That was too blunt. Su Li paused mid-motion.
Old Buck didn't look at him. He stood and headed outside. "Once your mother and I are gone, whether you keep dragging your feet will be your own business."
He paused at the door.
"That shovel—the edge just needs to be tempered and adjusted a little more."
With that, he went out.
Su Li sat on the stool, watching Old Buck's back disappear into the sunlight beyond the door.
The brawny man who had once swung a sledgehammer twenty years ago now walked with the beginnings of a stoop.
Su Li lowered his head and looked at his own hands. They were exactly the same as on the day he had first awakened—distinct knuckles, smooth skin, not even a single white hair.
A fifth-tier lifespan was too long. The ordinary people around him would grow old, then leave.
He clenched his fists and rose, walking over to the furnace.
The shovel still hung on the rack. Its edge had indeed been cut a little too deep.
He took it down and fed it back into the furnace.
Night fell.
Su Li sat in the courtyard, studying a sea chart. He had looked over the outline of the southern archipelago thousands of times; he could draw it with his eyes closed.
Silver was dozing at his feet. The cat was twenty years old now. Its coat had gone from gray-white to pure white, and its belly was a whole size larger than in its youth. These days, it slept eighteen hours a day. When awake, it did only two things: eat and find somewhere else to sleep.
Elonore came over from the workshop, carrying a stack of blueprints.
"The pressure-resistance test data for version sixty-one." She set the blueprints on the table.