Chapter 284: Chapter 128: Horses, Small Town, Young Women

Li Younan quietly picked up his cup and drank his milk tea.

Chen Rui was startled for a moment and shook her head: "Actually, she’s not my younger sister. My mom and his mom are very good friends, and he’s a bit older than me." When Chen Rui said this, she shrugged helplessly, with a look that suggested she was at a disadvantage.

Hearing this, Lan Yiyi’s eyes flickered. She looked at Chen Rui with no expression on her face and suddenly asked, "Do you like him?"

Chen Rui hadn’t expected Lan Yiyi to ask such a blunt question.

Her expression went blank for a moment, and her previous composure vanished instantly. She stammered, "Ah, no... no, I don’t."

Li Younan also paused for a moment but continued to slowly finish his milk tea without saying anything.

Lan Yiyi’s expression wasn’t pretentious, and she showed appropriate confusion: "Then it makes sense for him to think of you as a sister... you two really look like siblings!"

Chen Rui felt a bit dizzy and picked up her cup, blinking her eyes: "Oh, is... is that so..."

"I guarantee, absolutely!" Lan Yiyi said with firm confidence.

Li Younan quietly put down his cup, picked up a piece of mutton, dipped it in the dry chili powder, put it in his mouth, and chewed it slowly.

...

Instead of going to the horse ranch that day, they took Yiyi and Chen Rui on a tour around Xilinhot city. To be honest, there wasn’t much to see here, but Younan leisurely soaked in the local culture and customs.

First, they went to the Beizi Temple. There weren’t many people on the square, just a few elderly folks wrapped in thick cotton-padded jackets, spinning prayer wheels, making creaking noises.

They went inside the temple, where the smell of incense mixed with the scent of butter was strong. It was warmer inside than outside, and the sound of footsteps was especially clear on the floorboards.

Later, they visited the Xilingol League Museum. There weren’t many people or exhibits there; the most memorable were the bronze artifacts, saddles, and fur robes. Oh, and a display case with winter boots used by herders, the wool stained with earth tones, and upon closer look, you could see the thread ends in the stitching.

Overall, there really wasn’t a lot to see.

Lan Yiyi felt a bit embarrassed and said, "If I didn’t want to show you guys around, I haven’t been here in many years, since school organized events in our school days." She added, "Overall, Xilinhot is still small..."

But Li Younan shook his head and said earnestly, "Not at all. Smallness is part of the charm. For someone who’s always lived in a concrete jungle, everything in a small city like this is a fresh experience."

Li Younan took a lot of photos with his phone.

Lan Yiyi looked at Li Younan, surprised, and then happily laughed, asking loudly, "Do you like my hometown?"

Li Younan smiled, "I do like it."

He didn’t say it all, but in truth, he loved every inch of land he had walked on, whether cold or hot, vast or rugged—it was all a beautiful part of this nation and country.

But Lan Yiyi was already very satisfied with this answer.

Chen Rui listened to their conversation quietly, tilting her head and smiling in amusement. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

...

As a native of Xilinhot, Lan Yiyi’s family naturally owned a hotel in Xilinhot. It wasn’t excessively grand, just a mid-range chain hotel.

Lan Yiyi arranged for Li Younan and Chen Rui to stay there, and she also got a room on the same floor, her reason being: "It’s more convenient to take you guys out to play tomorrow if we’re close."

After Li Younan returned to his room, his fan group was buzzing with activity.

Li Younan rarely checked his fan group on the short video app, only occasionally going in to monitor things.

Today happened to be a free day, so he took a few more glances. In the fan group, a fan with a grievance asked, "It’s been so long since you updated a video, Nannan, where have you been?"

Li Younan noticed the fan’s avatar was an Angry Bird and found it interesting, so he casually replied, "I arrived in Xilinhot today, and there’s a video about going to the Great Northern Lake that’s still being edited. It’ll be out in a couple of days."

Then he ignored the group chat that exploded with messages like "Ahh, resurrected from the dead" and "The streamer actually replied to me!"

...

Hundreds of kilometers away from Xilinhot, in Weichang, a sturdy man like a mountain was chomping down on hand-pulled mutton while mindlessly scrolling through short videos.

Suddenly, he saw the message in the fan group about Li Younan saying he arrived in Xilinhot.