Chapter 44: The Night Before
[Author's note: This makes up for yesterday's chapter. Another chapter tonight.]
The twilight sky glowed a hazy gold, and distant clouds along the horizon wore faint gilt edges. An evening sea breeze stirred gently as the Fengcheng steamed steadily onward through the Qiongzhou Strait under excellent conditions—waves barely reaching a meter and a half. Even those with little seafaring experience felt no trace of seasickness.
The great bow carved through the swells, riding wind and wave. The transmigrators, posing as backpackers, gathered in small groups across the deck—some standing, others sitting—as they watched the scenery flanking the strait. The Qiongzhou Strait was remarkably narrow here; from where they stood, they could make out both the Leizhou Peninsula to the north and the shores of Hainan Island to the south.
Less than twenty cables off the beam, a squat flat-deck barge followed close behind, its deck stacked high with containers and an assortment of vehicles and machinery. Both vessels held steady at ten knots. They were scheduled to rendezvous at six o'clock Beijing time with four fishing boats departing from another port.
After Meng De's half-month of frenzied coordination, the complex loading process was finally complete. Coastal freighters routinely carried all manner of cargo, so the port authority had raised no eyebrows. The only puzzled party had been the fuel company—both ships had taken nothing but diesel, refusing the cheaper marine heavy oil.
The hired crew were Filipinos whose peculiar English proved incomprehensible to everyone except Meng De, who had spent years working around ports. This arrangement had its advantages: the crew asked no questions about what the ship carried or why so many backpackers in matching green training uniforms had come aboard. Two-thirds of all the transmigrators were concentrated on this single vessel, with only a handful of specialists assigned elsewhere.
The freighter itself left precious little space for passengers. All five cargo holds were packed full, and even the deck was crowded with lashed-down containers. Several livestock containers filled the air with a constant foul stench. Except for the women and children who'd been allocated crew cabins, most could only find spots on deck and wait for the fated moment.
Fortunately, everyone remained in that buoyant, excited state of pioneers on the cusp of a new era, and no one complained of the discomfort. Some who hadn't slept well the night before spread sleeping bags on deck to catch a few hours of rest. Others stood facing the wind, gazing at Hainan Island's coastline as it appeared and vanished in the haze. They had been born in this timespace, had grown up here, and would have grown old here—carrying with them countless loves and hatreds, disappointments and triumphs, all the firsts of a lifetime. Now they were about to leave and never return. A parting as final as death itself.
The Executive Committee members gathered on the poop deck had no leisure for such historical-moment sentimentality. According to plan, the fishing boats and landing craft departing from the fishing port—along with the legendary North American Branch's yacht—should have rendezvoused with them by five o'clock. They kept scanning the horizon through binoculars, but saw only scattered fishing boats returning to port.
The North American yacht arrived first, ten minutes ahead of schedule. Its blue-and-white hull bore snow-white triangular sails that caught the dying light as it glided elegantly across the water. Cheers and whistles erupted from the transmigrators on deck. Through their binoculars, the Committee members could see Shi Niaoren waving enthusiastically. From the hatchway below the sails emerged a foreign woman with large brown eyes and a thoroughly puzzled expression—obviously she had no idea what was happening.
"Nice figure on that girl," Wang Luobin murmured, binoculars raised.
"Chestnut hair—she's not a Western chick."
"What do you know? She's Latina. You don't have to be blonde and blue-eyed."
A dozen binoculars trained themselves on the newly appeared beauty, completely ignoring the contingent of North American men waving enthusiastically on deck.
The fishing boats and landing craft had still not appeared. Fortunately, radio contact confirmed they were on their way. The four fishing boats had been tasked with towing multiple large floating rafts—something none of them had ever attempted before—and had wasted several hours just adjusting towline lengths. Finally, at twenty minutes past five, they rendezvoused with the waiting ships.
The strange fleet proceeded slowly along Hainan Island's coastline. Bopu Port was nearly in sight now. As night approached, the harbor lights had already come on, flickering in the gathering dusk. Ships along the route lit their navigation lights one by one.
"GPS shows we're currently three nautical miles north-northeast of Bopu Port."
"Reduce speed! Turn on all lights!"
"Take control of the ship!"
"All vessels close on the flagship!"
"Prepare the wormhole!"
With each command, tensions rose. Meng De, in his capacity as charterer, first gathered all crew members on deck. Then the Military Group produced their five-shot shotguns. Without a word of argument, the twenty-odd crew cooperatively descended into a lifeboat that had been prepared for this purpose and rowed toward shore.
Now every light on the ship blazed to life. The freighter's searchlights bathed the deck in brilliant white. Realizing the historic moment was at hand, transmigrators rose to their feet, eyes wide, watching the poop deck.
The PA system crackled with test tones, then an excessively high-pitched male voice announced: "Attention, five-minute crossing preparation! All personnel don life vests and enter cabins!"
The wormhole might oscillate from violent energy fluctuations during the crossing, and to prevent anyone from falling overboard, all except essential deck personnel—secured by safety lines—crowded into the cabins. The watertight doors were sealed shut.
"Director Wen, let's begin!" Meng De stood tensely at the helm.
"Alright. Begin."
As the wormhole suspended at the bow was slowly pushed open by the ship's prow, the enormous mirror-like surface flashed with unprecedented brilliance, illuminating a vast expanse of surrounding sea. Energy radiated from the wormhole's edges like fireworks—streamers of light arcing into the darkness.
Hold steady, Wen Desi muttered silently, praying this thing wouldn't suddenly explode. Failing to reach another timespace would be bad enough—but an energy explosion might rival an atomic bomb.
"All ships, attention!" Meng De shouted. "Close up spacing! Full speed through the wormhole! All hands brace for impact!"
In the cabins below, the transmigrators had no idea what was happening outside. Everyone gripped whatever fixed objects they could find, faces grim, waiting for the legendary crossing shockwave. Without warning, the lights flickered wildly. Everyone's faces and hands tingled with a mild electric sensation, a strange numbness. A wave of dizziness surged up from somewhere deep inside.
"We crossed!" someone shouted.
No one responded. Many had squeezed their eyes shut the instant the lights began to flicker.
Shortly after the rear-guard fishing boat passed through, the wormhole—which had been reflecting the freighter's lights like an enormous mirror—suddenly began glowing from within. In seconds, it expanded from a flat plane into a sphere of blinding light, then vanished entirely. Seawater rushed back into the fifty-meter void the wormhole had left behind. The colliding water shot more than ten meters into the air with a sound like a massive drum. The rear-guard fishing boat, over a hundred meters away, caught a brutal wash from four- to five-meter waves. Fortunately, preparations had been thorough—there were no losses.
"All ships, report status!" Meng De called over the radio.
"Barge, normal!"
"Landing craft, normal!"
"Fishing 1, normal!"
"Fishing 2, normal!"
"Fishing 3, normal!"
"Fishing 4, normal!"
"North America, normal... wait—there's a motorboat rapidly approaching our vessel!"
The Committee members' hearts sank in unison. Motorboat—where would a motorboat come from in the seventeenth century?
Before Wen Desi could speak, Xi Yazhou was already on the radio to Zhao De, the fishing-boat flotilla leader.
"Old Zhao, take your people to support the North America boat immediately."
"Understood!"
The Fengcheng switched on its two large searchlights, their brilliant beams cutting through the now-darkened sea. Two boats from Zhao De's flotilla broke formation, bows slicing through the waves as they flanked the sailboat from north and south at full speed.
The lights illuminated the entire area. Through his binoculars, Wen Desi saw the motorboat approaching the North American sailboat—just a small eight-passenger marine speedboat. Had it crossed through with them, or had they failed to cross at all?
He glanced at those beside him. Every Committee member wore the same grim expression—clearly thinking the same thing.
The Committee members were almost all over thirty, each priding themselves on the composure they'd forged through years of navigating society's complexities. But now even they were losing their calm. The wormhole was gone. If they hadn't crossed, the disaster would be beyond imagining.
Meng De frantically scanned their surroundings with his binoculars. No moon was visible on the water. Pitch darkness stretched in every direction except for the Fengcheng-centered zone blazing with lights—which only made the surrounding blackness seem more bottomless, an endless void.
"We should have made it," he muttered to himself. Something occurred to him, and he hurried to check the equipment.
"GPS has no signal!" he cried.
This reminded others to check their own devices. Several people pulled out phones—"Searching for signal"—but in the Qiongzhou Strait, cell coverage should have been normal.
Every radio frequency was blank—nothing but the hiss of static.
"Success!" The Committee members abandoned all pretense of composure and cheered.
Since this was the seventeenth century, whoever was on that motorboat hardly mattered anymore.
Zhao De's voice crackled over the radio: "Ship secured. Four prisoners. Appear to be tourists."
"Bring them all to the flagship."
The night stretched ahead of them. Approaching the coast in darkness was clearly too risky. The Committee decided that all ships would anchor in place and wait for dawn before making landfall. This was the seventeenth century—no vessel in existence could threaten theirs. For added safety, every ship turned on its main lights, illuminating the waters around them. Military Group personnel had already cracked open a crate of firearms from the North American sailboat and distributed them across the fleet. Now they had weapons and manpower—there was nothing to fear.
"Damn it, what are you doing! Bandits! Pirates! Hooligans! Thugs!" As Xiao Zishan opened the door, he heard an old man shouting with surprising vigor.
"Dad, stop yelling—let's talk this out..." A younger male voice tried to calm him.
"This is the Qiongzhou Strait, not the Red Sea or Somalia! The People's Navy isn't vegetarian!"
"Gentlemen, please, let's discuss this reasonably. We're ordinary citizens, not wealthy people—just a family visiting Hainan..." This was a middle-aged woman's voice, measured and diplomatic.
Xiao Zishan instinctively tugged at his collar and straightened his cap—he still wasn't used to wearing a uniform. He pushed open the cabin door and entered.
The situation was quickly clarified. The four people on the motorboat were a family: an elderly couple and their son and daughter-in-law, on holiday in Hainan. The old man had served in the navy for many years and knew all the units stationed around the island. Rather than buying ferry tickets for the strait crossing, he'd borrowed an old speedboat from a former military buddy, eager to relive his seafaring days. Near Bopu Port, they'd encountered a strange storm. When it subsided, everything was pitch dark, and they'd spotted the nearby ships. Approaching the sailboat had been simply to ask for directions—the speedboat had no navigation equipment beyond a compass. Then they'd found themselves inexplicably captured by men from two fishing boats.
"Please rest for now," Xiao Zishan said, maintaining his smile. "It's dark outside. We'll talk when it's light." He thought: How could I possibly explain this? They'd think I'd escaped from a mental hospital.
"You'll let us ashore at dawn?" asked the son, who had the look of a civil servant about him. Xiao Zishan noticed the man kept glancing at his attractive wife throughout the conversation.
"Sir, we really are just ordinary people. What's the point of holding us?" The old lady was explaining again. Despite the sudden ordeal and the presence of several fierce-looking men with five-shot shotguns, she remained composed—speaking clearly and without panic. Clearly someone accustomed to handling difficult situations.
"Look, let me be frank. My husband served in the navy right here. My daughter-in-law is in law enforcement. Maritime, coast guard, customs, fishery enforcement, plus the navy—this strait is constantly patrolled. Does kidnapping us make any sense? We're just ordinary people. We don't want to be heroes. Once we're off this ship, we go our separate ways. Consider our belongings lost if you want..."
The old lady's words were soft yet firm—impressive. Far more composed than her son and daughter-in-law. Xiao Zishan nodded politely and stood.
"Everything can wait until tomorrow." He moved toward the door. "You'll see—this is a new world!"
End of Volume One: Setting Sail
(End of Chapter)