Three days later, the outline of Water 7 appeared on the horizon.
The city of Water 7 on the sea, has a giant fountain in its center that is the heart of the city. It sends water dozens of meters into the air, where it disperses into mist and, when sunlight shines through it, forms a semi-permanent rainbow that spans the city's skyline.
The residents of Water 7 can see this rainbow every day. Tourists will stand at the bow of the boat to take pictures when they come for the first time, while locals can't even be bothered to lift their eyelids.
Damian had seen this rainbow many times, and each time it felt somewhat unreal, as if someone had casually drawn an arc in the sky with colored chalk and forgotten to erase it.
As the warships drew closer, details of the city emerged from the sea fog.
The buildings in Water 7 are built along the water, at varying heights, with vines climbing the white stone walls and red roofs forming undulating waves in the sunlight.
The city's waterways stretched out like a spider web, with small, pointed boats floating on the surface. Dozens of merchant ships were moored at the outer docks, their masts as dense as a withered forest.
The shipyard's cranes stand tall in the port area, with huge wooden ship skeletons suspended in the air beneath them. Workers stand on scaffolding, hammering and banging away, the sound of their hammers audible from a great distance.
Water 7 one of the most prosperous cities in the first half of the Grand Line. Shipbuilding is the lifeblood of this city, and nearly half of the merchant ships in the entire "Paradise" are built in the shipyards here. Barlow chose to set up the Grand Line headquarters here, both because of the convenience of shipbuilding and to protect this irreplaceable trade hub.
As the warship approached the harbor, the port officer on the watchtower raised his binoculars and took a look.
He first saw the seagull flag on the warship, and was about to have his naval pass checked according to procedure. Then he saw the red-and-white Fan Flag next to the seagull flag.
The port officer took the binoculars off his eyes, blinked, raised them again to check, then lowered them and shouted down, "Let them through!"
The winch at the port entrance creaked and groaned as it turned, and the cable slowly sank into the water.
The warship did not slow down and sailed directly through the port entrance.
The dockworkers, who were unloading cargo, saw a warship flying a round Fan Flag sail in. They glanced up at it, then continued working, their expressions largely unfazed.
The warship slowly docked and came to a stop. After the gangway was lowered, the sailors filed out, their steps light and their faces beaming with undisguised smiles.
Damian gave them several days off. For the marines who had been at sea for months and had just experienced patrols and combat, these few days were enough to find a good restaurant in Water 7, have some drinks, and get a good night's sleep without having to listen to the sound of the waves.
Damian was the last to disembark.
He changed into casual clothes: a dark blue shirt and black trousers.
The headquarters of the Uchiha Trading Company was not located in the most bustling central square of Water 7, but was built on the water on the east side near the shipyard dock.
This is the location of Barlow. Being close to the shipyard means being close to customers, while being far from the administrative center means not having to spend more time dealing with officials.
The building is five stories high, with an exterior facade made of off-white stone. Above the main entrance is a carved round Gunbai made of White Wax Wood, the same material used for all the doors and windows inside the building.
This White Wax Wood Gunbai was specially brought from White Wax Island by Barlow, who said that the headquarters signboard must be made of White Wax Wood and no other wood would do.
A young girl sat at the front desk, wearing the Uchiha Trading Company's uniform dark blue color, with Gunbai Brooch pinned to her left breast.
She looked up and saw Damian push the door open and come in. She immediately stood up, so quickly that she almost knocked over her chair.
She had worked at the Chamber of Commerce for three years and had seen Damian from afar twice a year at the annual meeting, but this was the first time she had bumped into him up close.
"The president is in his office on the top floor." Her final statement skipped all standard procedures.
Damian nodded to her and walked straight to the stairs.
The Chamber of Commerce building was equipped with an elevator, the latest model in Water 7, driven by water pressure. Water droplets were still on the outer wall of the iron cage, but he still preferred to take the stairs, as if he was reminiscing about the two-story old house he lived in when he was young.
The building was so quiet that only the hum of the air conditioner could be heard. There was an extra soundproof door between the fifth and fourth floors, which was closed and had a small brass plaque hanging on it that read "President's Office".
He pushed open the door, and at the end of the corridor was a double black oak door with a gleaming brass handle.
There was no secretary, no receptionist, and no assistant; this was Barlow's habit. The entire top floor served as his private office area.
Damian pushed open the office door.
The office was larger than he remembered; it was probably because business had been booming in the last two years, and the original space couldn't accommodate everyone, so they had knocked down the adjacent room as well.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows was the shipyard's dock, where cranes and unfinished ship skeletons moved silently. Beside the window sat a huge black oak desk, its surface covered with a complete nautical chart of the Grand Line.
The nautical chart was marked with different colored markers. The blue markers indicated ports that the Uchiha Trading Company, which he was familiar with, had already signed contracts with. The red markers indicated competing ports, of which there were only a few left. The yellow markers indicated shipping routes that needed to be expanded.
Next to the nautical chart were several stacks of documents awaiting processing, as neat as a brick wall, each stack labeled with the document category and deadline.
Barlow was not sitting behind his desk.
He stood by the window, his back to the door, holding a Den Den Mushi (a type of Den Den Mushi) and talking on it.
The Den Den Mushi's face was set to a serious mode, with its eyebrows lowered and eyelids half-closed.
Barlow himself spoke calmly and deliberately, each word carefully chosen. "Article 5, Section 3 of the contract, read it carefully. The penalty for breach of contract is thirty percent of the value of this shipment. If you find it acceptable, sign it. If not, let's part ways amicably and compete fairly. Read it carefully yourself before you come back to me."
He hung up the Den Den Mushi, placed it on the windowsill, and the Den Den Mushi immediately closed its eyes and fell asleep, emitting a soft snoring sound.
Barlow turned around.
Damian was considered to be of average build in the Navy, but Barlow was thinner, a result of long hours of intense mental work and irregular eating habits.
He was the kind of person who considered eating a waste of time. His cheekbones were more prominent than a few years ago, his facial lines were more defined, and it was as if a layer of excess fat had been shaved off the angles of his face, leaving only the necessary contours.
Her hair was styled more meticulously than before, her sideburns were neatly trimmed, her shirt was buttoned up to the top, and a minimalist silver fan-shaped Gunbai pin was pinned to her collar.
His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, revealing an old watch on his left wrist. The watch strap was made of White Wax Wood, a memento left by his father. It wasn't very accurate anymore, but he still wore it Tenten.
His eyes hadn't changed; they remained as calm as frozen water. When he looked at you, you couldn't see any extra emotion, only something vaguely moving beneath the ice.
But when he saw Damian standing at the door, a few very slight cracks appeared on the ice, and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
"The report says this vacation will last a few days?" Barlow turned around and, without any pleasantries, got straight to the point.
This was Barlow's style of greeting, not wasting a single word on something already confirmed, since he had already written "How have you been, elder brother?" in his letter, so there was no need to ask a second time.
"A little over a week." Damian walked into the office and closed the door behind him.
"Admiral White Bird has spared a few days, and Sengoku has agreed to help me watch over the patrol area."
Barlow nodded, walked around the desk, pulled a sticky note from the stack of documents on the corner of the desk, glanced at it, and put it back.
"That's enough. Roy started preparing the day before yesterday. He said he wanted to treat you to a meal on your first night in Water 7. Mila complained that the restaurant he booked was too noisy, and the two of them had another argument. In the end, Mila won."
His tone remained flat as he simply stated one thing. "After Roy lost, he doubled the training intensity, saying he wanted to vent his frustration on the new recruits."
"Do you call him the patrol captain or the devilish drill instructor?"
"No, his new title is 'Owner of the Uchiha Fitness Club,' which is what the new recruits call him in private. He's not angry about it; he considers it an honor."
Barlow's expression didn't change as he said these words, but Damian knew he was holding back laughter.
The two sat down across the desk. Barlow pulled out two white porcelain teacups from under the desk and poured hot tea into a thermos.
The teacup and teapot are the same style, white with blue rims, and the cup has a very faint Gunbai pattern fired on it.
Damian recognized the tea set as one of the Gwen items Gwen brought with her when she married into the West Blue, Barlow had moved it from White Wax Island to his office in Water 7.
"How are things on your end?" Damian picked up his teacup; the cup was too hot to handle, so he switched hands to hold it.
Barlow pushed his office chair back, leaned into the backrest, took a sip of his tea, and then said, "The Water 7 branch's third-quarter report just came out; revenue increased by seventeen percent compared to the same period last year."
"The route expansion plan formulated at the beginning of the year resulted in the signing of two more ports than expected. One of them is located at the entrance to the Grand Line, a crucial location that blocks the only route from Loguetown to Whiskey Peak. Koldo personally negotiated with them, and the negotiations lasted for over a month. The original owner of the port was a stubborn old man who refused to accept money or gifts. In the end, Koldo won him over with a nautical chart atlas. The old man liked to collect nautical charts, and we found that set in a secondhand bookstore in the West Blue. It is said that there are less than three sets left."
"Koldo is becoming more and more capable."
He's always been smart; he just didn't have a platform before.
Where's Mila?
Barlow picked up his teacup and took another sip. When he put the teacup back on the table, the bottom of the cup made a soft sound against the black oak.
"After Mila unified the East Blue Underworld, she's now implementing a regulation called the 'Sunshine Act.' It's inspired by your bounty hunter agreement model. You have bounty hunters sign formal contracts, and she has underworld bosses sign formal contracts. The contracts clearly state the terms of the transaction, stipulate penalties for breach of contract, and each party keeps a copy. Several pirates have already been held accountable for contract disputes, and then proactively compensated the affected businesses, without us even having to chase them for protection money."
"I asked her what the point of doing all this in the Underworld? She said she learned it from you, so you're to blame."
Damian placed the teacup on his lap, watching the steam rise from it. "What about Roy?"
"The patrol force has been expanded to include two main squadrons each from the East Blue and the Grand Line, doubling its total strength if I remember correctly."
Barlow rubbed his temples. "Actually, I was in the wrong. We shouldn't have expanded so quickly. Expansion means increased equipment procurement, logistical support, and training base costs. But I personally selected the recruits, doubled the training intensity, and had a 40% attrition rate. Mila thought he was too ruthless. He said, 'Those who aren't strong enough will die sooner or later anyway. It's better to be eliminated here and still live.'"
Damian was silent for a moment. The tone of Roy's voice when he said those words must have been exactly the same as when his father said on White Wax Island, "This ship wasn't built for you to display."
Barlow didn't pause for long.
He straightened up from the back of his chair and picked up a document from the table again. It was a summary of intelligence on the movements of new pirates Water 7, with threat ratings personally annotated by Koldo.
"This isn't urgent. There aren't many other things to do. Your situation is the most pressing on the agenda."
After saying that, he put the document back, closed the teacup lid, and stood up.
He walked around to the coat rack in the corner of the office, took down the suit jacket hanging there, and put it on, buttoning it up one button at a time.
Then he walked to the window and patted the Den Den Mushi that was still snoring.
The Den Den Mushi suddenly opened its eyes, glared at him with displeasure, but quickly adjusted its expression and returned to normal.
"Let's go, Roy and Mila are already preparing. I suggest you start planning your grilled fish meal in advance."
Damian put his teacup down on the corner of the table, stood up and stretched, his dark blue shirt billowing out from his shoulder blades.
Barlow pushed open the office door, glanced back at him, and Barlow expression was unusually warm, almost imperceptible.
The two walked out of the office together, the black oak door closing softly behind them. Barlow walked ahead, his footsteps light and rhythmic, while Damian followed behind, his soldierly steps habitually a little heavier.
As I stepped out of the Chamber of Commerce, the setting sun had already dyed the waterways of Water 7 City orange-red. The rainbow that eternally floated above the city was even more vibrant in the sunset than at noon, as if someone had felt it wasn't bright enough and had added a few more bold strokes of paint.
Several small, pointed boats were floating on the water, their lanterns gradually lighting up and shimmering as warm yellow dots in the darkening waterway.
In the distance, the last few shouts of a boatman hawking his fruit drifted up, followed by the crisp sound of oars cutting through the water. One by one, the windows of the waterfront houses lit up, their lights reflected on the water, shattered and pieced back together by the ripples.
Barlow stood on the stone steps at the entrance of the Chamber of Commerce, squinting at the waterway that was gradually darkening.
A human-powered waterwheel was already waiting at the bottom of the steps. The bottom of the waterwheel was boat-shaped, allowing it to travel directly through the waterway. The wheels were only for short-distance travel on land.
This is a unique mode of transportation in Water 7. Barlow always calls the same car when he goes out. The driver's boating skills are recognized as the best in the city. Because he almost crashed into the waterway when he first picked up Barlow forced him to practice rowing with his eyes closed.
Seeing Barlow and Damian emerge one after the other, the coachman obediently placed the oars on the water. Once the two were settled into the carriage, he turned and asked, "Master, shall we go to the usual place?"
"The usual place," Barlow replied.
The waterwheel left the stone steps, slid into the waterway, and merged into the River of Light in the night of the Water 7.