When Qiao Ying spoke, everyone was shocked.
Instructor Hou's face turned as black as the bottom of a pot, and the students didn't dare look him in the eye. Even the class next door could feel the low pressure coming from their side.
"Are you serious?" Instructor Hou asked in a low voice.
"Of course." As Qiao Ying spoke, she took the watch from her pocket again and put it back on her wrist in front of Instructor Hou.
This was undoubtedly a naked provocation.
Instructor Hou's eyes darkened a few shades.
The students didn't dare make a sound, feeling every second was agony. Finally, Instructor Hou said, "Fine, I'll race you."
Instructor Hou and Qiao Ying stood side by side, one meter apart, facing the direction of the dorm building.
Their activity attracted the attention of the instructor from the class next door. He looked over and asked, "Old Hou, what are you doing?"
Instructor Hou ignored his comrade.
He said to Qiao Ying, "I'll give you a 30 second head start."
"No need." She had bullied him enough already, Qiao Ying thought.
So ignorant of the immensity of heaven and earth, Instructor Hou thought. She was clearly spoiled at home, never enduring the poisonous beatings of society. Her legs were just a bit faster than normal people's, and she was so arrogant because of it. She needed to be taught a lesson to temper her spirit, or she wouldn't settle down these next few days. If he didn't teach her now, people would have to teach her once she entered society.
"Humph, she really knows how to attract attention for herself. She thinks she grew four legs!" Li Shiyin said, rolling her eyes.
Several of the girls agreed, comparing herself to an instructor with military experience? That was clearly just trying to get attention.
"She at least dared to compete with the instructor. That takes guts. Winning or losing doesn't matter anymore. If it were you guys... Pah! You don't have the courage!" The boys spoke up for Qiao Ying.
"Seeing how eagerly you're speaking for her, drooling like you've never seen a girl before. Helping her talk, when she doesn't even know who you guys are. All she has is a pretty face, it's not like you can eat her face!" Li Shiyin disdained.
"You can't eat her face, but you guys can be jealous of it. Weren't you the one making snide remarks about her not understanding directions earlier? Yet in the end you just followed her butt out of here."
"Yeah! If it wasn't for her, how could we have found the dorm first, and the training grounds first?"
The students echoed each other back and forth.
Suddenly, a whistle sounded, startling them.
Before they could see clearly, they saw two figures shoot out like bullets from a barrel, disappearing beyond dozens of meters in the blink of an eye once their vision tracked over.
"Holy sh*t holy sh*t holy sh*t! What did my eyes just see?!"
"She's running in front of the instructor!"
"She left the instructor in the dust! Were those prosthetic cyborg legs she was wearing?!"
"No, those legs must be the legendary flying legs technique."
"Why don't you just say she has invisible feet."
Exclamations and shocked voices rang out, one after another.
Occasionally mixed with curses piercing to the bone.
In a flash, the two figures disappeared into the distance.
"Did she win? She must have won!"
"She should have won. Didn't you see? The instructor got left behind by a long way. F*cking awesome! Instead of going to Peking University she should just join the national athletics team. With that kind of ability she'd sweep all the gold medals in the world championships!"
"F*ck, I want to go get my phone to record video of this!"
Ten minutes passed without any sign of the two returning.
The students craned their necks watching expectantly. Even instructors from other classes would sneak glances back in the direction they would come from.
"Hey, they're back, they're back! Look!"
Everyone looked over. About 300 meters away, the two figures returned one after another. They were walking back. Qiao Ying strolled leisurely in front with her hands tucked into her coat pockets.
Their black instructor walked behind her.
"So she won, right?"
"She must have won."
"Tsk tsk, how does the same outfit look so good on her?"
Amidst the talk of the students, the two figures drew closer and closer. Everyone could clearly see the expressions on their faces. The one in front looked completely calm and relaxed, like she was just coming back from a leisurely stroll. The one behind...his face was so dark they didn't dare meet his eyes.
Qiao Ying walked back onto the training grounds. Under countless admiring and jealous gazes, she went to the basket of confiscated items and took her phone back out, putting it in her pocket.
"Holy crap, she won!"
"If that was me, I'd brag about it for the rest of my damn life!"
"Shhh shhh, the instructor is back."
The instructor came back to the training grounds with an ink-black face. His gaze swept over the students who wanted to watch but didn't dare meet his eyes.
Then he blew his whistle. "Sound off!"
"One!"
"Two!"
"Three..."
After they finished sounding off, the instructor's eyes landed on Qiao Ying's figure amidst the ranks.
"What's your name?" the instructor asked.
"Qiao Ying."
When her name came out, whispers once again made the scene fall into chaos.
"Qiao Ying? The prodigy who didn't do her language arts homework but still tested a full 690 points?"
"I heard our principal personally went to her house to snatch her away from other schools!"
"Is it really her? I've seen interview videos of Qiao Ying, she looked much heavier, though her eyebrows really look alike."
"There's only one Qiao Ying in our class, who else could it be!"
"Yesterday which dumb*ss told me she weighed 150 catties! F*ck his ancestors to the 18th generation!"
The instructor took in every bit of the students' discussion. After listening clear as day, the instructor said: "Quiet!"
He looked over Qiao Ying again.
Military training formally began.
Stand at attention, stand at ease, about face, standing position. For Qiao Ying who had endured ruthless training and assassin experience since she was young, this was undoubtedly child's play.
There were always a few slow-witted people in each class who had trouble distinguishing left from right and front from back. The instructors tore into them relentlessly while training them and correcting them.
Everyone silently accepted the fiery baptism of the instructors, suffering in silence.
Yet, among dozens of students, Instructor Hou could always pick out the most standard one who didn't have a single flaw he could criticize.
After practicing about turns and standing at attention for over half an hour under the blazing son, the students were screaming inwardly in discomfort nonstop. Several of the girls with weaker constitutions had already started reporting physical discomfort. However, Instructor Hou was cold and unmoved.
After practicing a while longer, Instructor Hou's mood seemed to settle down somewhat. So he had them jog laps around the track to relax their muscles and bones.
Seeing Instructor Hou free up, instructors from other classes had their students start running too. Then they gathered around Instructor Hou to gossip. "What was going on earlier? You lost in a race?"
"Don't tell me it was. She's just a little girl. Her legs haven't even grown that fast yet. You were in the 'Hellfire' special forces before retiring with that injured arm. Your legs aren't injured!"
"Old Hou, speak up. I'm dying of curiosity here. What's the situation?"
Facing his comrades' nosy questions, Instructor Hou just frowned silently without answering. His eyes remained fixed on that petite figure leisurely jogging amidst the sea of students.
"It's nothing. Just a troublemaker." Instructor Hou said.
"A troublemaker? That little girl?" Hearing Instructor Hou's words, his comrades were astonished.
They would have never imagined there would be a day the troublemaker of the infamous Hellfire special forces would call someone else a troublemaker.
But wasn't this girl getting a little carried away with her antics?
Instructor Hou's thoughts unconsciously drifted back to when he raced the girl.
How far behind did she leave him? He didn't know. Because by the time he reached the building, the upper floor was deathly silent without any sound of footsteps.
By the time he went upstairs, she was already waiting for him by the door of the dormitory, breathing steady and expression tranquil.
Compared to her, he was embarrassingly short of breath.
The scary part was: he didn't know how long she had waited for him!
If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, even beating him to death wouldn't have made him believe such a petite girl with tiny arms and legs could run so fast!
"Instructor Hou, a student fell down and hurts too much to get back up." A student rushed over urgently.
Instructor Hou regained his wits and immediately went over.
Pushing through the crowd, he saw Li Shiyin sitting on the ground screaming painfully. Her pants leg was rolled up, revealing her calf badly swollen with a huge blue and purple bruise.
After Instructor Hou examined it, he discovered the situation was quite serious.
"How could she fall so badly?" This was clearly not from falling.
"It was her. She deliberately tripped Shiyin!" Tang Xiaoguo pointed at Qiao Ying.
Instructor Hou frowned at her.
Qiao Ying stood with her hands tucked into her pockets, face tranquil without a trace of fluster. She looked down at Li Shiyin shrieking like ghosts and howling like wolves and said mildly, "Couldn't it have been that you wanted to trip me up but ended up tripping yourself?"
Qiao Ying's kick was what caused Li Shiyin's calf to swell up like that.
Qiao Ying shifted her gaze to Tang Xiaoguo, tone nonchalant but with a hint of chill: "You sure pulled your leg back quickly. Slower by just a bit, then you'd be sitting on the ground crying with her."
