Just as the morning sun began peeking over the ridgeline, Yang Xu stood at the edge of a dry riverbed, squinting suspiciously at a misshapen pile of slaked lime, ash, gravel, and… "Old Zhao, did you spit in this again?"
"I only coughed near it, Young Lord!" Old Zhao coughed again for good measure, eyes wide with innocence.
Yang Xu sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and muttered, "At this rate, the Tang Dynasty might build the Great Wall out of phlegm."
The truth was, they were getting closer. After days of experimenting, mixing proportions based on whatever his fuzzy memory of high school chemistry and YouTube tutorials could conjure up, Yang Xu finally felt like he was on to something. It was crude, gritty, smelled vaguely like boiled socks, but it held its shape and didn't crumble when stepped on.
"I think we've got cement," he whispered to himself. "Not the sexy Portland kind… but it'll do."
System prompt chimed pleasantly in his head.
[Ding! Congratulations on creating Early Cement Mix!] Basic recipe unlocked. Adhesion Level: Poor. Waterproofing: Laughable. Durability: Passable.
Achievement: "Primitive Concrete God (Beginner)" achieved! Reward: Basic Blueprint Pack – Infrastructure Tier 1.
Blueprints Unlocked: • Basic Road Construction (Dirt + Cement Mix) • Early Wooden Bridge with Reinforcement • Three-Story Load-Bearing Building (Advisory: Not earthquake-safe)
Hidden Bonus: You now smell faintly of progress. And lime.
Yang Xu grinned like a madman, rubbing his hands together. "Finally. We're not just stacking mud bricks and praying anymore."
With the recipe working, Yang Xu decided it was time to let the villagers in on the secret. Of course, he didn't call it cement.
He called it… "Stone glue."
"Aiya, so it's like rice paste but for rocks?" asked Auntie Lin as she eyed the mixture, stirring it with the same bamboo ladle she used for soup.
"Exactly!" Yang Xu smiled. "But this one won't give you diarrhea."
The villagers gathered around in growing excitement as Yang Xu oversaw the construction of the county's very first cement-paved stretch of road—barely ten meters long, barely smooth, but enough to walk on without sinking knee-deep in mud.
Old Zhao even got emotional. "I've walked these same dirt paths for seventy years, Young Lord. I never imagined I'd live to see smooth ground beneath my feet! My heels don't feel like they're fighting the Earth anymore!"
"Careful," Yang Xu warned, "too much praise and the system might evolve into a god and start charging tolls."
Despite the jokes, it was a big moment. Even the laziest villagers were peeking from their huts, curious. Yang Xu intentionally kept the demonstration simple—just shovels, water, gravel, and time.
And while many still found the idea suspicious, a few curious young men like A-Gou and Sanpang volunteered to help with mixing. "It's kinda fun!" said A-Gou, splashing a slurry mixture like he was playing with mud pies.
"Fun until your arms fall off," muttered Sanpang, wiping sweat with a sleeve soaked in cement dust.
"Muscles build walls," Yang Xu encouraged. "And walls keep bandits out."
"Do we get food if we help build more?" asked Sanpang bluntly.
"You get food. And I'll name the road after you."
Sanpang's eyes gleamed. "The Sanpang Avenue…"
Auntie Lin, from the crowd: "More like Sanpang Drainage Ditch."
Laughter followed, but Yang Xu quietly took note. These villagers, rough and simple, weren't hopeless. With the right push, they'd grow.
And grow they must.
Later that day, Yang Xu sat with his legs dangling from a rock slab as he looked over the newly leveled patch where the next construction would begin. It wasn't much—just one road and a plan for a bridge—but it was a start.
System pinged again, far too cheerily.
[Notice! Hidden System Tip] Invention unlock thresholds: • Agricultural Upgrade: In Progress • Public Sanitation: Unlocked • Urban Planning Tier 1: Available after 2 more blueprint uses.
Yang Xu grinned. "Now we're getting somewhere."
But just as he stood up, he saw a group of kids playing "county builder," throwing clumps of cement mix at each other like it was a festival. One particularly energetic toddler had even crafted a crown out of dried lime paste and declared himself "Emperor of Roads."
Yang Xu stared for a beat.
"Old Zhao," he called, pointing, "if that kid eats cement again, you'll be the one changing his diapers."
Old Zhao, who had finally found a moment of peace under the shade, groaned, "Why do I get punished for someone else's digestive ambitions?"
"Because you're the only one whose stomach is as unkillable."
Old Zhao looked proud. "True."
As night fell, Yang Xu huddled by his flickering oil lamp, scribbling out adaptations to the bridge blueprint on parchment that already smelled like dried yam paste. He couldn't help but chuckle at the absurdity—one moment he was an average guy in the 21st century dodging loan repayments, and now he was mapping civil engineering plans with one foot in a pigsty.
But he liked it.
There was something addictively satisfying about building something real with his own hands—even if those hands were covered in lime burns, and even if half the village still thought he was a spirit sent by the Earth Mother to punish lazy people.
He leaned back and looked up at the moon, scratching his head.
"This world's a mess. Might as well pave it properly."
And somewhere off to the side, the Emperor of Roads fell into a ditch he had dug himself, yelling, "Long live the infrastructure!"
[Author's Note:
Coming up next—who's this "clever uncle" in the village who doesn't talk much but somehow knows carpentry, herbal medicine, and how to draw a perfect circle? And will Sanpang really get a road named after him, or will Auntie Lin sabotage it for revenge?
Also, someone might accidentally invent something due to influence or grumbling of the Protagonist.
Stay tuned for that too,
See ya in the next Chapter By-Bye~]