A week later, the sprains suffered by Nangong Ye and Han Juyou had completely healed. Pretending to be sick to skip military training was obviously out of the question...
Liu Muye had originally wanted to keep faking illness to avoid appearing and messing up the original plot's trajectory—though absolutely not because he wanted to slack off in the dorm.
But then he remembered that the plot was already in shambles, and Han Juyou had entered the story ahead of schedule. What if Han Juyou developed a crush on Nangong Ye during military training and launched a romantic offensive against him before Shangguan Yurou could? That would be a complete disaster. So, he decided it was best to go along.
Keeping an eye on this vicious female supporting character himself would at least give him some peace of mind—though in truth, Liu Muye's worries were completely unnecessary.
"Morning!" Nangong Ye called out.
"Morning."
As soon as Liu Muye opened his bedroom door, he saw Nangong Ye standing in front of the full-length mirror in the living room, straightening his uniform. As expected of the male lead, even in a military training uniform, his aura was distinctly different from ordinary people.
Compared to him, a handsome novel author, he was still just a tiny bit inferior, of course.
After changing into their military training uniforms, the two of them headed to the assembly point together.
The roll call had not yet begun, and the students were gathered in small groups chatting away.
A week of military training had already helped these fresh university freshmen get acquainted. The girls who hit it off had already formed tight-knit little cliques, while the boys were all buddy-buddy together.
Having only done one day of military training, Liu Muye and Nangong Ye had skin tones different from everyone else there, not to mention their looks and height. Standing in the middle of the crowd, they gave off a striking sense of standing out like cranes among chickens, looking completely out of place.
Of course, they weren't the only ones. When the fair-skinned and beautiful Han Juyou and Shangguan Yurou arrived at the scene, the two of them also felt as if they existed on an entirely different layer of reality from the people around them—especially Han Juyou, who wasn't even wearing her military training uniform!
"Huh?!"
Liu Muye was taken aback, then walked straight up to Han Juyou and demanded, "Where is your military training uniform?"
Han Juyou avoided Liu Muye's gaze and asked, "Why... why do you care so much about me?"
"Who cares about you?" Liu Muye immediately denied. "I was just asking casually, I certainly don't care about you."
Hearing this, Han Juyou frowned and snapped back, "You're so weird! If you don't care about me, why are you asking? Mind your own business!"
Seeing that the two of them were about to get into a fight, Shangguan Yurou quickly stepped in to explain, "My military training uniform went missing, so Xiaoju lent hers to me."
Hearing Shangguan Yurou's words, Liu Muye immediately put the pieces together.
In the original plot, Shangguan Yurou's military training uniform had been blown by the wind down to the bottom of the dormitory building. Unable to find it in time, she went to military training in her own clothes, resulting in punishment from the instructor. Worried about her leg injury, Nangong Ye took the instructor's punishment in her place. After training ended, the male lead even accompanied the female lead to find her uniform by the dormitory building.
It was also at this moment that the male lead wildly racked up favorable impression points in the female lead's heart.
When he was writing it, Liu Muye had felt quite smug about the plot he designed, but now experiencing it firsthand, this storyline was simply riddled with absurd cliches.
How could a domineering CEO male lead stand by and watch the girl he liked get bullied by a petty instructor, and actually obediently take the punishment for her?
As expected, the thoughts of a writer and a reader are completely different.
Shangguan Yurou turned to Han Juyou and said, "Um, Xiaoju, why don't I give the uniform back to you? You'll get punished by the instructor if you aren't wearing one."
Han Juyou shook her head and said, "It's fine, my leg injury just healed, the instructor won't punish me. But you, you aren't injured so you'll definitely be punished if you don't wear the uniform."
Watching these two display such deep sisterly affection, Liu Muye was somewhat bewildered and thought to himself, "How did their relationship suddenly get so good?"
Yet he had no time to ponder it further. The top priority now was to quickly get Nangong Ye to retrieve the military training uniform that had fallen beneath the girls' dormitory building for Shangguan Yurou—since the plot had already collapsed, he might as well speed up the progress.
"It's fine, it was windy yesterday, the uniform probably got blown behind the dormitory building." Liu Muye interrupted their conversation and said to Shangguan Yurou, "I'll have Nangong Ye go find your uniform, then neither of you will get punished."
Han Juyou looked at Liu Muye with a mixture of surprise and suspicion as she asked, "How are you so sure it fell by the dorm—"
"Swoosh—"
Before Han Juyou could finish her sentence, the whistle for assembly blew.
Damn it, there was no time left.
Liu Muye glanced at the ranks that were almost fully formed and hesitated over whether to drag Nangong Ye to the girls' dormitory building right now to look for the uniform—Silia Academy was huge, and the sports field was quite far from the residential area. Making that trip back and forth would take at least twenty minutes.
While Liu Muye was hesitating, the instructor had already noticed Han Juyou, who was not wearing her military training uniform.
The instructor walked right up to Han Juyou and demanded, "Where is your military training uniform?"
Han Juyou immediately used the excuse she had prepared in advance: "My uniform got lost, I'm going to the logistics department at noon to pick up a replacement set. I just recovered from a sprained ankle, Instructor, can you please make an exception and let me—"
"You take a week of sick leave and even manage to lose your military training uniform? Why didn't you lose yourself along with it!" The instructor seemed rather angry, pointing at Han Juyou as he scolded her, "Don't think I'll go easy on you just because you use a foot injury as an excuse. One hundred frog leaps, right now, immediately!"
"..."
Han Juyou stood in place, staring unblinkingly at the instructor, clearly dissatisfied with his punishment.
Shangguan Yurou hurried forward to explain, "Instructor, I'm sorry, actually my military training uniform got lost so classmate Han Juyou lent me hers. If you want to punish someone, punish me instead. Her foot really hasn't fully healed yet, she can't do frog leaps."
"Well, well, well," the instructor said, clapping his hands. "Wonderful, what a touching display of sisterly affection. Then the two of you can do them together, one hundred frog leaps each."
Seeing Shangguan Yurou being picked on, Nangong Ye immediately stepped forward and said, "It's just university military training, there's no need to be this harsh."
The instructor raised his head to look at Nangong Ye and asked, "What, you want to stand up for them too?"
Nangong Ye pointed straight at the instructor, his face cold as he said, "How dare you speak to me like that? Do you know who I am? I am Nangong—Mm-mm..."
Before Nangong Ye could finish speaking, Liu Muye rushed over and clapped a hand over his mouth.
"Stop talking, I'll handle this."
With that, Liu Muye walked over to the fuming instructor.
If he remembered correctly, in the book, to make the female lead's punishment more reasonable, he had deliberately added a detail where the instructor had just broken up with his long-distance girlfriend that very day and was in a foul mood.
Failing to wear a military training uniform wasn't really a huge deal anyway; it only took getting the instructor's temper to subside.
Liu Muye walked up to the instructor and said with a smile, "Instructor remembers me, right?"
Seeing Liu Muye, more than half of the anger in the instructor's belly instantly vanished—Liu Muye was the personal son of the school's chairman, someone who truly could not be offended.
"Let's step aside for a word." Liu Muye pulled the instructor off to the side.
"These three are all my friends, please cut them some slack..."
As he spoke, Liu Muye slipped a few bills into the instructor's pocket.
Feeling the bills in his pocket, the instructor's temper evaporated completely—he could always find another girlfriend if he lost this one, but if he lost money, he wouldn't even be able to find a girlfriend at all. Why should he stay angry at Liu Muye, this god of wealth?
His expression instantly shifted into a flattering smile as he said, "Ah, Young Master Liu's friends? Of course we can make an exception! But if the head instructor sees that she isn't wearing her uniform..."
"Don't worry, I have my own ways."
Liu Muye flashed a calm and confident smile as he walked over to Han Juyou.
Han Juyou lifted her head, her pair of pretty, fox-like eyes studying him with undisguised curiosity.
Liu Muye took off his own cap and gently placed it on Han Juyou's head, saying, "It's fine now."
...