Chasing Summer – Chapter 9 Part 1
Before parting with Chi Yao, Lin Zhexia held the bag of snacks and thanked him again solemnly, “If you have anything you need in the future, just tell your lil bro here and I will go through fire and water to get it as long as it is not illegal.”
Chi Yao lowered his eyes and said, “What else?”
Lin Zhexia held back her inner speechlessness and said, “And the short composition, I will write it. It’s just three hundred words, piece of cake. I’m even afraid that three hundred words aren’t enough to express your charm.”
After Chi Yao left, Lin Zhexia crept back to her dorm.
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She stood at the door and cleared her throat, “Comrades, I have returned. Look what I brought back.”
Chen Lin heard her voice and sat up from the upper bunk.
She poked her head and saw Lin Zhexia acting like a ghost. She was lighting herself up with the flashlight of her phone in one hand and holding up a bucket of instant noodles in the other hand, “…”
Lin Zhexia posed well and waited for a long time, but Chen Lin didn’t give her any reaction.
Without the joy she expected, Chen Lin calmly lay back down, “I’m dreaming.”
Tang Shuxuan was also woken up by their movements. After she opened his eyes, she reclosed them two seconds later, “It’s not easy. I finally fell asleep and even dreamed of instant noodles.”
Lin Zhexia, “…”
“This isn’t a dream,” Lin Zhexia pulled on Tang Shuxuan’s ear, “Get up— we have something to eat.”
Originally posted at nuebibli(dot)com, please do not read elsewhere.
A few minutes later.
Six of them surrounded the only desk in the dorm, and on it were several cups of instant noodles.
They ate biscuits as they breathed in the aroma that came from the instant noodles.
Chen Lin, “I’m alive again.”
Tang Shuxuan, “The best thing I have ever eaten in my entire life is the instant noodles of tonight.”
After that, she asked again, “Chi Yao gave them to you?”
Lin Zhexia ripped off a piece of milk bread and chewed it carefully, “Mn, he climbed over the wall to buy it.”
“I didn’t expect that he actually acts like a decent person sometimes,” Tang Shuxuan said, “I one-sidedly reconciled with Chi Yao.”
When the instant noodles were ready, Tang Shuxuan lifted the lid and said, “But he’s really good to you, he even went over the wall to buy things for you to eat, you two must be very close.”
“I guess so.”
Lin Zhexia hasn’t thought about this before.
The way she gets along with Chi Yao, whether it be quarrels or occasional “charity” Chi Yao dumps on her, it’s all very common.
Moreover, it’s not like it’s without cost.
The price is a 300-word English composition.
Soon, someone said, “After all, they’ve known each other for so many years, they’re pretty much like family, it’s normal.”
After they filled themselves, they cleared up the mess on the table, and only then did the night truly calm down.
The others had all fallen asleep, only Lin Zhexia, she hid inside her blanket and racked out her brains to write the composition.
She could still force herself to write the first fifty words, but she couldn’t help feeling sleepy afterward. Besides, her English vocabulary isn’t that well-stocked, so she opened Baidu Translation.
Translate: [You are too handsome, I have never seen such a handsome person before.]
Translate: [Your handsomeness is dazzling, glittering, and overbearing]
…
After barely gathering enough words, Lin Zhexia was ready to go to bed. However, before going to bed, she suddenly thought of the sentence “pretty much like family”.
She suddenly realized that, actually, she was closer to Chi Yao than her family.
There are things she can easily tell Chi Yao that she can’t tell Lin He.
There are things she can’t confide in her friends, yet somehow very suitable to confide in Chi Yao.
Including some unfounded emotions.
When she’s unhappy, she can curse Chi Yao.
When she’s happy, although Chi Yao will rain on her parade, she can still be happy together with him.
When Lin Zhexia thought of this, she found her conscience and added a “good night” with an old fashion gif emote at the end of her composition. It was a gif of a flower blooming, with the words “my friend” popping up in the center.
–
The five-day military training soon entered the countdown stage.
Lin Zhexia and her class were still practicing the march that they didn’t perfect yesterday. Boys and girls were divided into two teams, marching back and forth in a straight line.
During break time, the girls went under the trees’ shade to drink water.
Chen Lin glanced at the field and said, “How come our instructor left?”
Tang Shuxuan, “I’m not sure, the other classes’ instructors aren’t here either, it seems like they’re having a meeting.”
Lin Zhexia didn’t care much, “Maybe they’re organizing a new activity, wasn’t there an instructors’ performance on the last day?”
Chen Lin nodded, “There should be.”
Everyone thought it was probably the organization of a new event.
What they didn’t expect was that, before the afternoon training, they did not train separately as they did before, but were all called together.
Like on the first day of camp, all classes were once again led to the podium by their instructors.
The weather was so hot and even the wind seemed to be still.
Perhaps due to the weather being too stuffy, Lin Zhexia’s right eyelid couldn’t help but start twitching.
The chief instructor stood on the stage with a stern expression. He took the microphone, first glanced over the audience slowly, and then said, “Last night when the teacher on duty checked the surveillance camera, he found— someone went out by climbing over the wall.”
“At about 10:30 at night, wearing black and tall in height. I hope the fellow with good skills can step out by themselves. If you take the initiative to admit your mistake, we’ll make it easier. If it’s me who catches you instead, it won’t be so easy.”
The originally quiet audience instantly became noisy.
The military training base was under strict control, no one would have ever thought that it could be possible to climb over the wall.
And they would have never thought even more that someone really went out over the wall.
When Lin Zhexia heard this, her heart jumped along with the twitching of her eyelids.
Chen Lin asked in a low voice, “It can’t be Chi Yao, right?”
Lin Zhexia hoped that it wasn’t him.
However, except for him, it seemed that there was no other person who could match these characteristics.
“Since they didn’t immediately find out who it was, the surveillance camera probably wasn’t clear.” Lin Zhexia said quietly in a voice. “Besides, the surveillance camera wouldn’t have caught sight near the dormitory buildings, otherwise they would’ve been looking for two people instead of one. I would’ve been quite easy to lock onto, the pants I wore yesterday were very eye-catching.”
Lin Zhexia thought to herself that since the cams weren’t clear, maybe this thing would just pass like this.
However, after the chief instructor maintained the commotion below by saying “Quiet”, a familiar voice sounded from the crowd, “It’s me.”
The moment the boy stepped out of the line, everyone dreamed back to the first day of military training.
At that time, however, he was still the representative of new students. Now, he is the “wall climber”.
The chief instructor was also stunned, “You climbed over the wall for what?”
Chi Yao walked to the stage and said, “Take a breather.”
The chief instructor looked at him and said, “I really couldn’t tell, you’re quite skillful.”
“Just so-so,” Chi Yao said, “The wall isn’t very high.”
The representative of new students and the wall climber were actually the same person. This reality has impacted the chief instructor so much that he failed to show his original admonishing strength.
Chief instructor, “It’s forbidden to go out selfishly, do you not know this rule? Why must you go outside to take a breather? Pause your afternoon training and give me 20 laps around the field, and then write a reflection letter and give it to me in the evening. Alright, everyone disperse.”