This bird with a red body, black wings, and a long curved beak is called a Scythebill, and Slade remembers it.
It perched atop a tall tree, looking down at the black and yellow figures below, its eyes shining like black gems with curiosity. This bird is very beautiful and extremely rare, with a straw-like beak, belonging to the pipette bird family, and it alone has blood-red feathers all over its body.
The reason for its rarity is that, worldwide, it inhabits only one place.
That place is Hawaii.
The Hawaiian Islands consist of 132 islands, centrally located in the Pacific Ocean, known for their picturesque scenery and pleasant climate, and are a world-renowned tourist destination.
Su Ming did have the idea of earning money to vacation in Hawaii, but... it should be in DC's Hawaii.
Now, having been dropped here by Manhattan, he is indeed in Hawaii, but the money didn't arrive with him...
This island is not small, roughly estimated during the descent to be about 100 square kilometers, he deliberately chose a larger island, if this island were square, it would cover an area of 10 kilometers by 10 kilometers.
So the questão remains, without luxury yachts on the surrounding sea, no tourists on the island, the usable area of this island is not small, would the Hawaii Government let the money slip away?
"It seems the world I've landed on is not synchronized with the real world in terms of time."
If it were Hawaii in 2018, being a world-famous resort, in this season, private yachts should densely fill the ocean.
But if the current timeline is before 1778, then he would have arrived in Hawaii even earlier than British explorer Captain Cook, with the island inhabited only by cannibals...
Su Ming really doesn't want to be that early. Famous heroes and villains haven't even been born yet, and the world is not lively at all.
What matters now is still to find a living person to ask questions. He's gathered enough intelligence from the external environment, but more information is needed from human society.
Whether a mercenary or an assassin, they both depend on human society for survival.
.............
The island isn't small, but for Su Ming's pace, it's not big either. After intentionally increasing his speed, he quickly found the location of the port.
A small port, looking like it only has a few wooden houses, a simple dock, and some dark-skinned mariners working on the dock, carrying goods like pineapples and coconuts.
This is a man-made channel leading to the sea, forming a small port that penetrates the island, hidden by the lush surrounding jungle, trees spanning across the water like a corridor, making the small port invisible from the air, very concealed.
Fortunately, seagulls also live here, circling in the sky, occasionally swooping down to steal human goods. Su Ming used them to confirm the port's direction.
There is good news, too. Despite the small size of the port, a small cargo ship is docked at the pier, with an internal combustion engine emitting faint heat.
"Good thing it's not a sailing warship or a raft..."
Looking down at his uniform, Su Ming saw that his waist and shoulders were torn. The armor clearly didn't blend in with the surroundings. But this is an island; he could totally walk around shirtless, in just shorts.
He removed all his armor and hid it, along with various light and heavy weapons, in a hole he dug in the jungle, taking only his bag, which contained a handgun and some grenades.
That would be enough to handle some small emergencies.
Now, he looked like a swimming enthusiast who had just come out of the ocean, only with slightly whiter skin.
The target for gathering information was a fisherman not far from the port, a white man who appeared quite robust from behind.
"Aloha."
Su Ming greeted him in Hawaiian, which startled the fisherman due to someone suddenly appearing behind him, nearly making him drop his fishing rod into the ocean.
Su Ming quickly stepped forward and grabbed the fishing rod, placing it back in the fisherman's hand.
"Oh, A...loha."
The fisherman was a white man in his forties or fifties, with a face weathered by the sea, confirming Su Ming's earlier guess.
At this moment, he looked at Su Ming with curiosity, or more specifically, at his scars.
These were the battle scars from times when Deathstroke hadn't undergone surgical transformation; the transformation gave him a healing factor but didn't repair them. Scars are connective tissue of the skin, a normal part of the human body, and the healing factor as a subsequent development doesn't manage previous accounts.
There were dozens of scars just from gunshots, not to mention those from shells and knives.
The fisherman sensed danger from Su Ming, akin to the premonition before a storm at sea. He had never seen a soldier who could inspire fear merely through presence.
But seeing him completely drenched, the fisherman figured he might be a tourist vacationing in Hawaii, either swimming or surfing?
Su Ming squatted beside him, naturally switching to English, wanting to learn the exact year and how to reach a major city from the man's mouth.
If it were a local, their knowledge might be insufficient, but white mariners are usually well-informed.
"My name is Slade, an American, and yours?"
The fisherman calmed down significantly, refocusing his attention on his float bobbing on the waves.
"I am Bird, a former British mariner."
Su Ming raised an eyebrow; this man had clear eyes and clean fingers, indicating no smoking or drinking habits, suggesting he wasn't just any sailor.
This man had lost a leg too, with a wooden peg leg painted a color that had lasted at least five years.
"Where's your ship?" Su Ming asked nonchalantly, as though making small talk, sitting beside the man and staring at the dock together.
"Sunk eight years ago."
He answered calmly, as if it were a matter long passed, but his rod quivered slightly in the water, creating ripples on the surface.
"Sank in combat?"
"Hit a mine and sank just outside the home port. I'm not sure if it counts as combat-sunk." Bird gave a bittersweet smile, full of self-mockery.
Su Ming narrowed the timeframe even further; sea mines capable of sinking a steel ship wouldn't date back too far.
"What was your ship's name? Maybe I've heard of it."
Bird laughed and shook his head, his expression looking numb.
"She was never famous. Though she made the papers when built, you're far too young to know."
"The war is over."
"Indeed, regardless, the war has ended, and I retired early, sigh..."
Bird lifted his fishing rod, seeing the bait at the end of the line was gone. He took another red worm from an iron can beside him, threading it on the hook.
The shiny hook pierced the worm's body, and it squirmed in agony before Bird cast it back into the water.
"She was called the Swordfish, an A-Class Destroyer, launched in 1897, and was considered a new ship when she sank 20 years later, I was her captain."
Su Ming understood, with the A-Class Destroyers classified, having sunk in 1917, the war being the First World War, and eight years since its sinking, it must be the summer of 1925 now.