Going home for Chinese New Year, I squeezed onto a bus with three energetic young women.

"ah?......"

Bai Li's hand slipped on the steering wheel, and the Panamera went right across the solid line. If there were traffic police around at that moment, he would be fined three cents and two hundred yuan.

"Didn't you hear me?" Jiang Ruyue blinked her innocent big eyes, and deliberately leaned closer to Bai Li, lowering her voice:

"I said... I wore the outfit I sent you last night..."

"Stop! Halt!"

Bai Li took a deep breath, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

His gaze seemed to be auto-aiming, instinctively and uncontrollably landing on Jiang Ruyue, who was wearing a red Want Want bodysuit.

Beneath this layer of tacky, even somewhat comical red fabric...

They actually hid something like that?

This extreme blend of rustic charm and top-tier allure creates a striking contrast.

"You..." Bai Li wiped her face, trying to shake off the jumbled, colorful thoughts in her mind: "Aren't you ashamed?"

"I can't be shy."

Jiang Ruyue answered confidently, even with a hint of eagerness: "The book says that the first step to becoming a bad girl is to break down your sense of shame."

The three genuine young women in the back row, though not entirely clear on what they were hearing, understood the general idea.

This isn't just rebellion, it's perversion!

"Fine, you win." Bai Li sighed helplessly. "You really want to be a delinquent? Why not just enjoy your life as a pampered young lady instead of causing trouble?"

Jiang Ruyue's excited face suddenly fell.

She shrank back into her seat, her voice muffled: "It's less about wanting to rebel and more about... wanting to get some fresh air."

"Breathable?"

"Hmm." Jiang Ruyue looked at the receding street scene outside the window, her eyes somewhat lost. "Bai Li, do you know what it's like to have no hobbies?"

"My life has become so stifling that I have no time to discover my hobbies. From the moment I open my eyes at six in the morning until I go to bed at ten-thirty at night, every minute is scheduled."

"Breakfast at seven, memorize vocabulary at seven-thirty, go to school at eight... Even on weekends, practice piano and learn etiquette at the exact time."

She turned her head and looked at Bai Li, her eyes filled with a heart-wrenching, suppressed emotion:

"Even spacing out isn't on that form. I feel like I'm not a person, I'm just a pre-programmed robot."

"Sometimes I feel like if this continues, I'm really going to go crazy."

The carriage fell silent.

Even Chen Tingting, who always talks loudly in the back row, didn't respond.

The troubles of the wealthy are too distant for wild, untamed weeds like them, yet one can still sense the suffocating feeling within them.

Bai Li rested one hand on the steering wheel, his fingers lightly tapping the edge of the leather wrapping.

"I understand."

Bai Li's voice was unusually serious:

"What you want to do isn't to be some kind of 'energetic girl,' you just want to tear up that damn schedule."

"You want to do something you've never done before, go to places you've never been before."

"Even if it's a filthy, messy sewer, as long as you chose it yourself, it's your freedom, right?"

Jiang Ruyue's eyes lit up instantly, like two obsidian gems: "Yes! That's exactly what I mean! You understand me!"

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Bai Li glanced at Chen Tingting through the rearview mirror: "Where was our first stop?"

Chen Tingting grinned arrogantly: "That has to be our Ping County's 'spiritual holy land,' the illegal internet cafe!"

"Hold on tight!"

……

Ten minutes later.

The Panamera stopped at the entrance of a dilapidated alley.

The floor here is a dark, greasy mud floor, and the walls are covered with posters advertising "Seeking a Son for a Large Sum of Money" and "In-Home Massage".

"We're here. Turn left ahead and you'll find the basement," Chen Tingting directed, familiar with the area.

The five people got off the bus.

This place is almost entirely filled with will-o'-the-wisps and shared bicycles.

The Panamera parked here is like someone wearing an evening gown to a farmers' market—completely out of place.

Chen Tingting led everyone down the dimly lit staircase.

Pushing open the patina-covered glass door, the heat wave from the air conditioner, mixed with deafening noise, exploded out.

"Screw you! Mid lane! There's nobody in mid lane!"

"Damn! This idiot Malphite missed his ultimate? Go back to the jungle and stand guard with your buddies!"

In front of rows of machines sat energetic young men and women with brightly colored hair.

Everyone had a cigarette dangling from their mouth, and the swirling smoke made it look like a fairyland.

The most outrageous thing is that there were even people in the corner shouting into their headsets and microphones.

The piercing electrical noise from that cheap speaker, combined with the man's desperate shouts, pierced straight to the top of his head.

"The people of Ping County! They are all gods! Bearing the legend of invincibility!"

"Children are definitely smaller than the elderly, one minute is 60 seconds!... The opposite of fast is slow, one times ten thousand equals ten thousand!"

Jiang Ruyue was completely dumbfounded.

She stared wide-eyed at the blond-haired young man who was standing on a chair, one leg shaking wildly, his expression one of pure rapping ecstasy.

"This..." Jiang Ruyue tugged at Bai Li's sleeve, her eyes filled with astonishment at the diversity of human species: "What is he doing? Is this... performance art?"

Bai Li's lips twitched twice: "Don't ask, it's just culture. This is shout-rap, a kind of... uh, a rather wild kind of rap."

He thought to himself, "Anyway, there's not much difference; they're both favorites among vocational school students."

This was Bai Li's first time in a place like this; she had always gone to legitimate internet cafes before.

This sense of chaos at the bottom left him somewhat bewildered.

On the contrary, Chen Tingting and her two companions felt relaxed as soon as they entered the door, like fish returning to water.

Chen Tingting swaggered to the bar.

The internet cafe manager was a woman in her forties, who was eating sunflower seeds while watching a TV series called "All the Way South" without even lifting her eyelids.

"Start five machines! Three hours of continuous operation!" Chen Tingting slammed her hand on the table, her tone full of authority. "And bring five bottles of Pepsi!!"

"Okay." The woman spat out a sunflower seed shell and lazily stretched out her hand.

Just as Bai Li was about to reach for his ID card in his wallet, he saw the old woman pull open a drawer.

With a whoosh.

That drawer was piled up haphazardly with ID cards, at least dozens of them.

Most importantly, all those ID cards belonged to people over 60 years old.

The woman didn't even look at them, just grabbed a handful, picked out five, and swiped them five times on the card reader.

"Go there yourself to turn on the machine between the 25th and the 29th."

Bai Li was dumbfounded.

Good grief, they don't even need an ID card?!

If this is investigated, it turns out that this illegal internet cafe is full of people over 60 years old playing games!

He was about to take out his phone to pay when Chen Tingting beat him to it, slapping several banknotes on the table.

"That should be just right!"

"How much?" Bai Li couldn't help but ask.

"Three yuan an hour, five of us for three hours, plus Coke, that'll be sixty in total." Chen Tingting waved her hand with an air of nonchalance, as if she were swiping a black card.

"And a one-night stay in the sofa area is only 15 yuan!"

Three yuan per hour, 10 yuan for a regular overnight stay, 15 yuan for a sofa overnight stay...

Bai Li suddenly felt that even if this place was a bit dirty and messy, it was still worth it.

The five people walked through the aisle and went to the corner of the last row.

The sofas and chairs here have all their leather peeled off, revealing yellow foam with several burn holes.

When they sat down, Chen Tingting and Li Jiaxin very tacitly left the middle seat empty.

Bai Li was caught in the middle.

On the left is Jiang Ruyue, wearing a Want Want bodysuit, looking both curious and nervous.

To the right are three spirited young women with amused expressions, ready to watch the show.

Jiang Ruyue sat down carefully, barely touching the edge of her seat.

She stared at the greasy keyboard, which seemed to have stains from instant noodle soup from who-knows-when, her fingers hovering in mid-air, unable to press any key.

"Um..." Jiang Ruyue turned to Bai Li and asked softly, "This keyboard... should I disinfect it first?"

"puff--"

Li Jiaxin, who was next to her, sprayed the cola she had just drunk directly onto the monitor's face.

"Disinfect?" Li Jiaxin wiped her mouth, looking at her like she was an alien. "Little sister, this is an internet cafe, not an ICU. If you think it's dirty, why don't you shout a couple of times and wash it with your saliva?"

"Shout... shout what?" Jiang Ruyue looked completely bewildered.

Just then, the blond-haired rapper suddenly went berserk, shouting at the top of his lungs:

"Sister Yu's sweaty feet are really stylish, a true icon of Hong Kong's education sector!"