At nine in the morning, a black Santana turned from Yanjiang Road onto the Yangtze River levee via the temporary road constructed during flood control.

It was the dry season, so the levee was far from the river's surface.

The gentle slope on the outer side of the levee was overgrown with weeds, and there was a lot of rubbish left by the flood season among the weeds. To the south, there was a vast expanse of reeds swaying in the wind. Further south on the river, three internal freight ships of a hundred tons were anchored, waiting to cross the river to the small pier on the opposite shore to load goods.

In the distance, the main and auxiliary waterways remained as busy as ever, with a freighter estimated to be at least twenty thousand tons heading upstream.

Working by the river, or even enforcing the law on it, recognizing ships was a basic skill that could be quickly mastered without deliberate learning.

Though the freighter had a flag of the People's Republic of China flying atop its forward mast, Xu Haoran parked the car and took a careful look, realizing it was a Panama-registered foreign ship, and there was a pilot on board. The ship's stern bore the flag of Panama, along with the "H" flag signifying a pilot on board.

Zhao Hongxing, who came along in the car, was more concerned with the weather.

As soon as he got out, he tightened the fur collar of his leather coat and rubbed his hands, laughing, "It didn't feel cold in the car, but once outside, I realize just how cold it is."

"Director Zhao, is it cold today?" Liu Guixiang, deputy leader of the Changhang Bureau Criminal Investigation Team, asked.

"The weather forecast says today's low is 3 degrees, isn't that cold enough?" Zhao Hongxing turned to Han Yu and Chief of Staff Li Jun at the Border Inspection Station, who had just emerged from the car, and said with some self-deprecation, "I'm in my forties, I can't compare to you young guys. You're full of energy, not being afraid of the cold is normal."

The security along the Yangtze River waterfront section had been quite good over the years, but the recent series of thefts on the river not only embarrassed the Water Police Station and the Changhang Bureau but also the Binjiang Border Control Station.

Just a month ago, there was a theft on a foreign ship anchoring at the inspection anchor point, waiting to enter the port, even under the routine arrangement of guards by the Border Inspection Station, with a very negative impact.

The Border Inspection Station and the Water Police Station boarded the ship to investigate and ruled out an "inside job". All indications suggested it was likely the work of the "river thief" that the Water Police Station and the Changhang Bureau were investigating.

For this reason, upon hearing that Han Yu would be leading the Water Police Station and the Changhang Bureau in a joint investigation, Li Jun volunteered to join this unofficial "Special Task Force".

Studying the case files in the Water Police Station's meeting room wasn't as good as seeing it firsthand.

Thus, today's trip to the river was made.

To avoid alerting anyone, all five did not wear police uniforms.

Today Han Yu wore a pilot jacket that his senior helped get from the Port Supervision Bureau back in the day, gazing at the enchanting sandbar in the river, the rippling azure waves, the mirrored blue sky, and the lush aquatic grass and dense water birds gathering on the riverbank. He lamented, "Director Zhao, Old Liu, have you noticed how much warmer it has become over these years?"

Zhao Hongxing paused for a moment, then said, "Today is a bit cold, but it's indeed not as cold as it used to be."

Liu Guixiang, having worked at the Changhang Bureau for over a decade, was most sensitive to climate changes, pointing to the riverside reed marsh: "In my first two years of work, the riverside would freeze every winter. These past few years, not just the riverside but even the inland rivers rarely freeze; it's only in remote small ditches and canals that you occasionally see ice."

Winter used to be genuinely cold.

As soon as winter arrived, it would snow, and the snow could get as deep as one's knees at its peak.

Xu Haoran to this day couldn't forget the scene of struggling to school through snowfields in his youth; walking in the snow was amusing at first, but upon reaching school and sitting in class, he'd find his shoes wet, his feet both cold and sore after a while, as if the entire person was in an icehouse.

Recalling his childhood, he looked around and smiled, "The weather is indeed getting warmer; look at this, the leaves haven't all fallen, and the wheat and rapeseed are all green, it wasn't like this before."

"It could truly be global warming as scientists say, or maybe it's affected by the El Niño phenomenon."

"Salted Fish, are you saying the glaciers in Antarctica and the Arctic will melt, the sea levels will rise, the Earth will end, and humanity will go extinct?" Li Jun took out a cigarette and asked with a smile.

This statement from a good friend seemed like a joke, but "Doomsday theories" like these do have a market now.

At the turn of the century, various absurdities and evil sayings emerged one after another; otherwise, there wouldn't be so many people believing in cults.

In fact, domestically it's much better than abroad; Xiao Yu learned to surf the internet, there's nothing he doesn't know about domestic and international affairs, and according to him, there are more cults abroad than at home, and all of them believe humanity will perish in the next few days.

Han Yu didn't believe in that stuff, laughing: "Global warming, the melting of polar glaciers, requires a process. If you and I could see that day, not only wouldn't it be a bad thing, it would actually be a good thing."

"A good thing?"

"That would mean we would live a very long life, wouldn't living long be good?"

"That's true, hahahaha."

"Let's not joke around, let's talk business." Han Yu shifted the subject, looking at the distant anchorage and asked, "Director Zhao, Old Li, when you came to investigate the foreign ship theft, did you inspect the riverbank?"

"We didn't think of it at the time."

Zhao Hongxing sighed long, helplessly saying, "The ocean ship anchorage is estimated two kilometers from the riverbank, the weather at the time of the incident wasn't as cold as now but wasn't warm either, who would have thought someone would swim from the shore to the anchorage, climb up the anchor chain to the foreign ship to steal!" 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Li Jun agreed deeply, adding: "We initially suspected an 'inside job', but the crew composition on that freighter was relatively complex, with Taiwanese crew, Filipino crew, even Indian crew, and half of the crew boarded in Hong Kong before arriving in Binjiang."