an extra second before it started to melt.

"tasty."

"It doesn't matter if it tastes good, it only matters if she says it's good."

Zhou Ruo picked up the tray.

Louis.

"Um."

"Thank you for continuing."

Louis's gaze fell on the discarded and defective products in the warming cabinet.

"You're welcome, it's a job."

He paused for a moment.

"There aren't many people who can detect even a one percent deviation in the consistency of the food with just one bite. It's worth staying up all night to make food for such a customer."

When Zhou Ruo ran up to the deck with the tray, Fu Ningna was already sitting on the iron cable bollard at the stern.

Her legs were crossed, her short white and blue hair was blown by the sea breeze and clung to her cheeks, and the blue light of the mark between her eyebrows was as dim as a small lamp that was about to burn out of oil.

Mirror One stood three meters away by the railing, his hands in his trench coat pockets, a water bottle tucked between his elbows and ribs.

Chen Jianguo retreated into the shadows inside the cabin door, his walkie-talkie already tucked into his breast pocket.

Zhou Ru handed the tray to Funina.

Funina reached out and picked up the first cream puff, taking a big bite without hesitation.

Cream overflowed from the cut surface, and a small strip of white grease trickled down her fingertips. She used her tongue to wipe away the residue on her fingertips, chewed twice, and paused for a second.

Zhou Ruo held her breath.

Funina took another bite, this time chewing more slowly, as if repeatedly confirming a subtle parameter that only her sense of taste could detect.

"Better than last time."

She stuffed the last piece of shell and cream into her mouth, her cheeks puffing out, and mumbled a sentence.

"Tell that Frenchman that the deviation is about three percent, that's enough."

Zhou Ruo's shoulders relaxed, and she breathed a sigh of relief for Louis.

When Funina picked up the second cream puff and bit into it, the blue mark between her eyebrows visibly brightened slightly. It wasn't much, but it did brighten, like someone adding a drop of oil to a wick that was about to go out.

She leaned against the mooring bollard, the wind blowing her stray hairs across her forehead, her heterochromatic eyes reflecting the gray-blue morning light where the deck lights met the horizon.

After finishing her second cream puff, she placed the tray on top of the bollard and wiped the cream crumbs from the corners of her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Zhou Ruo".

"Um?"

"How long have I been down there?"

"Nineteen hours and twenty-three minutes."

Zhou Ruo opened her notebook and reported the precise time difference between the separation time of the first buoy and stepping onto the deck.

Funina turned her head to look at her.

With heterochromatic eyes, one eye blue and the other purple, his gaze lingered on Zhou Ruo's face for two seconds.

"How long have you been waiting up there?"

"almost."

Funina didn't ask any more questions, shifting her gaze to the gradually whitening sky on the distant horizon.

The silence lasted for about ten seconds.

On the deck of the distant Yan'an, the rotor of a shipborne helicopter began to turn slowly, its taillights flashing a sequence of alternating red and green signal lights in the gray-blue light of the early morning.

The walkie-talkie in Chen Jianguo's breast pocket vibrated almost simultaneously.

He retreated into the shadows of the hatch, pulled out the walkie-talkie, switched to the red encrypted channel, and listened for six seconds.

The voices on the channel do not belong to anyone on the Abyss.

[Target A-001 confirmed alive. Initiate homing protocol. All relevant personnel must reach the designated assembly point within thirty minutes.]

Chen Jianguo pressed the confirmation button, took off his glasses, and slowly wiped the salt stains off the lenses with the corner of his clothes.

The edges of his eyes behind the glasses were reddish, and his eye sockets were filled with a thin layer of water, but only he knew it.

When he put his glasses back on his nose, his face had regained the cold, hard lines typical of a veteran.