The tail end of July was scorched yellow by the blazing sun.
Cicadas screamed themselves hoarse, and heat waves rolled across every inch of the White Tower Territory.
Across the vast tidal flats reclaimed from the sea, an even fiercer heat was spreading through people's hearts.
Clang.
An iron shovel struck hard earth.
The soil turned over.
A cluster of round tubers rolled out, coated in damp soil. Their rough skins were dotted with grayish-white salt crystals, and each was the size of a grown man's fist.
"We've got a harvest!"
A farmer shouted at the top of his lungs.
That shout was like a fuse being lit.
The entire field erupted.
A middle-aged clerk in a mud-spattered robe stood on the ridge between the fields, holding the freshly dug-up sea-salt potato. Its heft pressed into his palm, a weight more reassuring than gold.
"Can we really eat this thing?"
Beside him, a newly recruited refugee swallowed, staring at the dusty gray lump.
"Can we eat it?" The middle-aged clerk adjusted the monocle on his nose and snorted. He pinched the potato's skin with a fingernail, and pale yellow juice seeped out. "This treasure grows on seawater for fertilizer. Boil it, roast it, or grind it into flour for flatbread-any way you eat it, it's a hundred times better than that tooth-breaking rye bread."
He turned and waved at the young recorder behind him, who held a charcoal pencil and parchment.
"Don't just stand there. Weigh them."
A huge wooden balance was set up beside the field.
Basket after basket of sea-salt potatoes was poured into its pan.
More weights kept being added.
The recorder's hand trembled. His pencil left stroke after stroke on the parchment, and the final figure he calculated made his head swim.
"Read it out." The