A few days later, Xu Zhiqiu took a high-speed train to Chenzhou Station in Hunan Province, then a coach to Linwu County.
Exhausted by a full day of travel, Xu Zhiqiu checked into an inn near the Dark Domain Forest. After resting for a night, she entered the Dark Domain Forest Ruins the next day with a local she had contacted beforehand.
He was a young man who looked about her age. When they met, they greeted each other and introduced themselves.
"My name is Xu Zhiqiu," she told him.
The young man's eyes lit up. "Oh, what a coincidence! My surname is Xu too. I'm Xu Nianwen."
"Have you always lived around here?" Xu Zhiqiu asked as they walked.
Xu Nianwen held a camera, a smile on his face. "Not always. I only moved here a few years ago."
"Oh."
"But I know a little about this area's history. Want to hear it?" Xu Nianwen looked at her, deliberately keeping her in suspense.
"Go ahead."
A gravel path led from the outskirts of the Dark Domain Forest to the restored buildings inside. Tourists followed it deeper into the forest to admire the architecture.
Xu Zhiqiu also saw quite a few young men and women carrying drawing boards, gathering inspiration.
"Research found that the earliest inhabitants of these ruins in the Dark Domain Forest lived during the Song Dynasty. As time passed, the settlement gradually expanded. By the Ming Dynasty, though, its allotted days had come to an end."
"This part of the Dark Domain Forest is very mysterious. After the settlement died out on its own, no one paid any attention to this place from the Ming Dynasty until the early years after the nation's founding. Then the country made a major push to restore production, and the local