After finishing their meal, the group, including those who needed to inspect the site, prepared to head directly to the location.
Despite their initial plan to leave the city, at the insistence of Cheng Mo, Xiangbei with him returned to the royal residence on foot.
And then Mo led Xiang Bei and they two rode on one horseback, passing through the side gate of the royal residence, crossing the southern stone arch bridge.
Cheng Shan and a few riders waited at the bridgehead. The landscape, both in reality and in the spatial representation, spanned twenty li (around ten kilometers) from south to north and five li (around two and a half kilometers) from water's edge to the eastern foothills. The terrain, covered in granite of various sizes, seemed suitable for constructing a new dock, with even the local stone supply readily available.
It was time for black powder to descend from the sky, celebrating the rise of Yunmeng to a flourishing era.
Xiangbei extended her awareness, discovering that beneath the approximately one-meter layer of calcium carbonate sandstone, solid yellow clay enveloped the giant rocks, extending down two meters to a layer of pure yellow clay and hard soil.
This configuration, coupled with the construction of a broad plaza-like dock on top, would result in a water depth of four to five meters, fully meeting the requirements for an inland waterway.
After practical verification, the group arrived at North Bridge. North dismounted and directly laid out rice paper on a huge rock, sketching the planned map from her mind, including perspective sketches of several important nodes, marking functional areas. She then gestured for the geomancers behind her to follow her thoughts. Ignoring the potential shock this technique might bring to ancient planning experts, just answering Mountain Uncle's questions about functional zones and the commercial area took North from sitting to standing, then standing to sitting, and finally to lying down. She drank countless sips of honey water handed over by Cheng Mo. Finally, the curious explorer temporarily quieted down, diving into the dilemma of turning around in the river.
Yes, turning around, shallow ford, a problem that would need to be solved sooner or later. North sat by the stone, supporting her forehead with her hand in a thoughtful pose.
Besides Cheng Mo quietly sitting beside her, the others gathered around Cheng Shan, enthusiastically discussing.
The distance between Lingshui and Dongbin was about 120 miles, and the location of the shallow ford was about 20-30 miles south of Lingshui. Considering this, it was approximately 90 miles from Dongbin.
The dense fog boundary in Xiangbei's spatial vision extended 80 miles beyond their current location at North Bridge, revealing clear details of mountains, rivers, and fields. However, the shallow ford remained outside the dense fog.
Xiangbei focused on trying to push the boundary forward, vaguely seeing water waves hitting the shore ahead, gradually revealing the edge of the shallow ford.
Silently calculating the distance, this stretch of sand was about seven to eight hundred meters long.
It looked like a small stone mountain that had been violently flattened. The stones from the mountaintop scattered around the surrounding river channels, entangled with mud, water, and grass for who knows how many years.
Xiangbei speculated that this area might have experienced a drastic geological change millions, or even billions, of years ago, causing the original granite layer to fracture and leave traces in this river valley.
In reality, as long as they built up the bank foundation during the dry season, expanded the shallow ford area, and created a central island-style artificial oasis, they could clearly guide ships to divert and change course. However, it was necessary to first understand the underwater conditions, and both sides of the oasis needed deep excavation and dredging.
At this moment, the edge of the dense fog slowly began to retreat to its original position. The spatial fluctuations intensified, and Xiangbei swayed as she stood up, intending to find a place to rest. However, she only managed to say, "I'm so sleepy," before gently falling into a slumber in Cheng Mo's arms.
"Cheng Mo, return to Zebei." Cheng Mo lifted Xiangbei onto the horse, and they raced back at full speed, covering over sixty miles in less than an hour.
In the bedroom on the third floor of Fuhai Building, Xiangbei was deeply entangled in the vortex of consciousness, struggling alone.
The last time she experienced this needle-like headache was after she forcefully expanded the dense fog. This time, the pain wasn't as severe as before, but her entire body's meridians felt like they were being bitten by countless ants.
The cyclone in her sea of consciousness crazily surged outward, running along the meridians down to the public area—dantian.
Using the sea of consciousness and the deep breath controlled by the diaphragm dantian as the focal points, it spread throughout her body, surging and colliding relentlessly.
Xiangbei, using mental strength, forcibly collided with the edge of the white deny fog, and inadvertently entered the preliminary stage of Airbender.
Xiangbei wanted to wake up, wanted to cut off the cyclone and escape from this pain, but she couldn't do anything. She could only endure it silently, and sweat gradually soaked through her spring clothes.