Junsha had kept the same name for three thousand years. Liu Chang'an remembered that in the days of the Shang Dynasty, Junsha belonged to Yangyue territory and was home to a branch of the Baiyue Tribes.
During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period, Junsha belonged to Qianzhong Prefecture of the Chu State.
The Qin Dynasty divided the country into thirty-six prefectures, and Junsha was one of them. Later, under the Western Han Dynasty, the Kingdom of Junsha was established as the fief of the King of Junsha, governing thirteen counties.
Today, apart from the artifacts in museums, not a single trace of the city's ancient past remained. The Great Fire of Junsha during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the breach of the Huayuankou dike, and the Chongqing air-raid shelter massacre were known as the three great tragedies. Because the fire had burned everything to the ground, Junsha also ranked alongside Stalingrad, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki as one of the cities most devastated in World War II.
In the nation that had invaded China with all its might, no soul beneath the atomic bombs was innocent. But Junsha should not have suffered such a fate. After reconstruction, no trace of the burning or the pain remained, and the city seemed to be gradually forgotten.
This was where he had fought through blood and fire.
More memories slowly resurfaced in Liu Chang'an's mind. He lay motionless at a construction site beside Baolong Center, his whole body in unbearable pain. When he took a deep breath, pain pulsed through his chest and back, making him fully aware that his fractures were severe.
He looked up. Baolong Center, beside him, was the tallest building in Junsha. Even late at night, the lights embedded in its glass exterior made the tower look like a radiant jade stairway leading to heaven.
For once, the night sky was clear enough to see the stars. The Milky Way stretched from the northeast toward the south, like a dazzling torrent of starlight pouring across billions of miles.
The stars wheeled across the sky, and the moonlight gradually faded. The towering city skyline blocked the fiery clouds of sunrise and the first rays of dawn.
Liu Chang'an opened his eyes again and breathed in the morning air. Even in a city choked with fog, the air after dawn seemed somehow different.
He heard the rumble of construction machinery starting up in the distance. Liu Chang'an glanced up at Baolong Center, which towered beside the site, then rolled over and got to his feet. With a leap, he grabbed the top of the wall and vaulted over it, landing steadily on the other side.
He felt his backside. His pants were naturally in tatters, so he took off his jacket and tied it around his waist to cover the hole. Bare-chested, he walked along the construction site wall, looking no different from any young man working at a site.
His skin was simply a little too fair. It lacked the bronze tone earned through years of hard labor, not to mention coarse pores or hard, defined muscles.
Liu Chang'an rolled his neck. A middle-aged man in a khaki-blue work uniform called out, "Young man, looking for work?"
Liu Chang'an glanced down at the mud on his pants, hesitated, then nodded. "What kind of work?"
"Clear out that pile of broken bricks and use them to fill the puddle." Seeing Liu Chang'an hesitate, the middle-aged man said impatiently, "It's just a day's work, and I pay at the end of the day. I'll pay you as soon as you're done."
"Sure." Liu Chang'an grinned, showing two rows of teeth.
Large buildings were generally constructed with poured reinforced concrete. Only temporary walls at construction sites were made of gray bricks. The convoy serving Baolong Mansion had taken up the still-unfinished road, preventing the site's equipment from getting through, so the puddle had to be filled by hand.
Liu Chang'an didn't change into work clothes. Fan Jian gave him a hard hat to wear. Work clothes were optional, but no one was allowed onto the site without a hard hat, even at the very edge.
Liu Chang'an worked all morning and finished filling the puddle. Then he went to Fan Jian to collect his pay.
"You finished a day's work in one morning?" Fan Jian didn't believe it at first. He went over to check, then smiled. "Wouldn't have guessed you were such a hard worker, young man. What's your name?"
"Liu Chang'an." Liu Chang'an took the two hundred yuan, signed for it, and was about to leave.
"Leave me your number. I'll call you if there's more work," Fan Jian said casually. The site couldn't hire people just like that. Today was only an exception because it was so early and his crew had been sent to do other work.
Liu Chang'an smiled and wrote his phone number on the slip. He knew he probably wouldn't get any more work; today had most likely just been a lucky coincidence.
Fan Jian thought he had a nice smile, with clean, white teeth. He was probably new to looking for work.
Fan Jian casually put the slip in a stack of signed forms and continued making his rounds. This part of the site was devoted to the facilities for Baolong Center. The main tower had already been completed and put into use. It stood 452 meters tall and would have a total floor area of 980,000 square meters. Though it wasn't among the tallest buildings in the country, its foundation pit was the second deepest. As one of the people involved in its construction, Fan Jian felt a little proud.
"Hello."
Fan Jian had just finished a round when he saw a woman in a black skirt suit approaching him.
He instinctively reached into his pocket for betel nut, then gave an awkward smile. "Hello. What can I do for you?"
"I'm looking for a young man who was working at your site. He was over there just now." The woman pointed.
Fan Jian froze. Wasn't that where Liu Chang'an had just been working? He took another look at the woman. She had the bearing of a secretary or assistant: tall and slender, with no stockings and a pair of black, openwork high heels. She wore no unnecessary accessories. She had the figure men admired most, and though she barely smiled, she wasn't exactly cold either.
Most striking of all was her young, beautiful face behind frameless glasses.
Fan Jian had seen female secretaries accompanying company executives on inspection tours, but none could compare to her in bearing, figure, or looks.
"His name is Liu Chang'an, but he doesn't work here. I hired him temporarily," Fan Jian said. He wondered what the young woman had to do with Liu Chang'an. What could a laborer hauling bricks have in common with a beautiful, aloof white-collar professional?
The young woman frowned and glanced behind her.
Only then did Fan Jian notice another figure standing a short distance behind her: a strikingly beautiful young woman with her hands in her pockets, lazily gazing up at the sky as if she hadn't noticed them.
She was holding the leash of an extremely fierce Rottweiler. The construction site had one too, but neither its appearance nor its build could compare with this one.
"Do you have his contact information?" the young woman asked.
"Yes," Fan Jian said, then hurried off to look through the pile of slips.
It took Fan Jian a while to find the right one. He gave the phone number to the young woman.
"Thanks for your help." She wrote down the number and turned to leave.
Fan Jian took the betel nut out of his pocket and popped one into his mouth. Watching the woman's swaying hips as she walked away, he chewed, his mouth watering even more.
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