"Holy crap! We finally made it!"
Chen Tingting was the first to cheer, her voice flooded with relief.
The door swung open, and a gust of the north's signature dry, biting cold rushed in all at once.
The sharp difference in temperature between inside and outside the vehicle made all three girls shiver in unison, their thin clothes offering little protection.
Bai Li rose unhurriedly, picked up his luggage, and followed the crowd off the bus.
The moment they set foot on Yun City's ground, the bone-chilling wind instantly drained the color from Chen Tingting's and Li Jiaxin's faces.
Their outfits were fine for the south, but here in the north, where temperatures hovered near freezing, they were nothing short of torture.
Lin Xiaoshuang's lips had already gone white from the cold, and she instinctively pressed closer to Bai Li's side.
"Come on, let's grab a cab," Bai Li said, frowning at the sight of them shivering.
He had already turned down his parents' offer to pick him up before boarding the bus, planning to take a taxi home on his own. Now he could just bring the girls along.
"Hey, big bro, a cab from here to Ping County would cost over a hundred, right? That's way too much. We can just take the coach," Chen Tingting said, her teeth chattering as she spoke.
Bai Li ignored her. He stepped to the curb, flagged down a taxi, loaded his suitcase into the trunk, and pulled open the rear door.
"Get in."
His tone left no room for argument. The three girls exchanged a glance, said nothing more, and piled into the car.
The cramped back seat became even more crowded with four people squeezed in. Bai Li ended up sandwiched between Lin Xiaoshuang and Chen Tingting.
On his left was Lin Xiaoshuang's soft warmth; on his right, Chen Tingting's fuller, more mature figure.
Once the heater kicked in, the girls' shivering gradually eased.
"Driver, Ping County, please," Bai Li said, giving the destination.
"Sure thing."
The taxi pulled away from the bus station.
Bai Li took out his phone and scanned the driver's payment QR code hanging up front, paying the one-hundred-and-twenty-yuan fare.
He half-expected the System to chime again, but his mind stayed completely quiet.
He understood immediately — the money had gone straight to the driver.
It hadn't passed through any of the three girls' hands, so it didn't count as an investment in them.
It seemed the System wasn't so easy to game after all.
Bai Li filed that away in his mind.
A little over an hour later, the taxi stopped at an intersection in Ping County.
"This is as far as I can take you — city cabs aren't allowed to pick up fares inside the county," the driver said, then hit the gas and disappeared into traffic.
Ping County — a small town with a slow, unhurried pace of life, worlds apart from the relentless, always-chasing tension of Modu.
The buildings here were low, most of them around ten stories tall.
With the Spring Festival approaching, the streets were lined with stalls selling couplets and decorations, dotted with middle-aged parents walking with their children and clusters of elderly men and women.
The familiar streets, the steam rising from food carts, the local dialect drifting through conversations — everything was exactly as he had left it three years ago.
He looked at the three of them and asked:
"Where are you headed? It's freezing out here — you shouldn't be standing around."
"We were thinking—" Chen Tingting started to say something, but a gust of wind cut her off, turning the rest of her words into the sound of chattering teeth.
"I'll call a car and drop you home so you can change into something warmer," Bai Li said, pulling out his phone.
"No, no, big bro, don't bother!" Chen Tingting stopped him immediately, shaking her head firmly. "We're not going home."
There was a stubborn edge to her voice, and beneath it, a barely perceptible loneliness.
"We're all left-behind children. Nobody's home all year round — what's the point of going back, just to stare at the walls?"
Li Jiaxin added quietly from beside her:
"We were planning to hang out at the internet café up ahead."
An internet café?
Bai Li's brow furrowed.
He looked at their lips, purple from the cold, and at Lin Xiaoshuang's eyes, which were on the verge of tears. Something stirred uncomfortably in his chest.
"An internet café isn't a long-term solution."
He put his phone away, his voice calm but firm. "I'll find you somewhere to stay."
At those words, all three girls' eyes lit up at the same moment — like spotting a light in the middle of a dark night.
But the light lasted only a second before it dimmed again.
"Big bro, we don't have money for a hotel…" Chen Tingting's voice trailed off, a little embarrassed.
Then, as if remembering something, she straightened up and said with a hint of pride:
"But I know a place — super cheap. Only twenty-five yuan a night! We can go there!"
A hotel for twenty-five yuan a night?
Bai Li's curiosity was piqued.
Back in Modu, twenty-five yuan wouldn't even buy you a decent cup of coffee.
Yet here, it could get you a night's lodging.
He genuinely wanted to see what kind of place that could possibly be.
"Alright, lead the way."
The moment Bai Li agreed, Chen Tingting perked right up.
It was as if she'd stumbled onto a great bargain and now had a chance to show off in front of her newly-made big bro.
She took the lead, confidently navigating the narrow lane behind the bus station as if she'd walked it a hundred times.
They crossed a street lined with breakfast stalls and vegetable vendors, then turned into a small alley.
The alley was narrow, the buildings on either side packed so tightly together that the sky above was reduced to a long, thin strip of grey.
"See that, big bro? That's the Sisters' Hair Salon. That's where I got my red hair done — the owner's pretty skilled, right?"
Chen Tingting pointed proudly at a shop whose sign had half its lights burned out.
Bai Li glanced in the direction she pointed and said nothing.
About fifty meters further on, Chen Tingting stopped in front of a small building set inside a courtyard.
The building was three stories tall. Large patches of plaster had peeled off the outer walls, exposing the bare bricks beneath.
A few pieces of garishly colored women's underwear hung from a clothesline on the second-floor window, swaying in the cold wind.
Above the entrance hung a crooked sign. Looking closely, it read: Hongyun Inn.
"Here we are, big bro — this is the place!"
Chen Tingting wore the expression of someone who had just found the deal of the century. She pushed open the iron gate at the courtyard entrance.