"Sorrow" Falls from the Sky

A fine drizzle fell as droplets continuously dripped from the edges of the salt-boiling shacks at Sea Salt Bay, pocking the hard-packed ground with tiny shallow pits.

Flames rose from a salt stove inside one of the shacks. Peat burned in the furnace, giving off waves of pungent, heavy smoke.

Beside the salt stove, Roger poured half a sack of coarse salt into the boiling water of a deep pot while Baldhead kept stirring with a wooden stick.

That half sack of coarse salt weighed roughly five pounds. It was salt crust scraped together from every corner of the salt workshop by Missing Tooth, Gambling Addict, and the others, saving them the step of boiling seawater down into coarse salt.

The slightly brownish-yellow grains of coarse salt gradually dissolved in the warm water, slowly dyeing the fresh water brought from the stream a pale yellow.

Roger took the long wooden stick from Baldhead and stirred the pot for a while. The coarse salt had completely dissolved into the boiling water, and the floating impurities were plainly visible to the naked eye.

"Igo, bring me my filtering apparatus." Roger stared without blinking at the salt solution in the pot as he called to Little Horseherd behind him.

Little Horseherd set out a wooden bucket that had been washed clean in the stream, then stretched a piece of fine linen over its mouth and secured it with a straw rope. The center of the cloth sagged slightly.

He then brought over a worn, coarse-cloth bundle. It held three layers of material: river sand dug from the stream at the bottom, a layer of wild grass like cattail fluff above it, its tiny fibers soft and fluffy as cotton, and washed fine pebbles picked from the stream at the top.

Little Horseherd opened the bundle and laid it flat over the fine linen stretched across the bucket's mouth. "Young Master Roger, can this method of yours really produce fine salt?"

Baldhead and Ponytail also gathered around curiously.

Ignoring everyone's doubtful looks, Roger picked up a wooden ladle and scooped brownish-yellow saltwater from the pot, slowly pouring it over the pebbles in the bundle atop the bucket. After a moment, the sound of a thin trickle came from the bottom of the bucket.

He repeated the process until all the saltwater in the pot had passed through the pebbles, charcoal chips, and river sand into the wooden bucket.

"Baldhead, Ponytail, hurry up and take the pot to the stream and scrub it clean. Don't slack off. Make sure it's properly cleaned."

Baldhead and Ponytail found a wooden pole, took the deep pot off the salt stove, and carried it toward the stream.

A while later, the two of them carried the deep pot back into the shack.

Roger carefully checked whether the deep pot had been scrubbed clean. "Put the pot back on the salt stove and add more peat."

After saying that, Roger walked over to the wooden bucket that had just filtered the saltwater. He carefully moved aside the coarse-cloth bundle, removed the fine linen from the bucket's mouth, and told Little Horseherd to wash it clean in the stream.

Then they lifted the wooden bucket and poured the now impurity-free saltwater back into the pot on the salt stove.

Over the next hour, Roger had Baldhead, Ponytail, and the others take turns stirring the saltwater. Under the fierce heat of the burning peat, the water in the iron pot gradually dwindled, and a thin layer of fine salt had already appeared along the upper inner wall of the pot...

"Ha, this salt is really white." Missing Tooth, who had slipped away earlier to avoid work, also came over. Looking at the pure white fine salt gradually crystallizing in the deep pot, he opened his mouth wide in amazement.

Little Horseherd could not resist reaching a finger toward the wall of the pot. Ignoring the heat burning his hand, he scraped off a little salt powder and tasted it. An expression of utter astonishment instantly appeared on his face.

"Young Master Roger, you... you..." Little Horseherd was so shocked that he did not know how to express himself. As the future successor to Milkhouse Manor's steward, he naturally understood the immense value of such exquisite fine salt.

Sea Salt Bay possessed abundant salt-making materials and plentiful peat fuel, but the cost of boiling salt with burning peat was naturally far higher than producing salt through natural sun-drying.

Moreover, the coarse salt here was no better in quality than that of England, the Kingdom of France, and the other nations to the south. With the English naval blockade and the exorbitant transportation costs added in, Salt Beach's coarse salt found it difficult to gain any advantage in the salt trade.

Especially compared to the "Bay Salt" sun-dried at Bourgneuf Bay in the Kingdom of France, the coarse salt here was practically priced like white gold.

For all these reasons, Allen Island's sea salt only supplied the islanders' own needs, with an occasional sale to fishermen on the surrounding mainland for salting fish. Thus, the scale of this saltworks could hardly continue expanding.

But if they could produce fine salt in bulk, the situation would be entirely different. A pound of fine salt cost five times as much as coarse salt, and the fine salt of this era was merely coarse salt that had been carefully selected and lightly ground. In essence, it was still coarse salt, only with finer grains and fewer impurities.

Even so, fine salt was still a luxury found only on noble tables. Whether fine salt was used directly symbolized whether a banquet was lavish.

The method for purifying coarse salt was not actually complicated, but people of this era had yet to master the technique. Perhaps a very few people in certain places had already discovered such a purification method, but in the information-blocked Middle Ages, it would take centuries for such a technique ahead of its time to spread.

Still, Roger had not planned to get rich from this stuff. He was only making a little fine salt to accommodate his own taste buds. The coarse salt, bitter and astringent with a briny sea smell, truly scraped at his throat.

Of course, strictly speaking, the things he was tinkering with still did not meet the quality standards of later generations' "table salt."

But this was merely something to pass the time, and he did not want to make a bigger fuss over it.

The water in the deep pot grew scarcer and scarcer, while the white crystals of fine salt grew more numerous. "Pull back some of the fire. Don't boil it scorched."

"Ponytail, go skin and clean the two wild rabbits we hunted this morning. Missing Tooth, start a bonfire over there. We're having fine-salt roasted rabbit for lunch today."

During these days on the island, aside from questioning the prisoners in the stone house to learn about the world beyond the island, Roger spent most of his idle time hunting.

Holy Island was mostly barren slopes and wild ridges, with no large game, yet wild rabbits thrived there in droves.

During the bandit-suppression battle, Roger had seized three yew longbows and two crossbows. Together with the bow crossbow he had swiped from the Baron's residence, he now had six ranged weapons in hand.

Roger had never practiced archery in either his past or present life, so even with his tall, sturdy build, he could not handle the three longbows that stood as high as his eyebrows. Crossbows were much easier to use, however. After some simple practice, Roger was able to carry a crossbow and take Baldhead and Ponytail up the mountain to hunt.

Five wild rabbits and an unnamed pheasant were the group's haul from the past few days.

By the time all the water in the deep pot on the salt stove had boiled away, Ponytail had already skewered the two skinned and washed rabbits on wooden sticks and set them over the bonfire.

Roger grabbed a small handful of fine salt from the pot and, under the others' looks as though he were a wastrel, evenly rubbed the white salt grains over the rabbit meat. Before long, the charred fragrance of roasted meat spread through the air...

When the worried-looking Butler Bitter Melon Face poled his fishing boat to Salt Beach, the two fine-salt roasted rabbits had already become a pile of bones licked clean, with only the unchewable bones left behind.

Having eaten half a roasted rabbit, Roger sat alone on a somewhat cleaner wooden stool, holding a wineskin as he watched Butler Bitter Melon Face rush over through the fine rain, leaving a trail of footprints behind him.

"Go back and tell Madam that I'm staying on the island. I'm not going anywhere, so stop sending people to bother me." Before Bitter Melon Face could even come close, Roger was already irritated. He only wanted to stay quietly on this lonely island, yet his cheap mother kept sending people every few days to persuade him to return. It was truly vexing.

Bitter Melon Face had already reached his side, yet he said nothing for a long while.

Roger waited for some time without receiving an answer. Curious, he turned his head to look and saw Bitter Melon Face drenched from head to toe, his eyes slightly red as he lowered his head in an expression of pain.

"What is it?" Roger's voice softened somewhat.

"Young Master Roger... the master and Young Master Colin..."

Hearing the choked sob in his voice, Roger's expression grew somewhat grave.

"The master and Young Master Colin... died in battle..." Bitter Melon Face covered his face with both hands and began to sob quietly.

Roger was momentarily stunned, unsure how to react.

"Madam has already fainted. Please hurry back..." Bitter Melon Face pleaded through tears...