337: Chapter 337: My Brother's Travel Log

Time flies.

Twenty-eight days until New Year's Eve.

Xiao Yu woke up early today. Her pink suitcase was spread across the living room floor, and her clothes were piled on the sofa.

She squatted on the ground, hesitating for a long time before finally stuffing the red scarf inside. Her brother had said that red made her look fairer.

Jiang Zhe leaned against the doorframe of the main entrance, a cup of coffee in hand, watching her work.

"Why are you bringing so much?"

"I have to take photos when we're out playing!" Xiao Yu said without looking up. "Brother, you don't know, but the netizens are all waiting to see our travel vlog."

Jiang Zhe didn't say anything; he just smiled.

After Xiao Yu announced her decision to go traveling with her brother, the title of the livestream was changed to [Brother and Xiao Yu's Trip Around Xia—Not a Honeymoon, Definitely Not a Honeymoon!]

Thirty million people followed the two young people's lens every day, seeing the great rivers and mountains of the motherland.

The first stop was Sanya.

Xiao Yu stood on the beach in a floral dress, her hair flying wildly in the sea breeze.

She held up her phone and panned it around the sea; the bullet comments surged instantly.

"Ahhh, the sea is so blue!"

"Xiao Yu is so beautiful!"

"Where's J? Where is J? The firewall is blocking me from J! I want to peel it back and see the man!"

Xiao Yu turned the camera toward Jiang Zhe.

He sat under a sunshade, holding a thick black book. Peeking over with a puppy-like curiosity, one could see it was titled "Hidden Dragon Base Group Photos and Frontier Papers." He would occasionally turn a page amidst the sound of the waves.

This was something he had picked up from the Qian City Library a month ago.

"Brother, what is the Hidden Dragon Base?"

Jiang Zhe said without taking his eyes off the book, "A friend of mine."

"Oh~"

She was curious, but she couldn't help changing the subject. "Brother, aren't you going into the water?"

Jiang Zhe glanced at her, then at the sea, and shook his head slightly. "I don't want to."

"Why?"

"Just don't."

Xiao Yu pouted and turned the camera back, whispering to the stream, "My brother might have social anxiety."

The viewers immediately burst into laughter.

Time passed. In the evening, something happened on the beach.

A seven or eight-year-old girl was swept away by a wave.

The mother screamed and rushed into the sea, but the waves were too big, and she was dragged down as well.

People on the shore were shouting, but no one dared to go in. The evening tide was rising, and the undercurrents were dangerous.

Before Xiao Yu could react, the space beside her was empty.

Jiang Zhe quietly appeared in the sea; no one saw clearly how he had gotten down there.

He grabbed the little girl's arm with one hand and the mother's collar with the other.

When a wave struck, he remained motionless, like a coconut tree rooted in the sand.

The whole process took less than thirty seconds.

The little girl lay on the sand coughing, the mother knelt on the ground crying, and the onlookers nearby were constantly amazed.

Meanwhile, Jiang Zhe had already walked back under the sunshade, picked up the book, and flipped to the page he was on.

Xiao Yu held her phone, her hands trembling.

"???"

"What did I just see?"

"Where did he go down from? I didn't even see it clearly!"

"One hand, pulling two people out of the waves with one hand each?"

"This isn't something a human can do."

"Is my brother actually this fierce?"

Xiao Yu just silently pointed the camera at Jiang Zhe's profile and filmed for a long time.

The title of the evening livestream was changed to: [Brother, are you a Superman?]

Back inside the coastal hotel,

Jiang Zhe scrolled through his phone for a bit, then turned and switched off the living room lights.

"Going to sleep."

"Brother, you haven't answered me yet!"

"I'm not Superman. Go to sleep."

Xiao Yu made a shushing gesture to the camera and whispered, "He says he's not."

The viewers kept asking:

"Xiao Yu, do you believe him?"

Xiao Yu looked at her glowing phone and grinned. "Anyway, I don't."

...

Twenty-three days until New Year's Eve.

The second stop was Lijiang.

In the narrow alleys of the ancient city, Xiao Yu held her phone to film the flowers and plants.

Jiang Zhe walked behind her, carrying a bunch of miscellaneous items she had bought—a black and pink scarf, silver bracelets, a notebook made of Dongba paper, and local green grass dumplings.

"Brother, look at this!" Xiao Yu squatted in front of a stall and held up a brown wood carving of a Sword and Shield Dog. "Brother, doesn't this look like you in ancient times, holding a shield and sword?"

Jiang Zhe glanced at the frog-like dog, expressionless.

At that moment, the viewers went crazy with laughter.

"Hahahaha!"

"Xiao Yu, are you serious?"

"The wood carving master's skills really keep up with the trends. My Sword and Shield!"

"..."

In the afternoon, they passed through the Ancient City's Sifang Street.

A large crowd had gathered there, and someone was shouting, "Someone jumped into the river! Someone jumped into the river!"

Before Xiao Yu could react, Jiang Zhe had already charged out like a black shadow.

Jiang Zhe pushed through the crowd, propped one hand on the stone railing, and flipped over.

Below was a river over four meters deep, where a heartbroken chubby guy was struggling in the water.

After entering the water, Jiang Zhe grabbed the other person's wrist with one hand and swam toward the shore. Once at the edge, he firmly gripped a crevice in the stone railing with his other hand.

The young man weighed 200 pounds and was even heavier when wet, yet under the gaze of dozens of onlookers, Jiang Zhe dragged him up like a little chick.

The whole process took less than ten seconds.

Before the onlookers could even react, the person was already lying on the shore, the chubby guy gasping for air.

Xiao Yu held her phone in surprise. "Holy Steel Rain!"

Soon, the viewers exploded again.

"One hand again? Seriously?"

"I saw it clearly this time. From flipping over the railing to pulling the guy up, it only took a few seconds!"

"Holy crap, is my brother's strength that great? He pulled a guy up with one hand?"

"With this arm strength, even a weightlifting champion would sigh in despair, right?"

"Even a weightlifting champion isn't this impressive, lifting such a big fat guy with one hand!"

Xiao Yu turned the camera toward Jiang Zhe.

He had already walked back, soaked through. After taking off his jacket, his white undershirt was revealed. His muscles and the undershirt, shining under the sunlight, made countless girls nearby scream, "Hubby!"

"Hubby!!!"

"Hubby!!!"

"Hubby!!"

"Don't freaking scream randomly, that's Brother, that's J!!!"

Someone recognized him, and even more people in the crowd looked back, their eyes shining.

Jiang Zhe himself was a bit surprised. With thirty million fans, he hadn't expected to be recognized and asked for photos by no fewer than several hundred people after just a few days of traveling.

"Is my fame really that widespread now?"

"Brother, aren't you tired?"

"Tired from what?"

"That person was very heavy."

Jiang Zhe glanced at her, said nothing, and continued walking forward. "There are too many people."

Xiao Yu quickly caught up and whispered to the camera, "Brother is always like this."

After saying that, Xiao Yu looked back and saw the chubby guy with stars in his eyes, also following the crowd and shouting, "Hubby!"

Xiao Yu's mouth couldn't stop twitching as she grabbed her brother and ran even faster!

The viewers waiting in the livestream burst into laughter.

Old Chen and the others in the Kyoto History Family Quarter couldn't help but smile knowingly.

"It's good to relax once in a while; constant tutoring is indeed enough to make one's head spin. I didn't expect Little Jiang's physical fitness to be this good as well!"

Old Qian, standing nearby, also smiled.

...

As time passed, there were twelve days left until New Year's Eve.

They would spend a few days at each place—amusement parks, museums, and even wilderness training camps—having a great time.

The fourth stop was Hangzhou.

By the West Lake, Xiao Yu and Jiang Zhe walked along the Bai Causeway.

The West Lake in winter was very quiet; the willow branches were bare, and the lake water was a murky gray.

But the sunlight on the West Lake was very nice, shining on the water and breaking into a golden radiance.

Xiao Yu held up her phone and panned it around the West Lake. "So beautiful!"

She then pointed the camera at the nearby Leifeng Pagoda. "Is Bai Suzhen really under the Leifeng Pagoda?"

She stood on the shore, waited for a while, and seeing that her brother hadn't replied, she turned the camera toward him.

Xiao Yu looked around and soon saw Jiang Zhe standing on a rock by the lake, facing the water, motionless.

"Brother, what are you doing?"

Jiang Zhe stood on a rock by the lake, facing the water, motionless.

The breeze made his black jacket flap loudly, and his shadow was cast long onto the gray surface of the water.

"Brother! What are you doing?"

Jiang Zhe did not answer.

Viewers kept guessing.

"What is Brother looking at?"

"Is there something in the lake?"

"Could someone have fallen into the water again?"

"No, there's nothing on the surface of the lake."

"..."

Xiao Yu held her phone and walked a few steps closer, wanting to see what he was looking at.

In the lens, Jiang Zhe's profile was clearly outlined by the sunlight. His gaze fell upon the water's surface, but it didn't seem like he was looking at the water; it was more like he was looking at the bottom of the lake, at a place even deeper beneath the surface.

After a long time, Jiang Zhe finally jumped down from the rock and walked back to Xiao Yu's side.

"Let's go."

"Brother, what were you looking at just now?"

Jiang Zhe put his hands in his pockets. He looked down at the stone-paved path beneath his feet, walked for a bit, then suddenly spoke.

"Do you know what's at the bottom of the West Lake?"

"There's... silt, and fish?"

Jiang Zhe shook his head slightly.

"West Lake is not a natural lake. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, in order to store water for irrigation, people built embankments to enclose the lake here."

"The bottom of the lake was originally land—it was farmland, it was villages, it was a place where people lived."

"For over a thousand years, the silt has covered it layer by layer, burying all those things."

He stopped walking, and his gaze fell back onto the distant lake surface.

"What you see now as the lake's surface isn't just water—it's the cover of eighteen hundred years of time."

"Beneath that cover are pressed the ridges of Eastern Han fields, the roof tiles of the Tang Dynasty, and the porcelain bowls of the Song Dynasty; it also presses down on the time of countless people who lived, loved, died, and were forgotten."

Xiao Yu opened her mouth but couldn't find any words.

At this moment, even the lively viewers fell silent.

"I'm standing here not because the scenery is beautiful, but because I know that on this piece of land beneath my feet, two thousand years ago, someone stood in the same position, looking at the same moon, thinking about the same questions—who am I, where did I come from, and where am I going."

"They might have been poets, passing merchants, or starving refugees..."

He turned his head and looked at Xiao Yu expressionlessly.

"They thought for a long time but couldn't figure it out; then they died and were buried here."

"Eighteen hundred years later, their bones have turned to mud, their houses have turned to earth, and everything of theirs has been covered by water."

"No one remembers their names, no one knows what they looked like, and no one knows they ever came to this world."

Hearing this, Xiao Yu and the viewers were moved, feeling a bit of a lump in their throats.

"But the West Lake remembers. Every inch of silt in the West Lake is their epitaph, and every ripple of the lake is their coffin."

Having said this, Jiang Zhe suddenly smiled.

"So I'm looking because I want to tell them—someone is here."

"Someone is standing where you once stood, looking at the moon you didn't finish watching."

"You no longer exist, but the position where you stood still does."

The afternoon breeze blew across the lake, ruffling Jiang Zhe's hair.

Xiao Yu held her phone, hesitating to speak.

She didn't know what to say, so she just pointed the camera at her brother's profile and filmed him steadily.

The viewers were silent for a long time before a single bullet comment slowly drifted across.

"He's not looking at the lake. He's writing a letter to the dead."

"Writing to people from two thousand years ago: You existed, and I remember."

"Is this the world as seen through the eyes of a genius? It's not about checking in at a tourist spot; it's about having a dialogue with history."

"If anyone else said this, I'd definitely call them a poser; but when Brother does it, I can't find a way to argue. I can even empathize!"

"+1!"

"..."

Jiang Zhe and Xiao Yu stood by the West Lake for one or two hours, not leaving until it was completely dark.

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