, he didn’t get mad after being turned down. Instead, he smiled and warned them that it was not safe to park by the road at night. Therefore, Su Bai and Li Yu had to ask the hotel staff to arrange some better places for them to park.

In a shop, Su Bai bought a carton of cigarettes, some drinks and peanuts. Then he walked out with a bag.

Pansong was a county surrounded by mountains, but because of the alt.i.tude, most tourists would feel suffocated and depressed even if they didn’t have severe alt.i.tude stress. As a result, few people could be in the mood for enjoying such a scenic view. Of course, Jiuzhaigou Valley would be different: the beautiful view there was indeed so charming that people would ignore the alt.i.tudes.

"How about a pendant, sir?"

A little girl in Tibetan clothes came to Su Bai with many pendants in her hands for sale.

"How much?" Su Bai asked.

"Thirty yuan each. They’re pretty," The girl answered.

Actually, such decorations in scenic areas wouldn’t be very valuable as souvenirs, because most of them sold in shops or peddled along the streets were bought wholesale from Chengdu, or even Yiwu[1] in Zhejiang Province.

Su Bai looked at the girl and asked, "Are you one of the Han people[2] or Tibetans?"

The girl stuck out her tongue naughtily and answered honestly: "One of the Han people."

Su Bai smiled, patted the girl’s head and took out a hundred from his wallet. "I’ll take three. Keep the change."

The girl handed over four. "I’ll give you four, keep the change. Ha ha." Then she turned around and ran away happily.

Su Bai bundled the four pendants into his pocket. Then he looked at Lucky on his shoulder. On a second thought, he took out one of the pendants and put it around Lucky’s neck.

Lucky was surprised; it didn’t think Su Bai would dare to put such a cheap pendant around its neck.

"It suits you."

Su Bai felt Lucky’s fur. Though the cat looked dissatisfied, it didn’t get angry or take it off.

Back in the hotel, Su Bai checked in with his own ID card and got a key card from the front desk staff. Li Yu was somehow generous, at least he covered their accommodation fee as promised, and Su Bai would love to have someone else to pay his bills as well.

This hotel wasn’t a very good one. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t any good hotel in Pansong, even if they were willing to pay. No one would invest on high-end hotels here because it was only a place for stopover since it was only an hour’s drive from Jiuzhaigou Valley and Huang Long Scenic Spot, which were filled with starred hotels.

This hotel had a styled name: Pansong Cultural Hotel. However, Su Bai had been paying attention when he was in the elevator and found nothing special except for some Tibetan-styled paintings. In the elevator, there was a girl in a thin blue down jacket; apparently, she was another tourist.

"Traveling for pleasure?" The girl struck up a conversation.

"Yep." Su Bai nodded.

"Staying by yourself?"

"Yep."

The elevator door opened. Su Bai walked out, found his room and opened it with his key card; immediately, there came a strong smell of moisture. Alright, better take things as they come. Su Bai had put Lucky onto the bed and was going to take a shower when he heard a knock on his door. He opened the door without his tops. It was the girl he met in the elevator.

"Hi, I’m a college student traveling on a tight budget. In order to earn enough money for my trip, I’ll sleep with you for eight hundred. What say you?"

Su Bai didn’t say anything. Seeing this, the girl took out her student ID card. She really was a college student from an inland city. Besides, judging by her clothes and the way she talked, she looked nothing like a local prost.i.tute.

"This is my student’s ID card, as true as steel. Eight hundred isn’t expensive for a real college girl, right? How about a discount? Five hundred, since you’re so cute. Or six hundred for a whole night?"

Su Bai took out his wallet; he’d rather pay her six hundred just to shut her up and send her back to her own room. He was not fanatic for virginity or pretending to be innocent, and he wasn’t despising the girl for selling herself. But as a rich boy, he never lacked girls; it was not necessary to yield to his desire for now. He could be casual about everything else, but he was quite picky about booty calls.

But the girl had mistaken his action as an agreement, so she waved her hand: "It’s okay to pay afterwards. You were about to take a shower, right? You can take that shower now, I’ll get a condom from my room."

Then she left before he took out the money.

"Hum."

Su Bai smiled, left the money on the shoe cabinet, took off his pants and went to the bathroom. About five minutes later, the door was knocked again. He went out naked, cracked the door and threw out the six hundred he had put on the shoe cabinet:

"I’m tired. Just leave."

Then he closed the door and went back to the bathroom.

Outside the door, the monk Seven looked at the six hundred bills falling in front of him, totally confused.

————————————————

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Yiwu: a city of about 1.2 million people in central Zhejiang Province, China, famous for its small commodity trade and vibrant market and is a regional tourist destination. — Wikipedia

[2] Han people: An East Asian ethnic group. They const.i.tute approximately 92% of the population of China, 76% of Singapore, 23% of Malaysia and about 17% of the global population, making them the world’s largest ethnic group with over 1.3 billion people. In China, there are 56 ethnic groups, 55 of them are considered as minorities and the Han people are the only ethnic group known as non-minority. — Wikipedia