Mr Carlos Huo, She's Your Wife

To get to the Southon Village, Debbie and her schoolmates had first taken a two-hour ride on a high-speed train. Then they transferred to a bus, which took them seven hours. By the time they arrived, it was already dark. The bus had bumped all the way along the rugged mountain roads, jolting the passengers on it badly. Debbie never had carsickness, but this time, she couldn't help but feel dizzy. She bent down on the roadside and retched a few times, but didn't vomit.

A few of her schoolmates had begun vomiting as soon as they got off the bus.

The pungent smell of vomit and the disgusting sight of it only made things worse for Debbie. Just when she felt she was safe, her stomach churned violently, and in one loud retch she threw up.

Dixon opened the lid off his water bottle and handed it to Debbie to wash her mouth. "There's no hot water right now. Just take a few sips of this bottle of water first," he said.

Debbie took the bottle and rinsed the taste out of her mouth with the water. Now that she felt much better, she was finally in a mood to appreciate the scenery.

As they stood up high and looked around, the students could see the small village in the distance—dozens of houses lined up at the foot of the mountain. Most of the houses were smallish one-storey houses, with the tallest standing only three-storey up.

Still feeling exhausted from the journey, Debbie stretched herself. It was refreshing to finally breathe the clean air of the countryside.

But the biggest problem was... the piercing coldness in the mountain area.

A gust of cold wind blew over, threatening to freeze them into icy stumps sticking out of permafrost.

Although they all came in warm clothing, they were not prepared for biting cold. The girls soon began to complain. Even some of the boys found it worse than they had expected.

Once the villagers learnt of the students' arrival, many of them, especially children, stood at the entrance of the village to welcome the group. As Debbie and her schoolmates walked towards the villagers, they were shocked to realize that the children's faces and hands were turning red from exposure while they waited. And it really gripped Debbie's heart that the kids wore old, worn-out cotton clothes, which were far from enough to keep them warm in such harsh weather. Worse still, some of the children wore thin, baldly beaten shoes.

With wide eyes, the children stared curiously at the visitors from the big city. Expectation and eagerness to learn about the outside world were obvious on their faces.

Behind the children, there stood a group of old or middle-aged women, wearing genuine, welcoming smiles on their tanned faces. They raised their gnarled hands and waved enthusiastically.

The scene moved most of the students close to tears. Born and brought up in affluence, they were jolted, coming face to face with such abject poverty for the very first time.

mentally prepared themselves before they came, the squalid living conditions here were way

tomorrow. After

students in total, they were assigned into smaller groups for accommodation in different villagers' houses. And some were in individual rooms. When Debbie saw the room that was arranged

terrible. The room was simple with only a

was a new and clean set of bedding. She counted herself lucky for that.

luggage at their different rooms, the group gathered at the village head's house

various dishes were served, everything from fresh farm ingredients. There was rabbit meat, turkey, pork and fish. All generously provided by farmers across the village. Although the dishes didn't look all that decorated, the aroma

a bite. But the other girls sat still, sipping at their cups of hot tea, to get some warmth. Gus and Jared, both born into aristocracy, kept killing time by playing games on

it must have taken the women who volunteered to prepare the meals. 'The villagers would find it insulting, if we don't eat, ' she

phone aside and grabbed his chopsticks to pick a few slices

glued to his phone. Unimpressed by his

who might have similar thoughts. So when all the villagers went outside, he rose up to speak. "Hey, guys, listen to me! The villagers have devoted a lot of effort to prepare this meal for us. Maybe

him and began eating the food, except one

with an idea. "Dixon, do we have anything to charge our phones tonight?" she asked. Maybe that would destruct Gus.

what Debbie meant to say. "No," he answered, his gaze fixed on

when they dropped off their luggage, all of their attention was on how bad the living conditions were, so nobody noticed whether there was any socket in the room or not. Thus, when

villagers came in with some pots of wine in their hands. Seeing them coming in, the students had to

on the phone, Gus squinted at Debbie. "Stupid!" he spat

check if there was a socket in his room, and to his relief,

and texted him. "If you don't eat the food, I'll call Mr. Lu," she wrote.

case they needed to contact each other for the time they'd be posted in the village.

from Debbie, he shot an incredulous glance at her, just in time to catch her returning the phone back into her pocket.

loud but was enough to be heard by their schoolmates. As Gus' eyes