(Parallel World)
December 12th of the lunar calendar.
4:44 PM.
Yangcheng Passenger Transport Station.
Overcast, with a felt temperature of sixteen degrees Celsius.
"Qinglai! Qinglai! One hundred and thirty-five yuan per person, anyone going to Qinglai?"
"Power bank! Power bank!"
"Shunfeng Hotel, eighty yuan a night, with air conditioning and water heater!"
"Tea eggs, two yuan for one tea egg..."
"......."
At the entrance of the Provincial Passenger Transport Station, vendors of all kinds stood on both sides of the entrance road, either holding paper advertisements or playing loudspeakers on a loop, attracting passersby.
Over the past decade or so, high-speed rail stations have sprung up in various corners of cities, and private cars have gradually become widespread, with fewer and fewer people willing to take long-distance buses. Only during holidays and some passengers accustomed to buses still choose this mode of transport that carries their memories of an era.
"Can I go to Qinglai for one hundred and twenty yuan?"
A voice with a slight dialect came.
The bus ticket seller looked back at the sound and saw a young man with a buzz cut, about twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, and about 1.78 meters tall.
The young man was wearing faded jeans, a black leather jacket, and carrying a black leather handbag.
At first glance, he looked a bit like someone who had been studying for more than ten years and had just come out not long ago...
The ticket seller felt a little uneasy.
Leather jacket and handbag...
More than ten years ago, many robbers pretending to be passengers dressed similarly.
Catching a glimpse of the snake-skin bag and red plastic bucket behind the young man, the ticket seller finally breathed a slight sigh of relief, roughly guessing that the young man, like many others, was a migrant worker who had packed up and left ten days before the New Year, specifically avoiding the peak period of the Spring Festival travel rush.
"Yes, you know the rules, right?"
"Mm."
The young man nodded slightly.
Immediately, he carried the stuffed snake-skin bag towards the bus exit.
The so-called rules were actually not buying a ticket at the station, but waiting at the intersection for the bus to come out, then getting on and giving the money to the ticket seller.
"Another year has passed."
"Rich or poor, go home for the New Year..."
The young man's name was Xu Wanli.
In his second year of high school, his parents died in a car accident, leaving behind only a two-story self-built rural house and tens of thousands of yuan in savings.
He spent half of his inheritance on the funeral, then dropped out of school and went south, constantly moving between factory areas in Shen City and Yangcheng.
Limited by age, the first two years were very difficult; he was often withheld wages by intermediaries for various reasons, and he couldn't save much money all year round. It wasn't until he came of age and gained some experience that he could save twenty to thirty thousand yuan a year, or a little over forty thousand if he was lucky.
Nearly ten years passed in a flash.
Now, with over two hundred thousand yuan in savings, Xu Wanli planned to return to his hometown village, buy a small truck to sell goods to his neighbors and relatives in the mountains, and become a mobile convenience store.
He would drive the small truck, making a living while enjoying the scenery of nature.
Once settled, he would adopt two Tian Yuan Dogs, and they would keep each other company...
He would be content with such a life.
"Beep beep!"
A harsh horn sounded.
A dark blue air-conditioned bus was parked by the roadside.
The ticket seller, carrying a damaged small satchel, got off and opened the side luggage compartment, signaling Xu Wanli to quickly put the snake-skin bag, plastic bucket, and other miscellaneous items inside.
Parking was not allowed in this area.
"Quite a lot of passengers, huh?"
Xu Wanli was a little surprised.
The bus had two and a half luggage compartments.
One compartment was almost full of luggage, and another was half-filled.
The Spring Festival travel rush hadn't even started yet, shouldn't high-speed rail tickets be plentiful?
He chose to take the bus because he was carrying pots, bowls, and other utensils that were inconvenient for security checks.
"Oh, there are a dozen college students who want to experience life. They said that in a few years they might not be able to take long-distance buses anymore, so they're taking advantage of long-distance buses not being completely phased out to experience it. And there are two who came to Yangcheng with family members for medical treatment."
The ticket seller's tone carried a hint of melancholy.
The wheels of time roll forward, and the dust raised, falling on each individual, is a mountain.
Products that cannot keep up with the times are destined to be abandoned.
"Medical treatment?"
Xu Wanli was slightly puzzled.
But he didn't ask further, moving quickly to load his luggage.
The two of them each carried a bit, and in half a minute, they had put all the pots, bowls, and other luggage into the luggage compartment.
"Ticket fare."
Xu Wanli took out the pre-prepared one hundred and twenty yuan to pay the ticket fare and handed it to the ticket seller.
The ticket seller took the money, raised his hand to greet the driver, and then walked towards the bus station, not getting on the bus.
Xu Wanli carried his black handbag and got on the bus to look for an empty seat.
As soon as he got on, he saw a dozen college students wearing short sleeves, gathered in the back, both male and female, very lively; in the front sat a pale Woman, next to her was a middle-aged man with black-rimmed glasses who was peeling a tea egg for her.
The remaining dozen or so scattered passengers occupied seats sporadically.
There were still a few empty seats on the fifty-two-seat bus.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
"Cough, cough!"
Several coughs echoed inside the bus.
There was more than one sick passenger.
A quick glance revealed three or four people with colds.
Among them, the Woman in the front row was the most severe, coughing incessantly.
When she coughed, veins appeared on her face.
Those veins were particularly noticeable on her pale face, like earthworms, twisting with each cough, looking very gruesome.
Strangely, despite coughing so severely, the Woman's expression didn't change much.
The middle-aged man in the adjacent seat seemed to have long been accustomed to it.
He ignored it, eating the tea egg that the Woman didn't want.
"Sit down, sit down."
The bus driver urged impatiently.
Xu Wanli withdrew his gaze and walked towards an empty seat by the window in the back row.
......
Buzz, buzz, buzz.
The bus started and slowly drove away from the Passenger Transport Station.
After passing a dozen long traffic lights, it finally entered the highway.
The tall buildings on both sides of the highway gradually became sparse, and the noise inside the bus gradually diminished.
The college students in the back were either listening to music or watching videos with headphones, so they weren't noisy; the Woman in the front coughed softer and softer, so much so that after the man next to her finished eating the tea egg, he squinted his eyes for a nap and gradually fell into a deep sleep.
It seemed that leaving the city poured with steel and concrete, people's emotions were soothed, no longer impatient.
"Beep!!!"
A blaring horn woke up the drowsy Xu Wanli.
Opening his eyes, outside, it was drizzling, the sky had completely darkened, and the mountain forests on both sides were dark and silent, without a single speck of light.
In the middle of the road's median, sensing streetlights lit up one by one, resisting the invasion of darkness from both sides, and also allowing people to see thick fog swirling on the road ahead.
The dense fog was like a curtain, weakening people's vision layer by layer.
It was hard to see clearly beyond about ten meters.
"Such heavy fog."
The south has many mountains.
It's normal for there to be fog in the mountain forests at night.
However, such heavy fog with visibility less than ten meters was somewhat rare.
"This fog is so thick."
"It's indeed rare to see, just a bit cold."
"The morning news said a typhoon made landfall, passing through the Guangdong and Guangxi regions, with torrential rain and a level seventeen typhoon. Heavy rain and strong winds in the middle of winter, of course, the temperature dropped."
"Torrential rain and typhoon?"
"Hiss, hearing this, and then looking at the dense fog outside, doesn't it feel like an apocalypse?"
"Don't say it, it really does feel a little bit."
"No, quickly bring my blanket, I need to add a seal and cover my whole body."
"Your blanket is in your suitcase."
"Cough, cough!"
"Then I'll borrow your wool coat."
"No."
"......"
Several college students, also awakened by the horn, laughed and recorded the scene ahead with their phones, interspersed with a few faint coughs that didn't attract anyone's attention.
"Pitter-patter."
Outside the window, the rain intensified.
The cold wind carried raindrops, striking everything and raising splashes of water.
Xu Wanli wrapped his leather jacket tightly around himself, curled up against the car window, resisting the cold that seemed to invade from nowhere.
"Service Area ahead, everyone get off and rest."
The driver glanced at the rearview mirror, his voice neither too loud nor too soft.
He didn't know if the passengers needed to rest, but he certainly needed to take a break and buy two cans of Red Bull to perk himself up.
This sudden heavy fog could easily cause car accidents.
As a driver, he naturally dared not relax.
He constantly focused on the road conditions ahead to deal with any sudden incidents, which also made him feel a bit tired after a while.