Give Me Some Face

Both the front and rear doors opened. The fifty participants got off without hesitation, not one of them lingering on the bus for even a second. The driver didn't look like he was in a particularly good mood.

Yu Xing simply followed behind Xue Shouyun, waiting patiently without pushing ahead. He took the chance to quietly gauge the others' strength. Some were easy to size up at a glance, while others were like bottomless pits, impossible to read.

Zhang Yu had been seated near the front and had already gotten off through the front door.

Yu Xing also spotted a few familiar faces, along with several big shots from the "top of the pyramid" whose photos he'd seen in files.

After slinging his drawing tube over his back, Yu Xing ambled toward the rear door and peered through it. The bus had stopped on a small road leading to Nanshui Town, just a dozen or so meters from the nearest building.

Everything outside was white. Quite a few people were having snowball fights and building snowmen, looking like townspeople who'd come out to play.

The townspeople weren't nervous or curious about the arriving bus. They acted perfectly normal—which was precisely what made it so abnormal.

"Weren't we told Nanshui Town hadn't seen the sun in ages?" someone up ahead murmured to a companion. "Are they just ignoring that blazing sun?"

"The town itself probably isn't like this. What we're seeing must be an illusion," the companion replied.

"Crunch."

Yu Xing stepped off the bus, and the soft, gritty snow gave beneath his feet. A cold wind wrapped around him, while the clamor of voices filled his ears.

The wind blew straight into his face, carrying a uniquely crisp, chilly scent.

Snow lay beneath his feet and filled his view. As