At Guangzhou South Station, the high-speed train shot through the horizon like an arrow released from its bow, whistling as it pierced the skyline.

Since it was summer vacation, there were quite a few passengers on the train, filled with laughter and cheerful voices.

Su Minguan sat in a window seat, staring at the train speed display above the car, watching the constantly climbing numbers thoughtfully.

Turning to look outside the window, the verdant fields and rolling hills seemed to move backward slowly and peacefully. However, when his gaze shifted closer to see the trees and fences beside the tracks, he immediately felt dizzy.

He suddenly asked: “How fast did you say airplanes can fly?”

“Cruising speed is eight to nine hundred kilometers per hour.” Lin Yuchan leaned back against the soft seat cushion, opened her bag, and pulled out peanuts, sunflower seeds, marinated eggs, and almond milk, answering lazily, “About three times faster than this train.”

He reached out to get snacks from her, his gaze unwilling to leave the window. His hand grabbed her hair instead, and he quickly apologized.

Lin Yuchan smiled watching this country bumpkin ride the train.

According to the original plan, she had started her summer vacation travel itinerary on schedule. It’s just that a solo budget trip had become a lavish journey for two, though fortunately, her budget was sufficient.

“Shanghai first, then Beijing.” She excitedly announced the travel route to him: “Buy tickets to the Forbidden City—that’s the former Imperial Palace, though you can’t do whatever you want there now. Every brick there counts as a cultural relic…”

Su Minguan browsed through tourism materials on his phone. The Qing dynasty had been dead for over a century—he wasn’t surprised at all. It was inevitable.

However, the obsession to “storm Beijing” was still deeply etched in his heart. Learning that even garbage couldn’t be casually thrown in today’s Forbidden City, he was disappointed for a second.

Then he asked with ulterior motives: “Can I shout ‘Down with Qing, restore Ming’?”

Lin Yuchan said lazily: “Find a few tourists wearing Ming-style hanfu, and they’ll probably shout along with you.”

Su Minguan quickly realized the limitations of those four words. Benefit from the cheap Zhu family.

He said again: “Then I’ll shout ‘overthrow the imperial system.'”

“Someone already shouted that over a century ago.”

“…”

So annoying, born at the wrong time.

He said gloomily: “Then I’ll just have to curse.”

Lin Yuchan covered her mouth laughing: “In Cantonese or Mandarin?”

Cursing in Mandarin would be uncivilized and would get criticized. Cursing in Cantonese, the staff wouldn’t understand, and the dragon souls and spirits inside wouldn’t understand either. No fun.

He slumped back in his seat, then suddenly had a flash of inspiration, thinking of what he’d learned from recent reading and studying.

“Shout, ‘Long live the people.'”

Lin Yuchan clapped in approval: “That’ll anger them to death.”

…

This sightseeing trip to Shanghai was originally supposed to be by plane. Plane tickets were even cheaper than high-speed rail tickets. Su Minguan had even done psychological preparation, cramming on world aviation history, discovering that these seemingly precarious iron birds had much lower accident rates than his Yixing cargo ships…

He also bought a flight simulation game to initially familiarize himself with aircraft operation principles, achieving the goal of knowing himself and his enemy.

Everything was ready. Unexpectedly, an accident happened before booking tickets. The two went to Huacheng Square to watch a drone performance. Halfway through the flight, light points scattered, dozens of drones suddenly lost control, crashing into nearby buildings like headless flies, their lights gradually extinguishing as they turned into piles of wreckage scattered all over the ground.

The audience was in uproar.

The case was quickly solved. It turned out to be sabotage by a competing drone company—the CEO had instructed employees to use jamming equipment to “shoot down” their rival’s drones…

2021 was only half over, but this incident had already been nominated for the year’s most ridiculous news.

Learning the case details, Su Minguan clicked his tongue for a long time, sighing: “Are business wars this direct now?”

However, the scene of dozens of aircraft scattering like heavenly maidens still left him with enormous psychological trauma. After returning home, he was depressed and didn’t even want to play flight simulation anymore.

Lin Yuchan thoughtfully booked the high-speed rail.

Adapting to society required gradual progress. He still had a very long time ahead—no need to rush.

Besides, traveling on rails allowed a closer appreciation of this land’s beautiful aspects.

Su Minguan watched with fascination.

Rolling gentle hills, lush forests, and crops in the fields flourish like paintings. Though the train was extremely fast with few pedestrians visible outside the windows, there were field ridges, roads, power lines, irrigation channels, bridges, billboards… countless details reminding that every inch of land bore traces of human habitation.

In comparison, traveling far in past eras meant hostile mountains and dangerous waters beyond towns—either deep mountain forests or bandits, soldiers, rogues, and wild beasts. Missing one lodge meant life-threatening danger…

Using modern infrastructure levels as an anchor, he estimated this country’s national strength, converting everything to silver taels, finding his brain somewhat inadequate.

Such a country, if placed in the Qing dynasty era, would probably be every foreign power’s nightmare…

However, A’Mei told him that the “foreign powers” were also progressing. They had gone to space, landed on the moon and Mars; their people still lived affluent, extravagantly wasteful lives; their research levels were advanced to unimaginable degrees; they still waged wars and were often the winning side.

Everyone was using every means to charge forward. Any slackening would leave them behind the entire world.

Su Minguan felt heavy pressure on his shoulders. The little girl had eaten her fill of snacks and was hugging his arm, dozing on his shoulder.

Many passengers in the car were also beginning to close their eyes to rest, either playing with phones or watching shows, having lost interest in the monotonous scenery outside.

Su Minguan took Lin Yuchan’s phone, unlocked it with practiced ease, found the map app, and stared at that little light dot positioned in Jiangxi Province moving slowly, identifying surrounding place names. Then he zoomed out to see China, to see the five continents…

The head on his shoulder nuzzled and woke up. Seeing him browsing the map, she asked groggily: “Where do you want to go in Shanghai? I’ll write a memo.”

Su Minguan lazily embraced her and asked: “Are there any other places I’d recognize?”

Seeing her prepare to say something but hesitate, he added: “No details.”

Lin Yuchan smiled softly and stuffed a chocolate in his mouth.

His life was just beginning to set sail, and he stubbornly wanted to steer himself, needing no one to plan his route.

She thought seriously for a while, her mind already flying to that modern metropolis she had never seen herself in.

“Hmm… the French Concession didn’t experience war, so the road layout should be unchanged. And those foreign buildings on the Bund are all state property now, old bottles with new wine…”

However, those places where she and Su Minguan had fought were now mostly gone or completely transformed. The old Yixing Shipping storefront had long become an industrial wharf, changing hands several times before being nationalized after the founding of the country. After the millennium, it was relocated for Suzhou River pollution treatment, with the original site turned into a park; most of her properties in Shanghai and Ningbo had been sold during the Qing’s final years to fund revolutionary uprisings, later flattened in Japanese bombing; the Boya villa was given to Youhua, who put it up for auction during the war, trading it along with several properties for two aircraft. The villa changed hands several times before being demolished due to deterioration after the country’s founding. Now, ordinary residential complexes stand on the original site. The garden’s wisteria and gas lamps left no trace.

Only by smashing the old world could a new world be built. The older generation would eventually let go, leaving ruins and fertile soil for the new generation.

This was history’s virtuous cycle. Lin Yuchan harbored no dreams of lasting forever and accepted this calmly.

However, some things did remain. Yude Girls’ School survived to this day, after several divisions and mergers becoming coeducational long ago—now a key middle school in Shanghai, with surrounding old, broken school district housing reaching 150,000 yuan per square meter.

Tushanwan Orphanage, starting from simple drawing classes for children, gradually developed into a multi-field crafts academy, employing teachers like Ren Bonian and Xu Beihong, cultivating many local artists. Now it was a craft and art museum with rich collections.

The Yason Shipyard, where workers and capitalists had fiercely struggled under Heaven and Earth Society leadership, now has its site adjacent to the Shanghai International Passenger Terminal at North Bund, witnessing over a century of Shanghai’s shipping and maritime industry storms, currently serving as the COSCO Shipping Container Transport Co., Ltd. headquarters.

And the restaurant where they held annual hometown association gatherings had miraculously survived to this day, becoming a high-rated time-honored establishment on review apps.

…

The train continued moving. Swift winds beat against the car, creating an extremely light humming noise from vibrations. The afternoon’s blazing sun chased behind it, casting golden light and shadows by the windows.

“A’Mei.”

Lost in thought, tears unknowingly filled her eyes when she heard Su Minguan call her.

He looked somewhat surprised, gently dabbing her eye corners with tissue.

“A’Mei,” Su Minguan gazed toward the distant broad river surface and asked seriously, “Don’t tell me about your past or my future. But I just want to ask one thing… what will become of us later?”

Lin Yuchan bit her chocolate and looked up at him.

His gaze was clear, like a middle school student waiting for exam results, carefully confirming again: “We’ll always be together, right?”

She curved her lips, wanting to say, we’ll even have a child who’ll live more freely than us.

But she decided to keep this surprise hidden for now.

She only told him: “When we’re both very, very old with not a single black hair left, we’ll pilot an old little sailboat to an island in the lake’s center to fish and sunbathe, eating snacks we brought together. You’ll eat sweet ones, I’ll eat salty ones, neither of us competing for the other’s. But some will be left over because neither of us can bite them anymore.”

He couldn’t picture such a scene, laughing softly for a long time, slowly overlapping with her laughter, merging.

The thick earth bore the fine rails, on this most ordinary summer day, quietly watching all living beings in the world, carrying their respective dreams and destinies, speeding toward all directions.

The road ahead was still very long.

(Epilogue Complete)