Over the next few days, affected by the closed construction of West City Street, the Ancient City’s already meager foot traffic unsurprisingly began to decline.
Immediately after the street closure, Chen Yan posted a video on the Ancient City’s official account. In the video, he reminded tourists that the Ancient City needed to conduct a week-long closed construction on West City Street, meaning Yongtong Bridge, located in the middle of the street, had to be temporarily closed.
Unfortunately, the Ancient City’s official account on Notes had truly dismal popularity. Many tourists didn’t even know Ning’an Ancient City had an official account on Notes. They just showed up after hearing from friends or colleagues that there was an interesting ancient bridge here. Even though a notice announcing the temporary closure of Yongtong Bridge was posted on the Ancient City’s ticket window, since they were already there, making them turn back just because of a piece of paper wasn’t that easy.
They bought their tickets and entered the city. Then... many of them immediately cried foul, feeling scammed.
Without the allure of Yongtong Bridge, Ning’an Ancient City held absolutely no appeal to these tourists. Many simply turned around and left after strolling around for just a few minutes. Some even tried to dismantle the barricades enclosing West City Street to climb inside. Fortunately, Chen Yan, who had been keeping watch nearby, discovered them and stopped them in time.
Later on, no one tried to climb over anymore—mostly because the scenic area’s foot traffic had already dwindled to almost nothing. Although it hadn’t completely reverted to its original desolate state, they were barely selling one or two tickets a day. Compared to their previous daily revenue of over a dozen tickets, it was incredibly bleak. Fortunately, the grueling week was finally coming to an end.
Seven days later, at dusk.
Ning’an Ancient City, having sold only a single ticket all day, once again reached its closing time. Sun, who was in charge of ticketing, glanced at Chen Yan sitting next to him scrolling through his phone. His lips moved, but he ultimately asked nothing. He simply said goodbye and got off work.
Once Sun was gone, Chen Yan—who had been fully engrossed in his phone just a second ago—immediately stood up. Shoving his phone into his pocket, he locked the security door of the ticket office, greeted Uncle Zhang who was reading a newspaper in the adjacent security room, and then walked briskly toward West City Street.
Just as he arrived at the entrance of West City Street, a familiar notification tone rang in his mind:
DING.
[The ’Qinghe Street’ scene (Primary) has finished merging. Please head over to inspect it, Host.]
Then, before his astonished eyes, the wooden barricades that had surrounded West City Street for an entire week rapidly dissolved into the air like pieces of paper.
"...Awesome," Chen Yan couldn’t hold back a sincere sigh of awe at such an unscientific sight.
But soon, his gaze was completely captivated by the fully merged West City Street. The first thing he noticed was still the path beneath his feet. The original bluestone road was gone, replaced by a dirt road—the exact same gravel-mixed dirt road he had seen and walked on in Qinghe Street. The dirt road was still rock-hard, mixed with gravel, and far less aesthetically pleasing than a stone-paved path. Yet, stepping on this road, Chen Yan felt inexplicably grounded.
This time, he wasn’t wearing straw sandals, but a pair of modern sneakers. Standing in modern sneakers on a dirt road from a thousand years ago, he didn’t know how to describe the wondrous feeling for a moment. However, he quickly realized that dirt roads were different from stone slabs. It was fine when it wasn’t raining, but the moment it did, this road would likely turn muddy instantly. He wondered if that would affect the tourists’ experience.
Pushing aside these minor details, he raised his head and looked at the buildings on both sides. The towering horse-head walls and exquisite carved windows were gone. In their place were the low-eaved Song Style buildings with black tiles and white walls he had seen on Qinghe Street. With their simple wooden lattice windows and tightly shut paneled doors, everything here—except for the lack of people—was exactly the same as the Qinghe Street he had once visited!
"The system actually moved the entire Qinghe Street over here?" he marveled.
Walking slowly forward, more and more familiar shops and buildings came into view. The more Chen Yan looked, the more astounded he became, completely not expecting the system to be this generous. After all, he had only unlocked the primary Qinghe Street scene. In his original expectations, a primary scene would unlock a few shops at most. Instead, the system had unlocked all the scenes of Qinghe Street in one breath, including the gravel dirt road beneath his feet, the Overstreet Building spanning above the street, and those two familiar large lanterns.
While shocked, he couldn’t help but ponder the system’s intentions behind this.
"The street is indeed that street, but it feels like something is missing..." Resting his chin in his hand, Chen Yan scanned the street over and over again until a flash of inspiration hit him. "A soul! This place only has the form of Qinghe Street, not its soul!"
When he had first time-traveled to Qinghe Street, he had indeed been initially drawn to the Song Dynasty streetscape, which was vastly different from modern cities. But as he gradually integrated into it—especially after meeting the proprietress selling fried Guduo—he realized what made a true Ancient Street. The diverse array of people gathered there, along with the street-wide peddling shouts, wooden plaques, and cloth banners, were the very foundation and soul of the street!
But another problem arose. He could replicate the Ancient Street exactly as it was into his own scenic area by completing system tasks, but what about the people?
The Qinghe Street that merged with West City Street completely retained its original appearance and specifications. The original West City Street was about five hundred meters long, and the complete Qinghe Street was roughly the same length. Five hundred meters wasn’t long; a normal walk would take only five or six minutes to reach the end. However, filling up the shops on both sides of the street wouldn’t be that simple.
"Do I really have to sell grilled cold noodles on this street?"
Frowning, Chen Yan’s mind was locked in a fierce internal battle. One moment, he felt that reviving the Ancient City was the most important thing; with Yongtong Bridge continuously attracting tourists, selling anything would make money. The next moment, he felt that he had finally managed to unlock such a genuine Song Dynasty Ancient Street. If he really went all out with milk tea, grilled sausages, and stinky tofu like those internet-famous tourist spots, it would be a tragic waste of a treasure.
DING.
[Detected that the ’Qinghe Street’ scene (Primary) has been unlocked. Would you like to initiate Native Resident Invitations?]
[Prompt: The primary ’Qinghe Street’ scene allows for the invitation of 5 native residents to move in. Unlockable shops (stalls): 5.]
"Huh?"
Just a second ago, the two little figures in Chen Yan’s head had been frantically brawling. But the very next second, as a new system pop-up window suddenly appeared in the corner of his eye, he snapped to attention the moment he read its contents!
Native residents. Invitation. Anyone with a normal IQ would understand exactly what those words meant.
"Initiate! Initiate immediately!"
By the end of his internal struggle just now, he had already started considering whether to grit his teeth and find an opportunity to contact some of those scenic area True Master NPCs that had been quite popular over the past two years, hiring them to roleplay characters fitting the dynasty on this street. But now... struggle? Screw struggling, he had connections up high!