East Grand Harbor.
Xu Ye found a corner beside a shipping container and crouched there, a camera borrowed from Miss Ivy hanging around his neck.
A thin mist had risen over the docks. In the setting sun, everything looked hazy, and the chilly autumn wind blew through the thin clothes of the dockworkers moving back and forth.
Xu Ye narrowed his eyes and searched for a while, but found no sign of the Seagull.
Just then, an old man passed him, wearing a thin jacket and trousers with holes at the knees, his thick beard black and white.
The weather seemed to have turned colder. With trembling hands, he pulled a cigarette from inside his clothes. He had barely struck a match when the cigarette fell to the ground.
He sighed and braced his hands on his knees, about to pick it up, only to find someone handing it to him.
"Thanks, young man. Took me ages to find this. Without it, I don't even have the energy to work." The old man chuckled, his lips dry, eyelids drooping, and hair sparse.
Xu Ye noticed that what he was smoking was a cigarette butt.
His back was slightly stooped.
His dry face was deeply furrowed from years of exposure to the sea wind.
This was the norm for the dockworkers of East Grand Port.
"Winter's almost here already. May the Lord bless us with a warmer winter this year. Otherwise, who knows how many more people will die in the cold."
The old man sat down beside Xu Ye and offered him a cigarette butt. Xu Ye waved it away.
"The Lord? You have a faith, sir?" Xu Ye asked curiously.
The old man puffed away. After a full day's work, this seemed to be the only moment he could