The wake-up bugle blared. The arts troupe became lively and noisy again. Though the sun had not yet risen, the sky was already fairly bright. A thin mist hung in the air, and mountain peaks two thousand meters high in relative elevation appeared and disappeared in the distance. The smoky scent of cooking fires drifted on the wind. This was the human world.
Not long after the wake-up bugle, the drill bugle sounded. In the military, all movement depended on bugle calls. Soon after the drill call, everyone came running out, chatting and laughing. Wherever there were lots of people, there was always liveliness, always some random nonsense to talk about.
People from all sorts of positions came out, along with even some of the leaders—several hundred people in a grand procession. After assembling and lining up in their designated places, they began running back and forth along the hard concrete road, shouting cadence calls of "One, two, three, four! One, two, one!"
The band lined up together with the song-and-dance troupe, male soldiers on one side and female soldiers on the other. Wang Yan was tall and sturdy, standing near the front. Hao Shuwen and the others were also among the tallest of the female soldiers, so they stood at the head of the line as well.
After going back and coming down again, Hao Shuwen would occasionally turn her head and glare viciously at Wang Yan. Sensing her gaze, he would sometimes return it with a smile and a raised brow, which only made Hao Shuwen feel worse.
Xiao Suizi, Lin Dingding, and the others, one row behind them, saw everything clearly.
The main reason was that Chen Can stood in the same row as Wang Yan. When you liked someone, you could never help looking at them—Xiao