The school infirmary.
The nurse made her diagnosis quickly, and it matched Xu Ye’s guess almost exactly: heatstroke, anemia, and low blood sugar, all at once. That’s what had knocked Li Tongwen out.
He’d always been thin and underfed to begin with, and after walking that far under a blazing sun, his body had simply given out.
“Nothing serious. Let him rest a while, he should be coming around soon.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
Xu Ye pressed further. “Can he still do training this afternoon?”
“Better not to,” the nurse said. “I’ll write you a note. Give it to your instructor — he’s excused from this afternoon’s session.”
“Really appreciate it.”
The nurse handed Xu Ye the note. Zhang Xinzhou leaned in. “So what do we do now?”
“You go to the cafeteria and grab Li Tongwen some lunch,” Xu Ye said. “Yang Fei, stay here and keep an eye on him. I’ll take this note to the instructor.”
“Got it!”
By then, the rest of the marchers had made it back to school, and Cheng Yong was in the middle of wrapping up. Xu Ye waited for him to finish, then stepped forward with the note and said quietly, “Li Tongwen’s in pretty bad shape, sir. The doctor doesn’t recommend he train this afternoon — here’s the note.”
Cheng Yong took it, glanced it over, and nodded. “Fine. Good call on this. Going forward, though—”
He cut himself off and laughed. “Guess there’s no ‘going forward’ left. Training’s over tomorrow anyway.”
Something about that thought seemed to flip a switch in him. He clapped Xu Ye on the shoulder. “You’ve handled yourself well this whole stretch. The head instructor already heard about you carrying your classmate back to the infirmary this morning. Might even get a mention tomorrow at the closing ceremony.”
“I just did what needed doing.”
“This kid…” Cheng Yong shook his head, half-laughing, and waved him off. “Get out of here. Don’t be late this afternoon.”
“You got it.”
Xu Ye ran back to the infirmary. By then, Li Tongwen had come around. Once Zhang Xinzhou and Yang Fei told him it was Xu Ye who’d carried him the whole way back, he felt a wave of gratitude — but the words wouldn’t quite come out.
Xu Ye walked up, grinning. “All right, I know what you’re trying to say. No need. We’re roommates. I already gave the instructor the note, so once you’re done with the IV, you head back to the dorm and rest this afternoon. Zhang Xinzhou got you lunch — eat up.”
“Let me send you the money for it.”
Li Tongwen reached for his phone, but Zhang Xinzhou stopped him quickly. “Just eat. It’s like ten bucks, don’t bother. My treat.”
In the end, Li Tongwen managed to get the actual word “thanks” out.
“All right, we’ll leave you to it — we’re starving too.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s go eat.”
…
Tomorrow’s closing ceremony would showcase everything they’d learned, so the rest of the afternoon was spent running back through every drill from the past two weeks, one by one.
Worth noting: Cheng Yong, who’d been nothing but strict the whole time, was suddenly easygoing that afternoon. During the break, he even went out of his way to find them a shady spot to rest.
Half a month wasn’t exactly long, and it wasn’t exactly short either — but without those two weeks, the class never would have gotten this close this fast. Whatever else happened, military training was the kind of thing that was going to stick in everyone’s memory for a long time.
The next morning, the mood was noticeably lighter. Once the closing ceremony wrapped up, training would officially be over, and the thought of finally getting to enjoy real college freedom had everyone in unusually high spirits.
The formations assembled on the field in neat blocks. Once the school leadership and the head instructor had taken their seats on the dais, the ceremony got underway.
Left face, right face, march in step, goose-step…
Financial Economics Class 1 ran through every drill without a hitch. Once the other companies had finished their turns, the ceremony moved into the long stretch everyone dreaded most — the speeches.
Every single one sounded like it had been copied straight off Baidu [TL: Baidu, China’s dominant search engine — the rough equivalent of Google], recycling the same two or three lines no matter who was talking.
Xu Ye’s mind drifted entirely, already running through tomorrow’s plans to see Chen Qingqing.
It was eleven-twenty by the time the school president finally wrapped up his remarks.
“…I hope all of you will take this as a starting point — continue building on the spirit of collectivism, support each other in your studies, look out for each other in daily life, treasure your time in college, and carry forward the spirit of our school motto in your pursuit of knowledge.”
“Now, will the students recognized as Outstanding Instructor and Outstanding Trainee please come up to receive their awards.”
“Outstanding Instructor goes to: Li Dezhao, Xing Wenhao, Jiang Long, Cheng Yong…”
“Outstanding Trainee goes to: Wang Jiaqi of Company 1401, Ouyang Qing of Company 1403, and Xu Ye of Company 1406…”
Yang Fei whipped his head around the second he heard the name. “Holy crap, you won something?!”
Xu Ye was just as surprised.
The other students, seeing him just standing there, started prodding him along. “Xu Ye, what are you waiting for, get up there!”
That finally got him moving toward the dais.
Handshake, award, photo.
By the time Xu Ye stumbled back down off the stage, the school president was already calling out, “I now declare the closing ceremony for the Fall 2014 military training session of Shanghai University of Finance officially concluded!”
The instant the words left his mouth, the field erupted in screaming. Camo caps went flying into the air and rained back down. Amid the cheering and excitement, a class of freshmen who’d spent two grueling weeks earning this moment finally got to exhale.
Zhang Xinzhou whooped. “Damn, we finally made it. I’m sleeping the whole afternoon, and tonight I’m treating everyone to a real meal.”
“Long live the boss!”
“Xu Ye, what are you thinking about?”
“Nothing much,” Xu Ye said, smiling. “You guys go ahead to the cafeteria. I need to call my friend — we made plans to go out tomorrow.”
That got Zhang Xinzhou moving fast. “I should call my buddy too, actually. She’s not far from campus — if nobody minds, I’ll have her join us for dinner tonight.”
“Why would anyone mind? You’re the one paying.”
And with that, the two of them peeled off in opposite directions — one to call his “good buddy,” the other to call his “good friend.”
Yang Fei rolled his eyes and threw an arm around Li Tongwen’s shoulders. “Li Tongwen, don’t be jealous of those two. Spending money on a girlfriend’s nothing special. The real flex is getting your girlfriend to spend money on you.”
Li Tongwen blinked, utterly lost. “I’m not jealous. I don’t even want a girlfriend.”
“You… you’re something else.”
Xu Ye stepped away and called Chen Qingqing.
She’d just sat down in her cafeteria to eat when she saw the call come in — and hung up on him immediately, following it with a text instead: I’m in the cafeteria, it’s loud here. I’ll call you back later.
Xu Ye typed back: Just wanted to let you know training’s over. I’m coming to your school tomorrow morning.
Chen Qingqing: Okay.
Chen Qingqing: I’ll wait for you.
(End of Chapter)