"Missing persons... lost and found... the ninth year of Heyu, the eighth month... Did the Song Dynasty have this era name?"
Standing beneath the notice board, Chen Yan stroked his chin as he read the contents, half-listening to the gossip of the crowd around him. The abundance of missing persons and lost-and-found notices was perfectly normal. After all, whether ancient or modern, who hasn’t lost something?
But his focus lay on the date marked at the very end of the notices. He didn’t know much about the Northern and Southern Song dynasties. What little he did know was mostly concentrated on architectural styles; he was largely ignorant of specific historical anecdotes, including era names. Still, in such a completely unfamiliar environment, gathering any information was always a good thing.
Mentally noting down the era name "Heyu" with plans to look it up online once he got back, Chen Yan didn’t linger and continued deeper into the market street.
As he passed a rouge shop, he ignored the pointing and whispering of a few young ladies nearby and leaned his face directly over a Copper Mirror displayed at a stall outside the entrance. Seeing his familiar face reflected in the mirror, Chen Yan breathed a sigh of relief. He was still himself; so far, it seemed the system had merely swapped his outfit.
But truth be told, he was genuinely shocked by the clarity of this Copper Mirror. To say it revealed every fine detail wouldn’t be an exaggeration—its reflection was no worse than a modern glass mirror.
As he ventured deeper into the street, his mindset gradually relaxed. He was like a modern tourist who had accidentally stumbled into a Song Dynasty market, finding everything fresh and curious.
Soon, as the basic environmental information recording progress reached 100%, he finally pushed through the crowded market and arrived at the head of a stone bridge.
[Basic Environmental Information Recording: 100%]
[Exploration Countdown: 02:09:15]
[New Side Quest: Observe and record the dynamics of the Yongtong Bridge area.]
[Side Quest Environmental Information Recording: 0%]
Contrary to his expectations, the system didn’t declare the mission complete when the basic environmental recording hit 100%. Instead, it generated a new side quest. As a tiny, pale golden arrow materialized in his vision, pointing straight at the stone bridge ahead, Chen Yan, who had thought he could finally go back, couldn’t help but sigh.
"I knew it wouldn’t be this easy..." he muttered under his breath, having no choice but to keep moving.
He didn’t step onto the bridge right away. Instead, he walked over to the adjacent riverbank to observe the bridge’s details from the side. It was a rather sturdy-looking single-arch stone bridge, built from interlocking blue-grey ashlar blocks. The single arch formed a semicircle, its modest opening just large enough for a traditional awning boat to pass beneath if the passengers ducked.
After observing from the riverbank for a moment and seeing the side quest progress bar remain completely motionless, he stopped dawdling and stepped onto the stone bridge.
The bridge was slightly narrower than the streets on either side, just wide enough for a single horse-drawn carriage to pass. The deck was paved with irregular bluestone slabs that had long been polished to a shine by the passage of carts, horses, and pedestrians. The railings were standard bluestone panels, with several lotus stone carvings adorning the handrails on both sides. Based on craftsmanship alone, this Yongtong Bridge wasn’t even as exquisite as the replica antique stone bridges back at his scenic park.
Standing on the bridge, resting his left hand on a cold stone lotus carving, he gazed into the distance along the canal. His silhouette was stretched long by the setting sun.
It had already been evening when the system teleported him here. Now, an hour later, the sun was nearing the horizon, and it would soon be dark. He didn’t know if it was a trick of the light or a restriction imposed by the system, but while everything had appeared normal on Qinghe Street, standing here on Yongtong Bridge and looking out, he could only see blurry architectural outlines.
Ordinarily, given his personality, he would have definitely tried to figure out what was going on. But right now, he didn’t have the bandwidth. Over an hour had ticked by on the exploration countdown, yet there was still no activity from the newly appeared side quest.
This system he had just acquired seemed to be socially inept. Aside from causing a bit of a stir during the binding process, it had remained completely silent ever since, communicating with him—its host—strictly through typing text.
Refusing to give up, he paced back and forth across the bridge seven or eight times. He scrutinized every stone carving on the railings, the stone stele at the bridgehead bearing the characters for "Yongtong Bridge," and even the ruts worn into the stone slabs beneath his feet multiple times. Because of his bizarre behavior, passing pedestrians kept casting curious glances his way, making Chen Yan feel extremely uncomfortable, yet he couldn’t stop.
The progress bar, however, remained stubbornly stuck at 0%, acting as if it were dead.
The sky gradually darkened, and the shops lining both sides of the canal began lighting their lanterns. Illuminated lanterns were hoisted up on bamboo poles one by one and hung beneath the eaves. Their orange-yellow halos flared to life sequentially, forming two strings of warm light along the street that made the road faintly visible.
GRUMBLE—
An intense wave of hunger suddenly struck from his stomach, snapping Chen Yan out of his standoff with the stone bridge. From the moment he woke up this morning until now, he hadn’t had a single bite to eat. Glancing around, he quickly noticed a tangerine-yellow paper lantern glowing on the right side of the bridgehead he had come from. Beneath the lantern was a small stall. It wasn’t large, but a vat of oil was SIZZLING away, wafting a mouthwatering aroma of hot oil and Sichuan peppercorns toward him.
This instantly amplified his hunger. He instinctively patted his clothes.
Originally holding out no hope, he suddenly felt something hard near his lower chest. Reaching into his robes, he surprisingly fished out over a dozen copper coins. The coins were heavily worn, but he could barely make out the characters "Heyu Tongbao."
This immediately gave him an idea.
He briskly walked off Yongtong Bridge and approached the small stall. Before he could speak, the female stall owner, who was turning something in the oil vat with long bamboo chopsticks, looked up and warmly greeted him.
"Would you like a skewer, young sir? Fried Guduo, fresh out of the wok with a finely-minced mutton filling!"
The woman looked to be in her thirties, wearing a plain headscarf and a faded grey cloth shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She seemed very capable and efficient.
"Fried Guduo?" Chen Yan repeated the name to himself, finding it a bit strange, and let his gaze sweep across the stall. What caught his eye were several skewers of golden-fried food, bulging like flower buds on bamboo sticks. They looked quite novel—somewhat like dumplings, somewhat like wontons, or perhaps neither.
"Judging by your accent, you’re not from around here, young sir? Then you definitely have to try it!" Seeing him nod, the woman didn’t wait for an answer. She picked up a skewer from a bamboo mat and handed it right to him. "Try it before you buy! If it’s not good, I won’t charge you!"
Smelling the mouthwatering aroma of the fried skewer right under his nose, Chen Yan’s stomach embarrassingly let out another GRUMBLE. Without further hesitation, he took the skewer of fried Guduo and shoved one into his mouth.
As the crispy shell cracked between his teeth, the rich aroma of mutton mixed with scalding hot broth burst forth, making him sharply suck in air from the heat.
Guduo: A popular stuffed pastry during the Song Dynasty, mostly deep-fried, but could also be steamed or boiled.