UAAG CH85

As October arrived, following a long vacation, the group arrived at the newly renovated UAAG headquarters for the first time.

Unlike the previous open-plan office style, this time, Lina had earnestly designed and planned this office floor. There were dedicated working areas, leisure areas, and tea break areas; everyone even had their own independent office. The spaces that had once been used merely to place decorations and greenery all now had new functions.

When Fu Cheng stepped out of the elevator, his eyes were immediately drawn to the post-modern fountain at the entrance of the UAAG headquarters. Slender silver metal lines were juxtaposed with fractured, broken white veined marble. Clear water flowed and wound over them, and beneath the water, four gold letters shimmered—

『UAAG』

Su Fei felt that the newly renovated office was even more imposing, seemingly carrying the air of a winner. He was extremely satisfied with his independent office and couldn’t wait to start moving his things in. Old Joseph, however, looked at the many empty desks and turned to ask Lina, “Are we recruiting more people?”

Lina smiled faintly. “There will always be more people, my dear Old Joseph. Don’t you think that with just the five of us, we seem too busy? Don’t you want to take more vacations?”

Old Joseph laughed heartily. “I just feel like we’ve finally gotten on the right track.”

A year ago, they had suddenly gathered together at UAAG without any preparation. At that time, whether it was Old Joseph, Su Fei, or even Fu Cheng, they were all lost. They didn’t know what this air crash investigation team that had appeared out of nowhere was actually supposed to do, nor did they know why they had come here.

Now, they had become the most critical of companions.

After Zhuo Huan entered UAAG, he went straight to the lounge Lina had designed specifically for him. Upon seeing this, the corner of Su Fei’s mouth twitched. “Great, now that guy RIP is going to start openly sleeping during work hours!”

Fu Cheng said, “There doesn’t seem to be anything special to do recently anyway.”

Su Fei’s eyes immediately went round. “Brother Fu, have you noticed? You’ve changed!”

Fu Cheng: “…?”

Su Fei looked at him with exasperation. “You’ve changed! You weren’t like this before! You used to share a common enemy with me and condemn RIP’s immoral behavior together. How is it that now that you and RIP are dating, you’ve started speaking up for him? Sure enough, love makes people blind. You’re biased!”

Fu Cheng: “…”

Old Joseph, however, didn’t think much of it. “Fly, that’s where you’re wrong. Do you really study computer science? There is a very simple logical error in your statement. Fu is dating Reid—you admit this, right? This is a sufficient condition. If the two of them are dating, then Fu will definitely be partial to Reid; this is a result caused by the sufficient condition. Fu Cheng is dating Reid, not you. If he isn’t partial to Reid, would he be partial to you?”

Su Fei: “…”

“I can’t live like this anymore!”

The group made a ruckus for a while, and the leisure area was filled with Old Joseph’s hearty laughter.

Lina walked over, resting one hand on the back of the sofa, and smiled at them. “Although you all seem to be chatting happily and I don’t want to interrupt, I must say this. actually, it’s not that you have nothing to do right now. Darlings, the investigation report for Air France has already been submitted, but Gao Yun sent me an email; he still needs us to provide some consultation.”

Old Joseph: “Oh no!”

Su Fei: “Why do we have to work the moment we get back!”

Lina blinked. “My dear Su Fei, I have to remind you, you’ve been on vacation for over half a month.”

The punk teenager covered his ears.

Lina covered her lips and chuckled lightly. Before leaving, she remembered something. “By the way, I booked a restaurant for tonight.”

Fu Cheng looked at her in surprise. “A team dinner?”

Lina: “Yes, and also to welcome a friend. Professor Tsunai accepted an invitation from Shanghai University to attend an event. He helped us a lot before, and he also provided a lot of assistance when Su Fei, Old Joseph, and I were handling that Air France accident. So, I wanted to catch up with him.”

Su Fei immediately took his hands off his ears. “What are we eating? French food? I don’t want French; I’m sick of it.”

Lina smiled helplessly. “Japanese cuisine.”

“Great!”

In the evening, Teichi Tsunai appeared at the entrance of the UAAG headquarters.

Standing before that magnificent and dazzling water sculpture, Professor Tsunai observed it seriously for quite a while. When Lina came out to welcome him, he fell silent for a moment before asking earnestly, “Excuse me for asking, but was the fountain changed?”

Lina smiled. “You are very observant.”

Tsunai thought for a moment. “I just felt that those metal lines seemed somewhat familiar.”

Lina smiled. “Why don’t you take a guess?”

Tsunai pondered for a long time, leaning forward slightly to ask, “Is it related to constellations?”

Lina was surprised. “You really are knowledgeable. Yes, it is a geometric figure composed of Aries, Taurus, Virgo, Libra, and Sagittarius. They are the constellations of the five of us at UAAG.”

“What constellations? Geometric figures? What kind of stuff is that?” The punk teenager’s voice rang out from the pantry. He walked out holding a bottle of Coke, suddenly saw Tsunai Tsunai, and his eyes lit up. With a hey-hey laugh, he went up and patted Professor Tsunai on the shoulder with his fist. “Hey, long time no see.”

Professor Tsunai coughed from the pat, lowered his eyes to look at him, and nodded gently. “Long time no see, Su-kun.”

Su Fei stood on his tiptoes and hooked his arm around Tsunai’s neck. “So, what do you say? It’s not dinner time yet, how about we play a round of Blackjack? I’m amazing at this. Not afraid to tell you, that guy RIP played with me 83 times and lost 70 times. He lost so bad he was begging on his knees.”

Tsunai Tsunai: “…”

Fu Cheng, coming out of the pantry with coffee: “…”

“Tsk, brain issues.”

Fu Cheng looked up at Zhuo Huan and saw him rubbing his temples as he walked out of the lounge. When he reached Fu Cheng’s side, he stopped, leaned against the wall, and without a second thought, pointed his chin at the coffee in Fu Cheng’s hand, letting out a grunt.

Fu Cheng: “…”

Fu Cheng turned to leave. Zhuo Huan cursed softly, “Fuck,” and grabbed his hand from behind. “What are you doing? You won’t even make a cup of coffee for me now?”

Fu Cheng asked calmly, “You don’t drink black coffee, do you? I’m going to get you some sugar.”

Slightly stunned, Zhuo Huan curled the corners of his lips and gave a soft mm-hmm.

During dinner that night, Su Fei was extremely excited, constantly bragging about his battle record at the dinner table, talking about how he had utterly defeated Professor Tsunai at Blackjack. He was speaking Chinese, and his speed was very fast. Tsunai Tsunai’S didn’t seem to understand Chinese; he kept his head down eating his food, not refusing anyone’s toast.

When Su Fei got tired of talking and picked up his glass to drink water, Tsunai Tsunai put down his chopsticks, and his calm voice rang out: “Su-kun, we played a total of 14 rounds of Blackjack. You won 6 times, and I won 8 times.”

Su Fei choked on his water, nearly coughing his lungs out. “Cough, cough, cough, cough!”

The punk teenager looked up at him in disbelief. “You speak Chinese?”

Professor Tsunai looked at him with a calm gaze. “I don’t recall ever saying I didn’t speak Chinese?”

Su Fei: “…”

Damn it!

The group burst into laughter.

When the main course was served, Zhuo Huan’s phone rang. He picked it up, opened it to look, and his gaze gradually sharpened.

He sent a few messages, then took his phone and walked directly out of the private room. As he left the room, the group faintly heard a phrase through the crack in the door: “318.”

The cheerful atmosphere fell silent for a few seconds until Tsunai Tsunai asked, “Is it Rogue 318?”

Fu Cheng looked up at him. “Professor Tsunai knows about it too?”

Tsunai Tsunai nodded. “Su-kun once told me that Zhuo-kun has been constantly trying to salvage Rogue 318.”

Everyone swiveled their heads to look at Su Fei.

Su Fei: “…What! It’s not a secret anyway, I just mentioned it casually. Damn, Tsunai Tsunai, why do you remember it so clearly?”

When Zhuo Huan returned, Fu Cheng thought for a moment and asked, “Is there news about Rogue 318?”

Everyone looked toward Zhuo Huan in unison.

The fingers holding the phone paused slightly. Zhuo Huan looked up and swept his gaze over the people in front of him. His gaze paused for a moment when it landed on Tsunai Tsunai, eyebrows raising as if to say what are you doing here, but he didn’t say much. Instead, he said in an indifferent tone, “Yeah. A fragment was found near Unalaska, suspected to be the tail fin of Rogue 318. But the corrosion is quite severe, and they are cleaning it up.”

Old Joseph: “If it really is Rogue 318, does that mean it’s finally going to see the light of day?”

Zhuo Huan let out a scoff through his nose. “See the light of day? Is it that simple? Tsk. Fu Cheng, you tell him.”

After a silence, Fu Cheng said, “In the past two years, Teacher Zhuo has already recovered fragments of Rogue 318 three times. But regrettably, he still hasn’t found it.”

Zhuo Huan’s fingers tapped lightly on the table surface. “In the Pacific Ocean, when a severely corroded aircraft fragment drifts to shore, there are usually three scenarios. First, it’s not a fragment of Rogue 318. That’s very simple; from the beginning of the last century to now, countless planes have fallen into the Pacific. Especially before the 1950s, there were at least a hundred planes that went down. Who knows what a piece of debris that drifts up belongs to.”

“—Second, it is a fragment of Rogue 318.”

Lina pondered for a long while. “If it is a fragment of Rogue 318, Reid, does that mean we still can’t find it?”

Tsunai Tsunai pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose and explained, “This is actually a very complex matter. Rogue 318 definitely crashed into the sea; that is beyond doubt. But at the moment it hit the ocean, without a doubt, its fuselage would have been destroyed by the powerful surface tension of the seawater. Breaking into several pieces is very normal; shattering into many fragments is also entirely reasonable. So, the second possibility Zhuo-kun wants to mention is likely that the recovered fragment is just a small piece shattered off during the impact with the sea, having no necessary connection to the main fuselage. It’s even possible that it is very far away from the main fuselage.”

Zhuo Huan glanced at him and said lazily, “Yeah. The final and only possibility is that this fragment truly came from the main fuselage, and finding it provides a chance to find the crashed plane.” As his voice fell, Zhuo Huan leaned toward Fu Cheng, resting against his arm, his voice lazy. “Fu Cheng, get that for me.”

Fu Cheng turned his eyes to look at him, only to see Zhuo Huan looking back with a faint smile.

With a calm expression, he placed a slice of sashimi onto Zhuo Huan’s plate. Zhuo Huan chuckled lowly.

Soon, everyone forgot about the phone call Zhuo Huan had gone out to take halfway through the meal.

Disappointment after disappointment, lack of results time and time again, meant that no one would pay too much attention to a seemingly ordinary phone call.

The vast and boundless Pacific Ocean, one hundred and eighty million square kilometers.

The salvage efforts that had never ceased over the past two years were merely an extravagant demand, a hope that had fallen to the end of the universe and almost no longer flickered.

Flight Rogue 318—it was the lost Heart of the Ocean within the vast, misty deep.

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