Chapter 626
Next morning, all the freshmen headed to the temporary training base set up on the back hill for some belly crawling drills.
As soon as Arabella arrived at the base, a bunch of classmates greeted her enthusiastically.
“Good morning, Bella.”
“Hey Bella, rise and shine.”
“Bella, you made it.”
Arabella was left with question marks floating around her head. Did she know them?
“Bella, thanks for giving us a day off yesterday.”
“We had the AC on all day in our dorm yesterday, it was bliss,”
“Thanks for dealing with Noreen!”
A crowd of strangers surrounded Arabella, complimenting her on her skin and how pretty she was, all with friendly facès.
Jerome blew the whistle: ‘Attention!”
Everyone immediately stood up straight.
A
Today’s exercise was belly crawling. The wide field allowed all the freshmen to participate at once.
“Let’s go over the rules.” Jerome glanced at everyone and spoke seriously: “As soon as you hear the gunshot, you’ll hit the deck and start to crawl, aiming for the red flag at the finish line. There will be six instructors on the watchtower looking for targets. Your job is to keep a low profile and avoid making too much noise. The guns are paintball guns. If the instructors spot you, they will shoot, and anyone h has to start over from the beginning.”
So, unless they passed today’s test and grabbed the red flag at the finish line, they’d be crawling around in the grass all day.
“Other schools have singing and dancing for extracurriculars, and we’re here busting our asses every day.”
“It’s so hot and they want us to train in half a meter of grass; this is unbearable.
Jerome glanced at Arabella as if asking. Need to take a rain check?
Arabella just stared back at him and asked: Do I need to take a rain check?
She seemed like a tough cookie.
Jerome blew the whistle to signal the start of the race. All the students dove into the grass to start crawling.
This grass is so prickly.”
“Help, it’s too hot.”
“So many mosquitoes.”
Some were moaning and groaning, and a fair few got hit by paintball and had to bow out.
Arabella hadn’t even crawled a few steps forward when she felt people crowding around her.
“Bella, cover me!”
“Bella, I want to stick with you.”
“Bella, take me with you!”
These were the same guys who had been singing her praises earlier.
One of the instructors spotted a student fanning himself and took a shot, leaving Arabella speechless.
“Don’t make big movements; follow my lead.”
Under Arabella’s guidance, her team of seven or eight students made good progress.
Up on the watchtower.
A stem–faced man held a pair of binoculars, surveying the scene below.
“Minister, have you spotted your sister?”
“How was he supposed to pick her out from this crowd?”
“It’s too hard on a girl to train in this scorching heat. Some people just don’t know how to be considerate to women.
A few subordinates murmured behind Chasel, who gripped his binoculars tightly.
He couldn’t tell which one was his sister. He had asked David earlier, but David just played coy, saying the most beautiful student in the whole school was her!
He scanned the field, seeing only a sea of crawling figures. He couldn’t tell who was who.
