If her spirit watched from heaven, she would probably complain that his handwriting was ugly.
Salt Island.
The docks were three times wider than they had been a hundred years ago. Seventy percent of the moored ships were fitted with simplified propulsion engines, their low hum merging into one continuous sound.
Su Li stood by the docks for a while.
"Who are you looking for, sir?" A young man carrying a sack passed by and casually asked.
"No one. Just looking."
The young man sized him up. A face in his twenties, a faded old short shirt, a toolbox on his back. He looked like someone making a living around the docks.
"Take your time, then." The young man carried his sack away.
Su Li visited the island's small historical archive. It was a single-story building, with old documents and photographs stuffed into cabinets along three walls.
The curator was a plump woman wearing reading glasses. Su Li asked whether there were any records of an itinerant blacksmith from the early years.
The plump woman searched for a long while before finding a yellowed sheet of paper.
"This one? About a hundred years ago, a blacksmith of unknown origin opened a shop on the south shore and provided a simplified propulsion design. That's all there is—just these few lines."
Su Li glanced at those lines. There was no name, no description.
"Thanks."
He left the archive and took a turn around the south shore. The old shop had long since collapsed, and a dried-fish processing shed now stood on its original site.
Elven Forest.
The ancient oak at the entrance was still there. Its trunk had grown another full circle thicker over the past century, and its canopy covered half the sky.
Su Li handed all twenty-seven volumes