Louis stopped in his tracks, his gaze not immediately drawn to the bottom of the dock, but instead attracted by the figure on the scaffold.
That was an old man utterly out of place here.
He stood on the steel frame mid-air, back to the entrance, not tall, yet unusually straight.
He wore a pair of linen overalls stained black with machine oil, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, revealing wrists covered in calluses.
In stark contrast to this outfit was the meticulously knotted, slightly yellowed silk scarf at his collar.
His hair, graying, was carefully combed back and even slicked with pomade, gleaming subtly under the lights.
In his hand was not a wrench, but a piece of chalk.
A blackboard stood by the steel frame, covered with densely packed lines. Not an outline, but complex stress structure diagrams that made one's scalp tingle.
