Chapter 66: Military Training

Chapter 66: Military Training

The rainfall at the tail end of summer was capricious.

What had been a torrential storm last night transformed into a brilliant, sunny day by morning. The warm sun, suspended at the edge of the clouds, cast its light upon every puddle on the ground, reflecting prismatic, rainbow-hued beams.

Sitting amidst the soft covers of her bed, Bai Li massaged her swollen eye area before finally rising to tidy up the room next door that had been drenched by the rain.

She busied herself for a long while, wholeheartedly burying herself in the chore until she had thoroughly cleared away the standing water on the floor.

The scheduled departure reminder on her phone rang out right on time, its noisy ringtone shattering the heavy air and reminding Bai Li that she had two hours left before departure.

Lingjiang was still very hot today. Bai Li took a deep breath, shouldered her backpack, and headed to the station to catch the high-speed rail.

She hadn't notified Fang Ye that she was heading to school today.

Instinctively, she didn't want Fang Ye to deliberately carve out time to pick her up.

She felt that if Fang Ye had free time, he should be the one coming to look for her.

During this past year, Bai Li had blossomed into an even more stunning young woman. Her figure had shot up rapidly, and she had inherited the vast majority of Madam Hu’s facial features. Only her eyes resembled her late father’s—bright and clear. Her skin was fair, smooth, and delicate, and those once heavy, lingering dark circles had vanished into the long river of time along with the grueling high school years.

The gazes of fellow passengers would always linger on her face for a moment, revealing expressions of appreciation before looking away as if by chance.

Bai Li had noticed this change as well.

However, she didn't pay it too much mind.

It was just that while sitting in the waiting room, upon seeing a tall boy walk past in front of her, she instinctively thought of Fang Ye in Beicheng, and the smile on her face became as radiant as it could possibly be.

……

After a four-hour high-speed train ride, Bai Li arrived at Qing University first.

The campus of Qing University was breathtakingly beautiful. The lake water shimmered with a greenish-blue light, and white swans swam upon it. Wutong trees stood everywhere, and birds landed on the treetops only to take flight again.

Since she had no luggage, the enthusiastic senior students were left with practically nothing to do and could only cordially guide her along the path to the registration desk.

After learning her dorm assignment from the instructor and purchasing some basic daily necessities, Bai Li finally returned to her dormitory.

Having left Jiangcheng, that place shrouded in smog, she had been exceptionally lucky and was assigned to a brand-new dormitory building.

The building housed four-person rooms. Bai Li found Room 301, pushed the door open, and saw that her other roommates had already arrived.

The girls had varied personalities, but all three were local students, leaving Bai Li as the only one from out of town. Because of this, they showed her exceptional consideration.

Sitting together and chatting for an hour was enough for them to become basically familiar with one another.

A short-haired roommate named Chen Sang joked, "Your name is Bai Li, so do you like eating pears?"

Bai Li smiled and nodded, "I do. My nickname is actually Pear."

Yet, practically only He Suisui had ever called her by that name.

"That works out perfectly." Chen Sang was delighted and immediately promised, "I froze some frozen pears at home. Have you ever had them? If not, I'll share them with everyone."

Hearing this, the other two roommates also pulled out some local specialties unique to Beicheng from their bags and said with helpless smiles, "I'm so sorry, but my mom made me bring these for everyone. There are cloud pastries and sweet rice wine."

"Goodness, my mom made me bring the exact same things! I thought my roommates would be from out of town, but unexpectedly, three out of four of us are locals. Do you guys still want to eat them? If not, I'm giving all of mine to Pear."

The most famous local specialties of any region were just those few items.

Everyone had been eating them since childhood until they were thoroughly sick of them.

Chen Sang shook her head vigorously, the terror on her face looking entirely genuine: "Give them to Pear, give them to Pear! I'm not eating them, please don't give them to me."

Bai Li, still somewhat dazed and having not yet unpacked her own luggage, suddenly found herself the recipient of several boxes of snacks and pastries, filling her desk to the brim.

These were all foods with a shelf life of only a few days. Blinking her eyes, she looked left and right, wondering how she was going to consume all this affection from her roommates.

Chen Sang and the others burst into laughter.

Bai Li could only temporarily pull out her own backpack, inside which were the Lingjiang specialties—dairy cakes and fresh rice noodles—she had bought at a specialty supermarket right before her trip. She divided them into three portions and distributed them to her roommates.

"These are the snacks I brought. Have a try. The rice noodles can be eaten dry or soaked in water."

Guan Xiaoyuan, the roommate sitting on the bed, held a dairy cake and said, "Thank you, Pear, but these are Lingjiang specialties, right? Are you from Lingjiang?"

Bai Li didn't really want to bring up anything related to Jiangcheng, so she simply nodded, "Not quite, but I did come from Lingjiang."

Everyone had no desire to delve deeply into this ambiguous answer.

However, Chen Sang chimed in, "I heard there's a senior student who is also from Lingjiang. He's exceptionally famous in the Finance Department. Photos of him have been circulated for several rounds in my high school group chat."

Subconsciously, Bai Li felt that this senior must be Fang Ye, so she looked at Chen Sang with eager anticipation, hoping she would continue.

The wind near September blew so slowly, dry and passionate.

Chen Sang genuinely liked this soft southern girl and instantly understood her intention. She whipped out her phone to frantically search for the photo, muttering as she did so, "I couldn't tell, our Pear likes looking at handsome guys."

The moment she saw the photo, Bai Li smiled, her eyes curving into crescent moons.

The photo must have been taken a year ago.

Fang Ye was standing at the main gate of Qing University, his hair slightly longer, biting down on a cigarette with an indifferent look in his eyes. Amidst the swirling smoke, the silver bracelet on his wrist gleamed without looking feminine; instead, it exuded a rebellious, roguish aura.

This was a side of Fang Ye that Bai Li had never encountered before.

He had never looked at her with such a gaze.

His eyes were forever gentle and carrying a smile, all his coldness and ferocity suppressed without leaving a trace.

Yet Bai Li knew that this was likely Fang Ye's true self, even more frightening than the indifference he showed when they first met.

Bai Li stared at the photo for a long while, pointed at the screen, and asked softly, "May I ask if you can send this photo to me?"

"Don't be so polite, let's add each other to the dorm group chat first." Accustomed to being carefree, Chen Sang was very easy to get along with. She immediately scanned everyone's WeChat codes, created a group chat named "301 Small Communication Club," and privately sent the photo to Bai Li.

Bai Li smiled and said thank you, then examined the photo carefully from start to finish.

Because it had been forwarded many times, the image quality wasn't very clear, but without the slightest hesitation, Bai Li quietly set the photo as her screensaver.

Imagining that she could see Fang Ye the moment she unlocked her phone, her mood turned exceptionally pleasant as well.

Normally, the longstanding tradition at Qing University was to hold military training three days after registration.

Unlike other universities, this was specifically meant to give students a chance to first relax their minds.

However, this year was different.

The weather forecast indicated that there would be no good weather for an entire week, and delaying the military training any further would likely waste several days.

Consequently, the school administration distributed military training uniforms to the students on the very day of registration.

By the next day, before Bai Li had even adapted to the new school, she was organized by her instructor onto the training ground to stand at attention and bake under the sun.

The weather was so scorching it felt as though it could steam water right off people's faces. "Fragile college students" was no empty joke; after standing for a whole morning with only two breaks, several classmates wailed about feeling dizzy.

Bai Li, however, felt it was manageable. Having endured years of hardship, her endurance was frighteningly strong. Gritting her teeth, she continued to stand at attention until she suddenly saw someone walking over from a distance.

Babies, I'm going on the rankings tomorrow. I forgot about it these past few days over the Lunar New Year, hehe. I'll definitely be on the rankings tomorrow, thanks!

Love you all. Today is the first day of PK4, I hope for good reviews! The ratings were pushed down too low.

(End of this chapter)