When they reached the carriage, Gu Qinghe was stunned.
This was a short-distance train, and it was packed to capacity, crammed tight in the narrow space.
With the May temperatures rising, the stench was sharp and pungent.
Gu Qinghe caught a single whiff and nearly threw up.
She hurriedly pulled out a jasmine-scented handkerchief to cover her mouth and nose, trying to ease the foul odor.
Her willow-leaf brows were tightly knitted together.
Gu Xiuyuan looked at the messy carriage environment and did not want his precious daughter to suffer along with him.
He pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose and said gently, "Nandan, why don't you just stand here in the aisle and get some fresh air? Dad will go on through."
Gu Qinghe's eyes showed worry. "But Dad, will you be all right by yourself?"
People were packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the carriage, and Gu Xiuyuan was a frail scholar; he might easily get knocked over if he wasn't careful.
Gu Xiuyuan smiled and patted Gu Qinghe's shoulder. "Don't worry, Nandan. Though your father cannot carry heavy loads, I haven't sunk so low that I can't even take care of myself."
Though still worried, Gu Qinghe didn't want to stay another second in this suffocating place.
She nodded reluctantly. "All right then, be careful. I'll come back later when there are fewer people."
Gu Xiuyuan took his luggage and squeezed into the crowd, waving back at Gu Qinghe without looking back to reassure her.
The aisle of the train carriage also had a few people standing about, but the air was much better than inside.
Gu Qinghe stood by the window, watching the scenery flash backward outside. Her initially restless mood gradually calmed, and she began to feel relaxed and refreshed.
In the mainland of the 1970s, the infrastructure in every aspect naturally could not compare to the prosperous and bustling Hong Kong City.
Yet here, no one would force her to do things she disliked.
She was free, completely belonging to herself.
Besides, the turmoil was coming to an end, and she believed that with her Plane Trading System, she could not only change the tragic fate of her past life.
She could also make the Northeast, with its profound industrial base, take flight once more and become a new, rapidly developing industrial zone!
Before long, the train stopped at an intermediate station, and quite a few people got off.
Gu Qinghe estimated that the time was right, so she took meal tickets to the dining car to buy two boxed lunches and returned to the carriage.
The originally packed carriage was now more than half empty, with only a scattering of people sitting apart in their respective seats.
Her father seemed tired and was sitting in the last row by the window, resting his eyes.
To her surprise, she spotted a familiar face—it was the stern young man she had encountered at the station earlier.
At the moment, he had shed his previous aloof and stern demeanor and was conversing with a middle-aged woman.
Around them sat two other cold-faced people with piercing auras.
On the surface, they weren't looking at them, but their peripheral vision all coincidentally landed on them, making the atmosphere in the carriage inexplicably strange.
The middle-aged woman, who had been chatting, soon noticed this; the expression on her face gradually grew vigilant as she instinctively tightened her grip on the child in her arms.
She looked at the young man and sneered, "Comrade, you've said so much to me, yet I haven't seen your wife come over. Are you really married?"
The young man's gaze tightened, his thin lips pressed into a line without answering immediately.
The atmosphere inside the carriage froze instantly.
Gu Qinghe suddenly remembered a broadcast she had heard in her past life when she went south to Hong Kong City with her mother, Zhou Huiru.
It said that on a certain train in the Northeast, an undercover soldier had been shot in the chest and seriously injured by traffickers while trying to rescue a kidnapped child.
He was transferred to Beijing just in time to barely save his life.
Back then, the broadcast had also called on everyone to learn from that brave and fearless soldier and say no to illegal and criminal acts.
Could it be that this was that very train?!
Gu Qinghe was startled, blinking her dewy eyes as she scanned her surroundings without a trace.
Sure enough, not far away—right in front of Gu Xiuyuan's position—
A man was staring maliciously in their direction, quietly shoving his hand into his coat and fumbling around as if trying to pull something out.
Gu Qinghe's pupils shrank.
In that split second of crisis, she couldn't care about much else and reacted almost instinctively.
She grabbed her mealbox, plopped down right next to the young man, and cried out sweetly, "Older brother, didn't you say you were going to get me some water? Why are you sitting here by yourself?"
The young man's body stiffened, but he didn't show it in front of the middle-aged woman.
Suppressing the shock and doubt in his heart, he looked aside with an unchanging expression.
When he saw it was Gu Qinghe, his calm face inevitably froze in surprise.
It was her?
It was that delicate girl who needed a blanket just to sit on a bench in the waiting room.
At this moment, her palm-sized oval face was flushed with a shy, delicate red, and her pearly teeth lightly bit her cherry lips.
She was looking straight at him with a pair of clear, bright, and pitifully pretty apricot eyes.
At that instant, Qin Yuchen felt as if his heart had been struck by something, giving a distinct, fierce, and rapid thump.
His cold eyes narrowed slightly as he asked calmly, "Why did you come?"
Gu Qinghe smiled obediently, her eyes flashing with a sly light, and pointed toward Gu Xiuyuan—who was also the malicious-looking man.
"Dad fell asleep and doesn't want to eat, so this boxed lunch will just have to be finished by you."
When the middle-aged woman saw Gu Qinghe point behind her, her expression changed abruptly, and she instinctively glanced back at the middle-aged man as well.
The middle-aged man, who had intended to draw his gun, was interrupted by Gu Qinghe's sudden move and had to withdraw his hand, lowering his head expressionlessly.
All these subtle changes were taken in by Qin Yuchen, a fierce glint flashing in his eyes as a trace of annoyance welled up inside him.
To think they had been so careless and underestimated the enemy!
Though he didn't know how Gu Qinghe had gotten the news that the middle-aged woman had accomplices,
if not for her warning, he probably wouldn't have noticed that the taciturn man in the corner was suspicious.
If they had acted rashly just then, not only would they have failed to save the child in her arms, but they likely would have suffered a heavy loss.
Because of this, Qin Yuchen's stern brows relaxed, and his dark eyes, as deep as the night, reflected Gu Qinghe's petite figure.
He naturally took the boxed lunch from her hand, opened it, and spoke in a low, magnetic voice.
"All right, let's eat together."
Gu Qinghe was stunned, almost drowning in his tender gaze.
Yet the next moment she sobered up—everything before her was an illusion.
How aloof and ascetic he truly was, she knew all too well.
"Comrade, is this little girl your sister? She's really pretty."
The middle-aged woman turned her head back, her gaze darting back and forth between them as she asked skeptically, "But the two of you don't look alike to me."
Qin Yuchen's heart chilled, a dark glint flashing in the depths of his eyes.
He put down his chopsticks and was just about to explain when Gu Qinghe spoke up.
"My sweetheart brother is still an older brother!"
As she spoke, she leaned closer to Qin Yuchen, affectionately wrapped her arm around his, and said coyly, "Right, Brother?"
The unique, fresh fragrance belonging to the young girl washed over him.
It was sweet, light, and elegant without being cloying—it seemed to be the scent of jasmine, yet with a few extra special notes.
Qin Yuchen's Adam's apple rolled slightly and unconsciously. From the bottom of his heart, the corners of his lips curved upward, and as if possessed, he replied, "Right."