Miss Witch, even if we're poor, we can't sell ourselves!

The bus came to a stop at the platform, and the doors opened with a low, soft thud.

Miya was gently awakened by a finger poking her. The index finger of Corona Borealis carefully touched her cheek, once, twice, and on the third touch, her eyelashes trembled, and she opened her eyes groggily.

"Get up, little pig! You slept like a log, you didn't wake up the whole way."

Miya blinked, and only after her vision refocused did she realize that she was covered with a blanket that smelled familiar.

Fig's thick blanket, which she never parted with, was somehow pulled over in her sleep and wrapped tightly around herself.

The original owner of the blanket was sitting by the window, her light gray braid hanging over her shoulders, her hands in her pockets, and she didn't seem to be cold at all.

Miya's face instantly turned as red as an apple.

She hurriedly peeled the blanket off her body, not even bothering to fold it neatly, and handed it back with both hands, her voice as soft as a primary school student caught doing something wrong.

"I'm so sorry, Senior Fig! I didn't mean to! Are you cold? Are you freezing?"

Fig took the blanket and wrapped it back around itself, smiling softly. It simply reached out and placed its palm on the top of Miya's head, where her still-erect ahoge (cowlick) was sticking up, and gently rubbed it.

"Get off the bus."

The three of them got off the bus, and the doors closed behind them.

The bus's taillights gradually shrank in the night, disappearing completely after rounding a bend.

Miya turned around and then stood frozen in place.

The glowing skyscrapers in the city center, the holographic GG projected on the glass curtain wall, and the crystal road suspended on the metal base all disappeared.

Instead, there was an endless expanse of bungalows, scattered among the gently rolling hills. The warm yellow light shining from the windows was like scattered gold dust on black velvet, sparse and far apart.

Above that lies the entire Milky Way.

A vast expanse stretches across the very center of the sky, with countless stars densely packed together, so numerous it inspires a sense of awe, yet so beautiful it is impossible to look away.

Vast stretches of nebulae, some silvery-white, some pale purple, some light blue-green, occasionally a shooting star streaks across the sky, leaving an elegant trail that stretches from east to west, as if even the stars here live more leisurely.

Miya had no idea how long she had been standing there.

In her previous life, she grew up in a city with severe light pollution, and the most spectacular starry sky she had ever seen was just a few dozen bright stars on a mountaintop in the suburbs.

She had only ever seen this entire Milky Way in photos from National Geographic magazine, and had always thought that the effect was a composite.

"What a nice view……"

She unconsciously uttered two words, her voice so soft it was as if she were afraid of disturbing the stars above.

Corona Borealis took a few steps and realized that Miya wasn't following. She turned around and a mischievous glint flashed in her pale purple eyes.

She put her hands behind her back, tiptoed back, and whispered in Miya's ear in a sinister tone, as if telling a ghost story.

"I've heard that stargazing for too long can drive you crazy."

Miya jerked violently, her eyes widening instantly, her face still bearing a half-recovered look of ecstasy mixed with shock, creating a hilarious meme.

"Really?!"

Fig turned her face away, covered her mouth with her hand, and her shoulders trembled slightly under the blanket. It took her a while to calm down after laughing.

She was just teasing you.

Miya breathed a sigh of relief, then glared angrily at Corona Borealis.

"Hahahaha~!"

The person next to them, Corona Borealis, was laughing so hard that they had to lean against a roadside utility pole to straighten up.

"Stop teasing him. Let's finish up and go home to take a shower. This place is so dusty."

Fig stopped smiling, wrapped the blanket tighter, and gestured with its chin toward a building not far away.

Looking in the direction she pointed, the outline of an abandoned hospital slowly emerged from the horizon under the glow of the Milky Way.

Miya had already mentally prepared herself; an abandoned hospital, after all, would just have gloomy corridors, broken windows, rusty hospital beds, yellowed medical records scattered on the floor, and an occasional gust of wind blowing through the building with a mournful howling sound.

But upon closer inspection, she discovered that her imagination did not match the reality before her eyes at all.

The hospital building wasn't tall, probably only three stories high. The exterior walls were made of old-fashioned red bricks, which had faded to a dark ochre color from years of wind and rain.

But what truly surprised Mi Ye was that every exterior wall of the entire building was covered with glowing vines. They sprouted from the cracks in the corners of the walls, spread wildly along the brick seams and window frames, wrapped around the railings of every window, and even the chimney on the roof was wrapped into a glowing cocoon.

The leaves on the vines are just ordinary green during the day, but at night they emit a pale blue-purple fluorescent light, which is surprisingly consistent with the color of the Milky Way overhead. From a distance, it doesn't look like an abandoned haunted building, but rather like a small castle chosen by the starlight.

The steps at the main entrance of the hospital have collapsed somewhat, and several clumps of glowing moss have grown in the cracks between the stones, making them soft to step on.

The main gate was a pair of old double doors, with shards of glass remaining on them reflecting the glow of the vines, like broken diamonds embedded in rotten wood.

Fig paused at the doorway, then turned to face the two of them.

She took the request form out of the envelope from her bag, unfolded it, quickly glanced at it in the glow of the vines, and then looked up at Miya and Corona Borealis.

"The commission is to investigate the strange noises that have been coming from this abandoned hospital. In recent months, nearby residents have frequently heard music and crying coming from inside the building late at night. However, the police have come twice but have not found any signs of human intrusion. The association has initially determined it to be a suspected paranormal event. The commission is classified as Level C, and the core requirement is to find the source of the noise."

She folded the order form and put it back in her bag, carefully explaining the details of the task.

"Once inside, maintain formation and do not act alone. If you discover anything beyond your comprehension, do not be reckless or curious; just run out."

Miya nodded solemnly.

She remembered what Fig had said on the bus earlier: "You also have to learn to protect yourself first," and knew that this advice was not just a polite remark.

The corona next to him also abandoned its usual carefree demeanor, its pale purple eyes appearing particularly serious under the fluorescent light, and it gave Fig a knowing gesture.

"Walk."

Fig reached out and pushed open the half-closed wooden door, startling several summer insects hiding among the vines on the wall.

When they take flight, their wings glow faintly, like a wisp of stardust scattered in the air.