AUBTN -Chapter 399 Modern Civilization

The next morning, Wujang Prefecture was shrouded in a thin layer of morning mist.

In order to figure out exactly what secrets the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion was hiding, Su Hewan and Yu Qing decided to personally investigate and see what they could uncover.

They changed into coarse cloth skirts commonly worn by ordinary women in Jiangnan and carried bamboo baskets, perfectly blending into the bustling crowds of the morning market.

They pretended to be believers who had come because they had heard of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion’s reputation.

In the shadows, two tall, slender figures stood behind the carved windows on the second floor of a teahouse overlooking the street, coldly watching the two women weaving through the crowd below.

“You’re really just letting them investigate?” Lu Yan’s icy gaze remained fixed on Yu Qing’s figure as she looked left and right below. His brows were knitted with displeasure.

Shen Jue idly toyed with a white porcelain teacup between his long fingers, wearing an enigmatic smile.

“Don’t underestimate them. They’re much smarter than we are!”

“Since Wujang Prefecture is already a dead-end situation, why not let outsiders like them stir things up? Perhaps they’ll spot some flaws that we haven’t been able to see.”

The streets were lined with shops, and the cries of vendors rose and fell one after another. Under the control of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, Wujang Prefecture was surprisingly no less prosperous than the capital.

Yu Qing had initially been on high alert, fully prepared to venture into the tiger’s den.

But after walking only a few steps, her true nature as both a drama queen and a foodie was exposed.

Those bright-red candied hawthorns, coated in a glistening layer of crystal-clear syrup, exuded a deadly temptation beneath the morning sunlight.

She swallowed hard before trotting over to a stall, expertly putting on an innocent, harmless smile.

“Uncle, how much are these candied hawthorns?”

The vendor was a round, cheerful-looking man. Seeing a customer approach, he immediately greeted her enthusiastically.

“Miss, you’ve got good taste! We use only carefully selected large hawthorns for our candied hawthorns. But…”

The vendor mysteriously lowered his voice. From a hidden compartment beneath his cart, he pulled out a package wrapped in oil paper and brought it before Yu Qing as though presenting a precious treasure.

“Compared to candied hawthorns, why don’t you try our new-style dessert, xue meiniang?”

The smile at the corner of Yu Qing’s lips stiffened slightly.

Xue… xue what?

The vendor failed to notice anything strange about her expression and continued his enthusiastic sales pitch.

“This is a recipe personally researched by our Pavilion Master! Soft, chewy, fragrant, and sweet—it practically melts in your mouth! Have a taste. I guarantee you’ll come back for more next time! Whatever our Pavilion Master says is absolutely spot-on. The taste of this thing is simply YYDS!”

Clink.

The two copper coins Yu Qing had just taken out of her pocket fell straight onto the ground.

She was completely petrified on the spot.

Her almond-shaped eyes widened even more than bells as she stared fixedly at the vendor’s plain, honest-looking smiling face.

【Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap!!! YYDS!】

【Am I deaf? Am I freaking deaf? A candied-hawthorn vendor in the Great Wei Dynasty just said “YYDS” to me?】

【Is he going to pull out a QR code and ask me to scan it for payment next?】

Meanwhile, Su Hewan was standing in front of a stall selling agricultural tools. She casually picked up a modified hoe and examined it carefully.

Just then, a rough, hearty laugh came from behind her.

Two burly men dressed in short jackets walked past her with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

“Zhang San, you’d better keep a close eye on that shipment going south. The Pavilion Master gave explicit instructions. Absolutely nothing can go wrong!”

“Ah, just relax!” The man called Zhang San slapped his chest with one large hand and shouted with great confidence.

“Don’t worry, bro! Leave it to me. It’s all taken care of, no problem!”

Su Hewan’s hand holding the hoe suddenly stopped, and her knuckles instantly turned white.

“Bro…”

She murmured the word under her breath, her normally cool, clear eyes churning with turbulent waves.

At the market, Yu Qing turned around as if her soul had left her body, only to come face-to-face with Su Hewan, who was equally pale.

Their gazes met amid the bustling crowd.

Neither said a word, yet they exchanged an utterly horrified look.

They both saw shock reflected in each other’s eyes!

“Wanwan…” Yu Qing grabbed Su Hewan’s arm, her voice trembling.

“D-Did you hear that?”

“I heard it.” Yet the slight tremor in Su Hewan’s fingertips betrayed the panic in her heart.

“Not only did I hear it, I saw it just now, too. Come on, let’s go look around again!”

The two of them no longer cared about pretending to be believers. Hand in hand, they frantically darted through the streets and alleys of Wujiang Prefecture, searching for clues.

The more they searched, the colder their hearts became.

In front of a rice shop in the western part of the city, several laborers were unloading goods.

Instead of sweating as they hauled sacks over their shoulders, they were using a tall wooden frame they had constructed.

Su Hewan raised her head and stared fixedly at the top of the frame.

Several wooden wheels with grooves had thick hemp ropes wound around them. A worker gave the rope a gentle tug from below, and a rice sack weighing several hundred jin was effortlessly hoisted up to the second floor.

“A pulley system…” Su Hewan’s pupils contracted slightly.

“One fixed pulley changes the direction of force, while two movable pulleys reduce the effort… This is middle-school physics.”

“Then… look over there!” Yu Qing pointed toward the street corner with trembling fingers.

A patrol team from the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, dressed in robes bearing astronomical motifs, was marching past in perfect formation.

It had been too dark to see clearly last night, but now, in broad daylight, they could see everything perfectly.

On the left chest of those robes, a strange symbol had been embroidered in gold thread—a gigantic, incredibly conspicuous check mark!

And beside it were four small embroidered words:

Just do it.

“Holy shit! Nike! That’s actually Nike’s logo!”

Yu Qing let out a shriek like a slaughtered pig.

Before the two of them could recover from the shock of seeing that logo, they spotted a chubby middle-aged woman on a stone washing platform beside the water. She was gripping a wooden laundry beater and vigorously pounding clothes.

With every strike, the woman hummed along, her expression completely absorbed:

“Love you, walking alone through the dark alley!”

Bang! The laundry beater came down.

“Love you, never kneeling down!”

Bang! The beater struck again.

“Love you, standing against despair, refusing to cry even once! Would you go? Are you worthy? This tattered cloak—”

The woman’s singing, so spectacularly off-key that it had practically reached the Pacific Ocean, drifted eerily across the waters of Wujiang Prefecture in the early morning.

Yu Qing’s legs went weak, and she immediately leaned against the railing of the nearby stone bridge.

“If Eason Chan ever heard this Great Wei Dynasty version of Lonely Warrior, he’d probably carry a high-speed train on his back and flee overnight…”

Su Hewan, meanwhile, held tightly onto Yu Qing’s hand.

In this backward, feudal dynasty, where even iron implements were subject to strict controls, what did it mean for such a vast, sophisticated organization—one filled with fragments of modern civilization—to suddenly appear?

Su Hewan took a deep breath and looked at Yu Qing.

“We can be certain.” Su Hewan’s voice was so low that only the two of them could hear her.

“The master of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion isn’t merely a transmigrator.”

Yu Qing swallowed hard, her eyes filled with fear.

“Moreover, he comes from the same world as us. He may even be from the exact same era!”

“What’s even more terrifying is…” Su Hewan looked around at the fanatical believers and the traces of modern civilization scattered everywhere.

“We’re struggling to survive, running ourselves ragged just to stay alive. But he has already built his own empire in this era.

“He… is the God overlooking the chessboard!”