The mountains of western Zhejiang in July felt like a steaming iron pot. Cicadas shrilled from the sweetgum woods on either side, and the blazing heat made the back of Lin Ye's neck ache. He tugged up the white T-shirt draped over his shoulder, wiped the sweat from his brow with one hand, and stepped along the leaf-strewn mountain trail in his hiking boots, their soles crunching with each step.
It was the third day since the college entrance exam results came out, and the third day of his graduation trip. On the afternoon he finished his final English exam, he shoved the five years of past exam papers and three years of practice tests stacked on his desk into the bottom of a cabinet. Then he booked the earliest southbound high-speed train and plunged into the mountains of western Zhejiang with a faded backpack. Inside were two changes of clothes, a power bank, half a bag of bread, two half-finished bottles of mineral water, and a box of rendan pills his mother had insisted he take before leaving, the most ordinary travel essentials imaginable.
