In the backyard of the Governor's Mansion on Ancha Island, Charles was looking at his daughter in mid-air while painting quickly with his paintbrush.
"Sparkle, lift the third tentacle on the left. Good, very good. Hold it, hold it. Done!"
As Charles was looking at the work on the drawing board with satisfaction, a group of fluorescent green tentacles in the sky came behind him and looked at himself in the painting with liquid eyeballs moving all over the body.
The painting shows a swollen, wriggling tentacle monster with green cross-shaped liquid eyeballs floating in the air. The background is the elevator tower behind and various airships in the sky. The whole painting looks very coordinated.
"What do you think? Dad's skills are pretty good, right?" Charles asked without turning his head.
"I like it very much. It's a beautiful painting. I'll find some time to draw one for my mother."
"Forget it. I've drawn her before, and she's not the kind of person who can sit idle. If you stay for half an hour longer, she'll start yelling that she wants to eat someone." Charles took the painting in front of him down, folded it up, and put it in his diary.
Charles took out his pocket watch and looked at it. He was a little surprised and said, "It's so late already? Let's go, Shanshan, let's find something to eat."
"Yeah!" Shanshan instantly turned into a young girl and happily pulled him towards the street outside.
Compared to the somewhat dull Hope Island, Ancha Island is relatively more lively, after all, it is a transit station between the sea and the surface. At least there is no curfew.
The father and daughter walked slowly through the bustling crowd, feeling the urban atmosphere that was different from other islands.
This place looks like a busy passenger transport center. All the supplies on the surface are distributed here and then sent to the surface by airships one by one. Everyone who receives or delivers the goods is racing against time.
Because it is so busy, the atmosphere here is much better. They are so busy that they even have to eat on time, so they have no time to care about the rising sea water.
Charles looked up at the huge hole above his head and the airship going up and down in the hole. For a moment, he felt a little emotional. When the 010 Time Ring was still on this island, he really couldn't have guessed that this place would become like this now.
Just as he was sighing, he suddenly heard a suppressed cry amid the noisy voices.
Charles turned his head and saw that the postman was handing a black letter to a woman not far away.
The woman seemed to be frightened and waved her hands and stepped back repeatedly. The letter of that color was none other than a notice of death on the surface.
Looking at the letter, Charles' heart was overshadowed, and he pulled Shanshan towards that side.
"Ma'am, although I understand your grief, please sign for it as soon as possible. I still have a lot of letters to deliver." The courier's words made Charles look at the bulging green package on the back seat of the bicycle.
"No, this is not true! He said he would come back!! He would never lie to me!!" The flaxen-haired woman slumped on the ground, looking like she had completely broken down emotionally.
Finally, a boy who looked about eleven years old reached out and took the black letter. He opened the letter and looked at the contents carefully. It seemed to be the woman's child.
Gradually his eyes turned red, and although the boy tried to hold back his tears, they eventually dripped onto the letter paper.
"Keep it safe. When this dark crisis is over, you can take it to a 200-square-meter piece of land. Remember, this land must be in the center of the island. If they give you some other rubbish place, you can go to the Explorers' Association to find my captain, Captain Ike. He is the captain of the Maiden's Love, and I am the sailor and helmsman on board. He will make the decision for you."
"If Captain Ike died with me, then you guys should stop making trouble. Just take whatever they give you. Don't argue with them. You can't win. There are some gold nuggets in the second layer of the red box. I saved them over the years. They should be enough for you to live on."
"Emma, if the world is still in chaos, remember to find another man. Otherwise, as a woman, you will definitely get into trouble if you carry a lot of gold with you.
"It would be best to find someone who works in the Governor's Office, or a small gang leader or something. There's nothing else to do. Just like that, if possible, pay Harlan to learn to read."
There is an extra section abruptly added below these words.
"Hello, Ms. Emma. I am the ship's doctor who writes for your illiterate husband. I can see that he loves you very much, but he is not very good at expressing himself."
"I can feel that he seems to want to express his love to you, but because of the ghostwriting, he is embarrassed to say it out loud. Haha, what an interesting person, isn't he? Beautiful lady, I hope you will never receive this letter."
Just as Charles finished reading, the woman on the ground suddenly rushed up, snatched the letter and began to tear it apart while crying.
"What did I say!! Why are you going to die!! You are their cannon fodder! You bastard! Why don't you listen!!!"
The boy knelt on the ground and picked up the scraps of paper with his hands. His tears kept flowing down. Hearing his mother's scolding, he retorted with a trembling voice: "Dad is not cannon fodder. He is a hero. This is what he told me!"
"Damn hero! He's dead!! Your father is dead! He will never come back! If not a cannon fodder sent to die, then what is he!" After the woman yelled hysterically at her son, she leaned against the door frame and burst into tears.
"My dad is a hero." The boy said again, looking at the collected scraps of paper in his hand.
Charles half squatted down, stretched out his hand and patted him on the shoulder, and said in an unusually firm tone: "That's right! Your father is a hero, a hero who saved Earthsea."
The boy raised his head and looked straight at the man in front of him.
"Take the paper, it will be useful in the future." Charles stood up and left with his daughter.
The two of them continued to walk forward without saying a word. Shan Shan lowered his head and kicked the stones under his feet. "Dad, do you need me to make their lives better?"
Charles thought about it, turned his head and looked at them again, and found that the woman in the distance was kneeling on the ground, crying and piecing the scraps of paper together.
He said with a complicated expression: "That's not what they want. Let's go back home."
(End of this chapter)