On Christmas Eve in 1999, the fog smelled of diesel. Lin Shen crouched in the foul water in the lower hold of the Far Star, while an inspection lamp swept over a curled-up body tangled in fishing nets. When the eighth piece of the corpse had been fitted into place, the rusty hull suddenly shuddered. The ship's hour-marking horn blared, startling green-headed flies off the body parts.
"Captain Lin, there's a wound with embedded tissue in the palm muscle." Shen Zhao's latex glove slid over the rotting skin. His tweezers lifted a bronze mirror shard flecked with seaweed. The moment he turned it, the gears in Lin Shen's wristwatch made a strange noise. Reflected light from the dial projected the last four digits of a police identification number onto the leaking bulkhead.
Behind his gas mask, his breathing suddenly grew heavier. He remembered the tape anonymously delivered to the police station three days earlier: a distorted male voice mixed with the sound of waves, saying, "When the white whale returns to port, the mirror will speak." Now the cargo ship was rocking slightly in the area where a ship had sunk years ago, and seawater seeping into the lower hold was rising over his police boots.
"Drag marks at nine o'clock." Chen Jiujin's copper whistle cut through the engine noise. His flashlight illuminated a set of scratches on the bulkhead: three parallel grooves, spaced with millimeter precision, matching the standard fittings for the lifeboat hooks on the White Whale twenty years ago.
Tong Xiaoman's message suddenly blared from the pager: "Weather station data abnormal. The wind will shift from southwesterly force 3 to northwesterly force 5 in just 27 minutes." Lin Shen tugged open his soaked police shirt. Among the sea-salt smell collected in the sixth evidence bag, he caught a trace of the lethal sandalwood odor he remembered.
Theme: When the tide recedes, washing away the rusted lies, only the salt of human obsession will never dissolve.
