Chapter 181: Chapter 180: Sights and Sounds of Jiang City

"This is authentic hot dry noodles!"

"Super thick sesame paste!"

"A total calorie bomb!"

Xiao Ya and Jiang Shishi shared a bowl, but they only ate a little from the top. They didn’t dare to eat the noodles at the bottom, which were coated in the thick sauce.

Gu Zhao finished his own bowl with a SLURP. "How do hot dry noodles compare to zha jiang mian?"

"They have way more calories!" Xiao Ya stuck out her tongue. "One uses sesame paste, the other uses sweet bean sauce. Is there even a comparison?"

"Wow, this bite is so satisfying!"

A hearty female voice came from nearby. They saw a slender woman recording a video for her show, holding a bowl of hot dry noodles and eating them in big mouthfuls.

"Add some pickled long beans, and it’s not greasy at all," the woman said with great enthusiasm. "Have a bowl for breakfast, and you won’t be hungry until noon!"

"You won’t be hungry until the afternoon," Xiao Ya muttered under her breath, then asked curiously, "How does she stay so fit eating like that?"

Jiang Shishi chimed in, "She only needs ten minutes to record. The rest of the morning can be spent at the gym."

Then they saw the woman finish her noodles, stop recording, and leave with her companion. As she passed by their table, she whispered to her companion, "Let’s go back to the hotel and rest a bit. I need to run ten kilometers later."

The three of them were speechless.

...

Gu Zhao wasn’t in a hurry to go up Zhenwu Mountain. He had to let people enjoy the New Year, and it had been a long time since he’d enjoyed the leisure of modern society himself. Besides, he had two beautiful women with him.

So they first went to Jiang City, rested for a night, and then came to taste the hot dry noodles named after the city before continuing their freestyle trip.

"It’s a shame it’s winter. We can’t see the cherry blossoms at Jiangcheng University," Xiao Ya said with some regret.

Jiang Shishi wasn’t concerned. "Can’t we just come back next spring?"

Gu Zhao asked, "You two might come here for a performance exchange."

"Of course we will," Jiang Shishi said. "We travel all over the country and abroad, so we’ll definitely come to Jiang City. You should come with us then, okay?"

Gu Zhao had no objection. "We can shoot another video then."

Back when they only knew Gu Zhao was skilled, the two women wanted to pull him into making videos. But now that they knew just how skilled he was, they were hesitant.

"If we do that, won’t you be exposed?" Xiao Ya asked in a low voice.

"So what if I am?" Gu Zhao shrugged. "Besides, as long as I don’t fly away in public, who’s going to believe what they see in a video?"

Jiang Shishi’s eyes lit up. "You can fly!?"

Gu Zhao glanced sideways at her ample chest. "What do you think? Want me to take you for a spin?"

Jiang Shishi chuckled and looped her arm through Gu Zhao’s. Even through his down jacket, he could feel her softness.

"It’s just that I don’t know anything about this world of yours! First, a Celestial Spirit Talisman could heal Xiaoya’s grandfather. Then we ran into a Black Magic Master from Siam. And now this Golden Gang Bracelet can even prevent car accidents." Jiang Shishi’s eyes were filled with shock.

As she spoke, she flashed the Purple Sandalwood Golden Gang Bracelet on her wrist. "Legendary Magical Treasures are showing up. How was I supposed to know if you could perform Sword Flight or not?"

In fact, Jiang Shishi realized her mistake as soon as she asked. The Celestial Spirit Talisman and the Vajra Profound Talisman still fell within the realm of folklore and rural legends, but Sword Flight belonged to the world of Xianxia. They were two completely different concepts.

Xiao Ya giggled beside them. "Didn’t Gu Zhao already make you fly last night?"

Jiang Shishi, flustered, started tickling Xiao Ya. "As if he didn’t make *you* fly too!"

The two women playfully horsed around with Gu Zhao, not shying away from physical contact, giving him quite an eyeful.

After a moment of fooling around, the three of them composed themselves. They had arrived at a memorial hall dedicated to the struggles of the past, from the first shot fired against feudalism to the great war of resistance that followed.

"Our history books really don’t cover enough," Xiao Ya said indignantly. "If it weren’t for the internet and independent media, I’d never have known that Huaqi Country used Jiang City as a testing ground before bombing Sakura Paste!"

Jiang Shishi looked at the old photographs on the memorial hall’s walls. "It’s because Jiang City was also by the water back then, with a terrain very similar to the capital of Sakura Paste. Both cities were also dominated by wooden structures. Bombing Jiang City was the best way to simulate the real-world effects of bombing their capital."

Gu Zhao’s gaze lingered on the blurry, black-and-white photos, his eyes dark and profound.

"Those Huaqi devils really were no good!" a nearby tourist explained to his companion. "They didn’t see people in the colonies as human at all. In their eyes, we were just another colony back then."

"They used Jiang City as a testing ground and burned the city to a wasteland. The official death toll was twenty thousand, and who knows how many more were injured."

"Later, they stationed troops in Jiang City, and the Jingming Building incident occurred. And the women they harmed weren’t ordinary women, but the wives of officials and socialites."

"When the incident came to light, those people from Huaqi Country got away with it, suffering no consequences, and just went back home. Meanwhile, a gag order was issued here, forbidding any reporting or discussion of it to avoid offending them."

"Isn’t that just like what they’re doing in Sakura Paste and South Korea now?" someone nearby said with dawning realization. "Just the other day, I saw a news report about a few Huaqi soldiers running over and killing a girl from Sakura Paste with their car."

Another person nodded. "So much for a ’beacon of civilization.’ No matter how advanced technology gets, the nature of imperialism never changes."

The old photos and events from decades ago seemed to connect fantastically with recent events, making those living in an era of peace realize just how hard-won their current lives were.

...

The group left the memorial hall and went to the banks of the Yangtze River. The towering skyscrapers and endless streams of traffic pulled them back into the new century.

Despite the cold weather, the citizens’ enthusiasm for strolling around was unstoppable. And as the most prosperous city in the central region of the country, it also attracted many foreign tourists.

Gu Zhao’s group had been walking for less than half an hour and had already encountered no fewer than ten groups of foreigners. Among them were many who were traveling alone, apparently foreign vloggers holding selfie sticks and recording their shows.

They spoke with utter shock as they described Celestial Xia’s current development, prosperity, peace, and civility, as well as how its people lived and worked in contentment and treated others with kindness and friendship.

"This is how we should have always been," Xiao Ya said with emotion. "Independence and autonomy are truly great things; they can’t be taken for granted."

"Anyone who tries to stop us from living well is our enemy," Jiang Shishi huffed.

Gu Zhao turned his head and saw a young man walking past, his phone playing a video of a sixth-generation fighter jet. He was discussing with his companion when the navy’s "nuclear-powered dumplings" would be "served." Gu Zhao couldn’t help but sigh.

"What are you sighing for?" Xiao Ya asked.

"I learned all these skills, but now I find that the one I wanted to help doesn’t seem to need it anymore. It’s just a bit emotional, that’s all." 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Gu Zhao shook his head and smiled. "I used to fantasize about learning Magic, stirring up storms to destroy the Huaqi fleet. Now I realize they don’t even dare to come close anymore. Times have changed so fast."