Thanks to Hal's heroic efforts, the glider was finally built, but Arthur wasn't too keen on this mode of transport. He preferred walking, finding the detachment from the ground unsettling.
However, for the pilot Hal, it was different. He enjoyed the feeling of soaring in the sky ever since his initial failure.
Unlike sitting in the cockpit of an airplane, gliding through nature's wind, hearing the sound of streams and sea waves, flying shoulder to shoulder with the seabirds, felt like being a light feather. Each glide was wholly intoxicating for Hal.
However, this was to solve the problem of traveling, so after a few glides, Hal took up the job of transporting goods.
The efficiency of the fish trap was indeed exceptionally high. In no time, numerous plump sea fishes were caught, perfect for making soup.
With the joint efforts of Hal, Bruce, and Arthur, the initial salt production setup was also completed.
The final location chosen for salt production was a flat sandy area downstream of a small stream. It was relatively close to both freshwater and seawater, making it conveniently located.
The salt from the evaporation of seawater was coarse and bitter in taste. It had many chemical substances that were not suitable for absorption and couldn't be consumed directly. However, the problem was resolved with the traditional method of salt production.
The coarse salt obtained from evaporating seawater was dissolved again in freshwater to form a saturated brine. Then it was filtered by the dense fiber fabric Bruce used to make glider wings, removing most insoluble impurities.
Afterward, a stone pot used for cooking was used to boil the saturated brine. During the boiling process, the water in the brine evaporated, and the corresponding salts crystallized, sticking to the inner walls of the stone pot.
This salt was scraped off and subjected to repeated operations. After several repetitions, the salt was ready for consumption.
However, the sea salt still contained some soluble impurities that made the salt bitter. To remove these impurities, burnt plant ash was used.
The ash of plants contained potassium carbonate, which can be used directly as potash fertilizer when farming and can decompose the bitter components in the salt.
Bruce found some relatively dry plants, burned them to ash, added this ash to the large pot of brine, and continued cooking at high temperature. This way, the crystallized salt obtained was edible with only salty taste.
Of course, in modern society, this type of salt is still called coarse salt, which can't be compared with refined salt made in factories. However, many regions use coarse salt to process meat, believing that the minerals in coarse salt have health benefits.
Therefore, after reaching this step, the salt can be used directly. In case of survival on a desert island, if you skip the subsequent purification steps and the step of plant ash, the salt obtained by repeatedly boiling can also be used. But the perfectionist Bruce finally produced white fine salt similar to modern table salt.
After all this, it was already dark. They had been busily working the entire afternoon and were now famished. However, they all were quite satisfied, especially Arthur and Hal, who felt they had broadened their horizons. They never thought they could produce salt from seawater.
The next step was to take the salt back and start processing the meat. However, when they returned to the cave, both Schiller and Oliver were asleep and hadn't even eaten dinner.
Perhaps, it was the sparks created by a mediocre surgeon and a completely disobedient patient.
Firstly, Schiller wasn't a surgeon. He could just barely handle some external injuries because he had worked in a hospital before. The only advantage he had over the average person was that he could use the Grey Mist to aid failed treatment attempts.
Also, Schiller had always adopted a more aggressive style in terms of medical techniques. He had inherited this aggressive style in dealing with injuries, paying little attention to the patients' struggles.
As for Oliver, even though he had been stranded here for three months, this couldn't erase the fact that he was a pampered rich young master. Initially, he was able to forget all pain for survival, driven by the will to live. But once he had eaten his fill, fatigue set in, and he fell back into the illusion of being pampered and privileged.
Due to this, he was very sensitive to pain. Combined with Schiller's incredibly rough treatment, the two did not interact harmoniously as doctor and patient; they merely ended up in a fight.
Schiller could have overpowered Oliver using his special ability, but the problem was that he couldn't, and so he couldn't use the Grey Mist to knock out Oliver.
Because of the presence of the Grey Mist, Schiller's body possessed considerable physical strength. However, without using the Grey Mist's tentacles, he only had two arms and two legs. If he used one hand to treat the wound, then he only had one hand left to hold down Oliver.
As evidence showed, even with incredible strength, it was challenging to entirely suppress a continually struggling adult with one hand. In the end, Schiller almost choked Oliver to death before he treated the wound.
Both of them had expended a lot of energy, so, while the other three were busy with wilderness survival, they had already fallen asleep in the cave.
Oliver was genuinely asleep, while Shiller was just using sleep to deal with his anger at wanting to strangle the future Green Arrow right then and there.
Seeing the two of them asleep, the other three didn't plan to make a fuss about cooking. They simply set up a grill for roasting fish, sorted out the sea fish that had just been caught, put it on the spit, and began to grill.
At noon, Hal still had some seafood sauce left. He brushed two fish with sauce, salted one and broke another into pieces to stew in a coconut with coconut juice, making fish soup.
From the platform outside the cave came the smell of cooking. The night wind on the island carried a faint chill. The sky met the coast in a thin line, with stars twinkling in the deep blue night sky.
"Did you guys know? When I went home this time, my parents apologized to me..." Hal bit into a fish and then got burned, continually blowing out air from his mouth. His eyes seemed a bit red, perhaps because the food was too hot and the cold night breeze cut through.
"They no longer stop me from becoming a pilot, nor insist that I stay near Seashore City. They even talked to me in a negotiating manner, suggesting that if I could return home once a month, that would be great…"
"If they had said this to me a few years ago, I would have been overjoyed and extremely happy, feeling that they have finally become understanding…" Hal brought the fish soup over and took a sip. He sniffed hard, and no one noticed whether or not his tears were from being scalded.
"But I feel that they have aged. I thought I had been away from home for decades and they have truly grown a lot older…"
"Parents are like that. If you leave for a long time, when you come back, you will find that they have truly aged a lot." Arthur also said, as he took a bite of the grilled fish, spat out the bones, and continued, "When I followed deep-sea fishing, I was only out at sea for just over three months. When I came back, my father looked as if he had aged 30 years…"
"Did you know? In Brude Haven, there is a legend…" Arthur sneezed due to the piping hot fish soup. He sniffed hard and said, "If a child went out to sea to fish and the parents went to pray in the church, then God would, in times when the child's life is in danger at sea, take away some of the parents' life to make sure the child returns safely…"
"Bullshit," Bruce commented.
"The point of this story is that in Brude Haven, whenever a young sailor goes out to sea, every pair of parents would pray for them. Even knowing that it could diminish their own lives, they would still do it, including my father."
Bruce fell silent. Hal glanced at him and subtly changed the subject, he said: "Brude Haven and Seashore City really are alike, this city should have gotten better development."
"I read about the history of Seashore City in a fisheries magazine." Arthur swallowed the last bite of grilled fish into his stomach, and said: "You guys were lucky, you hit the gold rush, which expanded the city. But actually, I don't envy you guys, because Brude Haven is really peaceful. If someone really did come prospecting for gold, those out-of-towners would definitely stir up trouble. I wouldn't want that."
Hal nodded and said, "Indeed, big cities have their perks, but small towns and villages aren't necessarily bad. Everyone loves their hometown, whether it's a city or a village…"
This sentence put Bruce into thought. He reflected that among the reasons why he became Batman to fight crime, there wasn't the reason that "he loves Gotham". At least that's what he had thought before.
This damned City of Sin has nothing worth remembering. Instead, it brought him the heaviest scars.
Yet, when he saw the potential for Gotham to improve, he felt a touch of excitement and anticipation.
It's not until one travels far away that they know they have an unchanging hometown. Bruce felt the same way.
When words like home and hometown come up, the first place that comes to his mind is still the City of Darkness.
All the residents of this city feel it's not good enough, but they would rather acknowledge their own inferiority and indulge in this bizarre dark abyss. They act out the craziest nightmares, and Batman is no exception.
The rising emotional tension made Bruce feel a certain anxiety and stress. He was completely not used to these emotions, so he wanted to find something to do to distract himself from this mood.
He threw away the skewer of grilled fish, stood up, clapped his hands, and said, "I think you guys should have had enough rest by now. There's still a lot of work to do. We need to dedicate more time and energy to survive on this deserted island…"
The well-fed and sleepy Hal and Arthur glanced at each other and helplessly sighed.
The next morning, the awakened Shiller opened his eyes. The sunlight outside the cave was particularly dazzling. He stretched out his hand to cover his eyes, slowly walked towards the outside of the cave, intending to go outside to breathe in some fresh air.
Then, he slowly widened his eyes and looked at the intricate assembly of pulleys and the zip lines spread out like a spider web between the rainforests outside the cave.