The other team came back from the north side of the treeline just as we were clearing the pier.
There were six of them, led by a tall girl named Chen Yibing who Mr. Hao had apparently trusted with the scouting job, which I filed as useful information about how he was reading the group. They came through the tree edge looking tired but not rattled, which was a decent sign.
Mr. Hao met them halfway. We naturally drifted closer.
I didn't make it obvious. Just adjusted my bag and walked slow.
Yibing did most of the talking. Her team had covered the northern and western sides of the island on foot. The terrain was manageable, no cliffs on the north face, just a gradual rocky slope down to a narrow beach. The western interior was the densest part of the treeline, old growth, the canopy thick enough that the ground underneath stayed relatively dry even near the water table.
She'd found a clearing about three hundred meters northwest of the current campsite. Flat, natural windbreak on two sides from a ridge formation, close enough to the treeline to access wood but open enough to see approaches from multiple directions.
One of the boys in her group mentioned a freshwater stream running south from somewhere deeper in the island. Small but consistent flow. Clean looking, though nobody had tested it.
I kept walking and listening.
Stream location, north-northwest. Clearing with natural windbreak, defensible if needed, good for permanent structure later. Rocky beach on the north face, secondary access point, also secondary escape point if the pier became a problem. Dense western interior, resources, cover, and things that could come from it that we hadn't seen yet.
I adjusted the weight of the supply bag on my shoulder.
Mr. Hao thanked Yibing's team and stood for a moment looking at the current campsite, tents half-pitched, bags scattered, thirty-something students in varying states of composure sitting on whatever was available. The afternoon had done its work on people. The panic of midday had settled into a quieter, heavier version of itself that was in some ways harder to manage.
He nodded once, made a decision, and turned to the group.
"We're moving camp."
---
Three teams on the relocation. Yibing's group as guides since they knew the path. My team on supply transport. A third mixed group on tent and gear carry. Mr. Hao moving between all three, supervising with the systematic energy of a man who had decided that being useful was the only thing keeping him functional right now.
The walk to the clearing took about fifteen minutes with full loads. The last stretch was slightly uphill, which Wang Lee narrated continuously.
The clearing was better than it had sounded. Yibing's description was accurate, the ridge on the northwest side cut the wind and the natural tree arrangement on the east gave coverage without closing off sightlines. The ground was firm. Someone had already estimated the rough dimensions and the space could fit the group's tents with room for a central fire area and a perimeter.
Mr. Hao walked the clearing once completely before saying anything.
"Tents in two rows, here and here. Fire pit center. Supply storage in the largest tent, separate, and two people on it at all times." He pointed. "We keep a clear path back toward the pier at all times. No blocking that corridor."
The setup took the better part of two hours.
Tent poles and ground stakes and the specific kind of low-level organized chaos that happens when thirty-something people work on something together with unequal skill levels.
A few people were genuinely useful, moving with purpose and knowing which end of a tent peg did what. Most were functional with direction. A few stood around looking lost until someone handed them something specific to hold.
Tianxu worked without stopping. He didn't organize or direct, just identified whatever needed physical force and applied it. Tent stakes going in at the wrong angle, straightened. A supply crate too heavy for two people, relocated by one. At one point a section of the larger tent frame was bending wrong under tension and he held it in position with one arm for four minutes while two others sorted the connectors.
I worked on the fire pit setup and the supply storage organization simultaneously, moving between the two as needed. The fire pit needed to be functional but also positioned so the smoke direction stayed manageable in the prevailing wind. The storage tent needed a logical internal structure, medical separate from food separate from tools, accessible in a specific order based on what we'd need first in different scenarios.
Mirae appeared beside me at the storage tent without being asked and started on the medical section with the same logic I was using on the tools. Same system, arrived at independently. I looked at her once.
She shrugged slightly. "Obvious arrangement."
"Yeah," I said.
We finished it in half the time.
Minxue had spent the tent-building phase managing the students who were struggling, not loudly, just quietly redirecting, sitting next to the girl who'd gone to the ground earlier and saying something that got her back on her feet within a few minutes. I noticed this from across the clearing and then went back to the fire pit.
By the time the light was fully gold and dropping, Hulian's temporary home for class 2-B had a shape. Two rows of tents, a fire pit with a proper base, a stocked and organized storage tent, and a corridor kept deliberately clear running southeast toward the pier.
Mr. Hao stood at the edge of the clearing and looked at it for a moment.
"Good," he said, which was the most he'd given anyone all day and landed accordingly.
Food was next.
Mr. Hao had done the math during the build, I'd watched him with his notebook, cross-referencing the supply inventory list I'd handed him against the headcount, writing and crossing out and rewriting. He came out of it with a distribution structure that he read out to the group with the same flat tone he used for reading academic schedules.
Two days minimum before any confirmed external assistance arrived, possibly three. Food supplies treated as lasting four days at current inventory, meaning rationing from day one, no exceptions or negotiation.
Per person per meal, specific.
He handed out the first distribution himself, moving down the line with Yibing assisting. Each person got their portion. The amounts were enough to not be miserable but not enough to feel like dinner.
People ate mostly in silence, which was its own kind of atmosphere, the specific quiet of a group that has run out of energy for noise.
I took my portion, sat near the fire, and ate methodically. About two thirds through I stopped, wrapped the remainder carefully in the packaging, and put it in the side pocket of my bag. Not because I wasn't still hungry, I was, but because tomorrow morning was a variable and variables were easier to handle with something in reserve.
Across the fire, Minxue ate neatly. All of it, at her own pace. She caught me looking at nothing in particular in her direction and looked back, then at the fire.
"Think it'll rain?" she asked.
I looked at the sky visible through the clearing. "Not tonight."
Two spots down from her, Tianxu stared at his portion for a long moment after finishing. Then, with the deliberate movements of a man making a considered decision, he folded the remaining quarter, which hadn't been much, into his jacket pocket.
Wang Lee, beside him, had already done the same thing three minutes earlier.
Tianxu noticed.
"You saved yours," he said.
"Obviously," Wang Lee said.
"I thought you said food was morale."
"It is. Future-me's morale." Wang Lee patted his pocket. "Current-me is making a sacrifice for future-me. It's called delayed gratification. Very mature psychological behavior."
Tianxu stared at him.
"That's the same thing I just did."
"Yes."
"You made me feel weird about doing it."
"You watched me do it first and then did it yourself. I don't control your feelings, Tianxu."
"You literally—" Tianxu stopped. Breathed. "You are the most—"
"Smart? Adaptive? Metabolically conscious?"
"I was going to say annoying."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive," Wang Lee said pleasantly, and adjusted his portion in his pocket to a more comfortable position.
The fire crackled. Someone further back in the group was talking quietly. The island made its small sounds around the edges of the clearing, wind through the upper canopy, something small moving in the brush, the distant low sound of water that was probably the stream Yibing's team had found.
Hulian at night was different from Hulian in the afternoon.
I looked at the treeline.
The firelight reached maybe eight meters before it gave up against the dark. Beyond that, the trees were just shapes, and beyond the shapes was an island we had covered maybe thirty percent of in one afternoon with no real equipment and fading light.
Seventy percent of this island was still unknown.
I thought about the fish with eyes in no right place. About the empty water at the pier, the stream running from somewhere deeper in, somewhere we hadn't been, flowing outward toward the coast and then into the larger water that connected to the mainland where everything had already gone wrong.
The stream flowed from the interior.
I added that to the list of things to think about tomorrow and pulled my jacket closer.
Across the fire, Wang Lee had already fallen asleep sitting up, which seemed physically improbable. Tianxu was watching the treeline with the same expression I probably had, minus whatever Minxue thought she was reading on my face.
Mirae was sharpening one of the kit knives against a flat stone, slow and even, like someone who'd done it before.
Mr. Hao was writing in his notebook by firelight, still running numbers and planning.
The mainland was out there somewhere across the dark water.