Chapter 123
On the first day of military training, freshmen gathered on the training ground to line up early in the morning. The school forum has been active since yesterday, as if no one needs to sleep.
[Didn't they say Feng Ran applied to our school? Which battalion is she in? Has anyone seen her? Is she really as pretty as in the pictures on StarNet?]
So what if it's true? She's already taken.
[The engineering students are mostly in the fourth and fifth battalions. Where are the mechanical engineering students? Say something!]
The mechanics are in the fourth battalion, but they didn't even come to the class meeting yesterday. We can't even elect officers; it's infuriating.
[Furthermore, the counselor said that with the school's permission, Enigma is allowed to live off-campus, although they might not be assigned roommates if they do.]
This is what the privileged class is like.
Aren't the instructors advocating for meritocracy?
Why don't you go and challenge her to a fight?
[I'm speechless. Stop faking it! Are you really offline or just pretending?]
Try it and you'll die.
Fortunately, the distance to the school was taken into account when choosing the location of the new home. The hovercar only takes five minutes to get from home to school. However, Feng Ran doesn't really like hovercars. If she hadn't been busy with her wedding and having fun during the holidays, she should have gotten an aerial motorcycle license like Luo Le.
When middle schools enroll, there is usually a short week of military training, so the instructors' instructions are not difficult or unfamiliar to the freshmen. When assembling and forming ranks, the instructors emphasized discipline and explained what needs to be accomplished in the month of training. After adjusting the formation, the formal military training began.
The two classes of the Mechanical Engineering Department were organized into a company. Feng Ran was positioned on the far right of the second row. He could observe the training of other companies not far away by slightly turning his head.
The instructor had met her and greeted her yesterday, but when he was instructing her on each movement, he completely ignored her.
Feng Ran's memories of military training are actually quite vague. In her previous life, Feng Linye was jealous of her admission to the Capital Military Academy. He directly reported her to the school for having a hearing disability, which resulted in her being transferred from the combat department to the mechanical department. In addition, he also sent her to the rear camp for military training.
The rest time in the later camp was longer than the training time, so during the rest period, Feng Ran could always hear all kinds of discussions about her spreading rapidly. At that time, her emotions were all over the place, and she ignored everyone who came up to her, whether they were good or bad. Later, she was naturally isolated because she was too aloof.
The normal rest time for the Fourth Battalion is every half hour to an hour, about five minutes each time. The morning sun is not very strong, but the temperature is very hot. The military training uniform is long-sleeved and long-legged, which is quite stuffy and sweaty. When the time is up, everyone either sits in place to rest or goes to a designated point to get water.
The entrance exam for the engineering school mainly focuses on science and engineering, and it doesn't test physical fitness or combat skills much. It's nothing like the combat and command departments; they all collapse as soon as you call for a break.
Feng Ran didn't like sitting on the ground, at least not in public. So she stood out from the crowd of classmates who were eating, with a boy in the back row standing with her. He glanced at Feng Ran a few times and then came forward.
"Is this Feng Ran? I'm Kaolecia Giy, the class monitor of Mechanical Engineering Class 1. You didn't come to the class meeting yesterday, so I'm adding you to our class group. Do you need me to share what the class advisor said at yesterday's meeting with you?"
Kaolecia looks a bit like Carlo at first glance. His freckles and wheat-colored skin give the stereotype that he comes from a remote planet, but he is much taller than Carlo, who is short, and has orange curly hair. His smile is simple and reliable.
There were many memorable points, but Feng Ran had no recollection of them at all. She was certain that there was no such person in her class in her previous life. At least, during the class officer election on the day of the report, everyone chose the easiest option. The class monitor candidate was dragged out until the last minute and the most hated person was voted out. Feng Ran managed to sneak into the safe zone because of her perfect appearance.
Feng Ran: "Okay, thank you. Just add me to the group. My advisor has already told me about the things to note for new students."
There is a natural barrier between students and mentors. The class group that comes with the bracelet includes not only students but also all sorts of teachers and instructors, so there is no freedom of speech. Therefore, it is perfectly normal to create a new group on the day of enrollment. Feng Ran also joined it in his previous life, but he didn't know if he was kicked out later because he was too unsociable.
The degree to which people can accept deviations from their expectations is sometimes quite subtle. When Feng Ran wanted to change the fixed ending of the story, she wished all interpersonal relationships would be disrupted and the future would be so chaotic that even Xing Tong could not predict it. She felt a unique sense of humor about the deviations that she expected to control. However, when such deviations occurred naturally or exceeded her control, she inevitably became worried and afraid of the unknown.
Just like the class monitor Kaolecia who suddenly appeared out of nowhere, Feng Ran was so anxious that her old habit was about to flare up, wanting Xing Tong to dig out all his secrets. But she quickly comforted herself, there was no need, Sherry had already taken over, the research institute had been approved and was in preparation, she and Shen Shiqian were already married and about to have a child, unless Qiliya just exploded on the spot, otherwise, whether or not there was a butterfly effect, it had nothing to do with her.
Seeing the two talking, a classmate chimed in, "Why didn't you come yesterday?"
Feng Ran: "Because I don't live on campus, I won't stay at school too late. I went home after confirming with my class advisor in the afternoon."
She very tactfully indicated that she simply didn't want to come.
"That's great, I also want to commute to school."
"Well, at least you live in a nearby district, so you can go home during your monthly break. But we people from remote star districts can only go home during winter break."
"How can you be as remote as the class monitor? I think it's incredibly impressive that he even got to study at Kempin School."
The people around them started chatting amongst themselves, and Feng Ran naturally joined in: "Is it a very far place?"
Kaolecia: "It's a trillion stars."
The Empire's interstellar territory is quite vast. The star sectors alone can be divided into five major regions: the central region and four outer regions. Each major region can be further divided into twenty or thirty smaller regions. A normal person can only remember about forty or fifty of the more populated regions. They don't really bother to know which planets are in a star sector. After all, even geography students are only required to memorize the names and geographical locations of the 109 star sectors in their exams. Unless it's a popular online region, it's fair to say that there is virtually no mutual attention or understanding between different regions.
Where is that?
"The long day zone is the area near where the black hole was discovered in the north last year."
"That's practically the border, isn't it? I saw in the reports that it takes the military's starships about ten days to make a round trip."
Feng Ran: "The application process must be very troublesome, right?"
After all, if extra subjects are to be taken at this distance, the test centers assigned to the nearest test centers are basically in the main star region of the North District. As for how inconsistent the quality of the test centers is compared with the main campus of the academy, there has been a lot of complaints on the StarNet. But places outside the Central District basically have this problem. The reason is simple and crude: because they are poor. As for whether it is because they can't make money or because there is no one to exploit, that's unclear.
"Ah, you didn't come yesterday, so you don't know. Lecia is a special admission student and doesn't need to take extra subject exams."
Special admissions are a category of students jointly established by central universities. Each year, a certain number of places are allocated to planets with relatively poor educational resources, exempting them from extra subjects and selecting students based on their academic performance. Of course, in addition to educationally disadvantaged planets, places are also symbolically allocated to some planets with special circumstances as a form of appeasement.
For example, regarding Qianyi Star, although Feng Ran and Shirley did not choose to make the matter public, those like Franklin and Qianyi, who did encounter and were affected by the alien virus, would be given a few more slots by the higher-ups.
When Feng Ran heard from Jiang Lan that Franklin Star had also received this kind of benefit this year, she didn't care about it. She just thought the princess was really honest. Now that she thought about it carefully, her extra class monitor position could only be a chain reaction left over from the remnants of her past misdeeds. She couldn't blame others for being hardworking and lucky.
Kaolecia: "Do you know where the Thousand Star is?"
Feng Ran relaxed and smiled at him, "Well, I have a friend on Franklin Star, so I roughly know."
Before anyone could finish their conversation, the instructor suddenly blew his whistle, and everyone frantically tried to regroup.
Once everyone was in position, he spoke up somewhat shyly: "Well, actually, our Dowa District is quite close to the Long Day District."
The newly formed ranks began to laugh haphazardly again, and one student boldly asked, "Commander, are you out of your mind?"
Lian: "You dare insult your superior? Step forward! Do twenty push-ups!"
The others were completely gloating: "Commander, if he does twenty, can we still rest for five minutes?"
Lian: "Okay."
The boy who was dragged out cried out miserably and angrily, "Don't you have any brotherhood at all? Damn it, I'll scare you to death in one minute!"
There was a two-hour lunch break, which avoided the hottest part of the day. Feng Ran was surrounded by enthusiastic classmates who chatted amongst themselves as they joined the group to go to the cafeteria for lunch.
It seems that the students in their class became familiar with each other much faster than those in other classes, and everyone attributed this success to Caolecia and Fini.
Unlike the scene Feng Ran remembered, at yesterday's class meeting when she was absent, Kaolecia enthusiastically volunteered to be class monitor, even giving a heartfelt little speech that moved the classmates so much that they unanimously agreed. What surprised everyone even more was that when someone asked Li Xu if Feng Ran could be elected as class officer yesterday, thinking it would be cool to have an Enigma class monitor leading the way, Kaolecia politely asked them who Feng Ran was.
This shocked all the classmates and left them with the deep impression that Qianyi Star was a rural place with no internet access. The elected class monitor was honest and simple, but also very responsible. As soon as the group was created, he actively spoke and organized small team building activities. He remembered people and faces very quickly, which made everyone very satisfied and willing to cooperate with him. He even took advantage of the atmosphere to invite someone like Feng Ran to join the team building dinner. Everyone thought that they were really awesome for electing such an excellent class monitor.
Finney, on the other hand, was the boy who was dragged out to do push-ups in the morning. Rather than saying that he spoke boldly without thinking, he was more like a semi-illiterate student with a serious imbalance in his academic subjects. He was able to get into the Capital Military Academy by taking extra subjects to improve his academic scores, and by taking the science subjects in the academic subjects to improve his language scores.
His bluntness, lack of tact, and somewhat illiterate, naive nature allowed him to quickly transform himself into an abstract and comical figure who only knew how to spam the group chat with "What are you doing?" In just one day, he became known as Finney. Fortunately, he had a good personality and didn't mind being laughed at, so everyone enjoyed gathering around him to watch the spectacle.
Finney loves sharing funny anecdotes from his childhood, though most of them are just his own misspoken attempts that make everyone laugh. Kaolecia, on the other hand, is attentive to everyone, offering water, tissues, asking if anyone is feeling unwell during morning training and needs to take a break, reminding those who need a nap to return to their dorms on time—so reliable that whatever he says, everyone else responds with a resounding "Okay!"
The other students in the cafeteria were incredibly curious, but they were sitting in a huddle together, their voices overlapping, making it impossible to hear them clearly even if you tried to squeeze through.
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