On Keda’s athletic field, the sun had baked the synthetic track until it was soft.
The military training had been going on for a week.
The formation for the gifted student program was lined up at the very edge of the field, under the shade of the trees.
This was because the students in this group were of varying ages; the youngest were only eleven or twelve, while the oldest were no more than fifteen or sixteen.
Their drill instructor was a young man in his early twenties. Looking at this group of kids, he just didn’t have the heart to put them through any kind of hellish training.
Other departments were out in the sun practicing their marching and drilling in formation, drenched in sweat.
The students in the gifted program, on the other hand, merely practiced their military stances. After ten or twenty minutes, their instructor would wave his hand and let everyone go sit in the shade for a sing-along.
Wang Dayong sat on the grass, took off his camouflage cap, and fanned his face furiously with it.
He was a big guy and sweated a lot. The back of his shirt was already soaked through, clinging to his skin and showing a large, dark patch.
"This military training is such a joke." Wang Dayong picked up his water bottle and took a huge gulp. "It’s not even as tiring as helping my dad with farm work back home."
Chu Ge sat next to him, a foxtail grass he’d just plucked from the ground dangling from his mouth.
He had rolled the sleeves of his camouflage uniform up to his shoulders, baring his arms.
"Boring as hell."
Chu Ge spat out the blade of grass.
"Standing around in a daze all day is such a waste of time. I just got power to my computer’s motherboard, and the internet cable was just installed the day before yesterday. I’m dying to get back to the dorm and test a new program."
Chen Zhuo sat cross-legged, leaning against the trunk of a tree.
He, however, didn’t find it unbearable.
When they were practicing their military stances, he would adjust his breathing, focus his center of gravity on the soles of his feet, and treat it as a kind of standing meditation to calm his mind.
Sitting down, he watched the energetic university students on the field, who were groaning under the strain of their drills. Feeling the occasional breeze rustle through the treetops, he suddenly thought that this military training wasn’t so bad after all.
At least it was a pleasant sight to watch.
Chen Zhuo turned his head and glanced at the front row of the formation.
Lu Jia was sitting there.
Even during the break, Lu Jia wasn’t slouched over like the others.
He sat cross-legged with a perfectly straight back, his hands placed primly on his knees.
"Psycho."
Chu Ge followed Chen Zhuo’s gaze, curled his lip, and muttered.
"He’s wound up tight as a board all day. It’s tiring just looking at him."
Chen Zhuo withdrew his gaze and smiled at Chu Ge’s disgusted expression.
"If you went over there right now and tried to force him to relax, he’d probably disassemble his own skeleton on the spot just to show you."
Chen Zhuo’s tone was light and teasing.
"Just let him be tense. It’s his shell. Without it, he wouldn’t even know how to stand."
Chu Ge snorted and didn’t pursue the topic.
The two weeks of military training ended amidst the boredom and stuffy heat.
During the final review parade, the gifted students’ formation was straggly, their steps out of sync, and their heights all different.
The university leaders watched from the rostrum, simply smiling and clapping a little.
After all, the university hadn’t recruited them to practice goose-stepping.
Once the National Day holiday was over, the freshman year curriculum officially began.
「One in the morning.」
「Dorm Room 216.」
The main light in the room was off.
On Chu Ge’s desk, the screen of a bulky CRT monitor glowed, casting a deathly pale light on one side of his face.
The cooling fan in the computer tower emitted a low hum.
Chu Ge was wearing a pair of over-ear headphones playing loud, high-tempo rock music. The sound leaked out, and faint drum beats could be heard in the quiet dorm room.
His fingers flew across the keyboard.
It wasn’t a normal keyboard, but an old-school mechanical one he had specifically hunted down at a second-hand market.
The clicks were crisp, almost piercing.
He slammed the Enter key.
Chu Ge stared intently at the black DOS window on his screen as strings of white code scrolled rapidly upward.
He was writing a crawler program to automatically scrape forum data but had run into a small problem: a certain port kept refusing access.
He irritably scratched his already messy hair.
He reached for a coin and a box of candy on his desk.
He tore open a lollipop and stuck it in his mouth. Then, he pressed a one-yuan coin flat on the desk and gave it a sharp flick with his fingers.
The coin spun rapidly with a crisp sound. Under the monitor’s glow, it looked like a silver top, emitting a low, grating hum.
Lu Jia lay in his bed.
He was curled up in a ball under a thin blanket.
Two foam earplugs were stuffed in his ears.
But it was no use.
The vibration from the mechanical keyboard, and the seemingly endless, low-frequency hum of the spinning coin.
Lu Jia was painfully sensitive to such subtle yet persistent noises.
The humming of the coin drilled into his ears, making his temples throb and his breathing grow difficult.
He opened his eyes in the darkness and stared at the ceiling.
’I can’t sleep.’
He had to get up at six-thirty tomorrow morning to memorize English vocabulary and prepare for his new classes.
If he didn’t sleep well, he would doze off in class tomorrow.
Dozing off meant he would miss the important points the professor was making. If he missed those points, he would make mistakes on the quiz.
This chain of logic spun wildly in his head, amplifying his anxiety.
Lu Jia turned over.
The bed frame let out a soft CREAK.
The keyboard clatter and the coin’s hum didn’t stop.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force himself to sleep.
Ten minutes passed.
The coin’s hum finally reached its limit and died out as its inertia faded. With a dull CLACK, the metal coin slapped against the desktop.
Immediately after, the sound of Chu Ge’s fingers flicking the coin was heard again, and a new round of humming began.
Lu Jia finally couldn’t take it anymore.

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