Chapter 34: Two Kinds of Silence, Where Lies the True Name of Steel

The morning began with a clear, rain-washed sky. A brisk autumn wind, thick and smooth as silk, whispered casually to the mage that the next two days would likely remain dry—the final stretch of fair weather before the hurricane arrived.

On his way to the woodlands, Lin Bo passed the outskirts of Stone Tower Town. Most of the houses here were locked tight, with only a few house dogs—large and small—wandering near the doorsteps. Seeing the mage approach, they whined and trotted over to circle around him. Lin Bo paused for a moment to amuse himself with these furry, pungent little monsters.

"Good morning, Watcher," came a greeting from an open courtyard gate.

Lin Bo turned to look. It was a face he didn't recognize, but he returned the gesture all the same. The man greeting him was middle-aged and shirtless, his frame lean and wiry. Beads of sweat clung to his skin, shimmering like fish scales in the sunlight. He sat astride a massive log, clutching an adze—he was a shipwright, already at work in the early hours.

"Watcher, care to sit for a moment and have a cup of coffee?"

"My thanks, but I shouldn't interrupt your work," Lin Bo declined with a smile.

"Ha, I suppose we're both busy men," the shipwright said, pretending not to mind. "I hear you’re also skilled in medicine? That’s what everyone says." His expression seemed to imply: *It’s not that I don’t believe you, I’m just curious to see for myself.*

Lin Bo caught the meaning immediately. "In that case, I would love a cup of coffee."

The shipwright gave a bashful chuckle. While the coffee pot heated on the stove, Lin Bo performed a physical examination of the man. Finding only common strains and fatigue, he applied some massage techniques to realign the man’s stiff joints and muscles. The shipwright’s expression shifted to one of profound relief, as if his bones had grown light as feathers. When he looked at the Watcher again, the gaze was entirely different.

He brought out his best coffee, added milk and sugar, and produced a plate of butter cocoa cookies his wife had baked. With his eager hospitality, the shipwright seemed ready to quit his trade and work as a waiter at the White Snail Tavern.

Lin Bo sipped his coffee and ate a few cookies, his eyes scanning the objects in the living room in search of any trace of a "relic of resonance." He remarked casually, "Please, continue your work. I’ve always been curious about the craft of shipbuilding."

"No problem at all." The shipwright readily agreed, stepping back into the yard to strike the log with his adze.

Lin Bo found no relics, so he stepped outside to watch the craftsman’s work.

*Thwack! Thwack!*

As metal struck wood and shavings peeled away, the mage listened closely to the vibration of iron against timber. According to his existing experience, there were two conditions for discovering a "True Name": the forced silence of the object being listened to, and the active stillness of the listener.

The mage listened patiently. His ears were filled with the complaints of the timber—complaining of being battered by the iron adze, of being stripped of its bark, of being felled by the saw, and of a freezing rain in the woodlands years ago. It was clear the wood held deep grievances, but what Lin Bo truly cared about was the sound of the iron.

Yet, iron and stone were indifferent things; they rarely spoke. He could catch not a whisper, let alone the hidden runes of a True Name. Usually, to hear the voice of steel, one had to either possess the refined perception of the "Internal-External Resonance Method" or listen during the tolling of the church bells at noon. To force steel into silence required another sound to suppress its language—like rain against the roar of the ocean—and that was no easy feat. Metal rarely speaks, but when it does, its voice is thunderous, and few sounds can drown it out.

"May I try?" Lin Bo set down his cup and saucer, brushed the cookie crumbs from his hands, and walked over to the shipwright.

"Of course."

Lin Bo took the adze. He triggered the Internal-External Resonance Method, instantly grasping the structure of the tool: the wooden handle, the iron blade. As he swung it lightly, the iron blade began to speak to him. It grumbled about how the damp, humid air of the endless rain caused its bones to rust, and muttered about the iron shavings lost in its clash with the wood.

Lin Bo raised the adze and struck the log.

*Thwack!*

The moment of impact arrived, and the iron blade’s speech was cut short by the wood’s lament. In that flash of lightning, Lin Bo caught a glimpse of the iron’s True Name rune. But it was too brief, too blurred; he could not grasp it. He struck again and again, the thwacking sound becoming a steady rhythm.

The shipwright stood by, heart in his throat, wanting to offer a warning but finding that every one of the Watcher’s strikes was perfectly placed, never straying beyond the marked lines. His worried words remained stuck in his throat. The oldest shipbuilding technique in Stone Tower Town—hollowing out a log to form a hull—was now a rarity, used only by fishermen in coastal villages for their canoes.

After a long session of chiseling, Lin Bo confirmed that when metal was put to work, it was forced into silence. However, he could not stabilize his mind amidst the heat and labor of the work; he lacked the stillness required to harbor the True Name rune. Without both conditions being met simultaneously, the discovery of the True Name could not take effect.

Thinking on how to discern the True Name of metal, Lin Bo stopped and returned the tool to the shipwright, who clicked his tongue in praise, claiming that if the Watcher ever changed his profession, he would surely make an excellent carpenter.

After finishing his coffee, Lin Bo rose to take his leave. The shipwright tried to offer payment for the treatment, but was politely refused. In the end, he insisted on stuffing the remaining butter cookies into the Watcher’s hands.

Lin Bo truly enjoyed the cookies; they were made with hearty ingredients—fine flour, butter, and plenty of sugar—baked to perfection. They were a crystallization of wealth, patience, and craft, in which one could taste a housewife’s affection for her family.

The shipwright smiled as he saw him out, watching as the dogs along the street gathered to jump and circle around the Watcher. Only when the man had walked far away did the pack reluctantly return home.

Autumn was the season of harvest. The bushes were heavy with cranberries, sea buckthorn, currants, and other small berries. Lin Bo plucked a cranberry and tasted it carefully; this fruit, which resembled a blueberry, had a much richer flavor.

He recalled watching *Ratatouille*, where the rat could perceive the flavors of food as flowing colors and music—a beautiful synesthetic experience. Lin Bo’s "Pharmacist’s Tongue" did not produce synesthesia, but it was keen enough to reflect the various medicinal properties of food in the changes of his internal energy and meridians. This delicate sense allowed the ingredients and herbs to speak to him.

He savored the cranberry’s faint acidity, its subtle sweetness and fruity aroma. Before swallowing, he plucked a cluster of firethorn berries and chewed them. The bitter, astringent juice of the firethorn spread through his mouth, its noisy, intense clamor instantly drowning out the cranberry’s whisper. In that passive silence, Lin Bo tasted the True Name of the cranberry.

By using the conflicting flavors of food, the mage had sat in the woodlands in a state of "feigned death," inscribing the True Names of many plants into his mind. Before long, he discovered a fascinating phenomenon: the petals, calyxes, fruits, and roots of the same plant each had their own True Names, and when the lines of these names were pieced together, they matched the True Name rune of the entire plant.

"Perhaps the True Names of all things in the world are but fragments of the Primal True Name," Lin Bo mused. He thought that perhaps True Names were infinitely divisible; if someone were to learn the True Names of all things, they might well be able to assemble the True Name of the universe itself.

As the sun climbed higher, the lighthouse keeper, having finished his morning's work, prepared to tidy up and head to the East Cliff Grottoes to continue his labor. However, he made a last-minute decision to detour into town to see if there were any iron wind chimes for sale. Lin Bo felt that perhaps the chaotic noise of the sea breeze could suppress the metallic ringing of the iron, allowing him to glimpse its True Name through the silence forced upon it.