Sky Craft, Sea Soul

Author: Pan Haitian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: A grand game of novel series, an ultra-luxurious author lineup: Qingchuan, Du Ruo, Ge Jinzi, Pan Haitian, Liu Wenyang, and Gao Ge. Recommended by top writers: Jin Hezai, Jiang Nan, Zhao Haihong, Liu Xingshi, Cheng Lingsu, and Han Song. Comes with a valuable bookplate, featuring 240 game experience points. A reading of a game, a game of reading, a role-playing writing by six authors! Collect all 6 bookplates to embark on a game treasure hunt, with a chance to win exquisite virtual equipment! The great king of craftsmen, a time-traveling treasure ship, was the pinnacle of his life, but when love and politics intertwined, everything collapsed instantly. Whether to be a demon or a sage, for honor or family, his choice became an unworthy legend in the future. With me, the world is invincible; in Lisbon's thick fog, he tested the new generation of steel crossbows; capable of firing 20 arrows at once; he sought the silver-gray steel tangents; tested the combinations of 12 different ores; forged the hardest alloy for the sharpest arrows; flexible springs; 360-degree dynamically rotating sights; He was always fascinated by solving technical details in navigation; the ultimate aesthetics composed of texture; he created tools with the golden ratio; and conquered the ocean with them; sometimes he felt he was God; the world is invincible. This excellent king of craftsmen ended his legendary career in his own way, taking the great secret of the sea ship with him as he sank forever into the depths of the sea. It was a day cursed by all sailors. Not a single breeze stirred the surface, the weather was scorching like a furnace, and the air hung heavy and still like a stationary iron hammer. On this inauspicious day, a white three-masted square-sailed ship lay anchored in a quiet harbor on the southeastern coast of Africa. Its white sails hung listlessly, like a giant bird too exhausted to take flight. A small boat was lowered from the stern, breaking the mirror-like calm water and rowing towards the shore. The sailors rowed with their oars, those ugly jungles making their skin crawl all over, though the sun roasted their bare backs like flames, they would rather get sunstroke than enter that gloomy jungle—sailors always preferred the roaring blue sea to the unfamiliar and hostile land—and similarly, they would rather trudge through the swampy and misty jungle, facing ugly wasps and deadly snakes, than turn around and face the even more ugly Captain Shi Zaiwen—the sailors always preferred adventure or toil to death over their captain. At this moment, the captain, born into a noble family of swordsmen in Liverpool, sat elegantly at the stern of the small boat, his posture as refined as the famous sea elephant that roamed the coasts of Iceland. His thick lips curled up with a moustache that looked like a misplaced shoe brush. He measured pretentiously with a quadrant. Although he had measured it six times from yesterday to now, operating this instrument among the vulgar sailors gave him a sense of superiority, and he didn’t mind doing it a few more times. "Perfect, exactly right," he murmured (the same thing he had said sixty times). "Frank," he called out, "get them ready to land." Captain Frank was a strong bald man, an exceptionally competent captain. The only fault was that he was too melancholic, and melancholy didn’t make one a hero. At this moment, he looked at the captain with a melancholic gaze, as ifing him, and barked orders at his fourteen skilled sailors. At a distance of one cable from the shore line, they raised their oars and looked forward together. The jungle before them looked like an abrupt, hungry beast, squeezing tangled vines and poison thorny bushes all the way to the beach. "Look. What is that?" A sailor suddenly gripped the oar in his hand and shouted. He pointed into the jungle, and everyone on the ship peered forward, becoming panicked. In reality, they had seen nothing. No birds were visible in the sky, no fish were seen in the sea. Still no wind, but a strange coolness clung to their backs and necks, eerie and persistent. "I saw a huge shadow moving there," the sailor who thought he had seen something emphasized with gestures, "very large, as high as a mountain—" The dull green jungle cast intricate black shadows under the strong sunlight, and in some places, the tall canopies swayed strangely without wind. A strange mist seemed to rise from the depths of the earth, winding through the jungle and not dissipating. Under Frank’s loud reprimands, the sailors picked up their oars again, and the small boat slid forward, but one bare-chested rower remained motionless. It was their hired African guide, who stared intently at the mist, his dark face covered in fear. He shouted frantically in the local dialect of East Africa. "What is he saying?" Captain Shi Zaiwen asked the first mate displeased, and said firmly, "Never forget that we are on a British ship—on my ship, there is absolutely no allowance for such barbaric voices." First Mate Frank looked at the uncivilized, patterned black face of the guide, at the bone ornaments hanging around his neck, and said with a sigh of regret, "Sir, he has only been employed by us for a few days, probably hasn’t learned English yet." "Well then, damn it, at least tell me what he said!" "He said no, don’t go. He said this is a dead city, and no one who enters can come out alive. He hopes we are not going that way." "These damn natives, they deserve to die there," the captain’s lips twitched heartlessly (he called this twitching a smile), "But we are British, right? Tell him, we—have to go that way." He stared directly at the strange man, shouting in very slow English—as if this would help him understand the language—"Listen, you great baboon, we, are, going to that place. Continue forward, or—I will skin your head off." He grabbed the few strands of hair on his left hand, then used his right hand to gesture at the roots of his hair, and shouted like thunder, "Skin it off, do you understand?" The black man rolled his eyes and probably understood, because he shook his head wildly and suddenly threw his oar into the sea, diving in like a mackerel and swimming far away. "Damn it!" Captain Shi Zaiwen grabbed his hair, sitting stunned at the stern, watching the black man sprint ashore without even shaking off the water, disappearing like smoke. "Frank," he finally came to his senses after a long time and called out, "When was his pay due? Next week? Then forget him. Go tell Mr. Pablo, cross his name off the payroll—and also, make one less dinner tonight." "As you wish, sir," Frank replied in a low voice, his forehead looking even more melancholic at this moment. "Alright, lads, keep moving." Captain Shi Zaiwen sat back in his seat, watching the two rows of undulating backs before him with even more suspicion. As a highly trained explorer, he had no intention of telling them what he was looking for, what great secret he harbored. At this moment, that secret was indeed hidden in his chest. It was an old nautical logbook. For this logbook, three people’s bodies had sunk in the cold black waters of Dublin.