His mother was completely heartbroken. She suffered a total breakdown and passed away half a year later.
On her deathbed, his mother held Chen Yan’s hand, her voice barely a whisper. "Yan, if you can’t keep the Ancient City afloat... just sell it. You’ve had a weak constitution since you were little, so be careful not to catch a cold..."
Chen Yan was twenty-two that year. Freshly graduated with a degree in interior design, he was working at a renovation company in the provincial capital.
His boss often praised his intuition and creative ideas, and was just about to offer him a permanent position.
But his mother’s dying words were a heavy blow. He quietly packed up the few belongings he had gathered in the provincial capital, resigned from his job, returned to Ning’an County, and resolutely took over this dilapidated Ancient City.
Three years had passed.
Over the past three years, he had poured his four years of college scholarships, the wages saved from his internship, and the meager savings left by his parents entirely into the scenic area’s maintenance and staff salaries. Even so, more than half of the Ancient City’s original two-dozen employees had gradually trickled away.
Today, the Ancient City only had Uncle Zhang guarding the gate, Aunt Liu handling the cleaning, Sun selling tickets and running errands, and two elderly craftsmen who had followed Chen Yan’s grandfather for decades to handle the daily maintenance. Six people, guarding a five-hundred-acre ghost town.
The monthly expenses were shocking once he actually crunched the numbers. Utilities, daily maintenance, salaries for five people, and various taxes and miscellaneous fees added up to at least twenty thousand yuan a month just to barely keep the place running.
And the scenic area’s monthly income? Last month, it was a grand total of three hundred and fifty yuan.
That was right, three hundred and fifty yuan. And that was only because a large family had taken a wrong turn, accidentally driving their commercial van straight to the city gates. Deciding to take a quick tour with a "since we’re already here" mentality, they bought tickets. At fifty yuan per person for a family of seven, the total came out to exactly three hundred and fifty yuan. Unfortunately, that tiny bit of income wasn’t even enough to cover the utilities.
Chen Yan had certainly tried to find solutions. He registered an official account for Ning’an Ancient City on Notes, where he posted videos of the ancient city’s morning mist, evening sunsets, and snowy landscapes. He paired the footage with soft music and added captions like, "A forgotten ancient city, waiting for an unexpected encounter with you."
Surprisingly, the view counts were quite decent. The most popular video reached over twenty thousand views and garnered five to six hundred likes. The comment sections were flooded with people exclaiming how beautiful it was and how much they wanted to visit—but as for those who actually showed up? Practically zero.
He had also reached out to travel agencies to discuss potential partnerships, but the moment they heard "Ning’an County," they immediately hung up the phone. He even considered mortgaging the Ancient City to a bank for a development loan, but the assessors simply took one look at the site, glanced at the financial statements, shook their heads, and left.
The five-hundred-acre Ancient City scenic area was technically valued at over a hundred million yuan. The problem was that absolutely no bank was willing to issue a loan for a property that generated practically zero revenue.
Sometimes, Chen Yan felt like an isolated fortress himself—besieged on all sides and completely drained of resources.
He was twenty-five this year. While his peers had already bought houses, gotten married, and started driving their own cars in the provincial capital, he was stuck in this dilapidated city, wearing a raincoat and clearing out drainage ditches.
The drainage ditch on the inner side of the east gate was part of the Ancient City’s drainage system. Back when the Ancient City was first constructed, Elder Chen and a few of his old buddies had pulled several all-nighters to finalize the design plans. He had insisted on using traditional, ancient-style drainage channels, claiming it would give the place a more authentic feel.
The facts proved that the wisdom of the ancients was indeed not to be underestimated. This drainage system had functioned flawlessly since the Ancient City’s completion, running smoothly for over a decade with practically zero issues. But even the best drainage system couldn’t withstand a lack of proper maintenance.
By the time Chen Yan rushed over, Uncle Zhang was already waiting for him. The old man was wearing a raincoat and holding an umbrella, peering anxiously in his direction. Uncle Zhang, whose full name was Zhang Shouzheng, was sixty-seven this year. He had guarded the Ancient City’s gates for twenty years. Although his hair had turned white and his back was stooped, his spirit and energy were somehow better than Chen Yan’s.
The moment he saw Chen Yan, he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Look at this! The leaves and trash have completely blocked the inlet! The water can’t drain out, and it’s flooding onto the street! If the road surface gets ruined from being soaked, we’ll have to repave this entire street later!"
Hearing this, Chen Yan immediately squatted down and plunged his hands into the murky, stagnant water to feel for the inlet. The raindrops were large and heavy. Rainwater poured down the collar of his raincoat, making him shiver uncontrollably. Ignoring the chill, he gritted his teeth and continued probing through the water until his fingers finally brushed against the inlet’s metal grate.
He forcefully scooped out the thick mud and rotten leaves clogging the grate. Watching a small whirlpool finally form on the water’s surface as the murky puddle began to drain slowly, he breathed a small sigh of relief.
Reaching further along the edge, he repeated the process. He soon found the second inlet, which was just as hopelessly clogged. He squatted in the pouring rain for over half an hour, working his way down the street until he had cleared all five inlets. Only then did he stand up and let out a heavy breath.
By now, his fingers were pale and pruned from the water, his fingernails caked in thick black mud.
Uncle Zhang handed him a towel, and Chen Yan took it, haphazardly wiping his face. However, because his hands were still coated in mud, he ended up smearing dirt all over his face, making him look rather comical.
"Yan..." Uncle Zhang hesitated for a moment before finally speaking up. "My salary for this month... you can just skip it."
Chen Yan paused his wiping for a second, then continued, his tone calm. "What are you talking about? Wages will be paid when they’re due."
"Pay what!" Uncle Zhang’s expression turned serious, and he tilted his umbrella closer to cover Chen Yan. "It’s not like I’m blind to the scenic area’s situation. With barely three hundred yuan in ticket sales last month, what are you supposed to pay us with? That little bit of money your parents left you must be scraping the bottom of the barrel by now, right?"