[Earth Era, November 21, 2010] [Western Calendar, Sunday] [Xia Calendar, Gengyin Year, tenth month, twenty-third day. Auspicious for bathing, sacrifices, and travel. Inauspicious for breaking ground and burial.]
So much had happened lately that even Zhao Longfei had grown cautious. He deliberately picked an auspicious day for travel and gathered everyone early in the morning to return to Area No. 7 in a private vehicle, hoping there would be no more bumps along the way.
They had spent a month in Zone 5. After the Championship Tournament, they had stayed to get Joint Mining firmly on its feet before the various factions finally departed.
They had originally come to Zone 5 for the Championship Tournament, which brought together universities from across the entire Safe Zone. Yet the tournament had turned out to be the least noteworthy event of the month.
Qin Siyang could not help feeling wistful.
Sitting in Zhao Longfei's private vehicle, Qin Siyang leaned against the window and looked out at the street, his thoughts unreadable.
Traffic did not flow freely through the city streets. Plenty of people were already heading to work, and the vehicle crawled along.
Qin Siyang remembered passing down this same street on a school bus a month ago, but now he could barely recognize it.
The broad, level road was covered in dust, as though it had not been swept in ages. The sanitation workers were nowhere to be seen. The steamed bun shop beside the road had its shutter down, with a sign reading [Prime Retail Space for Sublease] pasted onto it.
The neighboring businesses, including Chen's Clothing Store and Little Chubby's Restaurant, also had their doors tightly shut. He could not tell whether it was simply too early for them to open or whether they, too, were preparing to