The sky turned dark. The numerous canoes sailed on the surface of the water. There were burning torches one on each of them to light up the path.
Isaac was with Guo Chen and Wang Mei in the same canoe. Behind him, 600 canoes followed suit. They entered the mangrove forest. Their canoes kept moving forward along the flow of the stream, following Cheng Ho's canoe at the front. Strange noises were heard as they entered the mangrove forest.
After they had rowed in the darkness of the forest for an hour, they arrived at a vast area of water with an island in the middle. They quickly extinguished the light from the torches. Cheng Ho raised his hands in the air and twirled his fingers, then some of the canoes parted from the group.
One hundred canoes consisting of 5 crew members moved to the west. The remaining five hundred canoes were still in their place.
