After storing the short knife away, Chen Yiyang planned to visit San Francisco's Chinatown while there was still time today.

After all, San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest in the United States and has a significant presence internationally.

However, upon arrival, Chen Yiyang felt somewhat disappointed with this Chinatown.

Traffic jams, crowds, dilapidated buildings, and numerous tourists.

Chen Yiyang finally understood why the depiction of Chinatowns in European and American films was so consistently similar.

It all stems from here.

But the reason why this Chinatown is like this is also related to the early oppression of Chinese people in the United States.

In fact, this oppression has persisted to the present day.

After all, only in Chinatown could a prison be forcefully built against the opposition of local residents.

If you dared to do such a thing in areas dominated by other ethnic groups, there would be riots the next day.

With his interest waned, Chen Yiyang quickly returned to the hotel after a casual stroll.

The next morning, when he woke up, he glanced at his phone.

Today's news, the lost typewriter: Currently, the only existing Mingkuai Typewriter is for sale in the basement of a house in California. You can nab it for under ten thousand dollars.

Relevant pictures and the location are attached on the second page.

Mingkuai Typewriter?

Chen Yiyang felt he had heard this term somewhere but couldn't recall from where.

So he had to search it on a domestic browser.

The Mingkuai Typewriter was a Chinese typewriter invented by the Republic-era writer Lin Yutang in 1947.

The purpose of the typewriter was to solve the problem of typing Chinese characters.

It's said that Lin Yutang spent a fortune equivalent to more than ten million in today's purchasing power to create this typewriter.

Due to the technological limitations at the time, the typewriter used a technique similar to today's shape-based input method, where, after inputting two character roots using an upper and lower form, a "magic eye" above would show eight candidate characters, and the user could select and input using the numeric keypad below.

It's said this typewriter could type forty to fifty Chinese characters per minute and handle five hundred commonly used characters.

But as people often say.

To be one step ahead is genius, but being two steps ahead makes you a pioneer.

The structure of the typewriter was too complex, and the machine itself was quite cumbersome.

The consequence was that not only was transporting this typewriter inconvenient, but its intricate structure also made it extremely prone to damage.

So, even though the patent for this typewriter was bought by the American Mergansola Company, they gave up after producing a few units.

Later, Lin Yutang's descendants went to the United States hoping to find this typewriter crafted by Lin Yutang, but Mergansola Company claimed it had been discarded as trash.

As a result, even now, people can only speculate about the typewriter's structure through documentation.

Many have tried to recreate this typewriter, but due to the limited documentation and the complex mechanics involved, no one has succeeded.

Having such a typewriter appear in the United States was indeed not a surprise, and Chen Yiyang decided to go buy it immediately.

Although he didn't quite appreciate Lin Yutang's writings, he respected his contribution to Chinese typing devices.

After all, this literary master was indeed on the verge of ruin to make this typewriter.

So one must look at these two things separately.

Having made up his mind, Chen Yiyang called the guide, saying he wanted to go out.

The guide was used to Chen Yiyang's sporadic travel plans.

He had encountered many clients even more challenging than Chen Yiyang.

As long as the money was right, even if the boss wanted to go to space, he would use his connections to see if he could get Chen Yiyang a spot in a rocket.

After Chen Yiyang informed the guide of his destination for the day, the guide was somewhat relieved.

The spot was located in a white middle-class community, providing significant safety assurance.

After all, in communities where middle-class families gather, taxes are high, police are well-paid, and their numbers are plentiful.

It's hard to have murders happen in such places.

With adequately compensated officers patrolling the community 24/7, not even a criminal can set foot without being instantly apprehended and warned to stay out.

So even though the guide wasn't sure why Chen Yiyang suddenly wanted to visit this community,

He quickly arranged a vehicle and security personnel to accompany him.

After lunch, Chen Yiyang took the car arranged by the guide and drove to the address mentioned in the information.

Initially, on the way there, he thought of various ways to make a reasonable request to the current owner of the Mingkuai Typewriter to check their basement.

However, upon arrival, Chen Yiyang immediately realized his earlier preparations were for naught.

The typewriter was sitting right next to the backyard fence, waiting to be sold.

"Oh, boss, so you came here for this," the guide also misunderstood upon seeing the scene before him.

He said, "In California, it's allowed for families to sell their secondhand goods in their backyards or garages. We call it a yard sale.

Of course, although the government doesn't tax these small secondhand sale events, it requires the yard owner to spend over forty US dollars for a yard sale permit, and they can only apply once every six months for such an event."

The guide thought Chen Yiyang came here because he saw an online post about a yard sale happening here and came by out of curiosity.

Chen Yiyang was happy to let him misunderstand and immediately got out of the car.

Although the small yard sale had many items available, it had very few visitors.

Mostly it was surrounding neighbors or people from the same community.

Thus, when Chen Yiyang showed up, he stood out quite a bit.

Soon, a middle-aged white man who seemed to come from a typical middle-class family came over to greet him.

"Hello, are you a tourist here?"

"Yes." Chen Yiyang shook hands with him, "I was driving by and saw that a sale was happening here, it seemed interesting, so I came to have a look."

"Welcome here, feel free to look around. Everything here is either something I've personally used or things I found in the basement that belonged to my father or grandfather."

This middle-aged white man kindly introduced some of the items to Chen Yiyang.

Of course, he didn't expect Chen Yiyang to actually buy something here.

After all, most of the items sold here were secondhand furniture or appliances, what would a tourist do with those?

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