Once, while routinely inspecting the environment ahead with a telescope, Wen Qian spotted a wondrous creature, black and white hanging from a tree.
With the mist drifting around the mountain slope, Wen Qian initially thought she was seeing things.
But upon closer inspection, she became increasingly convinced it was that adorable yet ferocious animal, as the black and white panda moved to a higher and thinner branch.
Wen Qian was even worried it might fall off at any moment.
Were there pandas in Liang Province? Wen Qian only knew that these rare animals existed in a couple of provinces south of Liang Province, but she never expected to encounter them here.
And it was a wild one too, surprisingly surviving the catastrophes. Apparently, this species was quite resilient.
They had shifted from a carnivorous diet to mostly herbivorous, according to the science documentary Wen Qian had watched, which said they were a species existing since ancient times.
If human development hadn't impacted their habitat, with excessive deforestation and exploitation fragmenting their once contiguous dwelling areas, disrupting their breeding, their numbers wouldn't have dwindled.
Of course, many were also hunted domestically and abroad during the unprotected era.
Now it seemed that with human activities halted, various plants and animals had gained a respite.
The pandas were at a relatively safe distance, posing no major threat, so after admiring them, Wen Qian continued on her way.
The journey northward would become unsuitable for bamboo growth, and Wen Qian figured this might be her only chance to see pandas.
Then, while crossing a large river heading north in the evening, Wen Qian encountered a black bear.
It seemed to have caught her scent but was still some distance away.
Facing the incoming, not-so-cuddly, and potentially dangerous bear, Wen Qian immediately abandoned her vehicle, grabbed materials to build a shelter, and retrieved her gun.
Although tense, she didn't panic but swiftly constructed the shelter and readied her firearm.
She fired two loud, smoky shots, though uncertain where they hit, only seeing the black bear flee.
It ran even faster than its approach, quickly disappearing into the mountains.
Its size was relatively small, at least smaller than the one Wen Qian had seen in the Jade Mountain Range.
Spotting the blood trail left behind, Wen Qian realized she had injured it.
She then switched to a motorcycle and sped off.
Only after putting considerable distance between them did she dare stop, still muttering to herself in the residual tension.
The bear was injured, severely wounded and no longer a threat, or lightly wounded and chose to flee rather than attack, also posing no significant threat.
She was safe now.
Only then did Wen Qian stop to rest, setting up her mobile shelter as night fell, before venturing out to fortify her defenses.
She doubled her efforts, stacking layers of bricks and wood she had collected, even using materials from the town square and a street of buildings.
You could say Wen Qian surrounded her dwelling with a "four-sided mountain" of construction debris, resembling a tenacious resident amid demolition.
Only after such extensive fortification did Wen Qian feel secure enough to sleep.
However, perhaps due to the day's harrowing events, her dreams continued the saga, with the bear clawing her, jolting her awake.
Thankfully, dreams work in reverse, and she wasn't the one injured.
Still, realizing bears were present everywhere, Wen Qian decided that once she found a suitable location, she would need to clear the surrounding wildlife.
Otherwise, she wouldn't feel at ease living there.
She also recognized her lack of training or hunting experience.
While maintaining a respectful attitude toward wild animals, never underestimating anything for fear of stumbling, if she wanted to settle somewhere long-term, she would need to neutralize any threats first.
Fortunately, on her northward journey, she didn't encounter any similar incidents.
The vegetation grew sparser and shorter until she returned to the desolate wastelands.
Wen Qian passed through an area where the soil seemed familiar to her.
It resembled the type suitable for pottery-making she had seen in documentaries.
Uncertain, she dug some up and consulted her reference materials, thankful for having brought them, as she might discover more suitable soil along her journey to stockpile.
This digging sparked a new interest in Wen Qian, realizing she might need to produce many items herself in the future.
So at different locations, she began collecting not just soil but stones of various colors, shapes, and materials, big and small.
Whereas before she only gathered potentially useful items, she now collected seemingly useless ones too.
And whenever crossing riverbeds, she would collect pebbles and sand.
She even gathered slabs of shale that looked suitable for wall construction, finding joy in this collecting, constantly discovering new things.
It lifted her spirits on the road, a form of zero-cost acquisition.
She felt like playing a coin-collecting game, with all her gathered objects eventually becoming part of her new home's rebuilding.
This gave her a sense of security.
With this in mind, Wen Qian then considered whether she should scavenge around cities for bricks and paving stones from Mangge City, as they might be better suited for wall construction than soil or rocks.
Her thoughts were soon realized, as she passed through many abandoned towns and villages.
Wen Qian even traveled through an area of mountains entirely terraced into fields.
Not just one, but multiple sites, meaning wherever she went bore traces of past human activity.
Even using satellite imagery and zooming in, she could see the locals' modifications and naming of the wilderness.
The centuries of labor from generation after generation, now mostly abandoned but perhaps one day revived.
During her journey northward, she could not avoid towns, so she collected even more road stones than before in Mangge City.
Along the way, she even found an abandoned quarry in a rather remote area, where there were many ready-cut stones, with quite a few just lying outside.
Of course, she didn't hesitate to take them away, even though some pieces were too large for her to move, but her spatial ability could handle them.
Gradually, the idea of "building a Great Wall" came to her mind, and she felt it might actually be possible.
Wen Qian was startled by her own thoughts while cycling, but the more outrageous it seemed, the more interesting it became.
Who knows, it might turn out to be quite interesting in the end.
While a city wall might be too ambitious, building a sufficiently large enclosure for herself was a possibility. However, for now, it was more practical to plan her next route.
