Beyond Five-Finger Mountain lay Yun Province.
Pan Long's first impression of Yun Province was the heat.
It was already winter, and the weather had grown bitterly cold. In the Northlands, water would have frozen the moment it dripped—and that was no exaggeration. In a Northlands winter, you could throw out a basin of water, and plenty of it would have turned to ice pellets before it hit the ground.
Yi Province was much warmer than the Northlands; at least nothing had frozen yet. But once he crossed Five-Finger Mountain, the air grew warm at a stroke. One look at the clothes worn by people on the road told him as much.
Travelers in Yi Province generally wore lined jackets or several layers. People in Yun Province usually wore a single layer, or two at most.
Thin clothes made it easier to shed heat. They had another benefit, too: they were easy on the eyes.
Walking through town, Pan Long saw plenty of young men and women. The men were beside the point, but the pretty girls wore such light clothing that every step offered a fleeting glimpse of skin. His brows kept rising, and the corners of his mouth kept twitching. This trip had been worth it.
Everyone knew that across the Nine Provinces, the farther north one went, the colder it got; the farther south, the hotter. This was only northern Yun Province. What would the southern part be like?
He remembered a traveler of the Martial World saying that in the far south of Yun Province, even grown women wore the lightest, thinnest little garments. Some with more open dispositions even dressed... oh my, oh my!
Someone had asked him then, "Hey, if you've been there, why did you come back? If it were me, I'd never leave!"