Chapter 45: New World

By first light, the Fengcheng was already astir. Last night's events—particularly the spectacular collapse and disappearance of the wormhole—had become an inexhaustible topic of conversation. Most passengers belowdecks hadn't witnessed it firsthand, but DV footage and digital photos were circulating freely, passed from hand to hand like contraband.

The Executive Committee hadn't yet ordered the anchors raised, and people were already discovering the first crisis no one had anticipated: feeding this many mouths was simply impossible. The ship's galley had been designed for a crew of forty. Now the Fengcheng alone carried four hundred. Worse still, basic sanitation had become a nightmare. Lines snaked outside every toilet. Those who couldn't wait clambered precariously onto the swaying small-craft deck and relieved themselves directly into the sea.

"Committee Member Ma, this is unacceptable!" Beiwei, newly appointed as landing reconnaissance squad leader, stormed up to the poop deck and confronted Ma Qianzhu, the landing commander. "All this waste in the water will attract sharks. A landing under these conditions is far too dangerous!"

Ma Qianzhu spread his hands helplessly. "What am I supposed to do? Ten toilet stalls for four hundred people."

"If you don't get this under control, accidents will happen. Forget the sharks—people are crawling around on those wobbly boat decks. One slip and there's no point even trying to fish them out."

Before he could respond, Auntie Tian from the cafeteria appeared, looking equally overwhelmed.

"Committee Member Ma, what should we do? Everyone wants congee, but the ship's galley can't possibly cook for four hundred people in time..."

Ma Qianzhu had just been lectured by Beiwei, and now someone was pestering him about breakfast porridge. Watching problems multiply before the landing plan had even begun, his patience frayed. "Take this to Xiao Zishan—isn't he your supervisor?"

"But you're the landing commander. Everything on this ship falls under your authority."

Wasn't this mess your own doing? And now you're asking me? Ma Qianzhu seethed inwardly, but he couldn't explode at her. Auntie Tian was past fifty, had risked her life crossing over to help build a new world. He forced himself to speak gently, kicking the problem back down the chain. "Make as much as you can. Distribute it in batches—something's better than nothing. Go discuss it with Zishan."

Strictly speaking, the congee wasn't necessary. Everyone had two days' worth of dry rations. With adequate freshwater, they could survive on energy bars.

The problem was that Auntie Tian, upon discovering the ship had a galley, had simply started cooking breakfast out of habit. Before dawn, Li Yuanyuan from the General Affairs Group had led several young women to deliver fresh congee and steamed buns to the Committee members in the ship's superstructure. Each person had even received a small dish of packaged pickles and a few fried peanuts.

The moment Ma Qianzhu saw it, he knew trouble was coming. The masses didn't mind scarcity—they minded inequality. Why should you leaders eat hot congee and fresh buns while we commoners gnaw energy bars that taste like expired mooncake filling, washed down with cold water? Starting the enterprise with differential treatment would scatter hearts and make the group impossible to lead. So the Committee ate their congee furtively, keeping well away from the portholes. Ma Qianzhu snatched up the internal phone. "Engine room? Max out the desalination equipment! We need to fully ensure freshwater supply!"

"'Fully ensure'—who the hell are you?" came an indignant voice from the other end. "The desalination system only produces this much. You want us to piss freshwater?" Ma Qianzhu recognized Xiao Bailang's voice—a mechanical processing specialist who also handled equipment installation and management. He'd been assigned three months aboard to learn engine operations.

No respect for leadership! Ma Qianzhu fumed silently. You sissy, just watch me sell you to Thailand! After venting mentally, he realized there was nothing useful he could do here. He might as well follow Beiwei down to the deck.

Dong Shiye sat on deck with his back against his pack. His legs had gone weak climbing down from the small-craft deck—the sea yawning right between his dangling feet, one glance enough to make you dizzy. Fortunately, the ship had almost no motion. The water lay calm as glass, and the waning moon at the horizon was slowly fading. Watching the crowds queue at the toilets while cursing colorfully, he decided the risk had been worth it.

There was no place to wash his hands, but he'd prepared for this long ago. He fished out a disinfecting wipe—he'd brought plenty of toilet paper, wipes, and water-purification tablets. Relying entirely on the organization was a fool's game. He didn't take out a cup to brush his teeth either. Along both railings, people were spitting toothpaste foam into the sea, leaving white streaks down the hull. Quite a sight. He made do with dental floss and a piece of chewing gum. Keeping his neatly packed backpack sealed—that was his principle.

The Committee's congee caused a brief commotion. Dong Shiye didn't bother joining the crowd. Each batch of four large pots served only forty people, one bowl each. The wait was too long. He didn't gnaw those awful energy bars either. He'd brought PLA individual special rations; some compressed biscuits with water would do fine. Drinking congee meant having to wash the bowl afterward. Without washing, the bowl became a petri dish for bacteria.

Looking out from the ship, the coastline that had been pitch-black last night was now clearly visible. Lingao was supposedly a well-developed county, but this stretch of coast looked utterly uninhabited.

The beach off the beam was narrow, covered with dark gravel—nothing like the azure sea and silver sand of Hainan tourism posters. Behind it rose a low escarpment, the rock fractured by ancient earthquakes into gaps of various sizes and shapes. In some places, gentle slopes led to the cliff top.

Looking west, less than a nautical mile from the Fengcheng, a promontory jutted from the land—that would be Bopu Port's river mouth. The cape was thick with mangroves leaning toward the water, their branches reaching out as if straining to touch their own reflections. These mangroves were lush and verdant, extending across nearly the entire coastal area and into the shallows. A botanist would have jumped for joy—such a complete mangrove ecosystem was extraordinarily rare in twenty-first-century Hainan.

Dong Shiye suddenly noticed something strange: among all these coastal trees, there wasn't a single coconut palm. This amazed the veteran outdoor enthusiast. Coconut palms were hardy trees, common on tropical and subtropical islands everywhere. What he didn't know was that Lingao originally had no coconut palms at all—the coconuts of twenty-first-century Lingao had only been introduced starting in the 1930s.

On the beach, great flocks of seabirds wheeled and dove, their cries raucous in the morning air—mostly various gulls, plus some loons. Obviously, such dense flocks were rarely seen in the twenty-first century. The wild, primordial feeling was almost oppressive. Clearly, humans had barely touched this place.

A commotion erupted on the Fengcheng's starboard side. Led by Beiwei, the first landing reconnaissance squad—rifles and machetes strapped across their backs—climbed down the boarding ladder under everyone's watchful gaze and boarded the motorboat.

The reconnaissance squad consisted of military personnel, surveyors, and geologists. Their mission: scout the port and coastal terrain for several kilometers, gather hydrographic data, and locate any villages and water sources. They carried walkie-talkies, defensive weapons, 8×25 binoculars, surveying tools, and a three-megapixel camcorder.

To handle potential emergencies, everyone wore stab-resistant vests, camouflage, and steel helmets. The Committee had originally wanted to issue them riot gear, but Beiwei refused—while excellent for protection, it was too cumbersome for active movement.

"Be careful!" Ma Qianzhu called from the boarding ladder.

Beiwei turned. "Don't worry." Then he descended into the motorboat.

The engine's putt-putt-putt broke a primordial silence centuries ahead of schedule. The motorboat cut through the waves, speeding toward the hazy coastline.

Beiwei led the landing party with full authority over security. Landing Command's orders were clear: prioritize information gathering; avoid armed conflict with locals. If contact occurred, they were to learn what they could about local conditions. For this purpose, Xiong Buyou had been specifically included. Normally, this manga-company homebody had no business being in a first-wave recon team, but he spoke the Lingao dialect and would serve as interpreter.

The Lingao dialect was an anomaly among Hainan's languages. In modern Hainan, only parts of Lingao, Danzhou, and Chengmai used it. Not only was it vastly different from Mandarin, it was completely distinct from Hainan's mainstream Qiongzhou dialect. Linguists generally considered it to share origins with Guangxi's Zhuang language.

This linguistic difference had always set Lingao apart in Hainan, limiting outside contact and fostering a rather closed social environment.

Xiong Buyou had originally planned to wear the chainmail he'd brought at the cost of precious luggage weight, but Beiwei firmly refused—too heavy. A stab-resistant vest was far more practical.

Their maps would have significant errors. While they possessed the largest-scale Lingao county map and topographic chart available, four hundred years of change meant the accuracy was uncertain at best—purely better than nothing. Therefore, Beiwei decided not to approach the shore immediately. Instead, they would head directly toward the area's most prominent landmark: Lingao Cape.

(End of Chapter)