"Ma’am, we’re leaving. I’ve already paid. Goodbye!"

"Mmm-hmm—"

"Goodbye, ma’am," Ningning said with a smile, looking back as she pulled her sister along.

After they left,

the middle-aged woman stood there stunned for a full two minutes, a very strange expression on her face.

"Young people these days..." The woman sighed and shook her head, muttering to herself, ’They’re really wild.’

...

Chen Yuan just considered the incident at the ticket booth a minor interlude. Once it was over, he failed to realize that both of his girlfriends were upset and continued to lead the two sisters up the mountain in high spirits.

After doing plenty of research and discussing it,

he and Jiangg Ning decided to take a longer, more scenic route with more attractions.

The whole point of coming here wasn’t for the thrill of reaching the summit, but to relax and enjoy the vibrant beauty of a spring day.

One of the three routes even involved a hands-and-feet scramble along a steep cliff face. Jiangg Yao just had to hear about it and she was already shaking her head like a rattle.

That was her biggest fear. If she missed a step, even though the guide ropes meant it wasn’t dangerous, her heart would leap into her throat. It was the kind of scene that only appeared in her nightmares.

Facing the gentle breeze and looking out at the rolling mountains, the three of them sometimes climbed hand-in-hand and other times sat down to rest. After nearly an hour, they finally reached the long-awaited waterfall.

From a distance, they heard the ROARING sound of water, and Jiangg Yao was already shouting excitedly, pointing toward a certain spot.

"I hear it! That has to be the Huangguo Stone Waterfall! The sound is so loud! Sis, hurry up, let’s go take pictures."

"You go check first. Is it the waterfall?"

"Oh, come on, it can’t be anything else."

Jiangg Yao, who had been panting from exhaustion just moments ago, was suddenly re-energized as if a switch had been flipped. Her eyes sparkled with joy as she grabbed Chen Yuan’s hand and ran over.

Standing by the stone railing, she craned her neck to look down.

"It really is! Young Master, look!"

This was the first time Jiangg Yao had ever seen the divine craftsmanship of nature, rather than a man-made attraction.

Because it was the spring flood season, an unimaginable amount of spring water had collected on the mountain. The waterfall cascaded down like a river from the heavens, its deafening roar echoing through the valley, kicking up a sky full of mist and white spray.

Even from a distance, a fine mist of countless water molecules drifted over, spritzing Chen Yuan and Yaoyao’s cheeks with a refreshing coolness.

The surrounding trees were also nourished by the waterfall’s vapor, lush and green, their brown bark damp and dark.

A wave of white water crashed into the pool below, and the splashing droplets landed on her clothes. Jiangg Yao jumped in surprise, quickly covering her face and backing away.

"It’s truly magnificent."

Jiangg Ning also walked over to admire the view with them.

Although Jiangg Ning and Jiangg Yao came from a well-off family, their childhood was anything but happy. They had barely ever gone out to have fun. The most memorable trip was to the Disneyland in Mingzhu City, and that was only because Jiangg Ruxue wanted to curry favor with someone, so she had taken the two of them along with a business partner’s daughter.

You could say their childhood was quite deprived.

It was even less interesting than Chen Yuan’s summer and winter breaks spent back in his rural hometown.

Only by going out can one truly know how vast and beautiful the world is. It’s a kind of beauty that you can’t feel even if you browse ten thousand pictures at home. Experiencing something firsthand is completely different from just hearing about it.

Waterfalls are the kind of thing you get tired of seeing, even as a desktop wallpaper. But only when you’re truly standing before one, listening to its deafening roar, can you feel a sense of "freedom."

All the splendor one experiences in life must eventually be paid for with loneliness. Conversely, it was precisely because the two sisters were never treated well that fate arranged for them to meet Chen Yuan.

Ever since that one class in college,

the lives of the three of them had become vibrant and exciting. When they opened their eyes, they could look forward to what wonderful things the day would bring.

For the two sisters, he was, without a doubt, a gift.

"Stand here and take a good picture of me, Young Master. I’m going to spam my Moments with it later, so people will stop calling me a shut-in." Jiangg Yao’s face was alight with excitement. She handed him her phone and was already getting ready to pose with her hands on her hips.

"Will the pictures look good from here? The angle isn’t great."

Chen Yuan gave it a try, and just as he’d expected, only half of the waterfall was visible in the shot. If he were just taking a picture of the scenery, this shot of the white torrent crashing into the pool and the ripples spreading out would be beautiful.

He tried panorama mode, but even moving further back didn’t work.

"Why don’t we go down there to take them?"

"How do we get down?"

"I’ll look."

With that, Chen Yuan began to search the area.

"Isn’t that a little dangerous? You could get hurt if you fall," Jiangg Ning asked worriedly.

"It’s fine. We need to go down that stone slope over there and get onto that rock," Chen Yuan said, pointing across the distance to the ground below the waterfall. "It’ll take some effort, but this is probably how other people get pictures of the waterfall, from the very bottom."

"Are there any stairs around here?" Jiangg Yao started looking around too.

A moment later, she let out a cry of surprise.

Jiangg Yao had actually found a staircase.

"Over here! We can get down this way, I found it!"

The other two looked up and saw Jiangg Yao’s figure half-hidden in a patch of lush green vines. Her pure white sweatshirt was conspicuous, and the steps at her feet were slick with mountain spring water. She was struggling to keep her balance, waving frantically at them.

"Slow down, be careful not to slip," Jiangg Ning called out to her.

"Don’t worry, Sis! I’m holding onto the railing. There’s a lot of trash here, you can tell people come down this way to take pictures."

There was no path in the world to begin with, but as more people walk on it, a path is made.