Fired?
In a short period of time, Song Xu saw his ex-girlfriend's expression change from confusion to anxiety to shock to panic.
It's amazing, Song Xu thought sourly. He and Ivy have known each other for fifteen years, and this is the first time he has seen her have so many emotional changes in a short period of time.
In his impression, Ivy's mood was as stable as a dead person.
When they broke up, Song Xu was so angry that he cried and said harsh words. Ai Wei just stared at him blankly, kindly handed him toilet paper, and asked Song Xu in confusion:
"Why are you crying? Didn't you say you didn't want to be my partner anymore? Now that we've finally broken up, aren't you happy?"
Why are you crying?
Song Xu gritted his teeth and said in a hoarse voice: "Because I am so happy that I am crying when I think about getting rid of you, a fool!"
In fact, it was the one hundred and ninety-two days, four hours and twenty-three minutes after the breakup, and Song Xu was not happy at all.
He had never felt happy.
So what?
Ivy didn't seem to care at all.
The dusk light shone on her brown flax hair, and her brown eyes also shone like amber. The expedition team required everyone to keep short hair or tie up long hair during training, and Ivy did the same. She cut her hair short not long ago, and now she can just tie it into a rebellious ponytail.
My mood at this moment is completely opposite to my ponytail.
Ivy's head felt like it had hit the concrete floor hard.
She immediately thought of Nana's intrusion into the military system and was horrified.
"…Is it because of that?" Ivy cautiously probed, "Or?"
She didn't say it directly, but tried to find out carefully - what if it wasn't true? She couldn't betray Nana.
As expected, Lorraine frowned: "Is there anything else?"
Ivy's eyes went dark.
Ah...it really is.
It's over.
Dad, mom.
Sorry, the adventure she dreamed of -
"I..." Ivy said with difficulty, "So you want me to leave the expedition?"
"It's not leaving, it's 'transferring'," Lorraine said. "Did I not make it clear enough?"
Ivy could hardly breathe.
She was wondering why she had to look at Nana’s screen—why did she have such an insatiable curiosity!!!
"I'm sorry," Ivy struggled, "I know I was wrong."
Song Xu asked, "What? What are you talking about? Why don't you allow Ivy to continue with the frontline training? There is no rule in the training camp that boyfriends and girlfriends can't be in the same classroom, right?"
Ivy was helpless: "Ex...we broke up."
Song Xu turned a deaf ear to Lorraine's serious expression, stopped smiling, and explained seriously: "Teacher, although Ivy's school and major have nothing to do with the expedition team, she is indeed very hardworking and her academic performance ranks high; although her parents are refugees who escaped from the 23rd District, she is law-abiding and has not violated the laws of the United Nations so far; ah? Is it because her genetic test report rated her as D? But her physical fitness test is really excellent-"
"Student Song Xu," Lorraine looked at him sideways and asked slowly, "Do you have plenty of time?"
Song Xu replied: "Not bad, teacher."
"If you have too much energy to spend it on," Lorraine said, "I suggest you go run on the playground right now."
"Thank you for the advice, teacher," Song Xu asked, "May I know why?"
"It's suspected of genetic discrimination," Lorraine said. "Go run sixty laps. Hopefully that will clear your empty brain."
——Genetic discrimination.
Refers to a gene assessment rule that appeared 24 years ago. Due to the deterioration of the earth's environment and the increasing preciousness of non-renewable resources, some people began to advocate "letting good genes be passed on" and called on everyone to undergo genetic testing. The fixed standard evaluation ranked people according to the "inferior (disease-causing)" genes they carried, from good to bad, respectively, S, A, B, C, D, E. It was also recommended that people with C and below undergo sterilization surgery to prevent the human species from "becoming worse."
This genetic test, which only requires a single strand of hair, soon brought about terrible consequences. Obvious class discrimination led to campus bullying, bullying and social violence. The coalition government put a lot of effort into solving this problem, but for most people who lived or were born during those six years, the shadow of genetic discrimination still follows them.
Even within the coalition government, there are many people who support "human excellence", which has led to the delay in establishing anti-genetic discrimination laws.
Ivy is D.
If it weren't for her health, she would have been rated an E.
This is also the biggest reason why she broke up with Song Xu. The other party was rated A, and both of his parents were A, and it was difficult for them to accept that Ivy had "inferior genes".
Even though Ivy had always been at the top of the class in academic performance, even though she ranked first in the physical fitness test, even though she could easily hold down Song Xu - the latter made Song Xu's parents even more scared, and they began to discuss whether she had a violent gene.
Song Xu hung his head and said sadly: "I'm sorry."
Lorraine did not accept his apology and told Ivy directly: "Our affairs are not suitable for discussion in public - come to the office with me."
Ivy also followed him with her head down.
Invading military systems...is definitely not something that should be discussed in public.
Lorraine's office - or rather, the armory.
On the entire white wall, there are all kinds of guns hanging, some are so small and exquisite that they can be inserted into hair as decoration, and there are also sniper rifles that need to be mounted on special gun stocks...
Ivy, a gun fan, was in no mood to appreciate it at the moment.
She was uneasy about whether to stay or go.
Lorraine opened the classroom door and windows so that people passing by could see clearly inside.
Then I turned off the surveillance recording function.
"This is not your fault, and I didn't know about it beforehand," Lorraine said directly, "I only got the list of students today."
Ivy was stunned for a while before she realized that he was answering her "I know I was wrong."
What he meant was...
Did he let her leave the frontline on his own accord because he found out she was his student? Did he do so because of their teacher-student relationship? A soldier's duty is to be loyal to the government, so did Commander Lorraine, who was loyal to the government, refuse to teach her?
"…I am just very curious," Ivy hesitated, "but I swear, I will forget it."
Luo Lin's eyebrows slowly wrinkled: "Forget?"
"Yes," Ivy said, "—and now I don't remember anything!"
She fought hard to fight for her chance to stay.
Lorraine looked at her expression carefully and sneered, "You're pretending well. You really do look like you've forgotten."
"There shouldn't be many people who know about this, right? Otherwise, you wouldn't be the one talking to me alone now," Ivy calmed down and analyzed rationally, "Are you the only one who knows about this now?"
"How many more people do you want to know?" Lorraine said unhappily, "Do you need me to help you make a radio broadcast and inform the whole city? You and I are already violating the rules."
Ivy was uneasy: "Will you keep this a secret?"
"Otherwise?" Lorraine said, "Wait for someone to find out, report you, and fire you completely?"
Ivy whispered: "So now you are also protecting me, right?"
I don't know why, but after saying this, Lorraine seemed to be getting more and more unhappy.
The distance between the two of them was not close, just an ordinary teacher and student. But this distance was enough for Ivy to smell his scent, a very faint smell of lifeless metal, cold and lonely, but surprisingly pleasant -
From the corner of her eye, she saw Lorraine take an almost imperceptible step back and deliberately keep a distance from her.
The other party's step back made Ivy feel inexplicably abandoned.
Lorraine's expression became more serious, as if she was a monster that made him uneasy and he had to keep his distance to be safe.
He was avoiding her, no doubt about it.
Even said, stay away from her calmly.
Ivy was very depressed.
Was it just because of the hacking? But she didn't see any specific information.
"Look, things have come to this point," Ivy continued under pressure, "Why don't you just turn a blind eye? Pretend nothing happened?"
Lorraine refused coldly: "I won't show favoritism."
Ivy was puzzled: "…Are we considered 'private'?"
"Given your status," Lorraine said, "it is not appropriate for you to appear in my class again."
Ivy yelled: "This is not fair—"
"Fair?" Lorraine said, "If we really want fairness, I should send you out now - you can choose, either I send you home and wait for the next year's selection; or you can go to Xin Lan and take the initiative to apply for a transfer to a non-frontline position."
He was only responsible for teaching the soldiers on the front line.
Ivy choked.
She said sadly: "I should have known that..."
"That's the rule," Lorraine looked down at her, the iris on his chest gleaming with a cold silver light, "Instead of wasting time regretting, you might as well think carefully about your career plan."
Ivy left the office in a daze, frustrated and with heavy steps.
"…It's even heavier than seeing you at the wedding banquet," Xin Lan walked in leisurely from the door, "It's so pitiful, so pitiful that I can't bear to eavesdrop. If you don't tell me, who would know that she is your wife? There are so many girls named 'Ivy', they won't check every 'Ivy' one by one."
"I can't give her a completely fair grade," Lorraine said coldly, "It's unfair to her and to other students."
Xin Lan sighed and changed the subject: "Did Dongdong tell you about that?"
"Are you saying that out of the 132 couples that were matched based on the survey, 131 have successfully married and are actively looking to have children?" Lorraine took off her gloves, revealing the scar on the back of her hand, and said nothing. "And then?"
"Dongdong has done a detailed study on them," Xin Lan said with interest, "The analysis report shows that this questionnaire is very effective - these couples with a matching degree of more than 90% have a very strong sexual attraction to each other. This fatal sexual attraction is not only manifested visually, 'love at first sight' is not enough to describe it; one hundred and thirty couples said that the smell of their partner would make them constantly have strong sexual impulses, and one hundred and twenty-two of them said that they completed all the things that a couple should do when they first met, and they have not exhausted it after half a year, which has brought them sweet troubles..."
"Read less pornographic magazines in the future," Lorraine said calmly, "The tone you describe is too dirty."
"--As the only couple who are 100% perfectly matched," Xin Lan asked, "how do you feel about that hard-working little cutie, oh, the poor little one whose genetic test report was bad? According to the research, between you two--"
The cold barrel of the gun was pointed at his forehead.
Xin Lan's eyes, as red as tropical water, blinked slowly, reading the image recorded by the camera on the chip. After slowing it down ten times, she finally saw how Lorraine drew the pistol from his waist.
He was incredulous: "Don't tell me that you have been teaching students with a gun!"
"Don't forget what I exchanged my marriage for," Lorraine's finger was on the trigger, "I am not your research subject, and neither is that poor guy."
Xin Lan repeated: "Poor fellow."
The gun moved away from his forehead. Lorraine said, "Go tell Dongdong that I'm not an animal controlled by hormones. There's no need to be curious about it. She has no influence on me at all."
Yes.
No impact at all.
Just an ordinary person who even sneaked through the restricted area.
Lorraine put away his gun and ignored Xin Lan's long and short sighs.
He sat down with a frown on his face, and suddenly recalled Ivy's expression when she begged just now.
Amber eyes, slightly parted lips, and a tense yet composed tone.
And, between breaths——
Soft, delicate, cloud-like coconut scent.
He put the black gloves back on his scarred hands and calmly pushed Ivy's application form to the bottom of the file.
Distance must be maintained.
Distance must be maintained.
Distance must be maintained.
Must.
Keep.
--distance.