Ten-Year Loyal Dog’s Road to Chasing Her Wife (GL) - Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Later, Xia Hanyin looked back and felt vaguely that the relationships between several people began to change during this very afternoon though when they eventually soured, it was even more unbearable than now.

The afternoon training was similar to the morning’s, except that because the temperature was higher, the students felt even more miserable. The military training uniforms were long-sleeved and made of a mysterious fabric: very heavy for summer, yet seemingly very thin for winter; perhaps it was the legendary “cool in winter, warm in summer” magical material.

The most unbearable part was that while it retained heat, it neither absorbed sweat nor allowed ventilation. Consequently, once they sweated, the moisture was trapped inside the clothes, making them feel sticky and greasy. Even more deadly, the heat made microbes highly active and metabolism rapid, which directly resulted in.

A very thick stench of sweat.

It was fine in an open area like the playground, but once they went to eat together in the cafeteria a basically semi-enclosed space the foul odor emerged, nearly suffocating all several thousand of them inside.

Qiao Wan: “…” Her germaphobia meant she absolutely could not accept such a scent.

“I want to take off my hat,” Qiao Wan said in a low voice. Then she suddenly realized that Qiao Mei was no longer sitting beside her; she had been reassigned to An Xiaolei’s squad, the squad for tall people.

Instructor, do you realize this is height discrimination?

“Endure it,” Xia Hanyin whispered beside her. “Heads may roll and blood may flow, but the hat must not fall.”

The instructor had said that except for eating and sleeping, the hat must stay properly on their heads at all other times.

Finally, when it was time for the meal, the instructor sauntered over again.

He stood to the side, staring at them eat with great interest, which made the girls very uncomfortable. Finally, Xia Hanyin put down her bowl: “Instructor, are you finished eating?”

“Yeah, I’m finished.”

Xia Hanyin said expressionlessly: “But we haven’t finished yet.”

The instructor said smilingly: “I know, so I’m not stopping you from continuing to eat.”

Qiao Wan: “…” With you staring at us like this, it’s not that easy to keep swallowing. “Is there something you want to say?”

“It makes me sad that you know me so well.” The instructor clutched his chest, putting on a very heartbroken act, but he soon realized the students weren’t buying it. He coughed and said, “There’s an arts performance on the night before we head back. You all know that, right?”

Alarm bells went off in the students’ minds, and they all backed away uncomfortably as if he were a pathogen. “What does that have to do with us?”

The instructor remained smiling, pulled over a chair with a backrest, and sat down grandly: “There are many of you, and you’re all multi-talented. Naturally, you’ll be the ones providing a program.”

Students: “…We don’t think so.”

Xia Hanyin added: “In fact, we have regressed; we only possess basic survival skills.”

Qiao Wan added tactfully: “Which is to say: eating, drinking, shitting, and sleeping.”

Instructor: “…”

Impressive, very forceful. “But everyone else is doing it; it wouldn’t be good if we didn’t, right?”

“We can be unique.” The students looked at the instructor with sincere eyes. “That will definitely leave a deep impression on the leaders.”

What kind of impression? An impression of being troublemakers? The instructor mentally complained but suddenly straightened his face and said: “Go prepare a program. There is really no room for negotiation. A soldier must obey orders. I didn’t come here to discuss it; I’m just notifying you.”

The students sighed helplessly, having known this would be the result: “Understood, Instructor. We will settle it among ourselves privately.”

Although the instructor was very easygoing most of the time, it didn’t mean there were no exceptions and the exception was when they disobeyed orders.

They were starting to get used to it, daily testing the limits of the instructor’s anger. They tried to find where the final bottom line was and gradually discovered that the instructor actually had a very good temper; except during training, he was easy to talk to at all other times, so they gradually let loose.

“Then you can settle on a plan tonight and start rehearsing,” the instructor said, scratching his head. “There are no activities arranged for tomorrow or the night after, so you can allocate your time freely. However, there are a few points to note: one is that you cannot go out though you can’t get out anyway and the other is to pay attention to safety. Some lights are broken, so don’t go there; it might be dangerous. When the lights go out at night, you must be in your dorms; no wandering around.”

“Understood,” the students responded listlessly. But they truly didn’t understand what kind of program they could report. The military training base was different from other places; there weren’t plenty of costumes and the like.

In the military base, they only had the clothes they brought and their training uniforms.

In such a situation, even dancing was restrictive, let alone performing a play everyone wearing the same clothes would make it impossible to tell people apart.

“Talking about putting on a show, in the end, isn’t it just singing and dancing? Does anyone in our class know how to dance?” Gongxi Bitong’s brow was furrowed into a knot.

“Does the social dance I learned in primary school count?”

“Even if it’s Gangnam Style, it counts,” Gongxi Bitong said helplessly. “Now is not the time to be picky.”

The two Qiao sisters and Yuan Tianci raised their hands. Qiao Wan said: “I have a bit of a foundation in dance from primary school.”

Qiao Mei: “Social dance.”

Yuan Tianci: “Social dance, Tango.”

Xia Hanyin hesitated but still raised her hand: “…Hula dance.”

Everyone: “…” Okay, very flashy. All kinds of dances.

Afterward, some mentioned shuffling, others mentioned mechanical dance—they just couldn’t harmonize. The number of people in Class 11 who could dance was staggering, and the varieties were also staggering. After listening to them chatter and argue for a while, Gongxi Bitong helplessly put down her pen: “How about we just pick a few people to learn something and go up?”

Yuan Tianci looked dazed. “Pick who? The rules state the number of participants cannot be fewer than ten, but look can you find ten people who know the same dance? Even our radio calisthenics are different. Are you going to do the 8th set ‘The Era is Calling’ while she does the 3rd set ‘The Rising Sun’?”

Gongxi Bitong thought about it; dancing different dances on the same stage would be very messy, wouldn’t it?

She ran her hands through her long hair, then suddenly heard Qiao Wan speak quietly: “A combination of the runway and dance.”

The instructor, who was perched on the back of a chair like a gecko, had his eyes light up: “This works! The problem is, how do you solve the costume issue?”

Walking a runway meant needing a large number of costumes. But right now, let alone ready-made clothes, there wasn’t even time to DIY; there wasn’t enough time or material.

Qiao Wan didn’t take it to heart, simply turning her calm, light-colored pupils toward the instructor: “May I ask, under your leadership, can we go out?”

The instructor was stunned for a moment and said: “Yes.”

“I can pay for the clothes,” Qiao Wan said. “Give us half an hour to determine what style of clothing we need.”

The whole class: “…” They forgot that there were many “tycoons” in the class.

Once decided, things were very easy to handle. Qiao Wan, along with Gongxi Bitong, divided the whole class into ten groups. Under the leadership of the instructor, they went out separately to purchase the clothes written on the list. With everyone’s role utilized to the extreme, they returned to the base an hour and a half later with well-fitting clothes.

Even the instructor was somewhat amazed; these students were truly too rich. Qiao Wan, Yuan Tianci, and Ao Manshan these three pulled out black cards as soon as they made a move. It did startle their parents, but in the end, nothing was said; the parents just said “as long as you’re happy, money isn’t important” and hung up the phone.

By the time they had applied for an empty space, finished showering, and changed into their respective clothes to arrive for rehearsal, it was already 8:30 PM. The venue was an empty classroom with large mirrors. The ten people responsible for the “Kung Fu Fan” had arrived long ago; their costumes were the simplest, so they didn’t need much time to prepare. While others were in small rooms putting on various matching jewelry, they were already snapping their fans open and closed in rehearsal.

Every opening and closing of the Kung Fu Fan provided the strongest rhythmic beat.

Perhaps the commotion here was too loud, because people on the playground soon gathered around, peering through the windows to watch them train, occasionally letting out “wow” sounds of amazement.

“Damn, it’s really good having tycoons in the class…”

When they saw those well-made, beautiful clothes, they all let out gasps of amazement at capitalism.

“What’s so good about having money…”

“Sorry, having money really does mean you can do whatever you want.”

“Alright, please shut up quickly.”

In the end, it was finalized as an activity for the entire class to participate in, meaning all sixty people needed to join which worked out perfectly since their class had an even number of people; otherwise, having one person left over would have been difficult.

Many people in Class 11 could dance, but even more could not. Most of those who couldn’t were assigned simple stage movements to be used for transition effects.

What was unexpected was that halfway through the rehearsal, a plump middle-aged woman actually drove them all out. The reason was: “We want to do square dancing.”

Everyone present was quite resigned, but since those people were of their parents’ generation, it wasn’t easy to get angry. The good thing was that their clothes were already sorted, so they could move elsewhere.

“Where to?”

“To the grass on the playground.” Gongxi Bitong wasn’t very happy either, saying with a stern face, “At least it won’t hurt if we fall there. Let’s look on the bright side.”

“Besides not hurting when you fall, what other benefit is there?” someone asked solemnly.

“Whether indoors or outdoors, we’re feeding mosquitoes anyway. At least outdoors we can see the starry sky.”

Gongxi Bitong was also quite serious. “Fall in, we’re going to the playground.”

When they actually reached the grass, Qiao Wan began to realize that the outdoors wasn’t as scary as she had thought. The environment of the military training base was decent; the sky was full of brilliant stars, and the grass beneath her feet was soft just like the gentle, faint smile on Qiao Mei’s lips.

Wearing her white swan-feather dress, borrowing strength from Qiao Mei’s hand, she spun her toes in a beautiful arc and then leaned softly into Qiao Mei’s embrace, which carried the faint scent of body wash.

In the distance was the long whistle of a passing train.

She tilted her head slightly and saw Qiao Mei’s gentle, light-colored eyes, filled with the stars of the sky.

They were like a pair of travelers who had been separated for a long time and had now finally met.