"Keep running, and you'll get used to it. Eventually, you'll be able to run sixty kilometers with twenty or thirty kilos on your back."
"Seriously?"
Ning Rongrong couldn't even imagine herself running sixty kilometers with twenty kilos on her back.
How much hardship would she have to endure? How much sweat would she shed?
Ning Rongrong could vaguely picture the miserable daily training that lay ahead.
Too bad she had chosen this academy herself, and she didn't want Jiang Jiu and the others to look down on her. So she'd just have to keep at it.
As time passed, without the burden of their weights, Ning Rongrong and Oscar struggled on with what little strength they had left.
They could still keep going, but some people were reaching their limits.
On the eighth round trip, Ma Hongjun, who was carrying ten kilos, simply couldn't take it anymore.
Jiang Jiu kept accepting every load they handed him. He was carrying forty-five kilos now, about the same as Ning Rongrong's body weight. She was actually a little lighter.
Ma Hongjun dropped his pack, but Zhu Zhuqing, who was carrying the same weight, gritted her teeth and kept going.
After Ma Hongjun could no longer run with the weight, Zhu Zhuqing finished the eighth round and even started on the ninth.
But on the final lap, she reached her limit too, and Xiao Wu volunteered to take the ten kilos she was carrying.
"This didn't quite go as planned."
Watching the exhausted children make their way toward the finish line, step by step, Yu Xiaogang wasn't sure what to say.
It wasn't quite the scene he'd imagined.
They were supporting each other, certainly, but Jiang Jiu was the one shouldering all the pressure.
He'd have to add more weight to Jiang Jiu's burden