The weather at sea is as changeable as a woman's mood, shifting in an instant.
Not long ago, it was a bright sunny day with a clear blue sky, and in the blink of an eye, it became overcast, with a sign of imminent heavy rain.
The sea breeze blew weakly, unable to disperse the thick clouds, only making the air increasingly heavy, as if it could wring water.
Walking out of the corridor, seeing the gloomy sky, Chen Zhou could hardly believe his eyes.
No wonder, since he was born and worked, he had almost never left the inland, never witnessing the ever-changing coastal weather.
Before leaving Robinson's room, he was considering taking advantage of the sunny weather to dry out damp bedding and clothes. Now, not only couldn't clothes be dried, but many new tasks were added.
Worried about the sudden rain, Chen Zhou hurriedly removed the hourglass, turned it over on the table in Robinson's room, then jogged back to the deck to start collecting items that might get soaked by the rain.
In one corner of the ship's midsection were several large open wooden barrels filled with bundles of ropes and rolls of canvas.
During transportation, Chen Zhou found that the bottoms of these barrels had some water accumulation, probably due to yesterday's storm.
He then took out the soaked ropes and canvas from the barrels, dumped out the accumulated water, and moved them back to the rainproof cabin.
Passing by the midship, he casually secured the lid of the barrel containing gambling tools, noticing the vent grille full of holes below, Chen Zhou had to pull out the canvas again, hastily covering the vent board and pressing a few wooden boards on the canvas to prevent rainwater from flowing into the cabin through the holes.
The sound of leather boots on the deck continued nonstop, during the transportation of barrels, Chen Zhou felt his heel being rubbed painfully. He knew it was because he wasn't wearing socks, but didn't pay it much mind.
Only after setting down the last wooden board, sitting on the ground panting, did Chen Zhou have the chance to remove his shoes and take a look.
His tender feet were pampered like him, rarely stepping into fields for work over twenty years; in recent years, even walking was limited, hence never developing calluses.
Before this, these feet were always nestled in soft, comfortable sneakers, but after this frequent running around, the ankle was rubbed raw and now slowly seeped blood with sharp pain.
Though Chen Zhou hadn't suffered much hardship, he was well aware from growing up that the heavy physical labor his parents and elders engaged in was tens of thousands of times more laborious and tough than for him.
Seeing the injury, he merely frowned slightly, then tore off the worn skin with his hand, returned barefoot to Robinson's room to put on a pair of socks, and endured the pain to put his shoes back on.
At this moment, he noticed the last grain of fine sand in the upper sand bucket of the hourglass trickled to the lower sand bucket.
Chen Zhou roughly estimated that a complete fine sand replacement process of the hourglass took about half an hour.
Subject to factors like bottle wall abrasion and coarse gravel clogging, this time might have a few minutes of fluctuation.
Compared to mechanical watches of the same period, the hourglass's precision was evidently very behind, but enough to cope with sailors taking turns for lookout.
In future occasions needing simple timing, it could be of some use.
Sitting on the bed resting a bit, feeling the gradually clear hunger inside his stomach, Chen Zhou took a few pieces of Robinson's hidden preserved fruits to replenish energy, then continued working.
He moved all saws, needles, awls, and other tools from the ship doctor's room to Robinson's room, neatly placed them into the wooden box, then wrapped the hourglass with the sheepskin map and torn fishing net on the table, placing it into the same box with the equally fragile glass lantern.
Subsequently, Chen Zhou sorted the ship doctor, carpenter, and Robinson's clothes into two boxes for storage. Clean clothes went into the large box originally in the carpenter's room for clothing, and dirty clothes were stuffed into the small box.
While sorting clothes and tools, Chen Zhou also didn't forget to continue recording the quantities of these supplies on parchment.
For safety, he even carved symbol marks on each box lid with a chisel to distinguish different supplies in each box. For toolboxes prone to rust from water exposure, he would wrap them with thick canvas outside to prevent damage from water ingress.
These supply boxes were respectively prefixed with letters: tools as G, resources as Z, food as S, weapons as W, clothing as F, and valuables as C.
Following the uppercase English letters were numerical codes, like G1 meant the first tool storage box.
Symbol marking added a work step, seemingly tedious and redundant, but from a long-term perspective, advantageous for supply integration and management.
This was wisdom from experience.
As the years went by, Chen Zhou increasingly felt that memory was like a very patient liar.
In youth, it disguised as honest and reliable to numb people, successfully gaining trust, then eagerly revealed its true nature, tripping people at the most unexpected moment, causing a fall.
Blindly placing hopes on memory, a carelessly lost toolbox would cause big trouble in future construction.
To solve this hidden hazard, not to mention carving two lines of symbols, even if ten times the effort was worthwhile.
The feather pen scratched on paper sounding softly, the pain in the heel intermittently reminding Chen Zhou of the passing time.
After sorting and recording the supplies, the room had become quite dim.
Stretching lazily, opening the porthole to look outside, the distant sea had turned foggy, like wrapped in a blur effect of a picture.