I enlisted four times! My former unit blacklisted me.

Zhou Ming dragged his feet and moved toward the playground.

He was holding a pen and a notebook, and was only wearing thermal underwear.

A night breeze blew, and I shivered all over.

He turned the corner of the dormitory building, and the entire playground came into view.

Four tall streetlights illuminated the track brightly.

On the cement ground next to the lamppost, four people were writing furiously around it.

Zhou Ming stopped in his tracks.

He looked at the four people in front of him, his expression changing from utter despair to disbelief.

Captain Liu? Captain Cao? Squad Leader Song? Squad Leader He?

How did they get here?

Are they also writing 10,000 words?

Liu Zhen happened to look up and stretch his neck, and his gaze swept over.

They bumped right into Zhou Ming, who was completely dumbfounded.

The two stood facing each other across half the playground.

Liu Zhen was utterly astonished.

But then, I suddenly felt happy.

Great, here comes another scapegoat.

Cao Meng also looked up and saw Zhou Ming, revealing a smile that looked more like a grimace.

"Hey, Squad Leader Zhou, you're here too? Did Wu Hanfeng come to your dorm to find you?"

Zhou Ming smiled wryly: "I couldn't sleep, so I played on my phone for a while and got caught red-handed."

In the corridor on the third floor, Wu Hanfeng scanned each room one by one.

He didn't come to confiscate our property.

Dragging a dozen squad leaders out of bed in the middle of the night, making a racket like bandits raiding a village, was unnecessary.

Contraband doesn't grow legs and run away; there's plenty of time to check during the day.

What he's targeting now are the violations that are happening now, in progress.

It's satisfying to catch people who stay up after lights out playing on their phones, secretly smoking, or gathering for late-night snacks.

Caught red-handed, there was no way to defend oneself.

The second room had a sign on the door that read "Third Squad Leader Sun Hao, Fourth Squad Leader Zheng Hao".

Wu Hanfeng listened for two seconds.

The breathing inside was steady and even, and a radar scan showed no abnormalities.

The two class monitors were sleeping like hibernating bears.

He continued walking forward.

The third room is the same.

The fourth one is normal too.

Wu Hanfeng suddenly felt like laughing.

These squad leaders train the students like they're their grandchildren during the day; when they shout, the whole drill ground trembles.

At night, he slept more soundly than a raw recruit.

He checked seven or eight rooms but didn't catch a second one in the act.

Apart from Zhou Ming, who was the first one to hide under the covers playing games, everyone else was either fast asleep or snoring and tossing and turning.

The entire third floor was as quiet as a library.

Wu Hanfeng closed his notebook and turned to walk towards the stairwell.

He stepped onto the stairs leading to the fourth floor.

The fourth floor is different from the third floor.

The third floor has double rooms, where the class monitor lives.

The fourth floor has single rooms, where the company commander and battalion commander live.

The hallway is shorter, and there are even fewer rooms, four on each side.

Besides the dormitories, there are offices and meeting rooms.

It's almost one in the morning, and the corridor is so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Only the emergency exit indicator light in the corner glowed a faint green light.

As soon as he reached the top of the stairs, his nose twitched slightly.

The smell of smoke.

It was very faint, but in this enclosed corridor, the tar smell of burning tobacco was like ink dripping into clear water.

Even the slightest trace is enough to be obvious.

Wu Hanfeng looked in the direction from which the smoke was coming.

My gaze fell on the crack in the door of the room at the end of the corridor.

A sliver of dim yellow light shone through the crack in the door, drawing a thin line of light on the dark corridor floor.

There was no nameplate on that room, but Wu Hanfeng knew whose it was.

The single dormitory of Captain Qin Gang.

A slight smile played on his lips as he walked toward the door.

The closer you get, the stronger the smell of smoke becomes.

When I got to the door, I could hear the sounds coming from inside even through the door panel.

A long, satisfied exhale.

That was the sigh that the old smoker slowly exhaled from deep within his nose and throat after taking a drag of his cigarette.

Wu Hanfeng did not push the door open immediately.

He pressed his ear against the door and heard another sound.

The slight clinking sound of chopsticks against the enamel bowl.

Then came the sound of slurping noodles.

Then came the "glug glug" sound of swallowing soup.

Eat instant noodles.

It was midnight, more than two hours after the lights were turned off.

Comrade Qin Gang, the battalion commander of the training team, was lying diagonally on the bed, smoking and eating instant noodles.

Wu Hanfeng looked down at his navy blue uniform.

He then reached out and touched the silver badge on the helmet.

The smile on his face deepened.

He took half a step back and straightened his collar.

He took the notebook out of his pocket, turned to a blank page, and uncapped the pen.

Then he raised his right hand and tapped the door three times with his knuckles.

Boom, boom, boom.

The room fell silent instantly.

The sound of chopsticks hitting the side of the bowl stopped.

The slurping sound of noodles stopped.

"Who?"

Qin Gang's voice came from behind the door. It was low and hoarse, carrying annoyance at being abruptly interrupted.

But more than anything, it was a feeling of guilt.

Wu Hanfeng did not answer.

He gripped the doorknob, pressed it down, and pushed it inward.

The door wasn't locked.

On his own turf, he probably never imagined that anyone would dare to come and check his room in the middle of the night.

The door opened.

The motion-activated lights in the corridor turned on in response.

Light streamed into the room from behind Wu Hanfeng, casting a long shadow on the floor.

The shadow wore a silver-gray helmet, its outline square and hard.

Qin Gang was half-lying on the bed.

Two buttons on the training uniform were undone, revealing a gray physical training shirt underneath.

He had half a cigarette dangling from his mouth, not yet extinguished.

He was holding an enamel bowl in his left hand, with a small amount of instant noodle soup still remaining at the bottom.

A few swollen noodles dangled on the rim of the bowl.

A layer of bright red chili oil floated on top of the soup noodles.

Half of a red cigarette box was sticking out from the edge of the pillow.

That's probably where he keeps his cigarettes.

On the bedside folding table, there was a freshly opened instant noodle package.

A bag of pickled vegetables that hadn't been opened yet. An electric kettle that was still steaming.

The entire room was filled with a strong, complex aroma that was a mixture of smoke, instant noodles, and pickled peppers.

Qin Gang's pupils contracted sharply the moment he saw who was entering through the door.

Military police.

Navy blue uniform. Silver-gray helmet.

The words "Military Police" on the armband were clearly visible under the corridor lights.

This time, this place, this outfit—

His first thought was "a surprise inspection by the garrison at midnight".

My second reaction was, "It's over."

My third reaction was, "Why am I so unlucky?"

But when his gaze rose and he saw the face beneath the helmet, his third reaction became—

"Fuck."

That face was smiling slightly at him.

Eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth—every single one of them was in the same spot he had seen countless times that day.

During the day, he stared at that face and pondered it all day on the training field.

They wanted to find some flaws in the above, to find the weariness of the veteran, or the stubbornness of the hothead.

He found nothing and felt that the soldier was unfathomable.

Now he knows what true unfathomable means.