Who Said I Was Kidding with You

"Then let me give you a massage," Su Yang said, putting down his bag and walking to the bed to earnestly massage Pan Ning's waist.

"My mom just asked when we'll be heading back," Pan Ning said casually, lying on her stomach on the bed.

As Su Yang massaged her, he asked, "Is something wrong at home?"

"No, she just wanted to know when we'll be back so she can schedule a time for me to bring you home for dinner."

Hearing this, Su Yang remembered that Pan Ning's parents had indeed mentioned this when they were at Meng Wenzhou's house.

If Pan Ning hadn't brought it up, he would have completely forgotten about it.

"I thought your parents were just joking around."

Pan Ning tilted her head to look at Su Yang. "Who's joking with you? Once we get back, you're coming home with me."

"Alright."

"By the way, after we visit your family, do you want to go to my house and meet my parents?" Su Yang looked at Pan Ning with a smile.

Pan Ning paused, surprised. "Go to your house?"

"Yeah, what do you say?" Su Yang blinked.

"Sure! I was actually worried you wouldn't want to take me back to meet them."

"Not at all. I'd be more than happy to have you go."

"However..." Su Yang paused, recalling what Meng Wenzhou had said earlier about Pan Ning's personality.

Seeing this, Pan Ning asked, "However what?"

"No... it's nothing."

Pan Ning rolled her eyes playfully. "Are you worried that I won't get along with your parents?"

"I didn't say that."

"But that's what you were thinking, isn't it?"

Su Yang scratched his head in slight embarrassment, thinking to himself, 'Can she read minds?'

"Don't worry. I either don't go, or if I do, I'll definitely make sure you and your parents are happy."

"Oh? Now I'm kind of looking forward to it," Su Yang chuckled.

"We'll talk about it when the time comes. By the way, how many days have we been out traveling?"

"Uh... I'll have to calculate that. Let me think." Su Yang looked up at the ceiling for a moment before continuing, "Ten days."

"Only ten days? I feel like we've been out for almost a month."

"It hasn't been that long. We left on the morning of the 20th or 21st, and today is the 30th, so it's about ten days."

"Alright then."

"What's wrong? Are you getting tired of traveling?" Su Yang smiled.

Pan Ning rolled over onto her back and shook her head. "Not really, but after we cross the no-man's land, I don't really want to go to Saimu Lake anymore."

"Why not?"

"I looked it up yesterday. Do you know how many kilometers it is from the no-man's land to Saimu Lake?"

Su Yang genuinely didn't know. He asked, "How many?"

"Over three thousand."

"Three... what?" Su Yang's eyes widened.

"Over three thousand."

"Holy crap, that far? Even though we're not in a hurry, that's really a bit too far."

"Yeah, I checked. Saimu Lake is in the western part of Xinjiang Province, close to the border."

Su Yang thought for a moment and said, "That is indeed too far. Let's just finish the rest of the route into Tibet and then the no-man's land before we decide."

"I estimate this final stretch will take at least another ten days or so. If everyone decides they don't want to go by then, we'll just head back."

Pan Ning nodded. "Yeah, we'll have plenty of free time in the future anyway. Next time we go, we can just fly to Urumqi first and then rent a car to drive there."

"Sounds good, I'll listen to you. But for our next trip, I don't really want to travel domestically anymore," Su Yang said with a smile.

"Then where do you want to go?"

"I want to go abroad. Iceland, the Snow Country, Antarctica, the Island Nation, the US... there are so many. I want to try and see every corner of the world."

"Sure. No matter where you go, I'll go with you anyway."

"Great."

"Let's put that aside for now. We're over two hundred kilometers away from Daocheng right now. Do you want to go there tomorrow?" Su Yang looked at Pan Ning and asked.

Pan Ning thought for a few seconds before saying, "I don't really want to go that much, to be honest. Mostly because I've seen a lot of people on TikTok saying that the real Daocheng isn't as beautiful as it looks in the movies."

"We'd still have to see it with our own eyes to know for sure. I'll ask the others now. If none of them want to go, we'll skip it. If most of them want to go, we'll make the trip. After all, we're already here, right?"

"Alright."

Saying that, Su Yang took out his phone, opened their group chat, and sent a message: @Everyone, do you guys want to go to Daocheng tomorrow?

After waiting for about ten seconds, Tang Ziyun replied: I'm fine with whatever.

Zhong Qing: Me too.

Chu Qiunan: I don't really want to go. I just checked, and Daocheng is over two hundred kilometers away from here. It's still quite far.

Ji Bo: I think so too. Let's just go out for dinner later, find a place to hang out tonight, and then continue to our next stop tomorrow.

Meng Wenzhou: I don't really want to go either, but I do have a suggestion.

Meng Qianyu: What suggestion?

Meng Wenzhou: Let's head to the Maoya Grassland tomorrow to ride horses.

Meng Qianyu: Oh? Sounds good, sounds good. I'm down for horseback riding!!

Zhang Ziming: Me too.

Liu Bo: Agreed.

Su Qingci: OK.

Seeing that everyone was reluctant to go, Su Yang smiled and said, "It seems like everyone isn't very interested. Alright then, we won't go."

Pan Ning said softly, "They don't want to go either?"

"Yeah, most of them don't really want to go. Old Meng suggested we go horseback riding on the grassland tomorrow."

Pan Ning nodded. "That works too."

"Alright then, we'll go horseback riding tomorrow."

Su Yang typed a reply: Since that's the case, we'll skip Daocheng. We'll drop by the Maoya Grassland tomorrow to ride horses instead.

Liu Bo: Okey-dokey. Do we have any activities planned for tonight?

Meng Wenzhou: Haven't thought of anything yet. Let's stick to the usual routine and find a place to eat first. We can figure it out during dinner.

Zhang Ziming: Works for me.

Everyone rested in their respective rooms for a while until 5:10 PM.

Everyone then gathered in the hotel lobby.

"What are we having for dinner?" Liu Bo asked.

"Probably just the local specialties. I'm guessing the food here is about the same as what we had in Kangding," Zhang Ziming said casually.

Liu Bo scratched his head. "To be honest, I'm getting a little sick of eating yak meat these past two days. It's been nothing but beef and mutton every single day."

"Then what do you want to eat?"

"I want to eat the sour soup beef hotpot from that place we went to in Lincheng."

"Isn't that still beef?" Meng Wenzhou laughed.

"It's different! That one is really appetizing and goes so well with rice. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water."

"Right, right, right! I want to eat that too!" Hearing this, Meng Qianyu raised her hand in agreement.

Su Yang took out his phone to check and laughed. "It looks like there's no sour soup beef hotpot around here."

Liu Bo and Meng Qianyu exchanged a look and smiled helplessly. "Alright then, just throwing it out there."

"Brother Su Yang, can you make it for us when we get back to Haicheng?"

"Sure, I can make whatever you guys want to eat once we're back, but right now we need to figure out what we're having tonight."

"Are there any Shancheng hotpot places?" Ji Bo asked.

Su Yang searched on his phone and nodded. "There are."

"Then let's have Shancheng hotpot?" Ji Bo said, looking at the others.

Everyone nodded in unison.

Su Yang smiled. "Alright, I'll book it then."

Soon, Su Yang had booked the restaurant, and the group took a leisurely walk toward their destination.

The hotpot restaurant wasn't far from the hotel, only about seven or eight hundred meters away.

It didn't take long for everyone to arrive at the entrance of the restaurant, which was called Authentic Sichuan-Chongqing Traditional Hotpot.

The restaurant was quite large and crowded, though most of the patrons were tourists from out of town.

It seemed everyone had had their fill of Tibetan food along the way and was craving a change of pace.