Shaking his head, he didn’t rush to study the reward from the side quest. Instead, he threw his raincoat back on and hurried to his office.
After hanging the raincoat back on the wall, he dug out a small first-aid kit from a wooden cabinet in the corner. He sat down at the Eight Immortals table and began tending to his wound. Fortunately, the injury wasn’t serious. Since he had returned the exact moment the blade pierced his skin, his attacker hadn’t had time to exert any real force. He quickly bandaged the wound.
He poured himself a glass of water and downed it in one gulp before finally checking his quest reward.
The side quest had rewarded him with a Memory Fragment of a special structure: the Yongtong Bridge. As for what exactly made it special, he would have to study it to find out. The fragment currently lay quietly in his System Space. He had experimented earlier and found that opening the System Space wasn’t complicated at all. With just a single thought, a phantom projection of the space would automatically appear before his eyes. The system had also already informed him how to use this fragment. It could be fused with a system anchor—namely, an object within Ning’an Ancient City. Ideally, it should be an object closely related to the fragment itself.
This immediately brought to mind the small stone bridge spanning the artificial river at the West City Gate. The bridge had no official name; most of the ancient city’s staff simply called it the West Bridge, meaning the bridge on the west side of the city. There were three bridges in the ancient city altogether. The reason Chen Yan immediately thought of the West Bridge was that ever since he took over the ancient city three years ago, this particular bridge had suffered damage for various reasons almost every year, causing him no end of headaches.
"You’re the one," he said.
He made up his mind to use this problematic little stone bridge for the fusion experiment. He glanced at the weather outside the window. Though it was still raining, it had lightened up considerably. He decided to rest for a moment and head out once the rain stopped. He lay down on the bamboo recliner left behind by his grandfather. Listening to the CREAK, CREAK of the bamboo slats rubbing together, Chen Yan, who had only intended to rest his eyes, fell into a deep sleep.
"Run!"
Chen Yan jolted upright. Having fallen asleep without realizing it, he now felt his entire body drenched in a cold sweat. The rain outside had stopped, and a ray of sunlight pierced through the glass, landing on the floor of the main room. He had just dreamed of the bustling Qinghe Street again. He dreamed of the crispy, delicious fried Guduo, and the smiling proprietress. But in the end, the dream froze on soaring flames and the blood-soaked proprietress screaming at him to run.
He wondered, "What exactly happened there? Did all of this really happen in history?"
He poured himself another glass of water and gulped it down. Now completely awake, he immediately pulled out his phone and typed the keywords "Heyu" and "era name" into the search bar.
The search yielded zero results.
Refusing to give up, he entered another era name, "Changping," and hit search. After scrolling for ages, he still found absolutely nothing. He continued to search for a few other keywords that had left a deep impression on him, like "Qinghe Street." In the end, aside from the fact that Guduo was a real historical food, everything else pulled up completely irrelevant results.
"What is this, a dual parallel universe? But the details were so real..." Chen Yan muttered to himself, sitting in the bamboo chair after failing to find a single shred of useful information online.
Three generations had protected a bridge, yet in the end, that bridge was still destroyed by the fires of war. Whenever he thought of the proprietress, who had refused to let go of her hatchet even in death, Chen Yan felt a heavy weight in his chest.
He rubbed his face vigorously. Once his emotions had settled a bit, he went to the bathroom to wash his face, went upstairs to change out of his soaked hoodie, and then left the office to head toward the West Bridge.
He had slept for over half an hour, meaning it was already past the ancient city’s 8:00 AM opening time. However, Chen Yan’s pace remained unhurried. Barring any miracles, the ancient city would most likely fail to sell a single ticket again today. The post-rain morning air was exceptionally fresh, but right now, he had no time to enjoy the pleasant atmosphere. Following the wet flagstone path, it didn’t take long for him to arrive at the edge of the West Bridge.
Like the Yongtong Bridge, the West Bridge was a single-arch stone bridge, and even roughly the same size. But there was a key difference. The West Bridge had been built using modern engineering machinery and construction blueprints—precise, efficient, and strictly by the book. The Yongtong Bridge, on the other hand, had been chiseled out pickaxe by pickaxe by the proprietress’s grandfather and his apprentices.
Functionally speaking, there was no essential difference between the two; in fact, the West Bridge might even be more durable and aesthetically pleasing. But looking at it from the perspective of an "ancient city," compared to the West Bridge—which only had an "ancient frame" but lacked any "ancient flavor"—the Yongtong Bridge, whose surface bore the marks of decades of carriage traffic from another world, undeniably fit the ancient city’s vibe much better.
Stepping onto the West Bridge, Chen Yan rested his hand on the recently repaired railing in the center and gazed at the slowly flowing river below. This river was named the Jade Belt River, a name his grandfather had chosen himself. Unfortunately, it lacked water year-round and only showed signs of life during the rainy season, like now.
Connecting the two banks of the West Bridge was West City Street, one of the ancient city’s two auxiliary streets. West City Street was a north-south avenue, not particularly wide, and roughly five hundred meters long. Although the entrance to this street was located on the west side of the ancient city and wasn’t far from the tourist entrance, for some unknown reason—perhaps due to poor route planning in the scenic area—tourists rarely came here. Over time, even the weeds and moss on the ground grew much more vigorously than in other parts of the ancient city. Of course, the more likely reason was that the entire ancient city barely had any tourists to begin with.
Reeling in his thoughts, he summoned the System Space with a single thought and selected the only item inside: the Memory Fragment of the Yongtong Bridge.
[Detected that the host has arrived at a highly associated area. The Memory Fragment of the special structure ’Yongtong Bridge’ is ready. Do you wish to initiate fusion?]
[Warning: Upon fusion, the current object will disappear. Please proceed with caution.]
He carefully read the system prompts that popped up before his eyes. Confirming there were no issues, he nodded and softly uttered a single word.
"Fuse."
[Command confirmed. Fusion process initiating...]
[Estimated time to completion: 12 hours.]
[Please do not enter this area during the fusion process.]
He glanced at the fusion time and the warning to stay out. Realizing he couldn’t stay to observe the process, Chen Yan didn’t linger on the bridge. He turned and walked toward a small warehouse not far down West City Street. Dragging out some simple construction barricades from the warehouse, he ignored the throbbing pain from his wound and fenced off both ends of the West Bridge as quickly as possible.
After setting up the barricades, he still felt a bit uneasy. He pulled out his phone and sent a message to the ancient city’s staff group chat.
"The West Bridge area will be closed for construction today and tomorrow. All employees are prohibited from entering the closed area without approval."
After sending the message, he watched a few scattered "Received" replies pop up in the chat. Chen Yan finally nodded. Taking one last look at the tightly cordoned-off West Bridge, he turned and headed back to his office.
Even though the ancient city was becoming increasingly unprofitable, looking as though it might go bankrupt at any moment, Chen Yan still carried out repair work every now and then. Everyone had long since gotten used to it.
Upon returning to his office, having just slept for half an hour, he found himself with nothing to do for the time being. He simply went back online to continue researching information related to the Song Dynasty.