Chapter 29 – Architecture Is a Book
Regret wouldn't change anything now.
Before getting the system, Chen Xing had already lost his drive. He just wanted to graduate, work hard, earn a living, and support his family—nothing more.
After obtaining the travel system, his ambition reignited. But was he really supposed to take the college entrance exam now?
He already had a plan for his life: travel to activate the system, use the rewards it granted to enrich his world, and live the rest of his life with flavor and meaning. There was no way he'd waste years of time going back to school for a degree.
It was just like many overachievers who had already found direction in life—even if they were students at Peking University, Tsinghua, Cambridge, or Harvard, many still dropped out midway.
So, whichever way he looked at it, college life was already a missed chapter for him.
After walking along the mountain path for half an hour, and passing through a stretch of forest, he finally saw the village buildings.
The area opened up into a small plain. Emerging from the two-to-three-meter-high weeds and following the narrow trail, he came upon a series of rice fields. The crops looked nearly ripe, and many villagers—dressed in traditional clothing different from modern styles—were working among them.
Farther in the distance, beyond the fields, were mountains. Wooden buildings were built into the slopes, layered from bottom to top, one above another, densely packed yet beautiful—similar to a mountain city, but more compact and more charming. Thin wisps of smoke curled upward from the kitchens of thousands of households.
This—this was what they meant by "the warmth of everyday life."
You wouldn't see this in the city.
On either side stood two large mountains. The houses there didn't climb too high; the construction stopped about a third of the way up. Yet at each mountain peak, there was a solitary building, and structures extended between the two mountains, continuing until they vanished from sight.
[Your eyes behold the Miao village residents cooking and preparing food—a hidden community deep in the mountains, cloaked in blue stone and green tiles. This is the warmth of human life—the most traditional, most captivating scenery passed down through millennia of Chinese heritage.]
[Your photography talent is undergoing optimization.]
[Only by walking many roads and enduring hardship can one realize—architecture is a book, and the stories within it can only be understood by those who've truly lived them. "Architecture" series mission unlocked: whenever you stay in a special, heritage-rich building, you will receive a reward.]
A thousand-year-old Miao village—was this what the system acknowledged as true scenery?
All of Chen Xing's exhaustion from the day—motion sickness on the bus, windchill on the motorbike—melted away completely. What remained was pure exhilaration from having finally reached his goal after a long journey, and the deep calm brought by witnessing such breathtaking beauty.
Both Chen Xing and Teacher Zhang stood there in silence for a long time.
Then Chen Xing raised his camera and captured the Miao women working in the fields, and the village buildings that the system had recognized as the essence of earthly life.
Teacher Zhang murmured, "This is the most beautiful Miao village I've ever seen."
She had been to many places. Born in the northeast, it was only after many life experiences that she decided to settle in southern Yunnan to devote herself to education. Yet even she was stunned by this village.
If the roads here were just a little better, not so hard to navigate, this place could definitely earn decent income through tourism.
But unfortunately, the locals were too closed off. Most had never left Chunman Village from birth to death. Only those born after the 1980s had the desire to venture out and try to improve their hometown.
Yet decades had passed, and Chunman Village hadn't changed much.
Teacher Zhang said, "Let's go. I suppose someone recommended this place to you? Do you have a place to stay tonight?"
Chen Xing put away his camera and replied, "Let's go in first. Hopefully someone will take me in."
He had originally thought that if he offered two or three hundred yuan, someone would let him stay a night or two. But now that he was here, he realized the locals probably didn't care much about money. It was unclear how effective cash would even be here.
The plains were much wider than the forest trails before. As they walked along, villagers working in the fields on either side looked at them curiously.
Guests from the outside—what a rare sight.
A man in his thirties came out of the field, smiling as he greeted them. "Welcome, welcome. We haven't had strangers visit the village in a long time. Are you here looking for someone?"
Teacher Zhang nodded and said, "I'm a teacher. Two of our students stopped showing up after school started, and we haven't been able to reach them by phone. I'm worried, so I came to check. May I ask who you are?"
"I guess you could say I'm the village chief—and the poverty alleviation officer. Name's Hou Tong. But I haven't heard anything about students dropping out recently. What are their names?"
"One is Chi Mingqing, the other is Song Shulan. They should both be in their second year of high school. I haven't seen them since school resumed."
Chen Xing's ears perked up at the name Song Shulan.
So this teacher had come to investigate Song Shulan's absence. And it wasn't like Song Shulan said—she hadn't taken a formal leave; she had simply stopped attending, and the school hadn't even been notified.
"Chi Mingqing, yeah, I know her. Her family lives up in the mountains. I haven't been up that way lately," Hou Tong said, pointing toward the mountain on the left.
As someone assigned to poverty alleviation, Hou Tong took education seriously. Unless there were special circumstances, he would never allow school-aged children to stay home helping their parents farm.
He led them up the mountain path, with villagers occasionally calling out, "Monkey Bro!"
Hou Tong smiled and responded warmly.
"What school are you from?" he asked.
"Hua Ping Girls' High School."
"Oh, that's a good school. It'd be a real shame to waste the opportunity not studying there."
He praised the school first, then sighed. "I've been stationed here since 2014. Chunman Village actually has really favorable geography. They can harvest rice three times a year. Their traditional textiles sell well outside. The architecture and scenery have been passed down for centuries… but the people just… lack initiative. They don't want to connect with the outside world."
They said it was about preserving tradition—but not really.
Hou Tong had been here for years. In his view, the reason Chunman Village remained so closed-off by 2021 was because of the village elders—the clan heads.
They were afraid of change.
A few years ago, after a bridge was built outside, it was destroyed within a month. He suspected the villagers themselves did it.
Climbing the mountain, Chen Xing was still fine, but Teacher Zhang was starting to struggle.
She had been coughing all along—likely some lung condition—and now that she was tired, her breathing grew ragged, her cough worsening. Chen Xing went over to support her again. After more than half an hour of climbing, they finally reached the home—a beautiful stilted Miao house.
Hou Tong called out, "Chi San! Chi San! Is the girl home?"
No answer.
But Chen Xing saw a girl peeking out from the window inside. A couple minutes later, just as Hou Tong was about to make a phone call to ask if anyone was working in the fields, the door opened, and a young girl stepped out.
"I'm here, I'm here. Teacher Zhang, Uncle Hou, Uncle."
Chen Xing smirked slightly and said, "Just call me big brother. I'm only a few years older than you."
This was the same girl Chen Xing had seen in the window earlier. She must've changed her clothes—she now wore a jacket clearly passed down from an older generation, maybe even two. It gave her a mature look that masked her youthful student appearance.
Zhang Guimei stepped forward, hugged her, and whispered, "Mingqing… why didn't you tell me you weren't going back to school?"
"I… I didn't want to. I don't want to go to school anymore."
Their voices trembled with emotion.
"Why not?"
"No reason… I just don't want to."
Chen Xing stood at a distance. Others might not hear their words clearly—but with his sharp ears and eyes, he saw and heard it all.
How could you truly not want to?
Good girl… your expression tells me otherwise.
(End of Chapter)