Ashes of the Azure Sea

Are you really going down there? At the edge of the dry dock, Foreman Lin stared at Shen Canglan with a grave expression.

Smoke still curled through the hundred-zhang-deep dry dock, and the acrid stench of the fire's aftermath was hard to bear. Shen Canglan adjusted the tool pouch at his waist and checked that his fire-resistant gloves were on before speaking. "I have to. There's something suspicious about this fire, and the way it burned is even stranger."

"Suspicious?" Foreman Lin frowned.

"Look at the keel." Shen Canglan pointed to the bottom of the dry dock. "The fire must have started at the bottom of the ship, but the watertight bulkheads should have stopped it from spreading so quickly. Stranger still, the fire traveled along the keel's mortise-and-tenon joints, as if... as if someone had planned its route in advance."

Foreman Lin's expression changed. "You mean..."

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.