My Dreamy Old Husband novel Chapter 66

Michael’s voice suddenly turned serious. “Bayside University’s students are specially selected from hundreds of thousands of candidates in Cethos yearly. Training camp will allow the instructors to see a person’s qualities. Bayside University wants to ensure that their graduates are true elites, so naturally, they have to eliminate a certain group of people.”

He then dove into his point. “The marks allocation for training camp is very strict. There are marks for teamwork, individual achievement, housekeeping, discipline, formation, and there are even marks to be given for normal days and during weekends. Your marks can be deducted from anywhere. Only a handful of people can obtain full marks.

If a person performs excellently in every aspect, the other students will naturally be jealous of him. The day before training camp ends, there will be another session whereby all the training mates will score each other anonymously. In this session, those who usually perform too excellently will lose some marks.

Thus, the handful of people who scored full marks are mostly the Fletchers, because everyone knows that the Fletchers have people inside the military. They could check who was the person who gave them low marks.”

If they did not perform well, they would not score full marks. If they performed too well, the other students would deduct their marks out of jealousy. Thus, only the Fletchers had the ability to get full marks.

Since someone had even placed a nail in Sophia’s shoes, that person would surely give her a bad score.

Hence, only a person with an astonishing family background and superb personal qualities could score full marks.

Sophia then suddenly asked, “Honey, then how much did you score in your military training back then?” Michael graduated from Bayside University too, so he surely had been through military training as well.

Michael let out a sigh. “95.5. I was too good-looking and I performed too well, so I ended up stealing the spotlight. My teammates were too incompetent, and in the final session, I was even given a bad score by a few losers.”

Sophia nearly asked Michael why he didn’t use the connections the Fletcher family had to find out who the culprits were. However, Michael seemed to be keeping his connection with the Fletcher Family a secret, so she decided against asking him that question. She would settle with her knowledge of him being a Fletcher.

She then continued pursuing the topic. “What about the teamwork marks and individual marks? What should I do to score in these sections?”

“Housekeeping includes the arrangement of your barracks, rinsing cup, shoes and personal belongings. It’ll also take into account the tidiness of your attire, coat, belt and hair. Three best students will be selected yearly and three groups with outstanding performances will receive special prizes.”

Michael seemed like he was very familiar with the rules of training camp. He could explain almost every point and even let her in on some of the tips which the instructors had kept from them. Sophia listened attentively, and even borrowed a small notebook to jot them down. With that, the couple talked for the entire afternoon.

They talked until five o’clock and it was about time for her to return to her company to compete for dinner. Sophia suddenly remembered that Michael was still overseas, so there was surely some time difference. She asked timidly, “What time is it at your place?”

Michael replied, “It’s already 2 o’clock in the morning.”

It’s already two o’clock in the morning!

He was giving up on his sleep to chat with her.

Sophia was shocked. “Honey, then you better go and rest first. I have to compete for dinner soon. If I’m late, I can only have steamed buns for dinner. I’ll hang up first.”

Michael answered, “Steamed buns are not bad. During my batch, the slow ones could only go through the rest of the night with an empty stomach.”

Sophia swiftly shut down the computer. She suddenly realized that her face was getting hot and a weird thought popped up in her head. Michael is actually not as cheeky as I had imagined.

She then rushed back to rejoin her group with Nathan. Commander Ford did not say anything about her absence. He said that he understood Sophia’s situation, but Sophia felt like he had noted her name down in his small notebook.

After coming back, Sophia rejoined the training. It was already 5:30 and all of the instructors had left; even Commander Ford had brought Nathan to the car. Then, the clock at the training ground began counting down for them to race for dinner.

Sophia had kept Michael’s words in mind.

There were tricks to this competition for dinner as well. It might look like a test for individual behavior among the students, for everyone would get to eat whatever they managed to obtain, but in actuality, it was a test of teamwork.

Those who ran the last would have less food. Although they wouldn’t starve to death, their energy would surely be insufficient and consequently, it would affect the performance of their overall training. It would then directly affect the entire team’s marks.

As the countdown entered the final stage, Sophia finally voiced out, “Everyone, listen to me. I have something to say!”

Everyone turned their gaze toward her, wanting to hear what she had to say.

“I heard from a senior that teamwork marks are important too. Those who run the last can only eat two steamed buns and they will be at a great disadvantage as they don’t have enough energy. Thus, it will affect the entire company’s marks. This could cause the whole team to fail.”

The few girls who were at the end of the race did not have the stamina to catch up with the others. They were on the verge of tears as they did not want to be the last ones too, but they really did not have the stamina. Since they ran rather slowly, their portion of food was smaller and they had less food to eat. Hence, they ran even slower.

Sophia then offered her idea. “I have an idea. Let’s not run on our own later. Instead, we’ll run as a single company. As we run together, let’s help each other out. I’m not wishing that everyone can get the buffet, but at the very least, we can’t let the students who run the last starve.”

Everyone exchanged glances; they seemed doubtful of Sophia’s words, but then, they heard her speak again. “Let’s conduct an experiment today. If we do it well, I’ll give everyone watermelons. Come, let’s hold hands first.”

Although nobody knew what Sophia was up to, they immediately listened to her orders and joined hands when they heard they could have watermelons later on.

Sophia instructed, “When it’s time later on, we’ll start running in a group. Don’t spread out.”

Less than a few seconds later, it was time. When the clock struck 5:30, the thousands of students began the race to head to the cafeteria.

Company 49 was the only company that was still in a group, holding onto each other’s hands. Forming into a line, they charged forward with all their might. The slower ones were then dragged along by the faster ones, just barely catching up to the group. When they reached the base of the first hill, a few people had left the group. After doing a headcount, there were only roughly 30 people left; all the boys had gone ahead.

“Everyone, listen to me. From now on, we mustn’t let go of our hands again! Those who let go of their hands will not have their portion of watermelons tonight.”

There were many delicate girls in Company 49. Almost half of them could only run fast enough to eat the two steamed buns, but that would be the worst-case scenario. After hearing Sophia say that they could have an extra meal after dinner, they immediately held their hands together.

Seeing that everyone had held each other’s hands, she ordered, “Let’s start hiking!”

Everyone dashed toward the hill with their hands tightly held together. If someone slipped or fell behind, the person beside could immediately pull the person up. Although they were slightly slower, at least nobody was left behind.

Soon, they arrived at the riverside. At this moment, the group started having different opinions; a group of them wanted to cross the bridge, while the other wanted to swim across the river.

Sophia was the big boss in the company, so she decisively ordered, “We’ll swim. We can save a lot of time!”

A girl said shakily, “I don’t want to. I don’t know how to swim!”

Sophia took a look at the group. “Those who can swim, step forward.”

A group of girls stepped forward. More than half of them knew how to swim, so Sophia said, “Let’s give each other a hand. Those who don’t know how to swim, please pair up with a student who knows how to swim. Let’s help each other out.”