The night in Old Dunling is always like that. Countless factories stand on this land. Thick smoke rises from the chimneys, turning into gray-black silhouettes in the hazy light. The steel whale swims in this gray-black ocean as usual, occasionally moving its gaze to the ground, and then light shines down.
Joey leaned against the window. It was late at night. The world outside the window was quiet except for the faint noise of machines in the distance. The stoves there never went out and the machines never stopped running.
Joey looked extremely exhausted, as if he had worked too hard for the whole day. A ticking sound came from the room behind him. A large Geiger counter was standing in it, working day and night in this stronghold.
The others had already gone off work, and the room was empty. Joey rubbed his eyes. It was finally not his turn to be on duty tonight, so he should go to bed early. Then someone pushed open the door and Red Falcon walked in.
"Are you on duty today?"
Joey was a little surprised. Although he lived in the stronghold, he was just an ordinary person and could not stay alert 24 hours a day, so someone would come to keep watch for him. However, he did not expect it to be Red Falcon.
"What else?"
Hong Jian said with an unhappy look on his face.
"I'm just an employee, and I don't want to do that, but the schedule is like that, and I can't just pick up a knife and chop Arthur, right?"
Kestrel said as he also leaned against the window, as if he wanted to see where Joey was looking at, his eyes moving back and forth across the night scene.
Joey didn't say anything, just stared outside blankly. After a long time, he laughed for no apparent reason.
"What's wrong?"
Kestrel asked curiously, Joey was acting strangely.
"You know what? The doctors at the Black Mountain Hospital often told me that people become negative and... sad at night, so they advised me to sleep well at night and not to think too much."
"So you're just imagining things now?"
"I guess so."
"So what are you thinking about?"
I have to say that we are really old colleagues. We chatted with each other for some unknown reason.
The two stood in the empty room, and as the night wind blew in, papers covered with handwriting fluttered. Hong Kushal forgot that he was on duty, and Joey forgot that he wanted to go back to the room to sleep after the handover.
"Lorenzo once told me that he is a person who tends to overthink, letting his thoughts diverge and thinking constantly. Maybe I was influenced by him. Sometimes I will be like this too..."
"for example?"
"Like I saw those at the end of the horizon..."
Joey stretched out his hand and pointed at the factories that grew like dense forests. They showed gray silhouettes, and the extended chimneys were like twisted branches, weird and strange.
"When I saw those factories, I inexplicably thought of the news about Duke Salicardo. You should remember that in the case of 'A Study in Scarlet', the attack on Duke Salicardo was caused by his oppression of the survivors."
Hearing what Joey said, Hong Xun also remembered that incident. It was the first time they came into contact with Priest Lawrence.
"Is that incident over? Actually not. The problems regarding the survivors have not been solved. The status quo has not been changed. Salicado has started to develop civilian airships. In order to speed up the process, the factory is working day and night."