Chapter 28: 28

The last few days of the students’ military training were devoted to preparing for the parade review. According to the instructor, the objective wasn’t to march with the most beauty but with the most imposing momentum.

Once again Shen Shao’s luck fell short. On the day of the parade it began to rain, and the grounds became wet and slippery. If not for the anti-skid rubber shoes everyone was wearing, they wouldn’t have been able to walk, much less march in unison.

Everyone lined up in order. Shen Shao and Yao BoXuan stood in front, followed by rows of students in camouflage uniforms. Shen Shao pulled at the brim of his hat. He was trying to avoid some of the rain pouring down his face, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. When he noticed Yao BoXuan standing there as stiff as a board, he nudged him with his elbow. “Hey, when do you think the parade will start?” Usually rain was a good thing. It meant they wouldn’t have to do as much training, but on those days the weather was always sunny. Today, when sun would have been better, of course it ended up raining.

Yao BoXuan looked at him, then averted his eyes. “How should I know?”

Shen Shao gave him a confused glance. When did he offend this guy?

“The parade is starting up ahead,” someone else said.

Shen Shao looked towards the review platform. It was already packed full of people. Some were dressed in camouflage uniforms, but others wore suits, which meant they weren’t from the base.

“Trainees, fall in!” Shen Shao’s instructor came over and raised his hand. “Everyone, pay close attention when you turn. Don’t bunch up the formation. Also keep your peripheral vision on the people to your left and right. Don’t make a straight line into a wavy line. When you pass the review platform, take neat, even steps and pay close attention to the two pacesetters in front. If one person messes up, the entire formation will fall apart. Is that understood?”

“Understood!” the students of the 5th Company replied in unison.

“Very good. I want to see the same energy when you’re marching later. If anything goes wrong, we’ll get to enjoy another emergency drill tonight. Of course, if you’d rather practice doing squats, that’s fine too.”

The students immediately began to wail. Squats were no different than physical torture. For the rest of their lives, whenever they saw the word ‘squat’, they were going to cringe. And if there was an emergency drill at night, no one would get a good night’s sleep.

Satisfied with the students’ howling, the instructor gave a cough. “If you want to avoid punishment, do your best to win honor for 5th Company!”

Shen Shao heard the excited shouts of the students behind him and silently lowered his head. It was good to be young. A few simple words were enough to make their blood boil.

“5th Company, prepare to march!”

At this command, all the students in 5th Company tensed up. Shen Shao straightened his hat, pulled down the hem of his camouflage jacket, and assumed a standard standing position.

“Company, attention!”

“Forward march!”

When they got close to the review stand, Shen Shao called in a loud voice, “Eyes right!”

The sound of marching feet beat a smooth rhythm in his ears. For Shen Shao, those footsteps were powerful and heroic. He couldn’t even feel the mud splashing on his pant legs. He maintained his salute as he marched past the review stand. When they were a few meters away, he called out, “Ready front!”

After they finished, the instructor walked over and gave Shen Shao a satisfied pat on the shoulder. “This young man has a good voice.”

The parade ground was so big that it was hard for the squad leaders to be heard by the people marching behind them. If they weren’t loud enough, things wouldn’t go well.

Shen Shao smiled. “Instructor, that means our company won’t be punished, right? We worked so hard today. It wouldn’t be humane to make us do another emergency drill tonight.”

The students behind him immediately echoed Shen Shao’s coaxing. The instructor folded his arms on his chest and laughed. Finally he agreed, saying, “OK, no drill tonight and you’ll have reduced training tomorrow.”

At any rate these students were going to leave base the day after tomorrow. There was no reason to make everyone miserable at the end. What’s more, these were the top students of Hua U, future leaders of the country. He wasn’t going to harass them beyond their ability to physically endure.

In a corner of the review stand, Gu NingZhao stood up from the bench, whispered something to Gu ChongZhi, and hurried off the platform.

Gu ChongZhi looked at his son hastening away and noticed he was heading to one of the companies that had just finished the review. He sighed helplessly to his older brother next to him. “That kid says he’s going to live on campus all year. I’m really worried about him. His personality is so introverted….”

Gu ChongYan worked in the military base. He preferred to be quiet himself and didn’t think Gu NingZhao’s non-communicative style was a big problem. “I don’t see anything wrong with his personality. Look at any of the young masters in the capital, then look at the boys in our family. That should make you feel satisfied.”

There were other people sitting near them, so Gu ChongZhi didn’t want to go into detail. He shook his head. “With NingZhao it’s more than just a matter of not liking to talk.”

“You’re worrying too much. Wait until he has more contact with other people and gets a little older. He won’t have any problem finding someone who agrees with him.” In Gu ChongYan’s opinion, when his younger brother went into business, he developed a bad habit of worrying too much. NingZhao was so smart and gifted with numbers. In the future he was certain to become a genius in the business world. His younger brother didn’t have anything to be concerned about.

Gu ChongZhi smiled bitterly and could only fall silent.

Qian Bin and several other students crowded around Shen Shao. “Shen Shao, we’re giving you an extra piece of beef for lunch today!” Qian Bin said in a joking tone. “Because you saved us from suffering.”

“Don’t exaggerate. You guys might not know, but when I was marching in front earlier I could hear how much force everyone was putting into their marching. It was great.” Shen Shao gave them a thumbs up. “The instructor had mercy on us because we all did well.”

“Hey, it’s also because you had the guts to ask the instructor to spare us. He even agreed to shorten our training tomorrow.” Qian Bin draped his arm across Shen Shao’s shoulders. “We’ll give you the fattiest piece of beef later.”

“Only one? How can that be enough? At least two.”

Yao BoXuan, who happened to be standing nearby, saw Shen Shao surrounded by the crowd, including some people from his own squad. They’d rather joke around with Shen Shao than spend time with him, their dorm mate. What exactly were they doing?

All the noise they were making just made him feel annoyed. But when he was about to walk away, he heard Shen Shao say his name.

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“Hey, Yao BoXuan contributed too. You’d better give him the fattiest piece of beef. I can’t eat it.” After saying this, Shen Shao dove through the crowd and tagged Yao BoXuan’s shoulder. “Lucky man, I’ll pass the honor over to you.”

The students were in high spirits and didn’t care who the object of the joke was. Some of the more excited ones reached out to pull Yao BoXuan over, saying, “Don’t listen to him. He has to eat the fatty bits this time!”

During training, everyone was taught to cherish their food, which meant the students weren’t allowed to have any leftovers. The chunks of fat that were left in the dishes after the meal gave everybody heartburn. They had to either grit their teeth and eat it or let it “accidentally” fall into a corner when the instructor wasn’t looking.

Yao BoXuan was startled for a moment, and then he smiled. “No way, Shen Shao looks a little thin. He needs to eat more meat.”

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“Alas, what happened to the trust we shared?” Shen Shao pretended to be mournful and heaved a sigh. “My heart aches inside.”

This inspired a new round of jokes from the other students.

Yao BoXuan looked at the classmates who were teasing him and tried to say something cold to end the conversation. Ultimately it was all in vain, and the students continued their good-natured ribbing.

Despite the crowd of people dressed in identical uniforms and hats, Gu NingZhao quickly identified Shen Shao. He saw Shen Shao surrounded by classmates, some of whom were leaning against him or had their arms around his shoulder, laughing happily. Gu NingZhao’s pace, which was originally steady and measured, turned into a sprint.

“Shen Shao!”

Shen Shao looked back curiously. Gu NingZhao stood not far away, wearing a white dress shirt and jeans. The duckbill hat on his head was wet from the rain, not to mention the pair of white sneakers stained with mud. Compared to a heap of people in camouflage, Gu NingZhao was particularly conspicuous.

The others were equally surprised by Gu NingZhao’s arrival. After seeing nothing but camouflage uniforms for a long time, they now laid eyes on a young man dressed in civilian clothes. It was impossible not to be curious.

Some of the girls in the formation next to theirs began to squeal and call out. Under those circumstances, a young man who was very good-looking suddenly became extremely good-looking.

After confirming that Shen Shao had seen him, Gu NingZhao quickly walked over. He didn’t so much as glance at the other students. “You looked incredible just now,” he said directly.

Just now? Shen Shao lifted his eyebrows in confusion. 

“When you were marching,” Gu NingZhao added. “I was sitting on the review platform. I recognized you immediately.”

Hearing this, the other students looked at each other in disbelief. What kind of elite young master had the ability to get himself invited to a military base to watch a parade from the review platform?

Someone recognized him and said with surprise, “Isn’t that Gu NingZhao? How does he know Shen Shao?”

One pebble stirred up a thousand waves. After more than ten days of training together, everyone knew that Shen Shao was from Guo City. How could he possibly have met Gu NingZhao, whose family lived in the capital?

Maybe Shen Shao was the son of a low-key aristocratic family but he took care not to show it? If you thought about it, Shen Shao’s usual conduct was impeccable, and he was well-informed on a variety of subjects. He didn’t act like someone from an uncultured family. The more they thought about it, the more they felt that Shen Shao really did seem like a child from the upper-crust. Otherwise how could he make friends with someone like Gu NingZhao?

Shen Shao didn’t know what was going through their minds. He walked over to the side with Gu NingZhao. “The rain keeps getting worse. We’re going back to the barracks soon. How did you end up here?”

“My family’s cooperating on a project with the school. I was invited to see the freshman training parade. I happened to see you, so I came over to say hello,” Gu NingZhao said with a stern face. “I’ll go back in a little while.”

Shen Shao glanced at the review stand in the distance. It was a long walk just to say hello, yet Gu NingZhao said with a straight face that he just happened to pass by. Shen Shao smiled. “Thanks for coming to see me. I’m returning to school the day after tomorrow. Will you be in the dorm by then?”

Gu NingZhao looked aside uneasily. “Probably.”

Shen Shao’s smile became more obvious. If he truly were seventeen years old, he might have taken Gu NingZhao’s words at face value. But after living a lifetime and being reborn, how could he not see that Gu NingZhao was the type who didn’t like to talk and wasn’t good at getting along with people? He put his hand on Gu NingZhao’s shoulder and said, “What a loyal friend. You came all this way to see your poor suffering roommate.”

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When Shen Shao took hold of his shoulder, Gu NingZhao’s face stiffened even more. He fished out a few wrapped chocolates and stuffed them into Shen Shao’s trouser pocket. “I heard that during military training you might not get enough to eat. Take these and don’t share them with the others.” After a furtive glance around he decided that the instructors hadn’t noticed what he’d done. Then he stepped back, forcing Shen Shao to let go of his shoulder. “I’m going back.”

Shen Shao watched Gu NingZhao slowly make his way through a group of students dressed in camouflage. He smiled helplessly and touched his trouser pocket. Maybe Gu NingZhao was afraid the instructor would see the candy and confiscate it, and that was why he secretively slipped it into his pocket?

After he returned to the dormitory, he put Gu NingZhao’s chocolates in his suitcase. Not because he was greedy, but because there wasn’t enough to share with everyone. It was better to put them aside and not eat them at all.

With that in mind, Shen Shao dug out a package of cookies he’d hidden away previously and handed them out to the others. Then he closed his suitcase with an easy mind.

“You went to find one of your classmates just now?” Gu ChongZhi looked at his son, who’d changed into a new set of clothes. He didn’t know what the boy was thinking. “If it’s a friend you have a good relationship with, you can invite him to the house. The whole family will be glad to welcome him.”

In recent years, because his son’s academics were so good, he didn’t go to school often, and they couldn’t force him. In all these years, they’d never seen him spend time with anyone his own age. At last he was willing to make friends with a classmate. It was something they were only too happy to see.

“It’s a roommate.” Gu NingZhao was in a good mood. When speaking to Gu ChongZhi, his voice was a bit cheerful. “He had the top exam score in his province and he practices calligraphy and piano.”

Gu ChongZhi rarely saw his son like this, so he encouraged him to say more. “He’s a good person, then?” 

“He’s good.” Gu NingZhao lowered his head and looked at his hands on his knees. “He’s always been good.”

Gu ChongZhi reached out and touched his son’s head. “We won’t interfere with your friendship. We trust your judgment.”

NingZhao was overly intelligent for his age, but it was his very intelligence that made him unwilling to communicate. He spoke to his family, but when he went outside, he avoided talking to others and almost never opened his mouth.

Sometimes they wished their son was just an ordinary boy. He didn’t need to win so many awards. As parents, all they wanted was for their son to live a happy life.

Gu NingZhao looked at Gu ChongZhi, and his eyes seemed to glow with undisguised brilliance. “You’ll like him too?”

Gu ChongZhi looked at his son’s face and touched his head again with a smile. “As long as there’s no problem with his character, we’ll like him just as you do.”

Gu NingZhao nodded thoughtfully and lowered his head. After a long time, he added a few more words.

“There aren’t any problems with his character. You’ll definitely like him.”

 

TL Notes:

For Chinese drill commands I used the U.S. military equivalent (Army TC 3-21.5)

 

This is kind of a fun coincidence, but when I was in basic training my best friend secretly gave me chocolates too. And she stood there and made sure I ate them! It was a rare treat and a fun memory

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