On the last day of military training, in the morning the school’s exercise performance is held, with each school sending a team to compete. In the afternoon, it was the competition of the various teams in the academy organized by each academy itself. At this time, the long-anticipated typhoon finally showed signs of actually coming.
The mountain rain was about to come and the wind blew all over the building. Throughout the morning, the sky was gloomy. The strong wind blew up, causing the students watching the game on the field to exclaim, “Ah, my hat flew…” In the end, the instructor had no choice but to let all the students take off their hats, and put them aside neatly.
Lin Xian followed her classmates, took off her hat and placed it squarely on her legs, drank a few gulps of water, and wondered in her mind: if it rains in the afternoon, will the exercise still happen? It’s been two weeks of hard work, and we’re all sluggishly trying to get a good ranking in this last afternoon’s exercise, so it would be too frustrating if it’s cancelled.
This worry continued until the afternoon exercise started. Fortunately, the sky was overcast, but it didn’t rain. Everything went according to the original plan, and Lin Xian was relieved.
The order of appearance for the meeting exercise was determined by the lottery of the various instructors, and probably because of bad luck, Lin Xian’s row, was drawn last. When they heard the announcement, the whole row blew up with grief. In everyone’s impression, the first appearance and the last appearance are nothing good.
Shi Man was one of the walk-ins of the third class, who had been on Lin Xian’s left when standing in the queue, and had been closest to Lin Xian over the days. Until the first class performance was about to start, she still thought about it but couldn’t help but groan with Lin Xian, “I guess that the first place in our class is out of the question, and as the last one to appear, the judges will all be aesthetically tired.”
Although Lin Xian was a little disappointed with the order of the appearances, she quickly came to terms with it. Since the results couldn’t be changed anymore, complaining and worrying wouldn’t change anything, so she might as well be optimistic. She sat on the stands and looked at the first team that was forming on the field, raised the corner of her lips and comforted Shi Man, “It’s called a finale. We won’t necessarily be the brightest of the bunch by then, but the judges will just give us the highest score in the show.”
Shi Man glanced at her sideways, then suddenly narrowed her eyes and curled the corners of her lips to tease her, “You would think. Tsk tsk, if you look at the beauty of your face, I believe you can dominate the crowd and get the highest score.”
Lin Xian raised her eyebrows, amused, “You think highly of me, I think you can handle it instead.” Lin Xian knew that she wasn’t bad looking, but it was also true that Shi Man was very pretty. Her complexion was fair, her features were delicate, and she had a pair of peach blossom eyes with a smile that was three points beautiful, a different kind of beauty from hers.
Shi Man raised her eyebrows with a bit of playfulness and ambiguity in her eyes. She approached Lin Xian and said in a low voice, “What I said is the truth. If you don’t believe me, lean forward a bit and turn your head to the right ninety degrees”
Upon hearing this, Lin Xian leaned forward a little bit in confusion, turned her head to the right, and at a glance, her eyes clashed with a few boys in the boys’ side of the bleachers next to them who were looking straight at her. In the next second, she withdrew her eyes and when she returned she calmly said, “There’s nothing.” In her heart, she scolded those boys a few words, wretched!
Shi Man laughed and poked her, “You just pretend.”
Lin Xian cleared her throat, and in the meantime, she said, “The exercise has started, let’s watch it carefully.”
She didn’t know how other girls felt when they knew someone liked them, would they be secretly happy or would they be proud? Lin Xian only felt full of irritation. But she knew that she couldn’t say that to anyone else, and if she did, they might think it was a different kind of showing off. So, she could only pretend that she didn’t know and didn’t care.
Lin Xian thought that there was probably something wrong with her. She didn’t like it and people she didn’t like liked her, which would make her feel bothered and burdened. Emotionally, she prefers to be a proactive person rather than a passive person who is forced to accept.
It was finally Lin Xian and the others’ turn to go down to the bleachers to prepare for the exercise, but the sky suddenly began to drizzle with a light rain. The bleachers were not open air, so the audience was unhindered, but the field was not sheltered.
The performance of the penultimate class was coming to an end, and the always serious but gentle instructor looked at the sky and at the rain-soaked students, encouraging, “Hold on for a few more minutes, I believe we can finish before the next big one.”
However, the sky was not cooperating. When the third row of the sixth battalion and the third row of the financial group entered the field, the rain suddenly increased, and the third row was hit without mercy. For a while, everyone was a little confused.
The supervisors above probably also hesitated, and did not instruct them for a while.
The instructor hesitated for a moment, before suddenly blowing his whistle, and the students immediately stood at attention in line. The instructor scanned the youthful faces of the students in the 3rd platoon of the 6th Battalion through the cloudy drizzle of rain and steadfastly roared loudly, “Can you persist?!”
The students were stunned for a second, and in the next, in unison, they answered aloud, “Can persist!”
The instructor wasn’t satisfied and bellowed the question once more, “Tell me, can you persist?!”
This time, the students unleashed their voices, bold and exuberant, saying, “Can persist!”
The instructor was satisfied, “Well, then, show us what you can do.” He blew his whistle viciously, “Attention, look to the right!”
The students reacted and tacitly as they always do, not at all disrupted by the sudden downpour.
Lin Xian was almost completely drenched, and the tied up ponytail was dripping wet, and in the pouring rain, she was like a poor chicken in a soup. But she stared steadfastly ahead, following every instruction given by the instructor, and she actually felt unexpectedly high morale.
When the thunderous applause sounded on the field, everyone was touched by the perseverance of the 3rd platoon of the 6th battalion, but Lin Xian suddenly felt a little lonely again.
If only Xiao Yuqing had seen it too. She remembered the first day of military training, when Xiao Yuqing smiled and praised her for her handsomeness and took pictures of her. She believed that just now, all of her actions had been done to perfection, worthy of Xiao Yuqing’s raised eyebrows and praising her once again for her amazement.
It was a blessing in disguise, and they won the first place in the show in the pouring rain.
Translator: I need to confess something: I actually dread translating this novel. It takes me forever to translate it. And this is only half! Omg, hopefully I can get the other half done tomorrow morning.
Mhmhmh hates attention from boys but want her aunt to look at and praise her eh?