68 City upon City 02
◎As long as he tries enough times, he will eventually be able to return to the Han Chang'an City◎
Zhu Heng walked around the temple gate and entered the pagoda courtyard. He carefully listened to the faint cry of a baby and came to the pagoda of Yongning Temple.
Inside the wooden pagoda, the various types of brackets and beams are intricate and detailed. Under the caisson, one can see a lotus-shaped Sumeru pedestal, in the center of which lies the little baby.
Zhu Heng walked forward and picked him up, and met his two big eyes like black grapes. Zhu Heng frowned and confirmed that it was the same child. But how did he get here from the Qin Palace or the Han Garden in an instant?
He paused, then suddenly turned around and looked towards the gate outside the tower.
It seemed like...someone passed by just now.
Zhu Heng had never trusted his sixth sense so much before. He put the child down. The child lost the warm embrace, pouted, and started crying again.
Zhu Heng touched the child's head, not caring whether he could understand or not, raised his index finger to signal him to be silent, and then left the pagoda alone and came to the courtyard outside.
However, looking around, there was nothing unusual.
He always felt something was strange and uneasy, and the surroundings were eerily quiet... Suddenly, he turned around and looked into the tower.
Logically, the child should either be crying or babbling, so why is he so quiet now?
He widened his eyes slightly and secretly said, "Oh no!"
Zhu Heng rushed back in a flash, pushed open the tower door, and found that the lotus pedestal was empty.
The child is missing.
A gust of wind blew in my face, mixed with fine yellow sand.
Zhu Heng snarled, staggered forward two steps, and then stepped on the loess road. The surrounding environment had undergone earth-shaking changes.
He looked down at his feet. It was an extremely wide street with the road surface slightly higher in the middle and drainage ditches on both sides.
The road is lined with locust trees, and when you look up you can see the shade of the trees. On both sides of the road are neat square rammed earth walls, and in the distance you can see Tang-style buildings with white walls and vermilion beams inside the walls.
I think he came from Luoyang City in the Northern Wei Dynasty to Chang'an City in the Tang Dynasty.
The streets were bustling with people. Zhu Heng followed the crowd into the inner block within the rammed earth wall. It was not as neat as the outer block. There were all kinds of shops and stores lined up, interspersed with narrow alleys. It was densely populated and very lively.
As soon as he entered the alley, he heard a baby crying. Zhu Heng identified the source of the sound, gradually left the crowd, and came to an inconspicuous herbal medicine shop located in a narrow alley.
The rich fragrance of exotic spices filled his nose. Zhu Heng rubbed the tip of his nose and resisted the urge to sneeze.
The shop was empty, and the mid-afternoon sunlight shone in, casting a hazy, dreamy filter over the room.
Zhu Heng immediately noticed the baby crib placed behind the counter.
He stood at the door, his shoulders bearing the scorching afternoon sun, which burned the skin beneath his clothes, making him feel slightly numb and tingling.
Zhu Heng suddenly realized that something was wrong.
If the child he first picked up in the Qin Palace was placed on his couch, thus forming a cycle, then who brought the child who suddenly appeared in the Yongning Temple Pagoda in the Northern Wei Dynasty and in the incense and medicine shop in Chang'an City in the Tang Dynasty? Is there an even greater cycle waiting for him?
Of course there is another possibility... he is already in this cycle.
Zhu Heng picked up the child and recalled that the system initially only mentioned five ancient capitals: Xianyang of Qin, Chang'an of Han, Luoyang of Northern Wei, Chang'an of Tang, and Bianliang of Northern Song. Now, except for the last one, he has visited all the others.
This means that even if the movement through the portal is irregular, as long as he tries enough times, he will be able to return to the Han Chang'an City one day.
So from now on, the child must stay with him all the time.
Zhu Heng pushed open the back door of the spice shop. Before arriving at the new ancient capital, he quickly glanced at the child in his arms, and a fleeting thought flashed through his mind.
Who could this child be from the Western Han Dynasty?
After leaving the spice shop, Zhu Heng stepped into a bun shop by the river.
The shop was built with bamboo and wood, and the windows facing the river were propped up with small sticks. Outside, boats were coming and going on the river, and the sound of oars was endless. The streets along the river were flexibly interwoven, no longer as square and rigid as the Tang Chang'an City.
This is Bianliang, the eastern capital of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Zhu Heng stood at the door of the bun shop holding the child. He first looked up at the shop sign, then looked inside, looking for the possibility of a portal.
Suddenly, his gaze stopped at the window of a shop along the river.
Outside is the vast canal. The bun shop is built directly on the river bank. Just one step away is the water of the Bian River. It is impossible for anyone to walk outside the window.
But Zhu Heng saw it.
Still an acquaintance.
Through the limited window frame, he saw the man in black combat uniform standing in front of a lotus throne and picking up the child on the throne.
If it’s not Helan Dao, then who is it?
Zhu Heng strode into the bun shop with swift and agile movements. With the mentality of taking a gamble, he ignored the people of Bianliang who came to stop him and jumped out of the window without hesitation.
This must be the Anywhere Door.
Zhu Heng jumped out of the window and fell straight down. He closed his eyes, but there was no feeling of entering water. There was only the soft ground and the aroma of grass and soil that filled his nose.
There was an extremely familiar smell in the air. Zhu Heng was in a trance for a moment. He protected the child and did not open his eyes immediately.
But the metallic creaking of the tracks overhead, the whirring of wind from cars in the air, and the mechanical sounds of the ubiquitous artificial intelligence had all flooded into Zhu Heng's mind, leaving him no way to pretend ignorance.
He came back again, back to the second-level human civilization era, back to his hometown.
Standing up from the lawn, Zhu Heng looked at the silver buildings towering into the sky above his head. Those magnificent buildings seemed like miracles. With the experience and lessons learned from the copy of Qin Shihuang's Death, Zhu Heng's first thing was to try hard to search for information about this moment in this world.
Found it.
He looked at a billboard. It was regular cleaning time, and countless aerial robots tied by a rope were working hard.
The billboard recorded the current date and time - 15:25, August 7, 8x6, in the Second Level Civilization Era.
8x6 years... the middle number is blocked by the aerial cleaning robot.
While waiting for the robot to move, Zhu Heng recalled the scene in front of the arbitrary gate when he passed through Bianliang.
So, where did Helan Dao go?
-
A man in black swam up to the bank of the Bian River.
He dragged his combat uniform soaked by the river water and sat down on the shore. He combed his wet hair behind his head, wrung out the water from the corner of his clothes, and then... began to talk to the air.
"I asked you to take us to a new instance, but why is this still the Bian River?"
The system was so angry that it jumped up and down: [Daddy! Open your eyes and see clearly, this is a new copy!]
Helan Dao raised his eyebrows and stretched out his hand to feel the air around him. It was indeed a completely new and unfamiliar environment. Although it was still Tokyo Bianliang, the copy mission was no longer the same.
It was a misunderstanding, but Helan Dao didn't look uncomfortable at all. He said calmly, "Oh, really?"
As he spoke, he slowly smoothed his combat uniform with his hand, and the originally wet fabric instantly dried up.
"I'm a little hungry, let's go buy some buns." Helan Dao said as he walked into the bun shop by the river and sat down by the window along the river.
While waiting for the buns to be served, Helan Dao leisurely admired the scenery outside the window. After a while, he casually asked the system, "Is Zhu Heng here too?"
【Here it comes.】
"That's good." Helan Dao sat down on the stool more firmly and was pulling out a pair of chopsticks from the bamboo tube when he suddenly heard a faint baby crying.
He was stunned and stopped moving: "Did you hear anything?"
Helan Dao closed his eyes and moved his ears: "The sound came from behind me."
Isn’t that right behind him...outside the window?
Helan Dao took a long step and jumped out of the window, then rolled over and landed in a palace room.
With his knees touching the ground and one hand supporting the floor in front of him, Helan Dao raised his eyes, a hint of surprise flashed in his eyes, but he quickly returned to normal.
Anywhere door?
A smile appeared at the corners of his eyes. What kind of new and strange space is this?
"Tell me, where is this place?"
[Qin Dynasty, Xianyang City.] The system answered truthfully.
Helan said "hmm" and fixed his eyes on the only low couch in the room.
There was a baby lying on the couch.
Helan Dao slowly turned his head and looked sharply at the half-open wooden door behind him.
He smiled slightly and used his consciousness to communicate with the system: "If I'm not mistaken, someone left this child here and left through that door."
The wooden door, which was not closed properly, turned in the wind and made a creaking sound.
He Landao raised an eyebrow: "Well... just left not long ago."
He put on his helmet, fastened the cheek and chin straps, then walked straight to the couch and picked up the child. "My dungeon quest this time is related to this child, right?"
Although it was a question, Helandao hugged the child and retreated quickly without waiting for the system to answer. Before retreating, he did not forget to glance at the card left on the couch.
"Is this kid from the Western Han Dynasty?" Helan Dao chuckled, stepped on the threshold of another wooden door behind him with his heel, and fell backwards without hesitation.
"Leave."
Helan Dao rolled over twice while holding the child. A cloud of mist rose from the ground, filled with the aroma of spices from the Western Regions, which was rich, strange, and irresistible.
The child in his arms clutched Helan Dao's collar tightly. Helan Dao looked down at him, smiled, and hugged him tighter: "Really, you've suffered so much."
He looked up and around: "Where is this?"
System reply: [Tang Chang'an City.]
Helan Dao nodded in approval: "I've heard of your great reputation for a long time."
Whether it was a coincidence or something, there happened to be a wooden crib behind the counter. Helandao put the child in it and stretched his sore neck. The scene behind the backyard door came into his sight.
Through the back door, he saw Zhu Heng standing alone in front of a wooden pagoda, seemingly looking for something.
Helan Dao stared at the back door without blinking, and patted the child's chest gently, trying to comfort him absentmindedly.
There was a perfunctory tone in his voice, and the child was about to cry again.
He Landao then turned his gaze to him: "You, be good and don't make trouble. I will be back soon."
As he said this, he walked towards the backyard alone and stepped behind the gate of Yongning Temple.
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