Coach: Coaching the Grizzlies at the beginning, playing the bantam

Lu Yong squatted on the steps of the ticket office of the Presidential Palace, leaning his elbows on his knees and looking through the photo album on his mobile phone. At 8:30 in the morning, the sunlight slanted across the eaves, leaving a small gold edge on the back collar of his black sweatshirt.

"This photo needs a retro filter," Hannah suddenly put her chin on his shoulder, her long hair making his neck itchy, "With the moon gate in the West Garden as the background, I can post it on Instagram and get 300 likes, do you believe it?"

“Three hundred likes in exchange for me holding a selfie stick as a human tripod for twenty minutes?” Lu Yong grinned and moved his shoulders. The bottle of mineral water in the side pocket of his backpack made a sound as he moved. “Unless you promise to delete the photo of you riding a stone lion.”

Hannah's mint green gauze skirt spun into a half circle, and her canvas shoes embroidered with cherry blossom petals stepped precisely on the tip of his sneakers.

"Mr. Lu," she shook the hand-drawn map of the Presidential Palace on the back of her phone case, her rhinestone nails gleaming like a galaxy of stars in the morning light, "If you can find the remains of Hong Xiuquan's study within ten minutes, I will consider withdrawing your nine-shot cosplay of the lucky cat."

The line at the ticket gate suddenly surged, and Lu Yong grabbed her wrist and pushed her forward. The Xuanwu Lake commemorative keychain hanging on his backpack jingled.

"Deal, but you have to get through this level of the live-action version of Along the River During the Qingming Festival first." He glanced at the huge group of tour groups ahead, with red flags rising and falling along with the honking of the tour guide. "Did you see that auntie's pearl necklace? It's definitely the fastest way to go if you follow it."

The two of them were stuck in front of the vermilion door inlaid with copper nails.

Hannah's bow hairpin was squeezed crooked, and when Lu Yong reached out to adjust it, the tour guide holding a small flag behind him suddenly shouted: "The original Tianwang Sword is on the second floor of Zichao Building!" The crowd immediately surged forward like nails attracted by a magnet, and the back of Hannah's gauze skirt was caught in the strap of a grandfather's SLR camera. "Lu Yong!" She staggered and grabbed the drawstring of her boyfriend's sweatshirt on his back, "My skirt is locked with the Canon EOS!"

Lu Yong grabbed Hannah's waist with his backhand and turned half a circle on the spot due to the force of the crowd pushing him.

The old man's Nikon camera bag brushed past his ear, bringing with it the smell of a wolfberry thermos cup. "Don't move!" He knelt between Hannah and the stone railing, hooked his fingers on the lace edge of the gauze skirt and gently pulled, "Canon EOS, right? I'm going to change its name to Can't-EOS now."

Hannah was shaking from trying to hold back her laughter, and her skirt made a soft "sizzling" sound when it was released from the metal buckle. Lu Yong took the opportunity to take out a Band-Aid from the side pocket of his backpack and slapped it on the lace. "Limited edition war-damaged style," he admired his masterpiece in the sunlight, "Remember to point the hole towards the camera when you take pictures later."

The moment I passed through the doorway, the June heat wave was chopped into spots of light by the century-old camphor trees.

Hannah suddenly dragged Lu Yong to the right fork in the road. On the blue brick path behind the hydrangea bushes, a few sparrows were pecking at the bread crumbs dropped by tourists. "Take a shortcut!" She kicked away the dead branches blocking the way, and her mint green skirt swept across the wall covered with trumpet creepers. "There is a staff passage on the left side of Zichao Building. I spent two hours reading the guide posts last night."

Before he could finish his words, he was interrupted by the security guard's whistle.

Lu Yong watched Hannah holding up the map and gesturing with the other party, the willow catkins on the ends of her hair falling with her movements. The security guard suddenly smiled with his teeth yellowed by smoke, and raised his hand to point to the wooden door with a sign saying "Under Repair". "The little girl is smarter than GPS," he took out his key chain and jingled it, "This back door leads to the backyard of Hong Xiuquan's study - but you have to do me a favor."

Five minutes later, the two men walked through the corridor, each holding a stack of red lanterns for the celebration.

Hannah's high ponytail brushed Lu Yong's nose, and the air was filled with the scent of aged sandalwood and fresh ink. "This is called saving the country in a roundabout way, don't you understand?" She pushed open the carved wooden door with her elbow, startling two gray pigeons on the beams. "By the time the aunt tour group squeezed into the main entrance, we had even finished taking the nine-square grid."

Hong Xiuquan's study was more cramped than expected, and the yellow silk edict in the glass display case had dark marks like tea stains. Just as Lu Yong was about to touch his phone, Hannah suddenly approached him from behind. "The bet is in effect," she breathed on the sensitive area behind his ear, "the countdown starts now, nine minutes and thirty seconds."

"You're cheating!" Lu Yong squinted because of the sunlight reflected from the display case. Hannah's silver necklace suddenly dropped in front of his eyes and swayed. "Wait. Is there a missing corner of the dragon emblem on the upper right corner of the edict?"

As Hannah leaned closer, she brought with her a whiff of citrus perfume, and the camera on her phone trembled slightly as she tiptoed.

"Really!" she exclaimed as she enlarged the photo, "This detail isn't even mentioned in the guide!" She turned around to take a picture of the back of Lu Yong's head but bumped into something hard - he had raised the selfie stick at some point, with the wide-angle lens facing the damaged part of the edict.

"The qualities of a professional boyfriend," he pressed the burst button, the shutter sound rang like popcorn in the empty exhibition hall, "Now you can post at least four decryption pictures and texts on Instagram - provided you give me half of the credit."

When passing through the moon gate, the koi pond in the West Garden was shimmering with golden light.

Hannah suddenly stopped, and the four characters "天下为公" on the stone tablet beside the pool were burned by the sun. "Quick!" She threw off her sandals and stepped onto the bluestone. The lucky red rope on her ankle swept across Lu Yong's wrist, "Take a dislocated photo of me holding up the sun!"

Lu Yong half-knelt on the cobblestone path to adjust the focus, and Hannah's silhouette appeared in the frame, sometimes larger and sometimes smaller.

Her raised palm just framed the sun halo on the eaves, and the light spots leaking from the holes in her gauze skirt moved on the surface of the stone tablet. "Don't move!" He suddenly lowered his voice, "There's a ginger cat behind you that has crawled into the banana leaves."

The moment the shutter was pressed, the cat's tail swept across Hannah's instep.

She screamed and fell back, and Lu Yong grabbed her by the waist and spun her around. The splashes of water from the koi pond soaked their trouser legs, and the photo album on her phone captured her flying hair and Lu Yong's tense forearms.

“This one should be called ‘Assassination of Romance Novel Writers.’” Hannah poked at her own distorted expression on the screen, and suddenly stood on tiptoe to bite the brim of Lu Yong’s baseball cap. “But considering that you’re a human air cushion.” Her fingertips hovered over the delete key for three seconds, and then she set the photo as her phone wallpaper.

As the flying eaves of the Sunset Pavilion lifted up a ray of setting sun, Hannah was standing on tiptoe to stuff a Polaroid camera into Lu Yong's shirt pocket.

"The last three," she rubbed her nose against his second button, "I bet you dare not kiss under the plaque of 'The World for All'."

Lu Yong leaned his lower back against the cold golden nanmu pillar, and his palms were full of the touch of the folds of Hannah's skirt.

"You are destroying cultural relics," he deliberately turned his head away, and saw the patrolling security guard's flashlight sweeping across the pond in his peripheral vision, "Unless..." He suddenly put his arms around her waist and turned her around, and they both fell into the entrance of the rockery cave with a brocade banner hanging with "Tourists Are Not Allowed" hanging on it.

Hannah's exclamation was blocked by the smell of moss. The flashlight on her cell phone illuminated the mottled graffiti on the stone wall: "Father Kills Brother." "The Taiping Army's secret passage!" She stroked the rusty arrow stuck in the crack with her fingertips. "The guide said that this area was closed 20 years ago."

"Closed?" Lu Yong knocked on the ground with his heel, and the hollow echo startled the bats on the cave ceiling to flap their wings. "Listen to the noise, there are at least three underground palaces underneath." He touched a depression in the rock wall, and half of the blackened iron chain fell dust as he pulled it. "A certain young lady now has two choices - Plan A, go back the same way to watch the sunset, Plan B"

Before she finished speaking, Hannah had already crawled into his arms and pressed the shutter of her phone. The moment the flash went on, a mechanical click sound came from under his feet. "Lu Yong!" She suddenly grabbed his wrist, "Your back is glowing!"

When a half-meter square hole appeared on the blue brick floor, Lu Yong was frantically patting the fluorescent sticker on his back - it was obviously a "small gift" secretly pasted by the security guard when he helped move the lanterns in the morning. Hannah's sandals got stuck in the cracks of the bricks, and her phone rolled down the stone steps, the blue light from the screen illuminating the dense dark red palm prints on the wall.

"This is much more exciting than escaping a secret room." Lu Yong touched Hannah's trembling fingertips and deliberately pinched his throat to imitate the electronic commentary voice, "Welcome to experience the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom escape passage. The death rate of this attraction was as high as 10,000 during the Xianfeng period."

Hannah's fist pounded his shoulder blade, and the echo startled an old spider web somewhere above his head.

When their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they found a dozen wine jars piled up at the end of the stone steps, with the faded words "Holy Treasury" printed on the seal. Hannah just raised her phone to focus, and the whole row of pottery jars suddenly glowed green.

"Luminous paint?" Lu Yong touched the jar with the tip of his shoe, and three mice squeaked out of the jar. "It seems that Hong Xiuquan also plays cyberpunk."

When the alarm sounded, Hannah was crouching over a dusty nanmu box, studying the brass lock.

The swirling red light poured in from the vents, and the 1980s-style loudspeakers shook the dust off the beams. "Please stop your destructive visit immediately!" the security guard shouted with a hissing electronic sound, "Otherwise, you will be punished according to Article 42 of the Cultural Relics Protection Law."

"Look!" Hannah suddenly grabbed Lu Yong's shoulder, "There's a satin booklet in the box!" She took out the yellowed pages during the alarm, and the detailed architectural drawings appeared under the flashlight of her mobile phone, "The structural diagram of the drainage system of the Presidential Palace - this watermark is from 1912!"

As the sound of footsteps approached, Lu Yong was using Hannah's hairpin to pry the ventilation grille.

Hannah suddenly stuffed the blueprint into his lower back, and her cold fingertips almost made him bump into the beam. "When we are interrogated later, just say we are here..." She stopped talking abruptly because Lu Yong suddenly lifted her thigh and pushed it up.

"Hold on tight!" Veins popped out on his neck, as Hannah's high heels were stuck in his collarbone. "Think about your 30,000 followers on Instagram - your image as an archaeology goddess can't collapse like this!"

Hannah's posture in coming out of the ground was a disaster.

The mint green gauze skirt caught on the holly branches, and the hairband collapsed on the brim of the patrol security guard's hat. She was about to reach out to pull Lu Yong, but saw him slowly straighten his collar and take out a bronze key with a fluorescent sticker from his trouser pocket. "Uncle," he shook the keychain that the security guard gave him in the morning, "When you deliberately put the luminous stickers, were you waiting to see this?"

When the old man in a Mao suit walked out from behind the security guard, Hannah was wiping her face covered with spider webs with a wet towel. "This is Director Wu!" The security guard was trying to hold back his laughter until his face turned red. "He has been retired for ten years and he has to dress up as a sweeper to experience life."

The old man took the yellowed drawing from Hannah's hand, and a gleam of light flashed in his reading lenses.

"A hand-drawn diagram of the lightning rod modification during the Guangxu period," he took out the stamp from his pocket, "Miss, would you like to have it displayed at the Presidential Palace Centennial Exhibition?"

When the dusk completely swallowed up Fei Yan Beast's kiss, Lu Yong was squatting at the door of the souvenir shop to put on a Band-Aid. Hannah suddenly slapped something cold on the back of his neck - it was a special commemorative coin sent by Director Wu, with the word "Yong" engraved on the front and a strand of black hair embedded on the back.

"The old man said my hair got stuck in the cracks between the tiles of the Zichao Building," her ears turned red as her fingertips circled the camera strap, "and he also said this was a blessing ceremony that had been going on since the Republic of China."

Lu Yong suddenly grabbed her wrist, and the commemorative coin drew a silver arc in the air. "Miss," he said, holding Hannah's hair, which he had secretly cut at some point, between his fingers. The ends of her hair were still playfully curled, "Are you sure the old man didn't feel sorry for me because I held the selfie stick for four hours?"

The evening breeze blew up the poster next to the kiosk, and the couple in the century-old photo were exchanging tokens in the same position.

Hannah suddenly grabbed the Polaroid camera and pointed it at the two of them. When she slowly spit out the last piece of film, the lanterns of the Sunset Pavilion just happened to light up one after another.

“Hey,” she poked at Lu Yong’s dull face in the photo, “If this photo gets over a thousand likes.”

"Let's do ten more real-life escape rooms?" Lu Yong stuffed the commemorative coin into the necklace between her collarbones. The metal against her skin caused her to shudder. "Remember to wear a bulletproof vest next time."

The morning mist had not yet dissipated, but Hannah's canvas shoes had already stepped on the blue bricks of the Zhonghuamen city wall.

She held up the pencil-shaped thermometer she had brought from the hotel last night, and the metal tip made a slight sound as it scratched the gap in the city wall. "23 degrees Celsius, humidity 67%—" The mint green skirt swept across the drainage trough six hundred years ago, "Mr. Lu, do you think the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty would sneeze when they changed shifts?"

Lu Yong was squatting and studying the bolt slot on the ticket door. Upon hearing this, he put the half-drunk soy milk on the arrow stack.

"They definitely won't have the chance to experience this." He suddenly held Hannah's wrist and pressed it against the stone wall, the temperature of his palm transmitted through the sun protection sleeve, "If the generals defending the city knew that a certain lady used a thermometer gun as a fairy wand."

Before she could finish her words, she was swallowed up by the echo of the city wall. Hannah shouted "Good morning" to the soldier cave in the southeast corner. Seventy-two echoes came from different directions, startling a group of sparrows nesting in the cracks of the city bricks. Lu Yong took the opportunity to take out his mobile phone to record the video. In the camera, Hannah's straw hat was blown askew by the wind, and her hair was entangled with willow catkins from the Qinhuai River.

"Does this place look like a giant phonograph?" She trotted through the third archway, the Presidential Palace commemorative coins hanging on her canvas bag clinking against her thermos cup. "It is said that if you stand at the center point and stomp your feet," she was suddenly pulled back half a step by Lu Yong, and the red flag of the tour group just brushed her nose.

When the words "Shen Wansan's Treasure Bowl" popped up on the tour guide's loudspeaker, Lu Yong had already pulled Hannah into the west horse trail.

The morning light shone in from the battlements, cutting a light and dark grid on the steps. "Follow this," he shook the hand-drawn map of the city wall that was newly added to Hannah's bag, "Director Wu said there is a secret check-in point in the hidden soldier cave."

Hannah's fingertips ran across the scorch marks on the edge of the map and suddenly stopped at an octagonal pattern circled in cinnabar.

"Isn't that the one?" She pointed to the brick wellhead surrounded by iron chains 20 meters away. "It's mentioned in the repair records during the Wanli period." (End of this chapter)