August 10th, 2022. I had finally finished all the visa paperwork. On the 12th, I boarded a plane to Europe. China’s borders hadn’t reopened yet, so I had prepped a mountain of documents, still worried immigration might not let me leave.

The people in line ahead of me were all interrogated for ages. When it was finally my turn, I was nervous as hell.

The officer looked at me for three seconds, then glanced at my passport. I thought—this is it. I’m doomed. He’s going to grill me. But instead, he said, with an oddly meaningful smile,

“You’ve lost weight.”

Then stamped my passport and waved me through.

I blinked, stunned. “Thanks,” I mumbled, and practically ran away, afraid he might change his mind.

Yes, I had lost 20 kilograms. Skipping toward the gate like I had wings on my feet, I shot off an email to the cruise company and booked the Arctic voyage for August 23rd. My preferred cabin was already taken, so I settled for the first available one.

At the gate, I opened a livestream to say goodbye to my followers. Then I opened Instagram, wanting to check if JERRY would be on that ship.

To my surprise, I found that he had deleted his account.

I thought, Well, so be it. Maybe I’ll never see him again. Let fate decide.

I spent ten days traveling in Norway, and then headed to Svalbard to board the ship.

As always, I kept to myself onboard. I had no interest in the usual routines. When the captain gave his welcome speech, I barely looked up. Too much formality bores me.

But there was one part of his talk that caught my attention:

“I hope none of you spend this journey just taking photos. You’ll go home with thousands of images and no real memories. Ask yourself: will you even look at them again? And when your family asks what the trip was like, will you have anything real to say?”

I looked up. Okay, this captain has something to say.

Still, I didn’t bother to study his face.

Next to me, an Aussie girl whispered to her friend,

“Wow, the captain is so young! Go get him!”

I smiled. As usual, romance was the furthest thing from my mind.

Until the fourth morning, when disaster struck.