Yan Xun walked to the first row. As he stowed his luggage in the overhead rack, he addressed the class monitor, who was staring at him blankly. “Hey, classmate, mind moving over?”
The monitor snapped out of his daze and stood up immediately. “S-Senior, please take my seat. I’ll move to the back.”
The back rows erupted in a flurry of whispers and speculation.
“Why is Senior Yan here?”
“I don’t know. Is he going to be a teaching assistant? That would be a nightmare.”
“I heard Senior Yan is a notorious sadist… I mean, strict. We’re so screwed.”
Yan Xun flopped down into the seat next to Fu Siheng, stretched his long legs out, and let out a sigh of relief. “Good thing I made it. The principal took forever to sign that approval letter. I thought I was going to miss the bus.”
Fu Siheng remained silent for a long moment. Only after the bus started moving did he finally ask, “What are you doing here?”
Yan Xun shot him a sideways glance. “I’m here to help you manage your troops, of course. You don’t know the Northwest Campus at all. How could you survive without me?”
He certainly wasn’t going to admit that he’d been pestering Qi Kun for two days straight, eventually refusing to leave his office until he got the approval letter.
“Are you familiar with it?” Fu Siheng asked casually.
“I…” Yan Xun couldn’t bring himself to say that he used to go there often with his father when he was little. Instead, he lied, “I’ve studied the map. I know it better than you do.”
As he spoke, a memory seemed to surface, and his face turned a sickly shade of green.
Fu Siheng looked at him in confusion. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Yan Xun replied, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead at the thought of his childhood experiences.
Warner’s northwest region was surrounded by mountains, preserving the most pristine forest vegetation. September and October were the rainy season. The Imperial News Platform announced on the bus that a yellow heavy rain warning would be issued starting today.
The students didn’t cheer at the news. Intensive training was different from their regular drills. Normally, bad weather would mean training was postponed; but for intensive training, the worse the weather, the more they were expected to train through the storm.
Groans of despair filled the bus. Once they entered the mountainous area, the broadcast began to cut in and out. They were too far from the signal tower on the mountain peak for a stable connection.
After several hours of a bumpy ride, the bus began to wind along the mountain road, taking eighteen sharp turns. Many students started feeling carsick, clutching their barf bags tightly.
Fu Siheng went around handing out motion sickness patches. Seeing Yan Xun’s pale face, he asked if he wanted one. Yan Xun waved his hand, signaling he was fine.
By the time they arrived at the base, dusk had fallen, and the rain had temporarily ceased.
On the bus, Fu Siheng had confiscated everyone’s communicators, handing them over to the trainer who had accompanied them on this trip.
Yan Xun had slept for a while. After getting off the bus, he felt a numb tingling in his legs. The front seats were too narrow, and with his long legs, he had been curled up the whole time. Now, he was grimacing as he rubbed his legs.
Fu Siheng stepped onto the damp earth. The surrounding area was densely wooded, and the air was a mixture of various fresh leaf scents.
As everyone gradually unloaded their luggage, the sight of the training ground, completely filled with equipment, and the tiled-roof houses made their nervousness truly surge.
Only after entering the house did they discover it was a large dormitory with communal bunks. On the right side was a room for the instructor, slightly elevated and separated by a door, yet still extremely rudimentary.
The old building had been neglected for years. The walls were mottled and stained with suspicious watermarks. An electric fan hung precariously from the wall, covered in cobwebs.
Someone tried to touch the plug, but a burst of sparks and a flash of lightning scared them into quickly letting go.
Luo Shu went to the sink to wash a rag. He twisted the faucet a couple of times, and the rusted-through tap fell right off.
“Instructor!” he wailed. “There’s no water! What are we going to do tonight?”
Fu Siheng, who was sweeping the inner room, replied calmly, “Go fetch water from the river. You and Shi Hongjun go together and fill the outdoor vat.”
Zhao Zhifan, who seemed to be adapting to the environment better than the rest, volunteered, “Instructor, I’ll go too.”
Perhaps Gu Chongyang had said something to him, because his arrogance had clearly deflated. Fu Siheng nodded, letting the three of them go fetch water while the others continued cleaning and moving things.
Yan Xun was helping him brush dust off the walls with a feather duster, his expression bordering on despair. “Are you really going to live here?”
“What else?” Fu Siheng asked, genuinely puzzled.
During his time in the Marine Corps, he’d gone on emergency marches where they didn’t even have proper shelter, just whatever makeshift tents they could pitch by the roadside. He had long since grown accustomed to harsh conditions.
Yan Xun made a last-ditch effort. “Can I live with you, then?”
Fu Siheng looked up at him, but Yan Xun’s expression was deadly serious, not the look of someone making a flirtatious joke.
“Do you have a germ phobia?” Fu Siheng thought for a moment. This had to be the only reason Yan Xun would refuse to sleep on the communal bunk beds.
Yan Xun pursed his lips. “No.”
“Then you’re sleeping outside.” Fu Siheng wasn’t used to sharing a bed with anyone. Seeing that Yan Xun had no compelling reason to stay, he refused bluntly.
Yan Xun’s face immediately fell, but Fu Siheng ignored him and continued cleaning the room. Yan Xun had no choice but to swallow the words he was about to say.
As evening fell, they hastily tidied up, ate some military rations, and blew the whistle to signal lights out.
The air was thick with the scent of dust and wild grass. Sparse raindrops pattered on the roof tiles and window frames. Cicadas buzzed incessantly in the trees, and frogs croaked wildly.
The animals in the mountains were far noisier than those in the city. Long undisturbed by humans, they played their nighttime symphony, utterly indifferent to the presence of the rest of the group.
After the rain stopped, the moon quietly climbed to the window, spilling silvery-white light onto the brick tiles. The distant sound of a gurgling stream drifted in.
Gradually, the room filled with the rising and falling sounds of snoring.
Yan Xun pulled the blanket over his head, trying to force himself to fall asleep.
The snoring in his ears, the chaotic state of the beds, the space thick with sweat and pheromones, none of this bothered him.
What he dreaded most was
A rustling sound echoed from the corner of the room. A mouse was gnawing, crunch, crunch. The creature, long starved, had finally found some dry food and emerged under the cover of night to steal a meal.
It’s okay, it’s okay, Yan Xun repeated to himself. It won’t eat me.
A mosquito buzzed incessantly in his ear. Drenched in sweat, he reached out from under the blanket for the bottle of floral-scented insect repellent beside him.
Suddenly, his fingertips brushed against a smooth, damp shell.
The creature shrank at his touch, then scurried up his arm.
Yan Xun lifted his hand, and in the moonlight streaming in, he saw a large, black cockroach perched on the back of his hand.
He exploded. Goosebumps erupted all over his body as he screamed and bolted upright, flailing his arm as if he’d been struck by lightning.
The cockroach was flung away, but Yan Xun’s heart was still pounding with disgust. He jumped off the bed, frantically shaking his arm.
A few people woke up from the commotion, grumbling as they rolled over.
Yan Xun immediately clamped a hand over his mouth, only to feel a sharp pain on the sole of his foot.
He had forgotten to put on shoes. Lifting his foot, he saw a cluster of spiders beneath him.
He pressed his hand firmly over his mouth, letting out a muffled whimper, on the verge of tears. After freezing in place for two seconds, he couldn’t take it anymore. He shoved his feet into his slippers, grabbed his pillow with two fingers, tucked it under his arm, and headed straight for Fu Siheng’s room.
If he could turn back time, he would never have impulsively followed Fu Siheng to this godforsaken place.
When he had visited his father, Yan Zhen’an, as a child, the buildings at the base weren’t this dilapidated. The Northwest region was more humid than the city, making it a breeding ground for cockroaches and spiders. The first time he had crushed a female cockroach with the sole of his shoe, a swarm of tiny nymphs had poured out. The sight of them, a dense, writhing mass, had triggered an immediate case of trypophobia. He hadn’t been able to eat a single bite of food that entire day.
This incident became a childhood trauma for Yan Xun. From then on, the mere sight of those insects would trigger a conditioned reflex, making him nauseous.
He sniffled, hugged his pillow, and went to knock on Fu Siheng’s door.
The instructors’ quarters were more airtight and drier than the outside, at least free from cockroaches and spiders.
Fu Siheng was lying on a straw mat, asleep in a light slumber.
In his half-conscious state, he heard someone knocking on the door, thump, thump, thump. The sound wasn’t loud, but it carried a desperate plea for help.
Thinking something had happened, he sprang from the bed and crossed the room in a few strides to open the door.
Yan Xun stood at the entrance. The light was too dim to see his expression clearly.
In a very low voice, he asked, “Instructor Fu, can I sleep with you?”