Deep in the night, Jiang Chen's mind was completely filled with the image of Xia Xiaoyue lying on the sofa the day before, to the extent that the next morning Jiang Chen hurriedly changed his underwear.
Early in the morning, Jiang Chen checked the time and realized there was no way he had time for breakfast, especially since he still had to walk to the parade ground. If he was late, he could forget about sitting down to rest for the entire morning.
He glanced into the living room, but Xia Xiaoyue was nowhere to be seen—perhaps she hadn't woken up yet, or perhaps she had already left. Just as he was about to head out, he heard the door of the master bedroom open.
He saw that Xia Xiaoyue was dressed in casual wear with a high ponytail, radiating youthful energy, though her face remained as icy as ever.
Jiang Chen smiled and greeted Xia Xiaoyue, "Morning, Teacher."
Xia Xiaoyue looked at Jiang Chen, and remembering the events of the previous night, her cheeks flushed slightly, making her voice tremble a little. "Morning. Hurry up and get to military training."
Jiang Chen didn't notice anything unusual. He grabbed his water bottle and headed toward the parade ground, sending a message to his roommate to ask him to bring along a steamed bun before leaving.
Meanwhile, seeing that Jiang Chen had already left, Xia Xiaoyue turned and walked into the bathroom. Catching sight of her own slightly flushed cheeks in the mirror, she hurriedly splashed some water on her face.
After washing up, she headed to the military training grounds. As for why she didn't grab breakfast first, there were two reasons: first, she didn't know how to cook—otherwise, her home wouldn't have been full of takeout boxes in the trash; and second, she simply didn't have the habit of eating breakfast.
When Jiang Chen arrived at the parade ground, he saw that the time was still okay, but it had been an exhausting run all the way there, leaving him zero time for breakfast.
He secretly resolved that once military training was over, come hell or high water, he was going to buy an electric scooter.
The military training began. Today's intensity was directly doubled compared to previous days. After a brief session of standing at attention, they immediately started practicing goose-stepping—and this goose-stepping required them to kick their leg up and hold it frozen in place.
Under such conditions, probably very few people could manage to stay completely still.
Jiang Chen's legs trembled slightly, swaying like branches in the wind, making it hard to maintain his balance.
He secretly congratulated himself on being in the back row, where he could slightly wiggle his leg muscles to relieve the tension and fatigue. However, compared to him, the girls in the front row weren't nearly so lucky.
Those girls clearly could no longer bear the pressure of holding a standing posture for so long, and one by one they couldn't help lowering their tightly tensed legs. Their bodies swayed unsteadily, looking as though they might collapse to the ground at any second.
Noticing the situation in the front ranks, the instructor frowned slightly and finally gave the order for everyone to rest in place. Hearing this news, the crowd felt as if they had received a grand pardon, letting out collective sighs of relief.
But it wasn't long before Jiang Chen and his fellow classmates discovered, to their astonishment, that the instructor practiced glaring double standards when it came to male and female students.
After the brief rest ended, training resumed. It was still goose-stepping, and the rule requiring everyone to keep their legs up without casually putting them down remained in effect.
Yet this time, the instructor broke convention by walking over to the boys' side and staring intently at the back row.
As time dragged on, the boys gradually began to feel out of their depth, their legs uncontrollably starting to tremble. Just then, the cunning instructor turned his head away as if casually, while actually keeping a secret watch on the boys' actions.
When a few boys tried to seize the moment to quietly lower their legs, the instructor whipped his head back, his gaze shooting like lightning straight into the middle of the group.
"You in the middle!" the instructor bellowed. "Who gave you permission to put your leg down? Stand straight!" The called-out student turned pale with fright, hastily snapping back into a straight posture and never daring to slack off even a fraction again.
Internally, the students were cursing up a storm: *Seriously, buddy? You weren't like this just now! You're saving all your best tricks for us, aren't you?*
Complaints aside, not a soul dared to defy the instructor's orders.
Time flew by. By the end of the morning military training, Jiang Chen felt utterly exhausted, as if his body had been completely hollowed out. Even moving his feet felt extraordinarily difficult.
Mind you, throughout the entire long summer vacation, he had spent practically every day lounging on the comfortable sofa or bed at home. Such a prolonged lack of exercise and physical activity had caused his physical stamina to fall severely behind the rhythm of military training.
"Sigh, looks like I really need to carve out some time to properly train my stamina," Jiang Chen thought to himself, wiping giant beads of sweat from his forehead.
He had heard all about how brutal college physical fitness tests were: middle school students were at their physical peak, high school students were at their mental peak, and college students devolved into peak chowhounds.
Therefore, physical testing in college remained quite a challenge for most people, especially pull-ups—he had seen short-form video platforms showing people expending nine-tenths of their life's effort just to barely manage a single one.
Having finally dragged himself through to noon, Jiang Chen dragged his heavy steps and slowly headed back to the dorms with his roommates.
Along the way, everyone kept quiet, evidently tortured quite severely by the high-intensity military training.
Fortunately, when they arrived at the cafeteria to eat, they found that the traffic here today was much lower than usual.
Perhaps, just as Jiang Chen had guessed, due to the sudden spike in training intensity today, the vast majority of students had chosen to return early to their dorms to rest.
After the noon break came the afternoon session. It was the same old routine of three standard items: standing at attention, making left, right, and about-faces, and goose-stepping. Compared to the morning, everyone was already getting slightly accustomed to it.
During a break, Wang Congle, Ding Junfei, and Ye Nian pulled Jiang Chen over, the four of them gathering off to the side of the lawn. The other three looked exceptionally mysterious.
Ye Nian whispered, "Brother Jiang, be straight with the brothers—do you know the counselor?"
Jiang Chen was completely baffled. Know the counselor? He had only gotten to know her after starting university, just like the other three.
At most, he had an extra layer of being her roommate, but they weren't all that close either.
Jiang Chen shook his head. "I don't know her. Why?"
Ding Junfei chimed in, "If you don't know her, why does she keep staring at you? Did you do something wrong?"
The other two nodded in agreement. Hearing this, Jiang Chen was somewhat shocked. The counselor staring at him—was that even rational?
"You guys must be seeing things. Why would she stare at me?" Jiang Chen said.
Hearing Jiang Chen's words, the other three figured it made sense; maybe they really had mistaken it.
Giving the matter no further thought, the four of them returned to military training.
Only Xia Xiaoyue knew the truth: she really had been staring at Jiang Chen. Every time her gaze happened to land on him, she would simply be reminded of the previous night's events.
And then her gaze would involuntarily linger there—that was all. As for this boy she was cohabiting with, she found him rather cute.
Oh, and thoughtful, too. At least, that was her current impression of him.