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Hedy thought more about how to create practical and necessary things rather than simply transferring modern knowledge to the present for profit. Just like in her past life, she was focused on creating things that were more useful and essential.
In this world of continuous openness and freedom, people did not do things to please the gods; love and desire were things that could be equally accepted. In such a dark age, if she could protect women and children, reduce the mortality rate, and help people avoid plagues, it would have a much longer-lasting impact than inventing things like radio.
Hedy was feeling a little tired from work. She reached up to rub the bridge of her nose, and suddenly she noticed a pair of brown eyes filled with a smile outside the window.
"Leonardo..." she called instinctively. "Did you come back from the Sforza court?"
"Come with me," Leonardo said, placing a bunch of freshly picked white hyacinths into a vase through the window,signaling her to follow him outside. "I finally made it, the thing you mentioned before."
Hedy, a bit puzzled, followed his steps to the backyard. A few craftsmen had brought something over, panting and bowing to them, then took their pay and whistled as they left.
The wicker basket contained two massive wooden wheels, a saw-toothed iron chain, and some triangular wooden frames and other components.
—When Leonardo had been drawing a means of transportation, she had casually mentioned something, and to her surprise, half a month later, the drawings and parts were all completed.
Hedy chuckled as she helped him take out the two wheels. Together, they adjusted the position of the wooden wheels and began securing the components with nails and ropes. It was clearly a bicycle, the wheel rims wrapped in durable leather, and the shapes of the handlebars and pedals were exactly as she remembered.
Leonardo was unsure about the position of the pedals. Halfway through, he hurriedly ran to get his notebook and started calculating various angles and distances.
"If the distance between the two wheels is closer or farther apart, will it make cycling easier or harder?" He wrote and sketched quickly, gradually losing awareness of Hedy's presence, becoming fully absorbed in studying the relationship between the frame and the supports.
During one of his distracted moments, Hedy squatted down and picked up a nail from the toolbox. This wasn’t a screw, but rather a nail with a spiral thread.
"Leonardo," she frowned, seeing that he was still rapidly calculating, and called out, "Leonardo!"
Leonardo looked up, quickly walking over and squatting next to her with a concerned and careful expression. "Did you accidentally scratch yourself?"
"Look at this," she extended the iron nail to him, asking, "Do people use this now?"
Leonardo smiled and explained, "Adding a spiral thread to the edge increases friction, helping the nail grip more tightly."
They had already thought of this step, yet these craftsmen couldn't be a little smarter?
Hedy took the pencil from his hand and, using his knee as a support, began sketching in the notebook.
"Look," she drew a hexagonal nut and the spiral threads of the nail. "What if we add a restricting element to this nail, how would that affect friction?"
"But the end of the nail—no, we could grind the end of the nail flat, keeping it the same thickness as the top," Leonardo’s thoughts began to flow faster, taking the draft and continuing, "As long as we have a good enough hole punch, like a drill bit!"
Hedy smiled, nodding. "It would be more reliable than a nail, and it wouldn't hurt anyone's fingers."
Leonardo helped her stand up, bent down to brush off the dust from her dress, and, with his head lowered, smiled. "Sometimes, I feel like I'm different from everyone else."
"They like and revere things, things they are fascinated by or resist—yet it all seems completely unrelated to me."
Compared to the distance from his parents, what he felt from adolescence to young adulthood was more of a solitary sense of not fitting in. During Mass, when sharing the Eucharist, he felt like he was just playing the part of a devout townsfolk.
"But," he raised his head, holding the drawing and looking at her, "after meeting you, I suddenly realized, there are others like me."
There were others who, like him, found the Bible dull and uninteresting, who could spend an entire afternoon studying the skeleton of a frog and together buy cow's blood and pig lungs for various experiments.
"What you imagine and create is like a dream," Leonardo paused, then slowed his tone and asked, "Hedy, before coming to Florence, did you ever feel lonely?"
She hesitated for a moment, and for a brief instant, she felt the urge to tell him about everything she had gone through.
Her entire life that she once had, the many regrets of things she had sought but never obtained, the countless stories of failure and being misunderstood.
Not being recognized, not being understood, not being accepted.
