Chapter 10: The Unexpected Stowaway

“Building B?” Liu Zheng thought that was strange. Although he didn’t know what this camp looked like, it certainly wouldn’t be a large building divided into Building A and Building B.

The entire camp was planned out neatly, with tents arranged in a grid pattern. To prevent dampness, the ground was raised with a layer of sand, and a layer of lime and realgar was sprinkled around to repel snakes and insects.

Following the camp sign at the intersection, he quickly found his tent’s location. It turned out that the so-called Building A and Building B were just the distinctions for the male singles’ area and the couples/family area. A road, brightly lit, separated the two areas.

“Not bad, they’ve considered things quite thoughtfully.” Liu Zheng had brought his wife along. It would be too boring to live separately after a long day of labor. He suddenly frowned. “What’s that smell?”

The camp was filled with a strange odor—a mixture of the pesticide sprayed by the health group to repel snakes and insects and the smell of burning mugwort. What dissatisfied him even more was that “No Smoking!” signs had already been hung up in the camp’s passages. The thing Liu Zheng wanted to do most at this moment was to take out the carton of 555 cigarettes from his backpack and have a few puffs.

He had quite a few good things in his backpack: camping gear, military field rations from various countries—Liu Zheng didn’t quite trust the Executive Committee’s logistical support capabilities. Besides, even if there was a cafeteria, such public canteens were typically a model of both poor efficiency and poor taste. For the first few days, they would definitely be eating dry rations. It was better to rely on himself for food and clothing.

While logging in the mangrove forest, he had already woven several net bags for himself out of thin vines. The mangrove forest was a paradise for living creatures, with an abundance of fish, shrimp, and crabs. During a few breaks, he had caught about a pound of shrimp and a crab, which he had tied up with vines, preparing for a feast with his wife at night.

Outside the tents along the road, transmigrators were eating dry rations with water in small groups—it seemed the cafeteria was a no-go. Some people were too tired and were already snoring loudly in their tents.

As he was walking, several members of the military group led by Ran Yao, holding torches, came over with a person with a black plastic bag over their head and stopped him.

“Night inspection. Show me your ID card.” Ran Yao’s voice involuntarily reminded Liu Zheng of his days in Beijing.

He handed over his ID card. The scanner quickly displayed his ID number on the PDA.

“Are you Liu Zheng?”

“Yes, that’s me.” Liu Zheng was a little confused. Did they need to check for temporary residence permits here? Or did the Executive Committee have some business with him?

“Did you bring foreign military field rations?”

“Yes, I did.” Liu Zheng thought they might be requisitioning them, which would not be acceptable.

“What brand, and how many?”

“How could I remember that clearly? Let me think, MREs number four, seven, eight…”

“Alright,” Ran Yao interrupted him and exchanged a look with the surrounding military group members. He pulled out four or five brown plastic bags from the bag in his hand, along with a carton of 555s. Liu Zheng recognized at a glance that these were the reserve supplies he had brought. He had even put a special label on the seal of the cigarette carton.

“My cigarettes!”

“We found these on this guy,” Ran Yao gestured. “He was just coming out of your tent.”

“Ah!” Liu Zheng had never dreamed that someone would steal things on the first day of the transmigration. Humanity, oh humanity, so ugly!

“We didn’t expect it either. We originally thought it was overkill for the Executive Committee to have the military group patrol within the camp. We didn’t expect to catch someone in the act on the first day.”

“What do we do with this guy?”

“That’s not our business. Let the Executive Committee handle it.” Ran Yao smiled. “If this were the 21st century, for a crime of this value, he’d just get a lecture and be released, or at most be detained for two days.”

Watching the group walk away, Liu Zheng, holding his cigarettes, couldn’t help but feel sorry for the unlucky guy. To get a black mark on his record right at the beginning was too tragic. He even lost the interest to go to the seaside for a smoke.

Ran Yao took the man to the command post, intending to question him first before reporting to the Executive Committee for a decision. The man they had just caught had too many suspicious points besides the theft.

When they arrested him, the man had tried to resist. Although he was quickly subdued, he clearly had some martial arts skills. A body search revealed a Type 64 pistol, not a crude homemade one, but a genuine article with a serial number. Ran Yao knew very well that genuine Type 64 pistols were not common on the black market. Some transmigrators had the channels and ability to get firearms, but they would never go for a Type 64 pistol, known for its weak power.

When they took off the hood under the light, the mystery deepened. The man before them looked young at first glance, with ordinary features, but his eyes were sharp and experienced. Ran Yao was familiar with such a gaze—he should be a colleague. There were very few police colleagues among the transmigrators, and he knew them all. He had never seen this one before. And then there was that Type 64 pistol…

His clothes were the standard tropical training uniform of the transmigrators, and he wore a basic laborer’s armband, but he had no electronic dog tag.

“Name, age, occupation?” Ran Yao asked casually. “Where is your ID card?”

The young man lowered his head and said nothing. Although Ran Yao had never conducted an interrogation, he had seen many criminals. He had seen all kinds of expressions and attitudes, but never one like this—extreme confusion.

After a long time, he finally spoke, asking a question in return, “Who are you?”

Ran Yao was taken aback. Since he had bravely rescued Director Wen, there were very few transmigrators who didn’t know him.

“I am Ran Yao, leader of the Public Security Group.”

“Public Security Group? The Public Security Group of where?” Guo Yi sized him up and down. This was the guy who had led the charge to tackle him just now. It was indeed the takedown technique of the public security or armed police system, and his demeanor was also very similar—it’s always easy to recognize one of your own. Why was a policeman also wearing the clothes issued by the Transmigration Company? How did he get on the ship?

Questions piled up one after another, but for Guo Yi, from yesterday to today, the questions had already piled up into a mountain.

It turned out that after Guo Yi and the two American agents knew the ship’s destination, they had tracked it to the port. To their disappointment, the cargo on the ship was nothing special; it was all loaded by the local port services company. After getting the cargo list, the three of them studied it for a long time but couldn’t figure out Wen Desi’s purpose. But during their surveillance, they discovered that Wen Desi had boarded the Fengcheng with his people. After discussion, the three of them decided to go undercover. They got themselves similar outfits to the people boarding the ship, and with the help of the port authority, they secretly boarded the ship and hid. The senior crew members of the ship knew about this. To be on the safe side, he had also notified his superiors of his action plan.

The development of events was unexpected. That night, when Xue Ziliang discovered that the sailboat suspected of arms smuggling had indeed rendezvoused with the Fengcheng, he thought his chance for glory had arrived. Just as he was excitedly dialing his phone to report, the signal suddenly cut out.

For the next night and day, the three of them spent their time in panic. First, no one’s mobile phone could get a signal, not even Xue Ziliang’s expensive satellite phone. Then, after dawn, Guo Yi found that the ship had arrived at a completely unfamiliar and desolate place.

The three of them all believed that the ship had arrived at some remote island harbor in Vietnam—this was possible based on the ship’s speed and the surrounding geographical environment. But the satellite phone still couldn’t get a signal. It wasn’t interference; there was simply no signal at all—an inexplicable phenomenon.

Seeing the ship begin to disembark passengers and unload cargo, in order to find out what was going on, Guo Yi simply mixed into the crowd queuing to get off the ship and grabbed a basic laborer’s armband in the chaos. No one noticed that there was an extra person without a group on the beach. The military group’s security perimeter was set up on the outskirts, and they never imagined there was a spy on the ship. He wandered around the camp like this for a day, until he got hungry and thought of getting something to eat to take back. He never expected to be caught in the act. Although it was for work, if his colleagues found out about it later, they would laugh their heads off.

“Executive Committee, Internal and Civil Affairs Committee, Public Security Group! Any problem?”

Guo Yi raised his head. He didn’t understand what Ran Yao was saying at all, but this organization clearly did not belong to the People’s Republic of China. Could it be some criminal organization?

Ran Yao was now almost certain: this person was not a transmigrator. He thought of the family that had been sucked in by the wormhole last night. Could this person be one of them too? But he had clearly come with a purpose and a target. From his actions of stealing an armband and sneaking into the camp, he was not an innocent victim.

“Alright, I’ve answered you. Who are you, and what are you doing sneaking among us?”

Guo Yi remained resolutely silent. He became more and more convinced that these people were extremely ruthless organized criminals. From what he had seen and heard all day, he saw many professionals at work, unloading a large amount of equipment and machinery. The guards were well-equipped, and many were ex-military. And then there was this colleague interrogating him…

The power of this criminal gang was too great! Smuggling weapons from the United States, building a base in Vietnam, hiring demobilized soldiers and police… Guo Yi shivered. It was over. He had fallen into the hands of this group. He would definitely be severely tortured and die a miserable death. Although Little Guo knew from the day he started his job that its nature could make him a martyr at any time, martyrs were, after all, a minority, with only one or two every few years. Besides, a martyr doesn’t know beforehand that they will die heroically, which is much better than him waiting to become a martyr now.

Resolutely do not yield. Little Guo, educated by the Party for many years, strengthened his resolve and continued to remain silent. Torture me if you want. Now he only hoped that the two foolish Americans could escape. That way, there would still be some hope of rescue. He just didn’t know if they were as heroic as they were in American movies.

Ran Yao knew he was a little scared; that was only human. But he took his own duty very seriously and resolutely refused to speak—this was a bit troublesome. Torture was obviously not an option. Even if he had ulterior motives for sneaking onto the ship, in this time-space, he could only become a companion. Explain? Ran Yao really didn’t know how to explain it. Would he be treated as a mental patient? Today, Xiao Zishan had spent a whole afternoon explaining their situation to that family, and besides receiving countless Sichuan-flavored curses, he hadn’t convinced anyone.