Void Jigsaw Puzzle

Zhong Chenmu had already forgotten how many steps he had climbed before finally reaching the halfway point. Feeling a little tired, he found a stone bench by the roadside and sat down to rest.

Looking back, he saw that the road he had just walked on led to a higher place, and he could see the two big men guarding the gate in the distance.

"I didn't expect the terrain here to be so steep and the bridge to be built at such a high place..."

Looking down, it seems that we have to walk up a few hundred steps to reach a flat ground. Surrounding that palm-sized place, there are many businesses, which looks quite lively.

Zhong Chenmu gritted his teeth, stood up again and continued walking down.

He wanted to go to a crowded place to find out where he was.

Although the Hydron Sa and the man next to him whom he had just met on the Baihe Bridge were also in physical form, they gave him a feeling of being "not of my kind". On the contrary, the rest of the people made him feel somewhat familiar.

While on the bridge, he had no chance to communicate with them, but he noticed that the middle-aged woman in the crowd seemed to be staring at him.

"If these people are similar to me, perhaps we can find clues here to complete our incomplete civilization..."

Zhong Chenmu didn't feel so tired anymore.

After finally walking up all the stairs and arriving at the commercial district at his feet, he discovered that the place was even more lively than what he had seen from his overlook halfway up the mountain.

In a trance, I felt like I was back in Leyou Pavilion.

However, he soon noticed that the level of technological development and civilization here seemed to lag behind that of Wuming City. Throughout the entire commercial district, he saw not a single vehicle—cars, tricycles, bicycles, or anything else. People simply walked.

"Even though the terrain here is very hilly and not suitable for driving or cycling, it's too much to say there isn't a single one..."

Apart from this, there are no tall buildings here. Buildings with five or six stories high are already considered "skyscrapers". There is no such a dense scene as the Linjiang Building, People's Square and Fule Palace areas in Wuming City.

The business types in the commercial district were also very simple and repetitive: restaurants, small shops, and massage parlors. There were no larger stores, only single-story shops. Although at first glance they appeared numerous, each one was quite small.

Zhong Chenmu carefully observed the people walking around and found that he seemed to be no different from them. At least, his appearance did not cause any waves in the crowd, which proved this point.

Rejection reactions only occur against something that is truly "foreign".

Zhong Chenmu casually walked to a small shop and realized it was deserted. The owner was a middle-aged bald man with a large black mole on the left side of his nose.

He looked at the snacks on the counter and asked, "Boss, how much are these hawthorn slices? I don't see the price."

"Young man, are you from outside?" asked the boss.

Zhong Chenmu was stunned, thinking, "What's going on? Has my identity been exposed?" But he still answered calmly and vaguely, "From the Baihe Bridge."

"Hehe, come on, you must be from outside our Kunlun City. You Helium people are not only lazy, but also a bit too proud. There's nothing shameful in admitting it. Our prices are posted at the door, and the locals know them. They will take a look before entering the store." After saying that, the boss pointed to the door.

Zhong Chenmu turned his head and saw that there was a board hanging there with the price scribbled on it.

He smiled awkwardly and said, "You have a pretty good memory then. Not only do customers need to check the price at the door and remember it, but you also need to do the same when collecting money. Otherwise, you won't even know if the customer paid the wrong amount."

The boss curled his lips and said, "I'm free anyway, so I might as well memorize some numbers to prevent Alzheimer's disease."

"..."

However, now that his identity had been discovered by his boss, Zhong Chenmu no longer felt the pressure and asked directly, "Boss, where are you guys? Why is the terrain so complicated?"

The boss happened to have no one to chat with, so he replied, "We are District C of Kunlun City. We are divided into four areas by three parallel rivers: the Black River, the White River, and the Gray River. The four areas are District A, District B, District C, and District D."

"Black, white, gray... A, B, C, D..." Zhong Chenmu kept repeating these words in his mind.

After the experience of traveling from Taibai Star to Xumi Star just now, his system has completed the final upgrade. It has changed from the previous binary digit form to an encyclopedic database, and it has become one with him and can be called upon at any time.

Therefore, before he could actively inquire, the system had already given him information: "These nouns, especially 'A, B, C, and D', are very consistent with the characteristics of the Wuming City civilization. Preliminary judgment is that the Kunlun City civilization and the Wuming City civilization both originated from distant Earth. During the 'Dandelion Project' at the time, they were digitized. Through the blessing of conjugation technology, they were preserved to the greatest extent possible and maintained a certain degree of complementarity..."

Zhong Chenmu felt extremely excited.

"I finally see hope for completing this broken civilization! Kunlun City and Wuming City are two pieces of the puzzle on the entire civilization map! I must put them together!"