An 80s female translator was spoiled rotten by a rough and jealous man.

Chapter 341 Play hard to get?

"Ding Ding Ding-"

On the desk by the window in the office, the intercom suddenly rang, interrupting the sounds of keyboard typing and the soft rustling of papers turning in the room.

Dou Peng, who was sitting closest to the window, reached for the receiver: "Hello, Room XX." After listening for a couple of seconds, he turned to his right and called out, "Hey, it's for you!"

Meng Youyou was engrossed in checking a foreign-related document on her computer screen when she heard the voice. She immediately looked up, quickly walked over, and took the receiver: "Hello."

The voice on the other end of the receiver spoke slightly quickly, with the background noise mixed with the faint clanging of metal parts: "Is this Comrade Meng? This is Gao Hao from the Equipment Section."

Meng Youyou hummed in agreement.

“A batch of imported portable mountain weather and soil testing instruments just arrived at the camp,” the man’s voice was tinged with helplessness. “The operation manuals are all in foreign languages. The three of us spent the whole morning fiddling with the machines, getting stuck on humidity calibration and offline data transfer. We made no progress for half a day.”

He paused, then his tone became more earnest: "Could you please come over now and take a look for us?"

“Okay, I’ll be right there.” Meng Youyou agreed readily.

At 2:30 pm, the sun was blazing overhead. Located at a low latitude, Fanzhou City still felt the heat even in early September; the ultraviolet rays were relentless, like molten gold poured down, making the ground scorching hot. Even leather shoes could feel the intense heat emanating from the soles of the concrete.

At the warehouse entrance, three men in camouflage training uniforms were looking worriedly around several silver-gray testing instruments. Meng Youyou approached them, and Gao Hao strode forward to greet them: "Comrade Meng, you've come all this way in this sweltering heat."

"It's nothing, it's just part of my job." Meng Youyou waved her hand, walked straight to the equipment, took the foreign language operation manual handed to her by Gao Hao, quickly flipped through the key pages, and after her eyes swept over the instrument's operation panel, she squatted down and studied the manual on the touch screen.

She first ran the entire process herself, clarifying the key steps, and then marked them in Chinese with a pencil in the manual. She then turned to Gao Hao to demonstrate, summarizing the core points in a steady voice: "During calibration, you must first select the correct mode, wait for the instrument to warm up for three minutes, and then press the confirmation button to enter the baseline value; for offline data export, you must first enable local storage permissions. There's a hidden export button here; you need to press and hold it for three seconds..."

Gao Hao listened attentively, squatted down to take notes in his notebook, and then meticulously copied the entire process from beginning to end to confirm that the procedure was correct. He nodded repeatedly to express his gratitude: "Thanks to Comrade Meng, otherwise we don't know how long we would have been stuck here."

"Of course." Meng Youyou wiped the thin layer of sweat from her forehead, stood up, and said, "If there's nothing else, I'll head back now."

Leaving the warehouse area, Meng Youyou walked along the shade of the trees towards the office building. Just as she turned a corner, a deafening shout of encouragement suddenly came from a direction not far away: "Go! Go for it!"

"Watch out on the right!"

"Attack his lower body!" The voice was rough yet excited, full of life, abruptly breaking the afternoon silence of the military camp.

Meng Youyou paused, her curiosity piqued. Following the direction of the sound, she turned a corner, passed through a grove of lush camphor trees, and stopped in front of a green mesh wall.

On the other side of the fence was the camp's training ground, which was now packed with people. Soldiers from both camps sat on the ground, facing each other and shouting encouragement. Their expressions were excited and high-spirited. Looking around, their bright white teeth stood out against their dark skin in the sunlight. The shouts from the field rose and fell, making people's eardrums buzz.

Meng Youyou's gaze passed through the gaps in the grid and landed on the open space in the center of the training field. She happened to witness a rather intense scene—two burly men suddenly pushed each other away, each staggering back three or four steps before regaining their balance and temporarily creating distance between them.

One of the men had his back to her, his back and chest heaving violently, his shoulder muscles still taut from exertion, and sweat dripping down his spine, clearly indicating he had just endured a high-intensity struggle. His camouflage training vest was torn in long rips from the collar down to his waist, the tattered fabric swaying gently with his breathing.

The man looked down, seemingly finding it in the way, and simply grabbed the collar, pulled the entire training vest off his head, and casually threw it on the ground at his feet.

After taking off his clothes, he shook his arms and stretched his shoulders and neck. Then he took a step back with his right foot, bent his knees slightly, lowered his waist and assumed a horse stance, ready to go.

The man was shirtless, his honey-colored skin glistening under the scorching sun. His veins throbbed in his arms and neck, the lines of his body smooth and firm. The heat emanating from his body was almost visible to the naked eye, wild and powerful, creating a strong visual impact. From a distance, Meng Youyou could inexplicably smell a faint, salty scent of sweat, carrying body heat and moisture.

Meng Youyou had never seen Huo Qingshan like this before; he was incredibly aggressive. This scene broadened her memory of him, adding a different dimension to his image. In her mind, he had never been particularly refined or scholarly, but rather possessed a restrained, understated air—a quiet, authoritative presence, strong yet not aggressive, often like a sheathed military sword. Not to mention, when he occasionally wore a neatly tailored suit, he was quite intimidating at first glance, exuding an air of impeccable decorum.

The sight of them now fully unsheathed, displaying their sharpness, reminded Meng Youyou of an eagle that had been circling in the blue sky for a long time and suddenly gathered its strength to swoop down.

The fight was about to break out. As the cheers and shouts of encouragement rose higher and higher, the two figures on the field launched their attacks simultaneously and clashed once again. The soldiers watching instantly regained their previous high spirits, even more so. Although they were sitting below, they put in just as much effort as the two on the field.

Their excitement was not without reason. First, the outcome was a matter of honor for their respective camps; second, everyone wanted to see a clash between the former fighting champion and the current elite recruit—would it be a triumphant return of the king, or a new wave crushing the old?

His opponent launched the first attack, throwing a straight punch straight at his face. Huo Qingshan dodged to the side and raised his hand to block, but his movement was a beat too slow, barely grazing his opponent's arm. After more than a dozen consecutive attacks, Huo Qingshan was struggling to cope and gradually fell into a disadvantageous position.

Meng Youyou was an amateur, but he could vaguely see that his reaction speed and agility were obviously not up to par, and his explosive power was also slightly inferior. His opponent seized the opportunity to exploit the opening, and two combination hooks landed precisely under his ribs, followed by an elbow strike to his side waist, and then a sweeping leg attack. He narrowly dodged and quickly retreated half a step.

Meng Youyou watched anxiously from the sidelines. He'd only been out of the hospital for a short time! Why did he have to rush into physical training? And why did he immediately start sparring and fighting? Did he think he was a Transformer?

His opponent pressed his advantage, launching a series of attacks that left him no time to breathe. Huo Qingshan gritted his teeth, quickly adjusted his stance, and threw himself back into the fierce battle, his fists flying fast and hard, attempting several times to turn the tide and take the initiative.

Just as the two were locked in a fierce and evenly matched struggle, the opponent suddenly feinted and launched a sneak attack from the side, forcefully throwing him to the ground. He then pounced forward, locking his throat tightly with his arm and pressing his knee against his back, pinning him firmly to the ground.

The man struggled violently on the ground for a couple of moments, his brows furrowed in unbearable pain. He twisted his shoulders several times, trying to break free of his restraints, but the person on top of him was too firm to budge.

On this side of the net wall, Meng Youyou emerged from behind the tree at some point. She unconsciously took several steps forward, her fingertips digging tightly into the gaps in the net until her knuckles turned white. Her heart pounded in her throat as she stared intently at the man pinned to the ground, her eyes filled with unconcealed worry.

Just then, the man with his forehead pressed to the ground seemed to sense something. He paused in his struggle, turned his head slightly, and his gaze pierced through the crowd, meeting the reddened eyes of the girl outside the net wall. His pupils contracted slightly, and he was clearly stunned for a moment before quickly looking away. The man's face flushed even redder, the redness spreading to the roots of his neck.

After a brief moment of distraction, he regained his strength and immediately adjusted his strategy for breaking free. Using the force of his opponent's suppression, he suddenly rolled to the side, while simultaneously extending his right leg to hook his opponent's ankle and tightly restraining his opponent's arm with both arms.

The situation changed in an instant, and the two immediately began to wrestle on the ground, their legs locked together and their arms intertwined, unable to separate.

The shouts around them grew louder and louder. The two fought like this for nearly ten minutes, rolling on the ground, going back and forth, restraining each other, and it was difficult to determine a winner. In the end, it ended in a draw.

A new group of soldiers went up to compete in the arena. The man stood at the back of the line with his hands behind his back, watching the graceful figure gradually disappear into the distance, his heart filled with mixed emotions. He was fully aware of his current physical condition; he was not in his best condition. He didn't know if it was due to inadequate recuperation, or if his body's inherent qualities were simply inferior to his own, or perhaps both.

Huo Qingshan had been observing the team's training for a while this afternoon, but he couldn't resist the urge to try it himself and test his skills. The soldiers from both battalions clamored for him to challenge one of the top recruits, saying several officers had praised him highly for his exceptional talent. Only Zhan You stepped forward and tried to dissuade him, but to no avail. Ultimately, Huo Qingshan agreed to their suggestion.

He was quite dissatisfied with the match. Not with the result, but with his own performance. It's not that he couldn't accept losing, but this was simply not up to par. The loss was too humiliating, to put it bluntly, it was shameful.

...

After training, Huo Qingshan immediately checked WeChat on his phone, sensing that she would send him a message. This time, he was more eager than usual to know what she would say.

Sure enough, there were already several messages in the chat box.

Meng Youyou: [Tell me, are you trying to seduce me?]
Meng Youyou: [As soon as I walked over, you took off your clothes. What were you up to?]
Meng Youyou: [Knowing I like this kind of thing, so you're trying to cater to it? Ha, man, are you playing hard to get with me?]
Meng Youyou: [You're quite the schemer! You can never truly know a person's heart, you can only know their face. I never imagined you were such a cunning person!]
Huo Qingshan was a little confused for a moment: [You only paid attention to this?]
A few seconds later, Meng Youyou replied: [Of course not! I even saw you getting beaten up and your teeth were falling out. I didn't mention it because I was worried about your image.]
Huo Qingshan's face darkened: [...]
Meng Youyou: [Although you didn't win, you have a better figure than him!]
Following this was an emoji of two little bears hugging and cuddling, with a string of cute text above their heads saying, "Don't cry, don't cry, we'll try harder next time!"

Huo Qingshan lowered his gaze and stared at the screen, probably unaware of the subtle upturn at the corners of his mouth.

Zhan You walked over, puzzled. Seeing the battalion commander smiling so happily, anyone who didn't know better would think he had won a great victory in the competition that afternoon.

Immediately after, Meng Youyou's message popped up again: [Shh~ Your butt's even perkier now! Hehehe~]
Upon seeing the latest message, the man's ears instantly turned bright red. He quickly turned off the screen, as if he had seen something he shouldn't have.