At 9:07 p.m. on February 14, five years ago, Lin Yuan deleted Azur Lane. It wasn't because he had stopped loving it. His father was in the hospital, and after forty straight days of overtime, he simply had no time. Five years later, on November 1, he was laid off. On the subway back to his rented apartment, a new gray icon appeared on the last screen of his phone, like an unlocked door in someone else's home. He tapped it, and when he looked up, he was standing at the entrance to the port district, a suitcase at his feet, diesel and sea spray in the wind. He braced himself for the sight of ruins. Instead, the port district was brightly lit, the duty roster was filled through next quarter, and a sheet of red-headed official paper was pinned right in the center of the bulletin board: "Resolution on Abolishing the Admiral Position," vote record No. 0001. The watch ship Laffey stamped his visitor pass with sleepy eyes. The stamp was crooked: "R1, Visitor Under Observation. Seventeen rules to know. Rule seventeen: Don't ask." And so an admiral's return began with forms, queues, and missing documents. His golden finger was an "Offline Earnings Settlement Panel" that showed him the five years everyone in the port district had saved up for him. The first entry came from Akashi's diamond jar. Not a single diamond had been touched, and the wish written on it read: Wait for the Admiral to come back and press the build button. Lin Yuan thought this would be a story about atonement.
