Chapter 87 - Mountain Village
To the present Gu Qingjiu, the reason she joined the army was that she had to, and she didn’t have that much passion than she could ever imagine before.
Just like Yu Bao’er had implied, nobody leading a good life at home would be willing to come over and suffer several years of hardship for nothing and not even knowing what alternate paths they could take in the future.
But Gu Qingjiu had no other choice.
Her only choice was to accept this matter.
And turn her initial distress into a habit.
Only then, would she be able to swerve her only path into the best possible opportunity?
“You just wanted to join the military?”
Yu Bao’er looked at Gu Qingjiu with a doubtful look in her eyes; she couldn’t tell what was wrong with Gu Qingjiu’s expression.
But she looked down all of a sudden, making Yu Bao’er feel like she had said something wrong.
Not someone who lacked common sense, she shrugged her shoulders and said, “Alright, never mind if you don’t wish to say it. I’ll stop asking. Now that I’ve won, let’s go see the other teams compete.”
Gu Qingjiu replied with a soft hum before she went off with Yu Bao’er to see the rest of the competition.
After the competitions had ended for the day, the weekend was just around the corner.
That weekend, Gu Qingjiu and Yu Bao’er had marked the date to check out the village at the foot of the mountain.
And to buy some things.
Early in the morning, Gu Qingjiu went to see Chen Haoyang and asked for approval to leave the camp.
Since their movements out of the military camp were restricted, they had to seek approval first.
Yu Bao’er didn’t have much credibility in front of Chen Haoyang, hence Gu Qingjiu went instead.
Chen Haoyang readily approved.
But still, he asked them this, “Are you coming back this afternoon or tomorrow?”
Because the village had a resting station, some recruits could rest there for the night before returning to the military camp the next morning, unless there was an emergency special training.
Gu Qingjiu thought about it, then replied, “If nothing immediate crops up, we should be coming back this afternoon.”
Chen Haoyang nodded. “Mm, be careful.”
It sounded like he was alerting them to something.
Gu Qingjiu felt a little baffled, but she didn’t press for details and simply noted it in her mind. After getting her approval slip, she returned to look for Yu Bao’er.
When she and Yu Bao’er went, she gave her a reminder. “When I got the approval slip, the instructor asked us to be careful. Although I don’t know what he exactly meant, we better come back early.”
If they really were to spend the night in the village, Gu Qingjiu would feel unaccustomed to it.
The joyful Yu Bao’er couldn’t be bothered about it so much. She simply waved her hand and nodded. “Okay, okay.”
This village near the military zone was called ‘Mountain Village.’
It was a simple village name and a fitting one since it was located right in the mountains.
Mountain Village was a rather inaccessible place before. But ever since the military zone was set up near it and that soldiers came over by the years, Mountain Village started to look like a prosperous town.
There were at least thousands of villagers living there.
It was considered one of the biggest villages in the area.
Gu Qingjiu and Yu Bao’er went there on foot. Since it was the weekend, there were quite a lot of people going to the village.
The road to the village and the road to Dayi City went in two opposite directions.
Soldiers heavily guarded the road to Dayi City, and if they hadn’t received a special approval, the new recruits wouldn’t be able to get out. But the villagers in Mountain Village could go through that path without having to seek approval.
After Gu Qingjiu and Yu Bao’er went around the peak of the mountain and hiked for half an hour, they reached Mountain Village.