Assembly was at five-thirty.

They didn’t eat until six-thirty.

Hand-pulled mutton was naturally nowhere to be found – the only thing they could grab and eat was steamed buns.

There was rice too, but Director Xia, maintaining her dignity, didn’t run fast enough and missed out on the steaming rice. She was left with rock-hard steamed buns – take it or leave it.

The dishes weren’t bad though – the stir-fried tomatoes and eggs looked appetizing.

The meat dish was zucchini with sliced meat, or meat strips rather. Xia Xiaolan usually didn’t eat fatty meat, but these meat strips were more fat than lean, yet which girl wasn’t eating them with relish?

Another dish was bean sprouts with glass noodles – nothing wrong with it except it was extremely salty.

So salty that one small bite of vegetables requires a huge bite of steamed bun to balance it.

Xia Xiaolan was used to it, and others adapted too. Regardless of their family circumstances, everyone had gone hungry since lunch and trained all afternoon. Even Ji Jiangyuan, who had returned from America, thought the hard-steamed buns tasted better than hamburgers.

Without oil or sugar, if you tasted carefully, the hard steamed buns had a slight natural sweetness from the flour.

Xia Xiaolan ate two fist-sized buns but still didn’t feel full. However, when she wanted another one, the basket was empty!

The dishes were too salty, so Xia Xiaolan drank water desperately.

When they finally could rest in the evening, she wanted to go to the shop to buy something to eat.

Hold back?

Two buns weren’t very filling.

But even if she wanted to spend her own money on extra food, it wasn’t allowed. Though there was a shop at the training grounds, it would only open to trainees on “rest days.” Yes, the nearest “rest day” was six days away, when everyone could not only visit the shop but also use the public bathhouse!

What about these six days?

Just wipe down with cold water.

Everyone got the same treatment – they weren’t specifically targeting anyone. The short-chinned instructor also announced one more thing: tonight’s guard duty schedule.

Everyone had to take turns standing guard at the bottom of their dormitory building. Their ten-person squad was assigned the first night, from 9 PM to 6 AM tomorrow, with one-hour shifts. Xia Xiaolan was scheduled for 2 AM.

During the coldest, sleepiest time, she didn’t dare think about food and hurried to sleep.

Zhou Limin was on duty before her and would wake her up when switching shifts. Xia Xiaolan slept until Zhou Limin woke her at midnight. At this hour everything was silent. Still groggy, Xia Xiaolan got dressed and went out. When the night wind blew, her nose immediately began to itch.

The whole building was asleep, so Xia Xiaolan quickly covered her mouth, forcefully holding back the sneeze.

Guard duty required carrying a real weapon – though the Type 56 rifle wasn’t loaded, the boys who got to handle real guns were extremely excited. After being tormented by instructors all afternoon, this was their compensation. What was guard duty to them? While the girls felt sleepy, the boys were energized.

For the girls, carrying an eight-pound weapon while standing guard wasn’t a small matter.

Each shift was one hour, but after just thirty minutes, Xia Xiaolan wanted to lean against the wall to slack off. Her eyes were half-closed when she saw two instructor-like figures approaching with notebooks.

“Checking posts. Which company are you from? What’s your name?”

“Report! First Company, Sixth Squad, Xia Xiaolan!”

The person taking notes froze. The guard post light was dim, and they only clearly saw Xia Xiaolan when they got closer.

“Xia—”

The other instructor pulled his companion’s sleeve, and the one with the notebook immediately fell silent.

“Sign your name here, how do you write it?”

Xia Xiaolan was still drowsy and hadn’t fully processed the situation, obediently taking the notebook to write her name.

Suddenly, someone else emerged from the shadows. “Which training camp are you from?”

Xia Xiaolan was startled awake by this voice. She watched as the two “inspecting instructors” quickly snatched back the notebook and ran away, disappearing into the night after just a few turns around the training quarters!

She couldn’t understand what had just happened.

But the person who emerged from the shadows was none other than her fake boyfriend, Comrade Zhou Cheng!

Xia Xiaolan had thought he wouldn’t show up at all.

“What’s going on?”

Zhou Cheng stood a meter away from her, using his height advantage to look down at her: “Student Xia, when speaking to an instructor during training, you must add the word ‘Report’!”

Xia Xiaolan was speechless.

“Report, Head Instructor, I’d like to talk with you!”

Zhou Cheng finally seemed somewhat satisfied, checking his watch, “Student Xia, you have 20 minutes until your shift ends. I’ll give you 2 minutes to talk – summarize your reflections on the first day of training!”

“…”

Xia Xiaolan fell silent, carefully looking at Zhou Cheng, noticing he seemed thinner than when she last saw him.

Of course, it might have been her imagination.

After all, she rarely had the chance to study Zhou Cheng’s face closely. Discovering her boyfriend was still handsome, just switched from being clingy to acting aloof, Xia Xiaolan found it quite novel.

At this moment, should she play along with Zhou Cheng’s performance or ignore it?

They just stared at each other for two minutes.

In the quiet night, as the gentle wind blew, all of Xia Xiaolan’s drowsiness vanished.

She felt the atmosphere was beautiful, and whether they talked heart-to-heart didn’t matter – just being alone together for a while was nice. However, Zhou Cheng seemed to suddenly wake up from something, “Two minutes are up. Since Student Xia has no reflections to report, our conversation is over.”

Zhou Cheng disappeared into the night just as he had appeared.

Xia Xiaolan felt slightly worried but also wanted to laugh.

Regardless, Zhou Cheng’s appearance in Hebei Province as the head instructor for new student training couldn’t be a coincidence.

He must have inquired about Xia Xiaolan’s guard duty time, or he wouldn’t have appeared before her at two in the morning. Understanding this, Xia Xiaolan felt mostly reassured. If Zhou Cheng didn’t want to discuss that letter, she couldn’t force him to, could she?

Military training was still long – she and Zhou Cheng would be together for over ten more days. Xia Xiaolan wasn’t in a hurry. Her current attitude was “Though training torments me a thousand times, I’ll treat the instructor like first love!”

After guard duty ended, she returned to switch shifts and then went to sleep.

When the wake-up whistle sounded, everyone quickly got dressed. During assembly, Xia Xiaolan heard some boys being criticized. Last night some had stolen instructors’ caps, pretending to inspect posts, and gotten several girls’ “signatures”… Xia Xiaolan immediately realized the two “instructors” who ran from Zhou Cheng were Huaqing boys.

“Those two were punished with kitchen duty – how is that punishment? It’s a reward.”

Su Jing’s whole body ached, and her stomach was still hungry.

Xia Xiaolan comforted her with a smile, “Don’t be unfair, kitchen duty isn’t a good assignment.”

Xia Xiaolan was fine – her running habit had saved her. Though tired, her condition today was quite good. So after singing drills ended, she was among the first few to rush to where breakfast was laid out.

Oh, her mysteriously appearing fake boyfriend was standing behind the large porridge pot, his long legs making the uniform look so handsome.

Is the head instructor personally ladling porridge for students?

How down-to-earth.

Xia Xiaolan held her bowl out to Zhou Cheng.

“Report, Instructor, I want it thicker!”