When Chen Yan opened his eyes again, the glaring evening sun made him instinctively turn his head away. A cacophony of voices surrounded him, and a wave of heat carrying an indescribable mix of odors washed over his face. He found himself standing by a dirt road. The soaking wet raincoat he had just been wearing was gone, replaced by a coarse linen outfit.
"Make way! Make way!"
While he was still in a daze, a wooden wheelbarrow barrelled past, nearly grazing his toes. A shirtless, middle-aged man pushed it with all his might, sweat gleaming on his bronzed skin. The cart was piled high with muddy radishes.
"Where the hell am I?"
The sheer unfamiliarity of the scene made Chen Yan’s eyes widen in shock. As he looked in the direction the wheelbarrow had gone, his pupils shrank. Before him lay a bustling street.
It wasn’t particularly wide—only about three or four meters across—but it was packed. Row upon row of shops lined both sides, and pedestrians rubbed shoulders as they walked. The array of wooden signboards and cloth banners hanging along the street was dazzling.
But that wasn’t the most important part. Two little girls with their hair tied in traditional twin buns ran past him hand in hand. Listening to their silvery, fading laughter and taking in the ancient architecture with its white walls, black tiles, and slightly upturned eaves, Chen Yan completely froze.
This was definitely not his scenic area. In fact, it might not even be the modern era!
[Host has arrived at: Qinghe Street]
[Exploration countdown initiated. Recording basic environmental data...]
[Basic environmental data recording progress: 4%]
[Exploration countdown: 02:59:47]
"The system... right, the system!"
Noticing the changing system prompts at the periphery of his left eye, Chen Yan snapped out of his bewilderment, only to be struck by another wave of shock. The prompts were still there. That meant everything that had just happened was real. He had genuinely acquired a system called [Civilization Echoes], and with its "help," he had been transported to this antique street.
No, "antique" didn’t even begin to describe it. This was real. Unbelievably real!
At the entrance of a fabric shop, a man in a white robe was engaged in a fierce verbal battle, haggling with the Shopkeeper. At a roadside tea stall, a few idle men dressed in coarse, short-hemmed tunics were drinking tea and chatting. A passing peddler carried a carrying pole over his shoulder, occasionally calling out his wares in an accent that sounded both familiar and foreign. The pole swayed rhythmically, with wooden boxes hanging from both ends. The boxes were filled to the brim with all sorts of trinkets, some Chen Yan recognized and others he had never seen before.
"Excuse me, coming through!" a young man with an apron tied around his waist shouted as he darted past Chen Yan, carrying a food box in each hand and leaving behind the mouthwatering scent of braised meat.
Further down the street, a little boy of about three or four was sitting on the ground, crying at the top of his lungs because he had dropped his sugar figurine. His mother stood beside him, scolding him in a hushed tone.
The sounds, the smells, the lighting, the movements... every detail wove together into a massive, flawless web of reality, trapping Chen Yan securely within it.
"Qinghe Street... is this the place I need to explore?" he muttered.
Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to calm down, though his sweaty palms betrayed his inner anxiety. The countdown in his vision was ticking away second by second, and the recording progress of the basic environmental data had inexplicably reached 4%.
"Is the system... automatically recording?" he thought.
He hadn’t done a single thing since the system teleported him here, yet the progress bar had somehow gone up by four percent. Sensing a pattern, Chen Yan took a few steps forward. When he saw the progress increase by another percentage point, realization dawned on him. The system could automatically scan and record, which saved him a lot of effort.
However, he didn’t dare relax. The system’s warning about the collapse hung over his head like a suspended blade. If the three-hour exploration time ran out and he failed the mission, heaven only knew if his scenic area would truly be wiped out.
He had to get moving.
Gathering his thoughts, he followed the flow of the crowd and walked deeper into the market. As he gradually blended into the street scene, Chen Yan noticed more and more details.
First was the road beneath his feet. Unlike the imitation antique stone-paved roads in his own scenic area, this street was paved with dirt—or rather, rammed earth. The dirt road was rock-hard and mixed with gravel, marked by a messy intertwining of wheel ruts and footprints. This actually aligned perfectly with some of the historical trivia he had crammed after taking over the scenic area. Uniform stone-paved streets, common in modern tourist spots, were actually quite rare in ancient times.
When Chen Yan was teleported over, the system had automatically swapped his clothes for a linen outfit, along with thin-soled hemp boots. Walking on the gravel-mixed dirt road felt rather hard on his feet.
Next was the architecture. He hadn’t had the time to look closely when he first arrived, but now that he was truly part of the environment, he noticed it. The shops lining both sides of the street almost uniformly featured wide-open paneled doors and wooden lattice windows. The immediate impression was one of openness, allowing the dazzling array of goods inside to be seen at a glance.
One shop in particular left a deep impression on him. A Colorful Pavilion Joy Gate was erected in front of its entrance, constructed with a bamboo and wooden frame supporting layers of colored silk. It stood out prominently on the entire street.
"Shops open onto the street, Colorful Pavilion Joy Gates to attract customers, a strong commercial atmosphere, and even hanging fish ornaments on the gable walls... Is this the Song Dynasty?" he thought.
Relying on his limited knowledge of the Song Dynasty, Chen Yan could sense that this street had a very strong "Song" flavor to it. However, there were significant differences from what he remembered seeing in textbooks and historical dramas.
This place was grittier, more vibrant, and entirely unembellished. Sparks flew in the Blacksmith Shop, a storyteller’s spit flew as he spoke passionately at a tea stall, and the scent of alcohol and meat wafted through the air. Above all, though, there was the pungent smell of sweat and dust.
He didn’t want to admit it, but everything here was a hundred—no, a thousand times more authentic than his own Ning’an Ancient City. The realization made him break out in a cold sweat. Compared to this place, his "Ancient City" was, at best, on par with a low-budget movie set.
[Basic environmental data recording progress: 88%]
[Exploration countdown: 02:23:54]
"What the? It’s already at 88?" he thought.
Having unwittingly wandered beneath an Overstreet Building, Chen Yan’s spirits lifted when he saw the progress jump to 88% so quickly. It seemed the system’s automatic recording speed was much faster than he had anticipated. At this rate, he would probably complete the mission in less than an hour.
With that thought, the sense of urgency in his heart faded a bit. He looked up to observe the purely wooden Overstreet Building spanning across Qinghe Street. It had two stories. The first floor allowed pedestrians to pass through, while the second floor was encircled by an outdoor corridor. The doors and windows of the central room on the second floor were shut tight, keeping its purpose a mystery.
Two large cyan-and-white lanterns hung beneath the eaves of the first floor, bearing the characters for "Favorable Wind" and "Timely Rain" written in vermilion ink. The lanterns were beautifully designed, painted with peony patterns, though their colors were a bit faded, indicating they had hung there for a long time.
In the bottom left corner near the wall under the lanterns stood a noticeboard.