She wasn't woken by her alarm, but by Yang Wanqing. The girl had finished washing up by five thirty and stood outside her bedroom door with a bulging hiking backpack, knocking three times in succession.
"Yaoyao! Get up! Time to go, time to go!"
Chen Siyao rubbed her eyes and opened the door, staring at Yang Wanqing's backpack.
"What did you pack?"
"Sunscreen, sunglasses, a hat, a waterproof jacket, a thermos, compressed biscuits, a first-aid kit, mosquito repellent, power banks—two of them—three charging cables, a selfie stick, a folding stool—"
"Are you going to the Secret Realm or a street market?"
"Better safe than sorry! What if there are mosquitoes in the Secret Realm?"
Chen Siyao didn't have the energy to argue with her, so she turned back to wash her face.
At seven, everyone gathered in the living room.
Chen Hao wore an ordinary black T-shirt and casual pants, holding a cup of tea. He looked so relaxed that no one could have guessed how outrageous the thing he was about to do was.
Chen Siyao had changed into practical sportswear, Yang Wanqing carried her enormous hiking backpack, and Xiao Yue ran circles around the coffee table.
"Let's check the flights first." Chen Siyao opened the flight information on her phone.
The page took three seconds to load—red across the board.
Every flight heading northwest that day was sold out.
And not just the northwest. Flights to Yungui, Sichuan-Tibet, Western Hunan, and Changbai Mountain in the northeast—if the destination had "mountain" in its name, there wasn't a single ticket left.
Meanwhile, flights to first-tier cities like Magic City, Pengcheng, Capital City, and Huadu were less than thirty percent full.
Chen Siyao scrolled through social media next.
Seven of the top ten trending topics were about May Day travel.
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