Seven: writing letters, playing cards, standing guard

  The life of military training is tense and fulfilling, with a schedule that follows the clock. At 6:30 in the morning, get up, do early exercises for half an hour, wash up, and have breakfast at 7:30; from 11:30 to 12:00 is physical education class time, usually it's formation training, on rainy days learn military theory and regulations; have lunch at 12:00, then take a nap; from 2:00 to 5:00 continue with physical education classes, have dinner at 6:00, watch the news at 7:00, and if there is no class meeting, it's free time. Lights out at 10:00.

  After a day of training, everyone was a bit tired, but it wasn't possible to go to bed before 9:30. So, during this leisure time in the evening, most students used it to write letters. At that time, not to mention no internet and mobile phones, many families didn't even have installed telephones; even if they did, long-distance calls were very expensive. Therefore, writing letters was still a popular way of communication at that time. And for the first time leaving home and coming to an unfamiliar environment, with so many new and interesting things in military training, the students all yearned to share their experiences and feelings with family and friends.

  Lin Fanghua also joined the ranks of writing letters, finishing letters to her parents, brother, and classmates who stayed behind to repeat a year, as well as one to her original homeroom teacher, Teacher Liang. From the letters from her classmates who stayed behind, she also learned the addresses of several classmates who were attending university in other places, and Lin Fanghua took the initiative to contact them one by one. In her previous life, she hadn't liked writing letters, and later only occasionally wrote to her closest female classmate; after graduation, she had lost touch with all her other classmates, including those from university. However, after being reborn, Lin Fanghua decided to change this introverted and lazy personality of hers, treasuring the genuine relationships between people and no longer forgetting those friendships.

  It's even more rare for a troop leader to have a human touch, all military training recruits are treated the same as formal soldiers, letters don't need postage stamps, they just use military postal seals. Although it's only an 8-cent stamp, people generally don't want to miss out on free things!

  So every night around 10 o'clock, in the dormitories of each class, almost everyone sat on small stools or leaned against beds writing letters, which had become a scene of the military training team.

  Another scene is that the four of them sat together playing "Upgrade". At that time, "Fight the Landlord" was not popular yet, and "Piggy Bank" and "Upgrade" were the mainstream of poker. Not many girls can play Piggy Bank, but "Upgrade" is simple and easy to learn, and it has a partner, suitable for four people to play.

  In her previous life, Lin Fanghua spent most of her free time in college playing cards, watching videos, and watching movies. Wang Ju, Zhou Yu, and Zhao Yuling were her frequent "comrades" in card games, while Yang Qian and Liao Shan would occasionally join in. However, this time around, Lin Fanghua no longer wanted to indulge in these activities, and the popularity of online games in later years had also weakened her addiction to cards, making her less passionate about it than she was when she was younger.

  As a result, the nine players of poker often couldn't get together. Zhao Yuling and others would often shout loudly at another classroom door: "Three lacking one! Looking for external aid!" One time, after searching for half a day and still not getting together, Zhao Yuling shouted loudly in the room: "One lacking three!" The crowd burst out laughing.

  Lin Fanghua sometimes saw them playing cards and shouting, it was a bit funny and also a bit moving. Thinking that it was just boring during military training to pass the time, playing cards wouldn't affect anything. But thinking again, if they got familiar with their card partners at this time, after returning to school and starting formal classes, when they called out to play cards together again, it would be hard to refuse. It's better not to lose big things because of small ones and indulge in playthings.

  She then opened the portable CD player her parents had bought, plugged in the earphones and started listening to English tapes. At that time, CDs were not yet available, so they listened to cassette tapes. Students from relatively well-off families had a single-disc portable CD player to learn English, which was quite common. However, Wang Juhua's family was rural and didn't have such things, making her very envious. Lin Fanghua casually said that the two of them could use it together first, and after a while, she would borrow her brother's rarely used machine for Wang Juhua to use, as this thing was still quite useful for learning English. Wang Juhua became even closer to Lin Fanghua.

  On Wednesday, it was the turn of Class 9 to stand guard. During the day, there was a single person on duty, and at night, two people were on duty together. Lin Fanghua volunteered to take the late-night shift. This kind of scheduling is usually done fairly by the class leader, so this time they took the late shift, next time they would definitely switch. Moreover, Lin Fanghua, who had been reborn, felt like she had lived an extra 20 years, and subconsciously treated her classmates as if they were her students from her past life, unconsciously giving in to them and taking care of them. However, in the eyes of Bear Class Leader and others, it seemed that the youngest person in the class was actually the most mature, able to take care of people, and they looked up to her even more. So, some things are really like planting a willow tree by chance and having it grow into a shaded grove.

  It was past three in the morning, and Lin Fanghua and Wang Juhua were standing at the edge of the open space between the male and female dormitories, whispering to each other. On the opposite side, there were also two male students' shadows swaying back and forth, but under the dim streetlights, their faces couldn't be seen clearly, anyway, they were either from Class One or Class Two.

  In the deep night of early autumn, even in the south, the temperature had already cooled down. Lin Fanghua and Wang Ju kept walking to dispel the chill in the night wind. When they strolled to the wall under the dormitory fifty meters ahead, they suddenly heard a "bang" sound, which seemed like the sound of stones hitting the wall from outside.

  In the quiet of the night, a sudden voice sent chills down their spines. Wang Ju couldn't help but let out a startled "Ah!" and almost fell to the ground. Lin Fanghua's heart was racing with fear, but she still grabbed Wang Ju's hand tightly and pulled her behind herself, glaring at the wall as she shouted: "Who is it? Come out!"

  In the darkness of night, there was no sound at all from the foot of the wall.

  The sound of hurried footsteps came from behind, and the two boys also rushed over after hearing that something was happening here. They asked nervously: "What's wrong? Are you guys okay?" Lin Fanghua saw someone coming over and her courage grew a bit, pointing to the wall foot and saying: "It seemed like someone was just there!"

  Looking back at the two boys, it turned out that they were from the same class. One was Dai Ping, a temporary leader of Class 3, who later became the class president and had always been an excellent student; the other was called Liang Jiahui, also a well-known figure in the grade. He was a top student at C City's key middle school, directly admitted to this university, and almost took the first place in the grade every year for five years, then stayed on campus to pursue a master's degree and Ph.D., and later went to Stanford University School of Medicine as a postdoctoral researcher. This person was someone that Lin Fanghua admired from afar, and it seemed that they hadn't exchanged more than five sentences in the five years they were in the same class.

  Dai Ping asked clearly about the situation and carefully went to investigate at the foot of the wall. Liang Jiahui, on the other hand, didn't make a sound and stood with the two girls waiting in their original place.

  After a while, Dai Ping walked back and said he didn't see anyone. The four of them then returned to the street lamp side.

  As they were in the same class, the four of them started talking in a low voice. Mostly it was Dai Ping who spoke more, while Liang Jiahui mostly just nodded or smiled along. Lin Fanghua didn't interact much with other boys in the class, but she was familiar with the class monitor. It could be said that the school's selection of temporary assembly leaders for each class was quite accurate. For example, Dai Ping was a warm and responsible boy, suitable for being a class monitor. Lin Fanghua still remembered one time when she had a fever and didn't go to class, Dai Ping even ran to the girls' dormitory to visit her, although he only asked a few brief questions, it was still heartwarming.

  A few people chatted and laughed, and soon they changed shifts. Dai Ping said they were responsible for reporting the incident to the squad leaders earlier, and reminded their fellow students who took over later to pay attention.

  The final wall foot strange voice incident also had no conclusion, only vaguely heard that Lian Zhang found the team to reflect on it a bit, and later the old troops strengthened their patrol. Lin Fanghua thought, it was likely that some old soldiers were bored at midnight and came over to play a harmless prank.