In the blink of an eye, it was time for the medical university to begin its new semester.
Over the past few days, Ji Jing had taken time out of his schedule to purchase a small villa near Zhou Yu’s university. He had also spent considerable effort carefully furnishing and decorating it.
On the evening before school started, Ji Jing prepared to drive Zhou Yu to the villa near the university.
Lu Cheng had originally wanted to go along with Zhou Yu and Ji Jing, but just before they left, he suddenly remembered that he should create opportunities for his parents to spend time alone together.
As a result, he chose not to go.
The car moved quickly along the relatively empty streets.
It took Zhou Yu and Ji Jing nearly forty minutes to reach the villa near the medical university.
It was Zhou Yu’s first time visiting the place, but she could tell at a glance that every furnishing and decoration inside had been carefully selected and arranged.
“I had people tidy the place up a bit. All the furniture has been replaced with brand-new pieces. Take a look around. If there’s anything you don’t like, I’ll have someone come and change it,” Ji Jing said.
Zhou Yu smiled faintly and did not make things difficult for him.
“Everything looks great. You’ve put a lot of thought into it.”
In truth, her attention was nowhere near the villa.
Her thoughts had long since drifted elsewhere.
All she could think about was that school would begin tomorrow and how she should go about searching for traces of her parents.
After all, Zhou Yu’s memories of them had become very distant.
The only things she still remembered were their names and the fact that they had once studied at this medical university.
She had no idea which year they had enrolled, nor which class they had belonged to.
Noticing that Zhou Yu had drifted off into thought, Ji Jing felt puzzled.
Over the past few days, he had noticed that she often became absent-minded, though he had no idea what occupied her thoughts.
Still, he did not interrupt her.
He simply stood quietly to one side and waited for her to come back to herself.
Zhou Yu remained standing there lost in thought for several minutes before finally snapping out of it.
Only then did she realize that Ji Jing was still standing nearby and had not left.
She quickly said, “It’s getting late. You should head back now. Drive carefully.”
“All right. I’ll bring the child over every weekend to keep you company. Since you’ll be living here alone during the week, make sure you’re careful and stay safe.”
Ji Jing gave her several reminders, unable to hide his concern.
In reality, he was still uneasy about Zhou Yu living by herself.
But with Lu Cheng absent, he no longer had any excuse to stay.
“Mhm.” Zhou Yu nodded and watched him leave with a smile.
Since she had to report to the university the next day and would then begin approximately half a month of military training, she did not bother unpacking her luggage.
She simply took out her pajamas and a change of clothes, washed up, and went to bed.
The next morning, at around seven o’clock, Zhou Yu got up early and made herself a simple breakfast. After eating, she carried her luggage to report to her assigned class at the university, only to be informed upon arrival that all freshmen were to gather at the athletic field.
Since the military training would not be held on campus, all the new students were assembling at the field.
When Zhou Yu arrived, she found that quite a few students had already gathered there.
She quickly located her class’s designated area and casually chose an empty spot to set down her luggage.
About half an hour later, the freshmen had more or less all arrived.
In fact, most of the students had already moved into the dormitories the previous day, so they only needed to bring a small amount of luggage with them that morning.
Coupled with everyone’s curiosity about military training, nearly everyone had arrived early.
Before the scheduled time even came, the gathering was essentially complete.
“Hello, students… You will be traveling by coach bus to the Luocheng Military Training Base for a month of military training. The faculty and I look forward to welcoming you back afterward.”
The moment the principal finished speaking, a wave of chatter immediately erupted from the crowd below.
“What? I thought military training was only half a month!”
“Yeah! Why has it suddenly become a whole month?”
“The schedule changed so suddenly. How are we supposed to explain this to our families?”
“Everyone, please settle down. We’ve already taken your concerns into consideration, so there’s no need to worry. If your family members come asking, your counselors will explain the situation to them. Don’t concern yourselves with anything else. All you need to do is focus on enjoying your month of military training!”
The principal continued with a smile.
His voice was remarkably loud, and the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth simply refused to disappear.
While the crowd had been buzzing with discussion, Zhou Yu had remained completely silent.
Now, however, she noticed the subtle change in the principal’s expression.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, she suddenly developed a very bad feeling about this.
Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do.
It wasn’t as if she could simply refuse to participate in the military training.
Moreover, Zhou Yu had originally planned to use the military training period to search for clues about her parents’ whereabouts. Now that the training had been extended, it might actually turn out to be a good thing.
Although many of the freshmen were unhappy about the university suddenly changing the length of the training program, not a single person stepped forward to object.
Before long, the coaches arrived near the athletic field.
Under the guidance of the instructors and counselors, the freshmen boarded the buses in an orderly fashion, one class per vehicle, and set off for the military training base.
Zhou Yu was almost the last person from her class to board.
By the time she got onto the bus, nearly every seat was already occupied.
She walked farther and farther down the aisle until she finally found an empty seat in the second-to-last row.
The seats on the bus were arranged in pairs.
The empty seat was the window seat, while the aisle seat beside it was already occupied by a male student.
Zhou Yu felt a little awkward, but there were no other seats available on the bus.
She could only brace herself and ask, “May I sit in the seat by the window?”
The boy wore black-rimmed glasses and looked somewhat absent-minded, though he was actually fairly handsome in a clean-cut sort of way.
He had been looking down, seemingly lost in thought. Hearing someone suddenly speak beside him startled him for a moment.
Then, after processing what Zhou Yu had said, he quickly came back to his senses.
As he stood up to let her pass, he replied somewhat awkwardly, “Of course. Go ahead.”
“Thank you,” Zhou Yu said with a smile.
She took the window seat and set her luggage at her feet.
Turning her head, she looked out the window.
Once Zhou Yu was seated, the boy sat back down as well.
Neither of them spoke again for the rest of the journey.
For once, Zhou Yu allowed herself to relax a little.
She did not close her eyes to study medical materials in the system, nor did she sleep.
Instead, she simply watched the scenery flash past outside the bus window while her thoughts drifted farther and farther away.
The Luocheng Military Training Base was quite a distance from the university.
It was nearly noon by the time they arrived.
The instructors directed the students to the women’s and men’s dormitories to put away their luggage before leading the freshmen to the cafeteria for lunch.
The entire process appeared remarkably casual and disorganized.
Before being transported into this novel, Zhou Yu had participated in military training before.
Furthermore, the 088 System had told her that military training in the 1980s would be extremely strict.
Looking at the loosely organized crowd before her, Zhou Yu could not help feeling that this was not a good sign at all.
Sure enough, less than half an hour after lunch, the instructors began going from dormitory to dormitory with loudspeakers, dragging the freshmen who had just lain down to rest back out into the blazing sun to practice standing at attention.
The weather in September was still scorching hot.
The midday sun was especially merciless.
“Heels together, toes angled sixty degrees apart, legs straight…” The instructors’ stern voices echoed in every student’s ears.
In such heat, the freshmen started sweating within less than two minutes.
About twenty minutes later, a girl in Zhou Yu’s formation became dizzy and could no longer remain standing.
The instructors, however, showed no leniency just because the student was female.
Instead, they had the nearby medical staff come over to examine her.
“Don’t try to fake fainting. If you’re really unconscious, I’ll have the doctors give you a glucose drip. If you’re pretending, you’ll be running two laps around the field!” the instructor shouted.
The girl immediately scrambled to her feet upon hearing that.
Looking aggrieved, she hurriedly said, “I’m fine now. I’m not dizzy anymore.”
Quite a few of the girls could not help laughing when they saw the girl who had nearly collapsed moments ago suddenly make such a declaration.
It had to be said that the instructors understood freshmen very well.
Whether they were pretending to faint, acting pitiful, or trying any other trick, the instructors showed absolutely no mercy.
After the instructor assigned to Zhou Yu’s group actually punished several girls by making them run laps, no one dared fake illness anymore.
The boys’ side was slightly better.
There was less drama than among the girls, but a few male students were punished with laps as well.
The reason, however, was not because they pretended to be sick.
They had talked back to the instructors.
After the freshmen had stood at attention under the blazing sun for more than an hour, the instructors saw that most of them had nearly reached their physical limits and finally allowed everyone to sit down and rest for a few minutes.
The moment they heard the word “rest,” the freshmen who had been standing for over an hour no longer cared about appearances.
Male and female students alike dropped straight onto the ground where they stood.
The break, however, was painfully short.
Some students had not even fully recovered when they heard the instructors once again raising their loudspeakers and shouting for everyone to stand at attention.
The freshmen spent the entire afternoon like that, repeatedly standing at attention under the blazing sun.
By the time dinner arrived, nearly everyone was so exhausted that they barely wanted to walk. Complaints could be heard everywhere. Even Zhou Yu was utterly worn out.
Meals were organized by class, so the male and female students ate together.
It was then that Zhou Yu saw the bespectacled boy who had been sitting beside her on the bus earlier that day.
The boy noticed her as well.
Recognizing Zhou Yu as the girl who had sat next to him, he immediately turned his head away somewhat awkwardly.
“Mingye, you know that girl? She’s pretty cute. Why don’t you introduce us?” Although the bespectacled boy had not intended to greet Zhou Yu, the male student beside him had noticed the exchange of glances. He slapped Mingye on the shoulder and spoke with a grin.
The bespectacled boy noticed that, because of his roommate’s loud voice, Zhou Yu’s gaze had once again landed on him.
He immediately became even more uncomfortable.
“I don’t know her. Stop talking nonsense,” he said to the boy beside him.
The moment Zhou Yu heard the name “Mingye,” it sounded strangely familiar.
She was just about to find an opportunity to ask for his full name when the boy called Mingye had already dragged his roommate away to another table.
Seeing this, Zhou Yu could only give up for the time being.
It seemed she would have to find another opportunity to ask and clear things up.
After dinner, the instructors unexpectedly told everyone to return to their dormitories and rest.
Many of the freshmen immediately began saying that the instructors had finally found their consciences.
But Zhou Yu knew this was not a good sign.
Judging by the situation, they were probably not going to get a peaceful night’s sleep.