In the video, the pixelated character Ka Ka rides an old green train, where each square window frames adorable heads of different appearances.
There’s a burly uncle in a green military coat chugging erguotou liquor, an ethnic Ewenki hunter wearing a roe-deer antler hat, and a pair of siblings munching on red sausage and black bread…
On closer inspection, each little character is uniquely charming, and just this opening scene alone brightens the mood.
"Ka Ka’s gone to the Northeast again," Yan remarked.
She remembered that in one of Ka Ka’s earlier travel videos, the destination had been a blind-box trip to the Northeast—though it was summer then, harvest season in the region, with endless golden plains under a sky so blue and clouds so faint that every frame looked like a painting.
"Big sis, are you going back to the Northeast this year?" Xiao Bao asked.
Yan shook her head. "Probably not. Grandma and Grandpa are in Sanya again this year."
Yan’s grandparents were from Shenyang, and in modern terms, she was a "Ning-Shen mix."
Back when she had winter and summer breaks, her mom would take her to the Northeast—cooling off in summer and hunkering down in winter. But after the elderly couple retired, still spry and healthy, they began traveling across the country, cared for by former students wherever they went, leaving no worries for the family.
As they spoke, Yan watched the opening animation on the screen draw to a close.
Bundled up like a dumpling in a mink hat and snow boots, the tiny Ka Ka stepped off the train.
On the platform, Ka Ka suddenly jumped like Super Mario, bumping into the station sign that read 【Sunwu Station】.
A giant question mark popped up above Ka Ka’s head.
Then, a thought bubble appeared:
"Sunwu? As in Sun Quan’s Eastern Wu? But the Three Kingdoms era has nothing to do with the Northeast, right?"
"Or does this place just have a lot of people with the surnames Sun and Wu?"
As Ka Ka shouldered her backpack and headed for the stairs, the video transitioned.
This was Ka Ka’s second trip to the Northeast.
Last time, it was summer. This time, it was winter.
Honestly, after drawing this blind-box travel mission, Ka Ka agonized for three days.
Who wouldn’t hesitate at the thought of temperatures nearing -20°C?
This time, her destination was a place called "Dapingtai Village"—another odd name.
Ka Ka guessed it was likely named after some large platform.
Luckily, unlike previous trips, she actually found information about Dapingtai Village online. Though underdeveloped and lacking tourist amenities, many travelers had driven there for one reason:
It offered a breathtaking view.
After reading up, Ka Ka made up her mind—she was going!
As a southerner, she couldn’t resist the allure of snow-blanketed landscapes.
Plus, this time, the 【Travel Buddy】APP covered all her winter gear expenses, so she went all out.
Winter clothing was the priciest of all seasons, after all!
Down jackets, cashmere sweaters, thermal pants—she bought every piece of cold-weather gear. Apart from underwear and socks, she packed just one extra pair of waterproof pants for practicality, planning to buy anything else locally if needed. She opted for a backpack instead of a suitcase; even with leather gloves, dragging luggage in biting winds would be brutal.
The video’s timeline was set after New Year’s. Since Dapingtai Village’s county had no train station, Ka Ka first arrived in a neighboring county, then transferred by bus.
Fresh snow from the night before blanketed the fields, though the roads were cleared by plows. Not a single green-plated electric vehicle was in sight.
By the time Ka Ka boarded the bus at 11 a.m., the sky was startlingly blue. Peering out the window, she saw scarcely a soul outside.
Wasn’t this noon? Was everyone staying indoors?
"Sweetie, you on break?" The auntie beside her on the bus struck up a conversation.
"No, Auntie. I’m here to travel," Ka Ka replied, her slightly blurry "z/c/sh" pronunciation betraying her southern roots.
"All by yourself? To Xunke? You’re a brave one. What’s there to see here? Been to Harbin?" The auntie dismissed her hometown with a wave, rummaging through her crossbody bag for a plastic pouch, then pulling out an apple.
"Here, have one. It’s a bit cold—warm it up first. Don’t be shy, it’s from our own orchard. No charge."
"These little apples might look ugly and wrinkly, but they’re way tastier than those shiny store-bought ones!"
Before Ka Ka could refuse, two fist-sized apples were thrust into her hands.
【Traveler Ka Ka has received a gift from the bus auntie: Apples x2】
True to the auntie’s words, these were the "ugliest" apples Ka Ka had ever seen.
Flustered, Ka Ka dug through her backpack for a return gift.
Luckily, she’d prepared. "Auntie, try these beef jerky and cheese snacks. I got them in Inner Mongolia."
"Oh, you sweet thing! These treats are too much."
Ka Ka watched as the auntie wiped an apple on her sweater sleeve and took a bite. She used a tissue to clean hers before sinking her teeth in.
*Crunch!* So crisp!
That was her first thought.
The skin was thin, and the small apple’s texture was perfect—each bite released a burst of tangy-sweet juice that made her eyes light up.
This ugly apple was *delicious*!
Not mealy like Golden Delicious, not just crisp-sweet like Fujis or honeyed apples, nor watery like those oversized red ones. This was crisp, perfectly balanced, mouthwatering—the kind you couldn’t stop eating!
If Ka Ka had to sum it up: "Now *that’s* an apple!"
It put those bland, oversized supermarket apples to shame.
*Crunch crunch*—in no time, she’d finished one.
Now, staring at the remaining apple, she felt reluctant to eat it.
【Traveler Ka Ka consumes Ugly Apple: Mood +20, Stamina +10】
"Good, huh?" The auntie finished hers and tucked the core into her trash bag.
"So good! Auntie, do you sell these? Have an online store? How do you grow them? I’ve never tasted anything like it," Ka Ka gushed.
"Haha, you’re too kind! These are Guoguang apples. Few folks grow ’em now—just sharing among family," the auntie said.
*Guoguang*, Ka Ka mentally filed away the name.
“If you like them so much, I’ll mail you a whole box when I get home.” Aunt Cui laughed heartily, pulling more apples from her bag and handing them to Ka Ka.
【Traveler Ka Ka receives apples from the kind aunt in the neighboring seat x3】
The journey from Sunwu Station, where the train had arrived, to the destination county took a little over an hour. With Elder Sister Cui’s cheerful laughter filling the air, time seemed to fly by in an instant.
“Guoguang apples! I’m craving some now.” Yan gulped as she watched the video showcasing the apples. She’d had them before—they were genuinely delicious!
“Let me check which fruit store has them on the delivery app,” Xiao Bao said, pulling out his phone.
They watched as Ka Ka disembarked from the bus, where a pre-arranged rental car from an app was already waiting for her.
“Wow, Ka Ka’s already landed a sponsorship,” Yan remarked, her eyes lighting up.
But then she and Zhu Jue took a closer look—wait, that car looked familiar!
It was a model from Jidao Motors, the “Land Dominator,” already fitted with extreme-cold snow tires.
The two immediately turned to Tan Dabao and Tan Xiaobao.
“When did you guys strike a deal with Ka Ka?”
Tan Dabao tilted his neck slightly, while Xiao Bao grinned mischievously.
“We don’t handle the business side, but after you guys crossed paths earlier, Manager Li and President Qin both said this blogger was great—she even shared some of the snacks sent to her with the headquarters. The marketing team’s been keeping an eye on her, looking for a chance to collaborate. This theme was perfect, especially for testing the car’s extreme-cold performance.”
Next, Yan and Zhu Jue saw Ka Ka’s video transition into a segment introducing the car’s features.
The comments flooded in:
“The sponsorship combo is triggered!”
“Congrats to Ka Ka for securing the bag!”
“Thanks to the sponsor for supporting Ka Ka!”
“Big shoutout to Jidao Motors for backing our girl!”
For content creators like Ka Ka, who invest their own time, effort, and money, viewers were wholly supportive of sponsorships. After all, no money, no motivation, right?
The drone flew out of the car window, automatically following and capturing the journey from above. The black snow-ready vehicle cruised along the asphalt road, flanked by vast, snow-covered plains.
From the elevated perspective, the audience followed Ka Ka’s lens as she ventured into the snow-blanketed forest.
Winter in the Northeast was a world of desolation—barren, endless, and devoid of life. No blossoms, no fallen leaves, no shades of green—just black and white.
Black soil, withered grass, snow-covered earth, frozen rivers.
Even through the screen, the biting cold and piercing wind were palpable.
The chill of the Northeast was merciless.
The dark asphalt road still bore traces of snow. Inside the car, Ka Ka had the heater on full blast, warming her face and hands, while the heated seat kept her cozy as she drove toward “Dapingtai Village.”
Surprisingly, the trip had gone smoothly.
Though Dapingtai was a small place, it had gained some attention in recent years, with traces of its existence scattered across social media. Unlike the mountainous Southwest or the vast, hard-to-navigate grasslands of Inner Mongolia, the Northeast plains made for easy travel. After an overnight train ride, a bus transfer, and a rental car, Ka Ka arrived at her destination without a hitch by the next afternoon.
Dapingtai Village had no proper hotels—just local farmhouses converted into homestays. Ka Ka had booked ahead and drove straight to the large parking lot outside the courtyard.
A prominent sign read: 【Luo Family Homestead】—the closest lodging to the village entrance and easy to spot.
The parking area was even covered by a roof, likely to shield cars from heavy snowfall.
Since she’d only called ahead, Ka Ka only knew the owner’s surname was Luo—a woman with a thick Northeastern accent.
As she stepped out of the car with her backpack, Ka Ka spotted a fair-skinned woman with brownish curls and blue eyes.
“There’s a foreign NPC here too? Another tourist?” Ka Ka muttered to herself.
Longjiang City shared a sprawling border with Russia, and trade with their neighbors was frequent. Judging by the woman’s plain attire, Ka Ka assumed she was a Russian tourist who’d somehow found her way to this remote village.
As Ka Ka walked toward the courtyard, the blue-eyed woman stared intently at her.
“What’s going on? Is she about to ask me for help? My English is shaky, and I don’t know a word of Russian,” Ka Ka thought, already pulling out her phone to open a translation app.
But then—
“Hey there, little lady. You’re the one who called me a couple days ago, right? Booked a single room for today—Ka Ka, that you?”
Ka Ka froze. The voice belonged to none other than the blue-eyed foreign woman in front of her, and the accent was unmistakably the same as the one she’d heard on the phone.
She gaped. “You’re… Elder Sister Luo?”
“Yep, that’s me. Come on in—it’s freezing out here. The bed’s already warmed up with electric heating. We renovated a couple years back—some of the old brick beds were replaced with electric panels for safety and convenience.” The blue-eyed Luo led her inside.
Still in shock, Ka Ka finally managed to ask, “So… you settled down here?”
She assumed Elder Sister Luo had married into the area.
“Pfft!” Elder Sister Luo laughed.
“Born and raised in the Northeast, purebred! Don’t believe me? I’ll show you my ID later.”
While checking in, Ka Ka caught sight of Second Sister Luo cooking in the courtyard.
She had the same brown curls and blue eyes, bundled up in thick winter gear, yelling, “Elder Sis, go grab some pickled cabbage—”
Ka Ka and her viewers were collectively stunned.
“You’re… of Russian descent, right?” Ka Ka ventured.
“Nope, we’re Han Chinese. Pure-blooded,” Elder Sister Luo said, pulling out her ID.
The screen displayed a censored version—gender, photo, ethnicity, birth year, and county-level address visible.
【Ethnicity: Han】
Ka Ka: !
Yan, Zhu Jue, Dabao, and Xiao Bao: !!!
Wait, since when did the Han ethnicity include… this?
And according to Elder Sister Luo’s birth year, she was already fifty!
Ka Ka’s room was a renovated farmhouse—the traditional heated bed replaced with an electric one, and a proper toilet and water heater installed. She sighed in relief. Before the trip, she’d googled how people in Northeastern rural areas handled bathroom breaks in winter, and the descriptions—frozen buttocks, poop turning into ice—had left her mildly traumatized.
Since the New Year holiday had just ended, the Luo Homestead only housed two and a half guests: Ka Ka, a freelance photographer, and Elder Sister Luo’s nephew (the “half”).
The stay included breakfast and dinner for 130 yuan a day. At dinner, when Ka Ka saw the giant stainless-steel pot of pork-and-pickled-cabbage stew, she knew she’d chosen right.
The pork skin jelly on the plate wobbled, almost translucent—like gourmet Jell-O. Ka Ka had expected some odd smell, but after dipping a piece in garlic sauce, she could only think one thing: Delicious!
The sour and tangy pickled cabbage and pork bone soup was entirely different from the "sauerkraut fish" variety—steaming hot and comforting.
Watching the guests hesitate to take the meat, Ka Ka stared wide-eyed as Second Sister Luo used tongs to serve each person a tender, fall-off-the-bone pork knuckle on stainless steel plates.
"Eat up, don’t hold back! Dig in boldly!"
Ka Ka stole glances as Elder Sister Luo and Second Sister Luo also steamed a plate of blood sausage to dip in garlic sauce, while radishes and scallions were crunched noisily with fermented bean paste. She kept repeating "Han Chinese" in her mind, gradually dispelling her sense of strangeness.
Back in August last year, in the forest farm, Ka Ka had tasted fresh scallions dipped in sauce. This time, trying radishes with fermented bean paste made her eyes light up instantly.
The radishes—they were actually sweet! And there was even frozen napa cabbage! How could raw cabbage hearts dipped in sauce taste so sweet? Not cloyingly sweet, but refreshingly so!
[Traveler Ka Ka unlocks a new culinary travel guide.]
[Traveler Ka Ka has tasted pickled cabbage with pork bones, steamed blood sausage, pork skin jelly, and dipping veggies… Satiety level maxed out.]
In the corner of the video, the little avatar’s satiety meter was completely full, with Ka Ka’s animated character patting her round belly and letting out a satisfied burp.
At the dinner table, Ka Ka learned that another tourist photographer had come specifically to capture the rime frost at this location.
After some discussion, the two decided to set out together the next day, waking early to catch the sunrise over the frost-covered trees.
"Going to see the frost? The forecast says there won’t be much wind tomorrow—perfect for you two to team up," Elder Sister Luo remarked.
Ka Ka was curious about the Luo sisters’ background but hesitated to pry. The photographer, however, asked outright.
"Bah, no big deal."
"Nothing much to tell. I was born in this village, registered as Han when getting my ID. That’s how it is for everyone here," Elder Sister Luo said dismissively.
"Ever been across the border?" the photographer asked.
"Went near it once. Couldn’t understand a word they said, so I stopped going. Living or dead, we all got two eyes, a nose, and a mouth—what’s there to fuss over? Our parents were war orphans, raised in the village, and so were we," Second Sister Luo added, cracking sunflower seeds.
"Fifty-something now, life’s good. The government’s promoting tourism, so folks like you keep coming. Got food, got money, got shelter—what more could you want? Happiness is simple!"
Ka Ka sipped slowly on the juice of a thawed frozen pear. Besides pears, the courtyard also had frozen apples and persimmons!
She was astonished—it seemed every fruit in the Northeast had a way to stay delicious even after freezing.
The frozen pears and apples had turned deep brown, looking almost spoiled. But one bite of the softened, thawed flesh at room temperature, and she felt like she’d discovered a whole new world.
Frozen outdoors, the pears and apples seemed to lock in all their sweetness and freshness, with tiny ice crystals sending a pleasant chill through her teeth.
Sitting on the toasty *kang* bed, nibbling icy-cold frozen fruit and sweet canned yellow peaches—this, Ka Ka realized, was the very embodiment of happiness.
In this land of howling winds and endless snow, what more could one ask for than a warm house and good food?
Pure bliss!
Listening to the Luo sisters’ banter was delightful. Before they knew it, it was 8 p.m., and as the sisters declared it bedtime, Ka Ka finally felt drowsy too. She returned to her room, washed up, and collapsed onto the heated *kang*, falling asleep instantly.
The bed beneath her was warm, the blankets cozy. By morning, even the clothes she’d left under the bedding on the linoleum-covered floor were toasty—just as Elder Sister Luo had advised.
Dressing in the pre-warmed layers, Ka Ka felt enveloped in a furnace’s embrace. So comfortable! So warm! Sure, her throat and face were a bit dry, but compared to this warmth, it was nothing.
[Traveler Ka Ka equips overnight-heated underlayers and full winter gear, gaining a one-hour Warmth Buff.]
Yan watched the video’s status bar—energy, temperature, and mood all maxed out, with little flame icons dancing around Ka Ka’s avatar to indicate the warmth buff.
*If only I could move this heated kang to my dorm room…*
Ka Ka and the photographer, having gone to bed before 9 p.m., woke at 5 a.m. after a solid eight hours. Breakfast was coarse corn porridge, steamed buns, eggs, pickles, fermented tofu, and red sausage.
No wind or snow overnight—perfect conditions for rime frost.
By 6:30 a.m., when Ka Ka drove out, the sky was already bright. At -29°C, she headed north toward the hydroelectric dam, where the reservoir kept the river unfrozen.
At 7 a.m., Ka Ka and the photographer finally saw the rime frost—and the viewers witnessed it too through the screen.
Upstream water flowed downstream, mist curling over the river like celestial breath. Every bare tree along the banks was etched in silver frost.
Poets once wrote of "a thousand blossoms lit by the east wind at night," but here, it was "frost-flowered trees in winter’s morning mist."
Under the azure sky stretched an endless expanse of frost-laden branches. The river flowed unfrozen, while in the distance, a crystal-clear frozen waterfall glimmered. Snow-laden pines and vast white plains framed the scene—a forest of jade and silver.
Ka Ka and the photographer sent their drones skyward. Words failed before such majesty.
The video wasn’t long. On the return trip, their black car was the only vehicle cutting through the snow-laden woods. Snow-crowned pines stood sentinel under a blazing sunrise.
This desolate winter land held the richest black soil—and the warmest people.
As Ka Ka packed up and bid farewell at the Luo family’s courtyard, a notification appeared:
*"Congratulations! Achievement unlocked: [Ballad of Bygones]. Keep it up! Equip the achievement badge?"*
**[Achievement: Ballad of Bygones (Upgradable)]**
*Black earth, white rivers, the Great Northern Wilderness—now the Great Northern Granary. Fair skin, blue eyes, yet kin. Removing your lenses, broadening your mind, you’ve met and recognized fellow countrymen of entirely different appearances. This land carries countless tales—scars, history, poetry of the past. Here, soybeans and sorghum blanket the fields, but so do untold stories. They are the dust of eras, yet people reborn.*
Ka Ka was stunned. An *upgradable* achievement badge?
