Everyone followed the recruits and set off in the dark. Camp training officially began.
They walked out of the gate of the barracks, marching towards the mountain. The pace was not very fast. Yuwen Feiyang smiled and said, “I think we should be okay to walk 50 kilometers at this speed?”
At the rear, Yi Bailu echoed: “The soldiers are carrying 20 kilograms on their backs. How fast can they go with the weight?”
Jiang Dao listened to the conversation between the two, shook his head, and sighed. “Don’t treat marching so simply.”
Sure enough, not long after his voice fell, once the team arrived on flat cement, an order came from the front: “Everyone’s here, now jog!”
The moment the order was given, the soldiers immediately accelerated and jogged.
Yuwen Feiyang: “…Ah this?”
Even Cheng Zhiyi was afraid. “We won’t need to run 50 kilometers?!”
Jiang Dao chuckled: “What are you thinking? Running 5 kilometers with a weight of 20 kilograms is high-intensity training. Let alone 50 kilometers? I guess we’ll only run a kilometer or two.”
Behind him, Wu Rui couldn’t laugh or cry: “What ‘only’?”
Jiang Dao smiled and said: “Don’t worry, the speed will not be too fast with the weight.”
After running for about a kilometer, an order came from the front to resume walking speed.
The star class, who ran in various ways and had finally re-arranged their team, were exhausted and out of breath.
“Jiang Dao…” Zhang Xiaoyuan was depressed. “Who… said that the speed… won’t be too fast?”
“Ah, maybe for him… it’s not fast.” Yi Bailu wiped her sweat.
After walking for a while, they started jogging again. After running for another kilometer, the cement road disappeared under their feet. Upon entering the forest area, the whole team’s walking continued walking at a slow speed. However, the mountain road is not easy to tread, and there are no steps up or down. Even if the speed is not fast, it was a test of human endurance.
From the dark of night, the sky slowly brightened, and the team finally were able to rest in place. It was also breakfast time.
Breakfast was very simple – two hard-boiled eggs, and boiled water.
When resting, the rules were not as strict as during the march.
The little soldiers who ran in front of the star class couldn’t help looking over curiously. But because the class leader was more strict, they kept their distance and did not dare strike up conversation.
The members of the star class were used to being watched, and didn’t feel any nervousness.
Cheng Zhiyi took off his backpack, and rubbed his shoulders. “Five kilograms doesn’t sound too heavy, but it’s really hard to carry. I usually don’t wear backpacks when going out, so when we go back at night, my back will definitely hurt…”
As he spoke, he looked towards a soldier sitting to the side. “How can you bear carrying 20 kilograms?”
The little soldier smiled shyly: “We’re used to it.”
Another added: “I also had shoulder pain at the beginning. After more than half a year, I got used to it.”
Another person said: “It’s said that the top class uses 30 kilograms for training, we’re still far behind…”
The five-minute breakfast break ended quickly, and the team continued to march up the mountain.
The terrain in the mountainous area is complex, so the marching speed wasn’t too fast. Especially when walking upstream along the river, they either have to walk through mud or rocks, and sometimes even wade through the water.
After walking for a while under these conditions, Jiang Dao heard several female guests in the back greet each other with words such as “be careful”, “pull me”, “can’t get through” and so on.
He turned his head and glanced back, and found that not only the squeamish Yi Bailu and Zhang Xiaoyuan showed signs of being left behind, but even Sun Qi, who had not spoken much, was having difficulty. She held hands with Wu Rui and the two of them staggered up the hillside.
Lin Chu and Yuwen Feiyang looked like they wanted to help, but they couldn’t handle such complex terrain, and couldn’t help much.
So Jiang Dao walked up, found the instructor, and suggested: “It’s better to put me and Teacher Chu to the back to help them, otherwise it might be too dangerous.”
He just finished speaking and before the instructor could say anything, Lin Chu spoke up: “If you’re willing to help them, you can do it yourself. Yet you have to bring Teacher Chu too without asking whether he’s willing or not…”
“I have no problems.” Chu Yinlong interrupted directly, and turned around to let the others pass.
Lin Chu stopped talking.
In fact, the instructor also discovered the weakness of the female guests. He thought he would give it a try at first, and if it doesn’t work, ask them to suspend training and find some program team members to bring them back to the base. If others in the team can help, it’s naturally best if the whole star class can stick together.
As a result, Jiang Dao and Chu Yinlong switched to the back of the team. When they encountered terrain that was difficult for the female guests to cross, they would help them one by one from the front, and then catch up again from the end of the team.
Seeing that the water bottles carried by the female guests were in the way, Jiang Dao simply reached out and took Sun Qi and Zhang Xiaoyuan’s water bottles and hung them on his body.
Finally, near noon, the team finally came to a fairly flat place, and the instructor finally ordered them to camp on the bank of the river to rest and settle for lunch.
Jiang Dao returned the bottles to Wu Rui and Sun Qi, turned his back, lifted the hem of his training T-shirt and wiped the sweat from his face.
Suddenly, a voice sounded behind him: “Jiang Dao, this is for you.”
Jiang Dao straightened his clothes and turned around. Sun Qi’s face was pale as she stuffed something the size of a bottle cap into his hand.
“This is?” Jiang Dao was puzzled.
“Compressed towel.” Sun Qi spoke succinctly as always. “It will unfold when it gets wet, you can use it.” After that, she turned around and left.
…
Because it is camp training, cooking is naturally included. The contents of lunch is also much richer than breakfast – the soldiers not only carried self-heating food for themselves, but also all sorts of ingredients, and dug pits and built stoves directly near the river bank. They even used the military shovel as kitchen knives and utensils to cook on the spot.
The star class obviously didn’t have these tools. A military shovel is a dangerous item and was not distributed, so they could only eat the self-heating food provided and silently smell the fragrance of vegetables from next door…
“I originally thought not having to eat compressed biscuits would be good enough.” Lin Chu raised his hand and wiped his face. “As expected, I still underestimated those soldiers…”
“Tsk,” Yuwen Feiyang replied, “the self-heating noodles in my hands aren’t fragrant anymore.”
Weighing the self-heating meal in his hand, Jiang Dao suddenly got up and walked into the soldier team nearby. “Your scrambled eggs smell too good, can I come bum a meal?”
The little soldiers smiled and welcomed:
“Okay, come on! You all can come over. We’re camping anyway, so our classes can get together.”
“Come, come, but you also have to help us cut vegetables, and can’t waste food.”
“Ah? You didn’t get a knife? Come, use my… chopping board – that stone over there was washed clean, it’s the chopping board.”
Cheng Zhiyi’s eyes were about to fall out as he stared at one of the soldiers who was carrying a stainless steel lunch box to stir-fry meat. “You are… caramelizing meat during camping? Even I’m not so meticulous when cooking at home!”
The little soldier who was cooking his meat said with a smile: “My dad runs a restaurant in the village. I’m used to it, and always feel that the taste of roasted meat is not right.”
All of a sudden, there was a burst of crackling, accompanied by several exclamations.
The soldiers who were cooking immediately threw the undercooked eggs in the military shovel into the lunch box of their comrades, and then shoveled a lot of sand into the dug out holes, and extinguished the sudden violent flame inside.
“What’s the matter?” The excessive movement really attracted the marching commander.
“…I don’t know!” After urgently handling the situation, the soldiers were also confused. “The situation was quite normal, and we didn’t use any strange fuel. How could it explode?”
Jiang Dao dragged Chu Yinlong to the side and asked, “Did you go over to help just now?”
Chu Yinlong was silent for a moment, and then replied, “He asked me to put some branches into the stove. The firewood was found by them, so I thought… there wouldn’t be any problem helping out.”
Jiang Dao: …
Everyone: …
“You should just sit there and wait to eat.” Jiang Dao pointed to a stone not far away. “Who knew that you would also affect those soil stoves.”
Chu Yinlong: …
The leader of the team and several officers checked the stove eye and the burned fuel, and found no problems, and a head full of question marks appeared. In the end they decided to move to the neighborhood to eat and keep an eye on the situation.
As a result, after Chu Yinlong stayed away from the dug out stoves, there were no more accidents.
After eating lunch together and putting out the fires, they packed their bags, and quickly set off on the return journey. The way back was not the same as the way they came. Shortly after leaving the river bank, they arrived at stone steps descending down the mountain. Walking along the steps, it didn’t take long to reach the flat rammed earth road.
Everyone returned to the base by around three o’clock in the afternoon, and the whole day’s training was over. The rest was free time.
Because the emergency gathering at night started too early, nearly everyone chose to go back to catch up on sleep.
Jiang Dao had a good rest last night and woke up after sleeping for less than an hour. Seeing that the room was quiet, he lay on the bed and flipped through his phone for a while. He didn’t see anything interesting, so he got up and walked to the open space outside.
He had just stood in the shade of a tree for a while when he saw the door flap of the female guest tent open. Sun Qi saw him, hesitated for a moment, and then walked over.
“Jiang Dao.” Sun Qi has never been very talkative, and her expression has always been cold and indifferent. At this time, there is some tenderness unique to a girl in her voice. “Uh, that… Thank you for helping us this morning.”
Jiang Dao smiled and said, “No need to thank me, comrades-in-arms should help each other.”
The corners of Sun Qi’s mouth pursed. She paused for a while, and suddenly asked, “Can I add your WeChat? Don’t worry, I won’t ask for resources, I don’t plan to develop into the film and television industry. I just… uh, want, uh… make friends with you.”
It’s normal to exchange contact information with fellow artists who work together. so Jiang Dao took his phone out, and added Sun Qi as a friend.
Just after adding, Sun Qi suddenly raised her head to look behind Jiang Dao, took a half step back subconsciously, and quickly said, “I’ll go back first.” After she finished speaking, she turned around and quickly left.
Jiang Dao heard the approaching footsteps behind him, and turned back with a smile. “See how scary you are?”
Chu Yinlong took his eyes away from Sun Qi’s back and looked at Jiang Dao. His brows slowly stretched, and he asked with a smile, “You seem to be very enthusiastic today?”
“Enthusiastic?” Jiang Dao raised his eyebrows. “Is Teacher Chu jealous because I took the initiative to help them in the morning?”
Chu Yinlong refused to admit it: “No.”
Jiang Dao laughed: “Teacher Chu doesn’t need to be jealous. The terrain was too dangerous, and I helped them since we were moving as one group. Did you see me helping them during our usual training? Besides… whether I like men or women, isn’t Teacher Chu the most clear?”
Chu Yinlong stared at Jiang Dao for a moment, then smiled and rubbed lightly on his head.
——–
Exploding fire pits, that’s a new skill. Scary too!
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