Chapter 600: The Last Hood!

Li Te remained silent.

"He knows the support fleet can't catch up, knows the Yingguo will swarm out, knows the Meilika destroyers will be waiting on the route," Chen Feng's voice was even, like stating a weather report unrelated to himself, "He knows this sortie may not return."

He paused:

"His telegram said, 'This departure may be forever.'"

Li Te lowered his head.

Chen Feng stood up and walked to the chart table. He looked down at the North Atlantic chart, at the route extending from Port William, crossing the North Sea, looping around the Shetland Islands, and entering the Danish Strait. The path marked in red pencil arced between Greenland and Iceland, like an arrow aimed at Yingguo's heart.

"His telegram also said," Chen Feng's voice was soft, "'I firmly believe that this outcome will not come today, nor tomorrow, but when we are in our greatest peril.'"

He lifted his head and looked at Li Te:

"She Er is not asking me for aid. They are telling me—knowing what I am waiting for."

Li Te gave no reply.

Chen Feng straightened up and left the chart table:

"He is waiting for me until the final moment."

"When is the final moment?" Li Te asked.

Chen Feng gave no answer.

He walked to the porthole, his back to the others. Sunlight streamed in from behind, coating his silhouette in a deep gray outline. He stood for a long time, so long that Wang Wenwu thought he would never answer.

Then he said:

"When the bridge of the Bismarck is pierced by a 16-inch Shell."

He turned:

"When the side hull of the Tirpitz is torn open by a torpedo."

He paused:

"When She Er stands on the sinking battleship, giving the last salute to the east."

No one spoke in the cabin.

"By then," Chen Feng said, "I will issue the order."

He walked back to the chart table, picked up the German Navy telegram, and set it down again. His movements were slow, as if handling something unrelated to himself.

"But now," he said, "it is not the time yet."

He looked at Li Te:

"The Nagato has just completed sea trials. In six weeks it will be officially commissioned, and within six months it will achieve combat capability. Our carrier is still on the shipyard platform, the carrier air wing is still training. The Sakura Nation's fifty divisions, Xi Yuan Si is still squabbling with the parliament and the army."

He paused:

"Our current situation is equivalent to using a navy that has not fully matured to rescue a fleet destined to sink."

Li Te was silent.

"She Er knows this," Chen Feng said, "so he didn't ask us when the outcome would be; he only said 'firmly believe'."

He looked out the window:

"Trust has weight. He gave me this burden, and I must carry it until the day it should be set down."

At dusk, the Nagato returned to Dubai Port.

The setting sun was sinking from the western side of the Persian Gulf, turning the whole sea into a golden‑red blaze. Dock No. 3's gate had long been open, tugs waited in the harbor basin, and the shipyard workers stood at the dock, watching the massive vessel that had just completed its historic maiden voyage slowly sail back to the dock where she was born.

No one cheered.

It wasn't a lack of excitement. The excitement was so overwhelming that it turned into silence.

When Chen Feng descended the gangway, the sunset fell exactly on his face. He squinted, shielded the light with his hand, then lowered his hand and walked straight toward the waiting sedan.

Wang Wenwu followed behind him, holding the three unfiled documents in his hand.

"President," he asked softly, "shall we reply to General She Er's telegram tonight?"

Chen Feng opened the car door, not answering immediately.

He stood by the door and glanced back at the Nagato.

The sunset's afterglow streamed from the stern, coating the entire battleship's outline in deep gold. The eight 410mm gun barrels angled toward the sky in the dusk, like a silent proclamation—not a threat, but existence.

"No need," he said, "he does not require a reply."

He bent and sat into the sedan.

The car door closed.

Wang Wenwu stood in place, watching the sedan's taillights glow in the dusk, then slowly depart the port.

He suddenly recalled the words Chen Feng said on the Nagato's bridge:

"Trust has weight."

Yes.

She Er handed this trust to Chen Feng, and Chen Feng caught it.

Now, this trust presses in the dusk of Dubai Port, under the gantry crane of Dock No. 3, and on the Nagato's eight silent gun barrels.

It is heavy.

Heavy enough that Wang Wenwu, on this February evening, standing alone on the empty pier, suddenly could not remember when he last breathed easily.

The sea breeze blew, carrying the Persian Gulf's distinctive salty scent.

In the distance, Dock No. 3's spotlights flickered on one by one, pulling the Nagato's outline out of the dusk.

The night shift workers began their shift.

Wang Wenwu turned and walked toward his own car.

He recalled Chen Feng's reply to She Er, that telegram that would never be sent:

"The lights of the Lanfang Shipyard never go out through the night."

March 1, 1917, North Atlantic

4:20, the sun was still three hours below the eastern horizon. The sky was black, the sea was black, even the mist was black— a dense, unbreakable, leaden black that could swallow all light. Only the waves were white, rolling in the darkness like countless mouths breathing.

In the bridge of the Bismarck, there were only three colors: the dark red of the instrument panel, the pale green of the radar screen, and the eternal darkness outside the port window reflected in Shel's eyes.

He had been standing for four hours.

Since entering this sea area at midnight, he had been standing like that, occasionally turning to glance at the chart, occasionally hearing the navigation officer's bearing report, then continuing to stand, like a statue set into the bridge's port window.

"General," a voice came from behind.

Shel did not turn around.

The watch officer, Major Hans Meyer, stepped closer and lowered his voice: "Coffee."

Shel finally moved. He took the cup of dark brown liquid; the cup wall was scalding, the hottest the ship could provide. He took a sip, said neither thank you nor that it was good, merely held the coffee in his mouth, letting the bitterness spread from the tip of his tongue to the root, then swallowed.

"Signal Room, any activity?"

"None, General. This sea area is as quiet as a tomb."

Shel nodded.

Tomb.

Well chosen word.

The sea area they were entering truly was a tomb— not metaphorically, but factually. A few months earlier, the Hood sank four hundred nautical miles to the southeast. Two weeks ago, the U-36 submarine lost contact one hundred seventy nautical miles to the northwest. Four days ago, a British transport convoy was caught here by a German submarine; six merchant ships, three were sunk, and the remaining three fled toward Iceland under the escort of a destroyer.

The German submarines also lost two vessels.

This sea area is a hunting ground as well as a graveyard. The hunter and the prey can swap roles here at any moment.