At that moment, Little Frost turned around to bring the rickshaw parked outside into the house.
She walked along the narrow dirt road, where several townspeople stopped their work, staring strangely at the bicycle parked by the door—or rather, staring at White Night sitting in the basket.
They could actually see White Night; the people in this town were indeed extraordinary.
The edges of White Night’s soul body shimmered with a faint halo in the daylight.
Without looking closely, she resembled a shadow, but a careful glance would reveal that a shadow could not float, nor did it have twin tails.
A man with a bloated face pointed at White Night and whispered a few words to his companion.
The companion listened, then immediately shrank back a large step in disgust.
White Night heard them.
The surroundings were noisy, and she could not hear every word clearly, but terms like “abnormal,” “ghost,” and “filthy thing” pierced her ears with precision.
White Night’s soul body dimmed slightly.
She pursed her lips, subconsciously wanting to shrink into the bicycle basket.
Little Frost, who had been walking in front, never stopped.
Without turning her head or scolding the onlookers, she simply shifted her position nonchalantly, moving to White Night’s left side like a wall, blocking those stinging gazes.
On the other side, Mu Yingying, who had been inside the house, had wandered out at some point and positioned herself perfectly to the right of White Night.
White Night was now sandwiched snugly between the two aunties.
Little Frost pushed the bicycle toward the house, her palms pressed firmly against the frame.
Her body heat radiated through the cold carbon fiber tubes, flowing steadily into the basket.
The soul body of White Night, which had dimmed, slowly brightened under the wrapping of that warmth.
Mu Yingying, walking on the right, also noticed those malicious gazes.
She stopped, turned, and flashed a grin at the bloated man.
Her eyes curved into crescents, and her smile was very sweet.
Then, her right hand rested slowly and leisurely on the hilt of the sword at her waist.
The bright, cold blade of the Tang Dao pointed directly at him.
“Loose lips cost lives. If it weren’t for the fact that I just arrived and am not familiar with this town, you would already be a corpse.”
Mu Yingying’s voice was as cold as a blade.
The bloated man retracted his gaze as if electrocuted and dragged his companion away, vanishing into the alley.
The three entered the small house and locked the thick wooden door.
Mu Yingying leaned her Tang Dao against the bed and stretched her shoulders casually.
“This place has life to it; it’s better than out in the wilderness.”
Little Frost sat at the table and stared quietly at the door panel.
“Places with life have plenty of trouble, too. Don’t let your guard down.”
This room in the corner had poor soundproofing, and the noise from the streets outside could be heard faintly.
After settling White Night in, Little Frost didn’t even take a drink of water before turning around to push the door open and leave.
She went out to observe the situation.
She watched how the patrol teams changed shifts and what the street vendors were selling.
In less than 2 hours, she returned.
“There are three types of people in this town.”
Little Frost locked the wooden door tightly and leaned against the chipped table. She dipped her finger into a tea mug and drew three circles on the cracked tabletop.
“Sister Gu holds the first type.”
“She handles external affairs: patrols, letting people into town, and assigning living quarters on the outskirts. All that dirty and exhausting work belongs to her.”
“But she doesn’t have many elites under her who can actually fight, and most of their weapons are homemade cold weapons.”
She tapped the first circle and drew a second one.
“There is a guy named Fatty Zhou in the trading zone who controls the flow of resources in the town.”
“Whether it’s ghost crystals, medicine, food, or even a clean screw, if you want to trade for it, you have to go through his territory.”
“He has more thugs than Sister Gu; they all look plump and well-fed, but they never climb the walls to kill weirdness; they just sit inside and rake in profits.”
As she spoke, her finger moved to the third position.
Her fingertip hovered in mid-air, but she did not draw a third circle.
Her voice sank.
“There is one more type.”
“It is the forbidden area we saw today, surrounded tightly by rusty black iron sheets.”
“I tried to find out the name of the person in charge there, but I asked three people.”
“One pretended not to hear and kept working, one turned pale and changed the subject, and another was so scared they just turned and left.”
“People in this town don’t dare to mention the name of that place.”
Mu Yingying, who was sprawled out on the wooden bed with no regard for her image, rolled over after hearing Little Frost.
“Actually, I went out for a stroll, too.”
The place she went to was completely different from where Little Frost had been.
Little Frost had gone to the trading zone and patrol points, while Mu Yingying had gone to the most dilapidated slums at the base of the southern wall.
The people living there were displaced refugees who could not pay their contribution points and were living day to day.
“I used half a biscuit to talk to an old man with a limp in the slum area.”
Mu Yingying sat up, placing the Tang Dao across her knees, her usual playful expression fading a bit.
“The old man said that this Hundred Flowers Town requires a strict inspection of eerie factors every month.”
“They use a kind of black ore, pressing it against people’s wrists one by one.”
“If the stone heats up, it means the person is tainted with eerie factors and is mutating.”
White Night sat curled up in the basket, listening quietly, her translucent soul body trembling imperceptibly, its light fading slightly.
She knew very well that in the eyes of others, her current state might be even weirder than the weirdness itself.
Little Frost frowned.
“What happens to those who test positive?”
Mu Yingying’s voice carried a hint of coldness.
“A public vote by the whole town.”
“They are either thrown into the death prison for isolation or stripped of all their supplies and driven out of town on the spot.”
“Last month, two were chased away.”
“One of them was a woman with a 6-year-old child.”
“The old man said that the woman knelt in front of Sister Gu’s door and kowtowed all night, even shattering the bricks, begging them to spare the child.”
“It was useless.”
“Once the votes were enough, they were thrown out of the gate early the next morning, both the mother and the child.”
The room was silent for a few seconds.
White Night could not help but ask in a low voice.
“What happened after that?”
Mu Yingying looked up, her expression unchanging.
“Once they pass through that gate, who cares what happens to you?”
“You know what the weirdness in the wilderness likes to eat.”
“Those were the old man’s exact words.”
Little Frost did not continue with this heavy topic; she sharply grasped another blind spot.
“Who provides those black ores that can detect eerie factors? Sister Gu or Fatty Zhou?”
Mu Yingying stared intently into Little Frost’s eyes.
“Neither.”
“The old man said that although Sister Gu’s people preside over the inspections, those black ores… are all issued by that most mysterious group.”
The three fell into silence once again.
The forbidden area surrounded by iron sheets was like a massive shadow, silently looming over the entire town.
The night grew deep.
To break the oppressive atmosphere in the room, Little Frost took out that familiar piece of soft cloth.
“Little White Night, it’s time for some maintenance.”
Tonight was not the kind of deep, face-flushing maintenance.
Having just arrived in a new place and experienced battles and probes, neither auntie had the romantic mindset for that.
This was just basic cleaning.
Little Frost used a damp cloth to wipe away the wilderness dust that had accumulated on White Night’s carbon fiber frame.
Finally, she carefully applied a layer of new machine oil she had just traded for to the chain.
White Night’s soul body stayed obediently in the basket, feeling Little Frost’s warm palm stroking her body through the soft cloth, inch by inch.
That feeling was a bit ticklish, yet it carried a sense of being cherished that felt wonderful.
When wiping the frame, Little Frost’s fingers would occasionally linger for 2 seconds on certain spots.
The pressure was gentle, as if she were stroking an invisible wound.
When she wiped the edge of the basket, Little Frost’s fingers inevitably crossed the boundary once more.
Caught off guard, her fingertips lightly brushed the back of White Night’s soul-body hand.
They touched.
Little Frost’s fingers stiffened slightly, hanging in mid-air.
The slight coolness coming from the fingertips was as soft as a cloud and possessed an incredible elasticity.
As for White Night, a sense of reassuring warmth passed from the back of her hand.
Neither of them moved.
Little Frost did not pull her hand back as if electrocuted, and White Night did not shyly pull away.
In this unfamiliar, danger-filled town, this silent touch became the most secret comfort between them.
“Click.”
The door was pushed open.
Mu Yingying had just returned from washing her face outside. As soon as she entered, she saw the two of them: one maintaining a hovering, caressing posture, and the soul body of the other flushing pink at a speed visible to the naked eye.
“Oh, my!”
Mu Yingying threw her towel into the basin.
“I only went out to wash my face, and you two have been going behind my back—”