"Take your time, sir," the stall owner said with a proud smile, watching him draw in sharp breaths from the heat but refusing to spit the food out. "I’ve run this stall at the bridgehead for five years, and everyone who’s eaten here says it’s delicious."
"It’s so good! Unbelievably good!"
Polishing off a skewer of Guduo in a few bites, Chen Yan looked at the stall owner, still wanting more. Under her smiling gaze, he accepted a second skewer.
A third, a fourth, a fifth...
It wasn’t until he had devoured seven skewers of fried Guduo in one go that Chen Yan finally felt about seventy or eighty percent full. He really wanted a can of ice-cold cola to wash it all down, but unfortunately, that was unrealistic.
"Uh... how much is it in total?" Patting his stomach, he suddenly realized he had been so focused on stuffing his face that he forgot to ask the price.
"You had the lamb-filled ones, sir. They’re two coins a skewer, making it fourteen coins in total," the stall owner replied, pointing to a wooden sign standing at the corner of her stall. "Rest assured, sir, the prices are clearly written. They haven’t gone up in the five years I’ve been at this bridge."
Chen Yan didn’t really care whether it was expensive or not; after all, he hadn’t come here just to satisfy his cravings. He deftly counted out fourteen copper plates and handed them to the stall owner.
While she was collecting the money, he gestured toward the nearby Yongtong Bridge with his chin and asked casually, "Ma’am, you just said you’ve been running this stall at the bridge for five years. You must be quite familiar with it, right?"
Hearing this, the stall owner paused as she tucked the money into her cloth pouch. "How could I not be? My grandfather built this bridge."
"Your grandfather?" Chen Yan was taken aback for a moment before realizing the archaic term she used meant grandfather.
"Back then, my grandfather was one of the finest stonemasons along the banks of the Qinghe. He and his apprentices spent three years chiseling this bridge. Every single groove on the stone railings was carved by his own hands." Now quite chatty, the stall owner spoke with a deeply proud tone. "It was completed in the fourth year of the Changping era, before I was even born. Later, my father inherited my grandfather’s craft. For decades, he came up to the bridge every year without fail to inspect the joints and patch the stones."
Changping—another era name he had never heard of. But Chen Yan didn’t have time to dwell on such minor details.
The stall owner’s words held a wealth of information: the bridge was built under her grandfather’s leadership, and the maintenance work was later taken over by her father, who did it for decades. In other words, Yongtong Bridge was not only quite ancient, but it was also deeply connected to the stall owner’s family.
A glint of excitement flashed in his eyes. He finally had a clue! However, just as he praised them with an "Impressive!" and prepared to ask more, the stall owner spoke again, her voice much softer than before.
"In the thirteenth year of Changping, there was a massive flood upstream. My grandfather took his men down to reinforce the bridge piers, and he never came back up." Looking down as she flipped the skewers in the bubbling oil, her tone was flat, as if she were recounting someone else’s story. "During the spring thaw in the fourth year of the Heyu era, moving ice floes cracked one of the piers. Afraid it would endanger travelers, my father went into the water overnight to make emergency repairs. A stray chunk of ice suddenly rushed down from upstream and knocked him into the river..."
The air suddenly fell silent.
Chen Yan felt a wave of awkwardness. He never expected the conversation to take such a dark turn. One moment, the stall owner had been proudly telling him how her grandfather and father had built and maintained this bridge for decades. The next, she revealed that both men had ultimately died because of it. The sudden shift caught him completely off guard and left a heavy weight in his chest.
More importantly, according to her, her father had perished in the fourth year of Heyu, and she had been running this stall at the bridgehead for exactly five years. Recalling the "Ninth Year of Heyu" date he had seen on the bulletin board earlier, the reason she had set up her Guduo stall here was self-evident...
Not pressing any further, Chen Yan bid the stall owner farewell and turned back toward the stone bridge. Behind him, the oil pan was still hissing with a loud SIZZLE, and the dim, yellowish glow of a paper lantern draped over the small stall. As he stepped onto Yongtong Bridge, he glanced back over his shoulder. The stall owner was still looking down and frying her skewers, though her movements seemed less brisk than before.
[Basic Environmental Information Record: 100%]
[Exploration Countdown: 01:49:13]
[New Side Quest: Observe and record the regional dynamics of the ’Yongtong Bridge’.]
[Side Quest Environmental Information Record: 0%]
Night had fallen, and the bustling crowds on Qinghe Street had thinned out significantly.
Standing in the middle of Yongtong Bridge with a full stomach, Chen Yan glanced at his mission progress. Even though twenty minutes had passed, the side quest progress remained stubbornly stuck at 0%.
This time, he didn’t feel impatient. Instead, he rested his hands on the bridge railing and slowly closed his eyes. The stall owner’s words echoed in his mind, making him wonder what it must have been like when the bridge was first built. It must have been a lively scene. A sturdy lead mason would have been loudly directing his apprentices down in the riverbed, chanting work songs as they strained to accurately sink massive stone blocks weighing hundreds of pounds into their designated spots.
Time flew by. A somewhat refined-looking man would squat on the ground, carefully inspecting every detail of the bridge—whether the stone joints were tightly interlocked, and if the piers and deck showed any signs of damage...
Suddenly, without any warning, the progress bar that had been stalled for so long jumped sharply from 0% to 5%.
Chen Yan’s heart gave a jolt. But before he could rejoice, the peaceful mental image before him began to shake violently! Gripping the bridge railing tightly, he waited for the tremors to stop before looking up.
He realized he was still standing on the bridge, and it was still night, but everything before his eyes had changed.
The horizon was an ominous, dark red, as if half the sky were on fire. The air was thick with the stench of burning, mixed with a faint, metallic tang of blood.
Qinghe Street on both banks no longer held its tranquil appearance of white walls and black tiles. Several structures had collapsed, the ruined walls and debris casting twisted shadows in the firelight. Rushed footsteps and panicked shouts echoed from all directions, intermingled with the piercing clang of clashing metal and a chilling, muffled thudding sound.
The thuds fell in a steady rhythm, like someone smashing a heavy object against something, or perhaps like...
He didn’t dare think any further.
"What is going on here?" Chen Yan muttered.
In the blink of an eye, the entire scene had completely transformed. Even though Chen Yan was a transmigrator, he was utterly bewildered by this bizarre phenomenon.
Taking a subconscious step back, he suddenly felt his foot hit something hard. He glanced back, and as a large pile of crushed stone came into view, his eyes instantly widened.
Yongtong Bridge beneath his feet looked nothing like it had moments ago. It appeared to have suffered a violent impact—half of its railing had been completely smashed away, leaving behind a jagged edge and a floor littered with rubble. The stone-paved path in the middle of the bridge was in an even more disastrous state. The surface, which hadn’t been worn down by decades of foot traffic, was now split open at the seams with numerous cracks, as if some tremendously heavy object had ruthlessly rolled over it.
Chen Yan couldn’t help but draw in a sharp breath. Where on earth had the system taken him this time?
Just a second ago, he had been standing in a prosperous, peaceful era. Now, out of nowhere, it was a scene of a fallen city and mass slaughter. The extreme contrast almost made his brain short-circuit.
But before he could figure out what exactly was happening, a glimpse from the corner of his eye caught a figure lying collapsed at the bridgehead.
His heart suddenly gave a violent, uncontrollable leap!