Yuanzhu

1. 2026·Yuanzhu Yuanzhu is a city built at the intersection of shallow sea and fresh water. Three thousand years ago, the spiritual veins extended from the East China Sea into the land, creating a whirlpool here, leaving behind a water maze shrouded in mist all year round. The entire city is cut into ninety-nine pieces of land by large and small waterways, connected by one thousand two hundred bridges. The locals often say: "The road to Yuanzhu is impassable for living people, but can be passed for dead people." This means that the waterways in this place change every year, and the map will be out of date as soon as it is printed. Only spiritual veins can identify the direction. Jiang Huai has been delivering food in this city for three years. She rides a modified psychic electric car with the words "Sophora Flower Takeaway" stuck on the back of the car. She is familiar with every alley that disappears, every stone bridge that only appears when the tide goes out, and every alley with confusing house numbers. But even so, there were places she couldn't find. That day was September 17, 2026, the day before the spiritual tide broke out. The meteorological observatory issued a warning, saying that in the next three days, the East China Sea's spiritual veins will experience a once-in-a-century period of activity, and the entire city of Yuanzhu may experience temporary vision disorders. Jiang Huai doesn't believe this. She was an orphan and grew up in Yuanzhu Welfare Home. The only supernatural event she saw since she was a child was that the braised pork in the canteen of the home never exceeded three pieces. At four o'clock in the afternoon, she took the order. Destination: No. 16, Huapifang, Yuanzhu Old Town. The note reads: "Take the waterway, come in from Boardwalk Lane, turn right at the third willow tree." Jiang Huai frowned. She knew that Floating Bridge Lane was a dead end with a wall at the bottom and a smelly ditch behind the wall. She called, but the other party didn't answer. She sent a message: "Boss, Boardwalk Lane is blocked, can I take the land route?" After three minutes, the other party replied with one word: "Okay." Jiang Huai turned into the flower archway on an electric bicycle. There are old arcades on both sides of the street, and the walls are covered with sedge. Some door lintels still have the inscriptions of business names from the Republic of China, which are blurred by water vapor. She found No. 16 - A three-story blue brick building with all the windows nailed shut. There was a faded seal on the door, signed "Yuanzhu City Spiritual Management Bureau", and the year could not be clearly seen. She rang the doorbell. No one responded. She pressed it again, and the third time, the door opened a crack by itself. A damp, rusty wind blew out from inside, mixed with the smell of old paper and rotten wood. Jiang Huai hesitated for a moment, then opened the door and walked in. The first floor was empty, with a thin layer of water on the ground reflecting the cracked ceiling above. She shouted: "Takeaway!" The sound bounced back and forth twice in the empty room, and then was swallowed up by a strange suction. She was about to exit when suddenly there was nothing under her feet - the floor collapsed. She fell into the water. It was bitingly cold, like being thrown into a winter moat. She fluttered twice and stepped on the ground. The water was only waist deep, but everything was pitch black. She turned on her phone's flashlight and found herself in a cellar. The walls were made of blue bricks and covered with black moss, and the air was filled with a strong, almost pungent spiritual energy fluctuation. In the center of the cellar, there is a stone table. There is an iron box on the stone table. The iron box was very rusty, but its shape was still intact. It was about the size of two palms, and it had some runes engraved on it that she couldn't understand. Jiang Huai walked over and touched the iron box - the moment her fingertips touched the surface of the box, the whole cellar suddenly lit up. Not the lights. The runes on the wall lit up one after another, and the green-blue fluorescence spread between the cracks of the bricks like water. The lid of the iron box popped open on its own. There is no letter inside. There is only one piece of paper. The paper is very thin, but extremely tough. It is yellowish in color and looks old at first glance. There is no writing on the paper, it is completely blank. Jiang Huai picked up the paper, looked at it over and over, and muttered: "I thought I could find an antique." She casually took out a ballpoint pen from her pocket and scribbled something on the corner of the paper. Then she froze. The paper seemed to be alive. The ink quickly spread and reorganized on the paper. After a few seconds, a new line of words appeared on the paper. The font is in beautiful small letters, but the handwriting is completely different from hers: "Who are you? How did you get my paper?" Jiang Huai stared at the line of words for five seconds, then raised his head and looked at the cellar wall, then looked at the paper in his hand, and said to himself in a very calm tone: "Jiang Huai, your vision is disordered. You should go to the hospital." She put the paper back into the iron box, turned around and left. As soon as she reached the cellar entrance, the piece of paper floated out of the iron box on its own, chased in front of her, and hung in mid-air. There was another line of words on it: "Don't go! I've been waiting for eighty years for someone to write on this piece of paper!" Jiang Huai stopped. She looked at the hanging paper, then looked at the cellar exit, took a deep breath, reached out and grabbed the paper. She wrote: "Who are you?" The reply was quick: "My name is Chu Zhou. I am from the Chu family of Yuanzhu. I was born in the 15th year of the Republic of China. What about you?" Jiang Huai's mouth twitched. She wrote: "It's 2026. Did you live 100 years ago?" There was silence for a few seconds - or, on paper, there was silence for a few seconds. Then new handwriting appeared, this time it was a little crooked, as if the hand was shaking: "2026? This is 1926. But this piece of paper was passed down from my grandfather. It is said to be an echo paper. The words written on it will transcend time and be transmitted to a certain day in the future. I always thought it was a lie to children." Jiang Huai wrote: "So you, a person from 1926, are talking to me from 2026?" "Looks like it." "Don't you think it's outrageous?" "Outrageous. But you are even more outrageous." Jiang Huai rolled his eyes. That night, Jiang Huai took the "echo paper" home. The house she rented was in Workers' New Village in Beicheng. It was a small single room of 30 square meters. Outside the window was an unknown waterway in Yuanzhu. She spread the paper on the table, read it for a long time, picked up the pen and wrote: "Are you still there?" The ink on the paper gradually faded, and then new writing appeared: "Yes. I haven't slept. I'm afraid the paper will be damaged or you won't write." "Aren't you from the Republic of China? Shouldn't you be lighting kerosene lamps over there? Go to bed early." "You mind me. I'm not sleepy." Jiang Huai smiled. She wrote: "Why did you put the paper in that cellar?" It took a while for the other party to reply: "My grandfather said that the echo paper needs to be nourished by spiritual veins to be effective. The most stable place for the spiritual veins in Yuanzhu City is the cellar of No. 16 Huapifang. So I put the paper there and wrote a note saying that this paper should be left for the destined person. I didn't expect to wait for a whole hundred years." "Where's your note? I didn't see it." "Maybe it's rotten. Do you think it's waterproof?" "Then how did you know someone was coming?" "The echo paper is sensitive. The moment you write, my place lights up. I almost fell off the chair in the study." Jiang Huai bit the cap of his pen and thought for a while, then wrote: "So what does your grandfather do? Why is there such a thing?" "My grandfather is from the Yuanzhu Spiritual Management Bureau. This paper was originally a test product used to seal the spiritual tide. Later, it was discovered that the words written on it would randomly travel through time. He thought it was unreliable, so he did not report it and kept it for himself. He passed it to my father, and my father passed it to me." "Your family is really unreliable." "You take care of me." Jiang Huai laughed so hard that his shoulders trembled and he wrote: "Then what are you doing now? What was Yuanzhu like in 1926?" Chu Zhou's reply was very long, as if he had been holding back for a long time and finally found someone to talk to: "Yuanzhu is in chaos right now. The spiritual tide is unstable, and the waterways change every day. The bridge in front of my house disappeared the day before yesterday. I have to go around two kilometers to go to work. The streets are full of people from the Spiritual Management Bureau measuring spiritual pulses. The people are half-believed. Some people say that the world is going to end. My daily job is to go to the library to look up information, help the Bureau of Spiritual Management organize ancient books, and find ways to stabilize the spiritual tide." "How old are you?" "Twenty. What about you?" "Twenty-three. Delivery boy." "What is a delivery boy?" "He's the one who delivers food. You order it at home and I'll deliver it to you on my bike." Chuzhou wrote a huge exclamation mark: "This is so convenient! If we want to eat here, we can only cook it ourselves or go to a restaurant. Can you deliver everything there?" "Almost. Hot pot, milk tea, cold medicine, toilet paper." Chu Zhou was sincerely envious and made a crestfallen face. In the following days, Jiang Huai developed a habit: when he came home from get off work every day, the first thing he did was sit down at the table, take out the reply paper and see if Chuzhou had left a message. Chuzhou is there almost every day. His time was eight hours ahead of Jiang Huai's, so when Jiang Huai was writing at night, it was already early morning in Chuzhou. But he never said he was sleepy and kept talking until late. Their conversation was ordinary. What did I eat today, what strange things happened on the road, which bridge in Yuanzhu disappeared again today, Jiang Huai was chased by a dog while delivering food today. Chuzhou described Yuanzhu in 1926 to her: "Do you know the Jiuqu Floating Bridge? It is the tourist attraction over there now. On our side, it has not been completed yet. I pass by the construction site every day and watch the masons putting the stones on it one by one. What will it look like in a hundred years? Have you walked on it?" Jiang Huai wrote: "Walk by. The bridge is full of people taking pictures. There are people selling candied haws and roasted sweet potatoes at the bridge end." "Tanghulu! I know this. We also have it here." "What about roasted sweet potatoes?" "Yes. On winter nights, there are people pushing carts selling them on the street, and you can smell the fragrance from three streets away." Jiang Huai wrote: "We have one here too. Exactly the same." A hundred years doesn't seem that far away. Intention:1