Chapter 570 - 67: Development (Part 2)
Wooden stakes were driven into the beach, with planks laid on top, and some house frames still under construction on either side.
From dawn until dusk, islanders could be seen everywhere here, with some new islanders even setting up their homes by the sea just to save time—
They could start work early, finish early, and go out to the sea with those who had boats to fish for meat. If the catch was abundant, they might sell some fish to the wealthy for rare spices.
Beyond a bustling pier, looking further away, you could see dozens of towering square buildings.
Those are the island’s gun batteries.
These batteries are identical in design and are built on both sides of the mountain.
With the aid of the batteries, the range of the cannons is extended, capable of directly hitting the sea’s sailing ships or attacking invading enemies; they belong to the guards.
Every few days, islanders would see the guards training cannon fire on the batteries, the deafening sound akin to thunder, left people trembling.
In front of the batteries, several massive salt-drying fields; all the coarse salt on the island comes from here.
Behind the batteries, walk along the beach up a slope, and there’s a patch of tender green young woods.
Previously, the woods close to the sea were sparse, later almost deforested for using space-time slicing to make timber, leaving the coast bare.
To protect the island’s ecological environment, Chen Zhou specially ordered afforestation.
These young woods are the result of the new directive’s execution. While the saplings are still tender now, with time passing, they will grow into towering trees, providing shade for this empty land.
...
With more people, barren places found life and seemed to awaken.
This newly built port is naturally not as grand and splendid as modern ports, nor as beautiful as ports of the same era—
It doesn’t even have many wood and stone structures, not to mention red-brick green tile, large vessel traffic, and towering cranes.
But it remains the island’s busiest place and also an important area for islanders to obtain food from the sea.
From dawn to dusk, it’s always bustling here.
Islanders come and go here.
Workers stride heavily, calmly pacing between the shipyard and their residences;
Fishermen row boats, picking windy and sunny weather heading for the near sea, casting wide nets to catch fish and crabs;
Guards stand tall, surveying from the elevated gun batteries, the sea azure blue, tossing with silver white spray...
...
Walking past the pier, continuing forward, on both high banks of Rock River, former green fields have all turned into fields like velvet carpets.
Green wheat seedlings spread across the ground, swaying with gentle wind; corn hangs tassels, showing off its full ears;
Fiery red peppers, cabbages wilted under scorching sun...
The reddish buckwheat just blooming, dense little white flowers seem like snow, painting the fields into a pure white world.
Sadly, islanders since birth have lived in the tropics, never seen what snow is like, only knowing snow is like ice, white, crystalline, bringing a strange coolness.
...
Next to the fields, the most common "big figure" is Saturday.
Chen Zhou had already given up his youthful hobby, having learned too much professional knowledge about painting in modern times, seen plenty of master artworks, making him realize himself, unwilling to invest much energy to learn painting again.
Saturday is different though.
Before meeting Chen Zhou, Saturday didn’t know what painting was, but after seeing Chen Zhou’s artwork, he earnestly wanted to learn this skill.
Apart from Chen Zhou’s paintings, oil paintings brought from the ship, and ink paintings from introductory materials, he never encountered professional painting knowledge.
This great art of painting only opened a small window for Saturday.
To Saturday, painting has not so many techniques, nor divisions of schools, no distinctions of creative methods.
He just practices with love, with a sincere heart to understand and express the world he sees.
From basic sketching techniques to ink paintings, despite busy work, Saturday always finds time to sketch outside.
His paintings, not like Chen Zhou’s, have a rigidity shackled by lines.
Likewise the port, Chen Zhou’s depiction design follows strict perspectives and proportions everywhere, batteries are straight, planks parallel, people stiff, even sea waves like a third-rate photographer’s photo, lifeless.
Yet Saturday’s paintings, though not proportionally strict, let people feel a sense of "life".
Sails in the painting seem to flutter with wind, people and sunset glow together, even the fish caught in nets and splashing water droplets appear extraordinarily real.
...
Occasionally mysterious rewards bring in music or painting equipment, among them sets of colored pencils, rice paper, traditional paints, oil pastels, markers, and oil paints.
Chen Zhou gave all these things to Saturday—
In this boy, he vaguely sees a potential, a potential to become a master.
Sometimes Chen Zhou feels Saturday is another him, carrying his lost love for painting unwaveringly forward.
Maybe because he knows too little, not "polluted" by "formal painting techniques", with a fearless heart like a newborn calf, Saturday could walk farther, fly higher.
...
Along the fields toward the island’s interior, Chen Zhou countless times walked by mountain paths already paved with stone slabs.
Here lies the entire island’s "transportation hub", at the fork, you can go straight to the dock or head to factories or Execution Square.
Due to convenient transportation, the fork naturally became a small trading market.
Old neighbors living near factories and ordinary islanders near the square often bring their goods here to barter.
Nowadays, hard currency on the island remains food, red sugar, and chocolate, sometimes dried raisins, dried peppers, and garlic could also become market mainstream.
Chen Zhou had long noticed this market, sometimes even goes there to trade for interesting trinkets.
Like islanders self-made painted pottery, exquisite stone and wood carvings, and some shell mosaic crafts.
Perhaps because islanders’ minds weren’t affected by modern information’s impact, their creations always possess a unique beauty, different from modern crafts, a rough and primitive beauty.
Chen Zhou doesn’t know if these items count as "wealth" under the Space-Time Administration Bureau’s judgement.
He thought, if they do, he must bring them back to the modern world.
Perhaps only then can tell him, everything experienced on the island isn’t a dream, islanders truly exist in another world.
...
Of course, besides "shopping", Chen Zhou didn’t forget to remind himself that a currency system should soon be implemented.
Compared with the islanders’ acquired knowledge and developed manufacturing and construction industries, the island’s economic system is evidently too primitive.
Previously lacking precious metals suitable for currency, now with treasure, harvested a batch of silver, just suitable for making several coin molds, then minting silver coins, issuing unique island currency.
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Aside from implementing currency, another major task requires Chen Zhou to personally supervise and inspect during May to June—
Zebra designed and built the new Temple.
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Over the past months, Zebra barely got a complete night’s sleep.
The burden handed by the Leader is indeed too heavy, nearly suffocating him with the task at one point.
"Temple", such a solemn, crucial task, logically should be designed and built by the Leader personally.
Though he wants to climb up, desires Saturday Sunday’s position, he never thought he has the qualification or ability to complete such a level of project.
But Leader’s given task can’t be shirked, Zebra knows there’s only one way up, refusing leaves him stuck here.
Therefore despite the tough road ahead, Zebra took on the work bravely.