A helicopter airlifted two massive, round, green glass domes onto the ice first, serving as safety cabins.
Each safety cabin measured six square meters inside, enough to accommodate multiple staff for rest and to store scientific equipment.
But its primary function was to defend against polar bear attacks. Approaching winter was prime hunting season for polar bears, and with their robust, ferocious builds, any appearance near the ice station posed a grave danger to the researchers.
A ten-person anti-bear team, made up of ship crew members, went ashore first to secure the area, patrolling nonstop around the station’s perimeter.
Song Yu brought up the rear, bundled in a thick down jacket with her hat, scarf, and gloves wrapped tightly around her. Her ever-present camera hung around her neck.
The moment she stepped out of the cabin, a biting chill hit her.
“Don’t wander off once you’re on the ice. Take your photos and head straight to the safety cabin,” Pei Zhi said softly. He had appeared at her side without her noticing.
Song Yu turned to look at him.
He was still wearing that bright red uniform of the Chinese Arctic Scientific Expedition Team. A half-meter-long rifle was slung over his shoulder, giving him a rugged air.
He brought the rifle around to the front and expertly checked the magazine. Seeing the two bullets inside, he frowned slightly and unloaded them with practiced ease.
When Song Yu didn’t respond after a long moment, he reslung the rifle, looked up, and asked offhandedly, “Did you hear me?”
Song Yu pressed her lips together, swallowing her retort.
“Why aren’t you loading it?” she asked.
Pei Zhi shrugged indifferently. “I’ll load it when I need to.”
“It’s safer than letting it go off on you like last time,” he added.
Song Yu: “…”
Why bring up that old sore spot? Ancient history, and he remembered it crystal clear.
Unable to hold back, she muttered defensively, “That gun was faulty.”
“If you don’t load it and we actually run into a polar bear, will you have time then?” Song Yu steered the conversation back.
Pei Zhi met her gaze and fell silent for a beat before saying flatly, “I’d rather never have to fire a shot.”
After all, they were the intruders in this world—unwelcome humans.
The Natural Polar Research Center had the qualifications to carry firearms and could obtain permits as needed, but shooting was allowed only under the strictest necessity. Firing at a polar bear was an absolute last resort.
Once the main group was on the ice, they quickly set to work erecting the station in orderly fashion, installing all sorts of scientific instruments on the floe—including a meteorological tower rising thirty-five meters high.
Song Yu roamed the various zones, snapping photos and finding everything fascinating.
By noon, the sun had climbed to its peak.
While resting in the safety cabin, Song Yu actually felt warm and took off her hat and gloves.
Just then, two more expedition members entered the cabin. They nodded to Song Yu in greeting, exchanged brief hellos, and sat down to rest on one side.
One of them remarked, “There sure have been a lot of extreme high-temperature days this Arctic winter. I just checked the temp—it’s -3.1°C.”
“The temperatures keep rising year after year. Five years ago, during my Arctic summer expedition, the high was only -5°C.”
“Yeah, and the sea ice structure team’s data isn’t looking good either. Most of it’s less than a meter thick, and this is winter…”
Song Yu kept her head down, flipping through today’s photos one by one while listening to their conversation. Before she knew it, she’d reached the end, and the screen jumped to earlier shots.
The image showed a vast white expanse. In an instant, a crystalline glacier crashed into the sea. The footage was silent, as if documenting the death of a single block of ice.
She lowered her eyes, staring solemnly at the photo, lost in thought.
After several days of extreme heat, the Arctic finally saw a sharp drop in temperature, plummeting to -20°C.
Daylight hours grew shorter and shorter, averaging just three or four hours a day, often without sight of the sun.
Even in the darkness, the expedition team’s work never stopped. Under the glare of powerful floodlights, they pressed on.
For Song Yu, the nights were mostly spent in the ice station’s safety cabin, brainstorming content for her documentary.
Outside roared the wind and snow, while the workers’ voices carried urgency and focus.
Someone pulled open the door, letting in a sharper howl of blizzard and a blast of cold air.
Snowflakes blew in on the wind, speckling Song Yu’s face with icy flecks that melted into water almost instantly.
Song Yu shrank back instinctively. Lifting her eyes, she saw it was Pei Zhi who had entered.
Having brought the storm in with him, he murmured a hoarse, “Sorry.” His voice was roughened by the cold outdoors.
Pei Zhi set his rifle down on a low table nearby, the stock thickly crusted with snow.
He brushed the snow from his clothes and rummaged in a crate in the corner where the team’s gear was stored.
The safety cabin held only the two of them now, the atmosphere suddenly tense.
Song Yu cleared her throat, feigning nonchalance as she returned to typing on her laptop.
Out of nowhere, Pei Zhi spoke up. “Tea?” He’d pulled out a large thermos from the crate.
Song Yu flexed her stiff, cold fingers. After a pause, she said stiffly, face straight, “Sure.”
Pei Zhi glanced at her. The lines of his profile sharpened, and the corner of his mouth quirked up faintly—a rare moment when she’d accepted his overture.
The sound of pouring water rose slowly, filling the cabin with a bitter, familiar aroma.
Song Yu paused. “Is that mate tea?”
Pei Zhi handed her the thermos lid as a cup. “Mm. I brought some.”
The vibrant green mate tea slid down her throat, dense with the essence of an entire forest. Her chilled body warmed in an instant.
Through the safety cabin’s small round window, Song Yu gazed at the desolate white expanse outside. Yet she felt transported back to that humid, sweltering rainforest.
Back when they could still talk properly.
The cabin was quiet, shutting out the storm, and the mood gradually eased.
After finishing half a cup, Song Yu held the still-warm lid.
“Why didn’t you go to Kivalina with Wu Yue and the others?” she asked.
That day, Wu Yue and Zhang Cheng had taken a fixed-wing plane midway, heading to an island called Kivalina near the Arctic Circle. Home to over a hundred Inuit, they lived by hunting whales and seals.
The island’s permafrost was thinning, the ground softening, and its landmass shrinking steadily—now reduced to a narrow coastal strip.
This was the last year residents would live there. Come next year, everyone would relocate to higher ground inland, away from sea level.
Wu Yue had mentioned that Pei Zhi had conducted field research on the island for six consecutive years and was quite familiar with the residents there. By all rights, he should have gone along too.
There were no stools in the safety cabin, and everything was piled up haphazardly. Pei Zhi leaned lazily against the wall, his long legs crossed and his back slightly hunched.
He seemed utterly exhausted. His eyes were downcast as he slowly turned the cup in his hands, his knuckles red from the cold.
After a long moment, he finally spoke, his voice low and languid, laced with faint helplessness. “This year, I don’t want to say goodbye to them.”
“…” Song Yu stared at him in a daze, her throat dry. She couldn’t utter a single word.
Pei Zhi straightened up and picked up the thermos from atop a crate. “More hot water?”
Song Yu snapped back to her senses and held out her cup.
Hot water poured from the thermos, steam rising in white wisps.
“Do you know that the Arctic is seen as the Earth’s environmental canary?”
Pei Zhi explained, “Miners used to take canaries into the shafts to monitor air quality. Even the slightest gas leak would kill the bird.”
He didn’t say more.
But Song Yu understood what he meant.
The Arctic—this canary of the Earth’s environment—was dying a slow death.
It was the first time Song Yu had heard him say so much. She clutched the refilled cup lid in her hands, but its warmth failed to reach the rest of her body.
She opened her mouth, then asked hesitantly, “Is there anything we can do?”
Pei Zhi met her gaze. His dark eyes were calm and inscrutable.
“We can only close our eyes,” he said.
There was nothing else they could do.
Song Yu: “…”
The conversation grew heavy, stirring up that familiar sense of powerlessness that had lingered since the scientific expedition team established their base. It enveloped her now more intensely than ever.
Another long silence stretched out.
Song Yu stared into her cup of mate tea as it cooled from hot to cold, turning even more bitter on her tongue.
She swallowed the last sip. “Is that why you switched from geography to anthropology?”
Pei Zhi’s eyelids lifted slightly. He looked at her in mild surprise.
“He Fu told me,” Song Yu explained.
At that, Pei Zhi let out a soft, derisive huff. “You two have gotten pretty close, huh.” Talking about him behind his back, no less.
“Something like that,” he said. “It just felt pointless.” No amount of research could halt the canary’s demise.
With his tea finished, he set the cup casually on the crate, picked up his gun, and waved a hand at Song Yu over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Days in the Arctic were growing shorter by the day. In just a few more, polar night would arrive.
Every evening, the team returned to the Snowfield Ship and submitted their applications for the next day’s tasks, which the expedition team’s chief scientist would approve.
As the only non-specialist on the team, Song Yu usually just wrote “field sketching” on her form. Today, however, she had filled it out with unusual care.
After dinner, Song Yu was summoned to the meeting room.
The room, carpeted in red, held Professor Xu and the captain.
Pei Zhi sat across from them, flipping through a stack of task applications, his index finger tapping idly on the back of his chair.
The captain held one form in his hand and frowned in exasperation.
“Little Song, did you fill out your application wrong? Maybe rewrite it.”
Song Yu shook her head. “No, it’s correct. I want to photograph the glacier.”
“I see the helicopter takes expedition members there every day. I can go along with them, stay on the opposite island for a day, and fly back the next.”
“That’s nonsense,” the captain said, slapping the table. He was uncharacteristically angry. “Even professional expedition members don’t dare stay out overnight. If something happens, who’s taking responsibility?”
Professor Xu was calmer and more composed. He adjusted the thin gold-rimmed glasses on his nose, his eyes narrowing slightly as he asked in a measured tone, “Why do you want to photograph the glacier?” His voice was gentle, like he was speaking to a child.
Song Yu pressed her lips together. “I want to capture the glacier’s death.”
At her words, Pei Zhi’s eyelids lifted. He glanced at her.
The captain was speechless. “Glacier death? I can’t make heads or tails of you artsy types.”
“Even if you want to shoot it, you could bring a professional team next time. You’re just here to scout locations this trip—no need to do it yourself.”
Song Yu’s expression was stubborn. She showed no sign of backing down. “I’m afraid that by the next time, that iceberg will be gone.”
Polar night was just days away. Shooting it then would be impossible.
She paused, then muttered softly, “I don’t want to close my eyes.”
“…” Pei Zhi stopped flipping through the applications. His fingertip lingered on one page, rubbing it for a long moment.
The captain was both frustrated and anxious. He slammed his palm on the table. “No. Temperatures drop dangerously at night. A storm could sweep a person away.”
“Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?!”
The atmosphere in the meeting room grew tense.
Song Yu kept her head down, silent.
A long while passed.
“She knows,” Pei Zhi said flatly, breaking the silence.
Song Yu turned her head and met his dark eyes—deep and profound as obsidian.
Her heart skipped a beat for no reason.
Pei Zhi tossed the application form onto the table. “I’ll go with her.”