Chapter 1929 — Nothing Else Meant

But from the time she had first met Wei Zhao until now, Wang Xinyan had never felt that way. Perhaps it was because their encounter on the train had been so accidental—she had seen him looking foolishly gullible and been moved to a trace of pity—only to discover that the one deceived had not been Wei Zhao but those few swindlers. That had astonished and startled her, and left her curious about what sort of person Wei Zhao really was.

The second time she ran into him was on the commercial street in Songshan City, where she had gotten into trouble and Wei Zhao had smoothed it over with ease. From that moment on, Wang Xinyan had decided that Wei Zhao was a rather good friend.

But the real meeting of minds had come that time on the plane, when she was low in spirits and had told him a great deal about her background and her sorrows. From then on, the bond between them had grown a little closer than that of ordinary friends—they were good friends now, she supposed...

Step by step, it had come to this, and Wang Xinyan had found that Wei Zhao was a decent person—a good man.

And yet, when she thought about it, perhaps in her eyes Wei Zhao was a good man, but in the eyes of the Xiao family he was a villain of the very first order.

Of course, if he had not had Wang Xinyan with him, going to find the flag and come back would have been the easiest thing in the world for Wei Zhao. A jungle route of this caliber was child's play to him; back in the primeval forests of Africa, in places crawling with wild beasts, venomous snakes, swamps, poisonous flowers and grasses and insects, he had still moved as briskly as if flying.

"Rest a while if you're tired." Wei Zhao found a spot that looked reasonably clean and said to Wang Xinyan.

"Ah... it's all right, I can keep going!" Wang Xinyan did not want to stop so soon after setting out. If they kept resting, when on earth would they ever find the flag?

"It's fine—the scenery here is lovely, so let's call it sightseeing." Wei Zhao smiled. "Look at the maple leaves all over the mountains—how beautiful..."

In Wei Zhao's view, if in the end they truly could not find it, he would simply dash over and fetch the flag himself, and that would count as completing the mission. As for the top three places, he had no particular designs on them; Leader Bai had already guaranteed that he would graduate smoothly, so what did he need extra credits for?

After all, in the pharmacy department, Leader Bai was the leader, and with his promise, even the principal would not say much.

"Yes, it really is beautiful." Hearing Wei Zhao say so, Wang Xinyan sat down as well, and gazing at the red leaves covering the mountains, she could not help recalling a poem: "Far up the cold mountain the stone path slants, where white clouds rise, someone has made a home. I stop my carriage, fond of the maple woods at dusk; the frosted leaves are redder than the flowers of spring..."

It was nothing more than an impromptu recital, but the moment the poem left her lips, Wang Xinyan's face suddenly flushed—because the third line, "I stop my carriage, fond of the maple woods at dusk," had been altered by certain idle people into "I stop my carriage and ** in the maple woods," a description of car rocking and the like. Wang Xinyan had seen it on the campus BBS just a couple of days ago.

"I... I was just saying it casually, nothing else meant..." Wang Xinyan felt compelled to add.

"??" Wei Zhao looked at Wang Xinyan in bafflement. "What's wrong? What do you mean, nothing else meant?"

Seeing his expression, Wang Xinyan was caught between laughter and tears. Had she been overthinking? Had Wei Zhao not thought of that at all? But she could hardly explain herself now; if he had not been thinking of it and she explained, that would only make things worse. So she could only say, "It's nothing."

"Nothing?" Wei Zhao frowned, carefully replaying what Wang Xinyan had just said, and then it dawned on him. "You mean the part about stopping the carriage and **?"

"No, I didn't say that—why is your mind so impure?" Wang Xinyan's face went red in an instant. She had said it, then said it was nothing—wasn't that plainly making Wei Zhao all the more curious? Better to have left it alone; the moment she reminded him, Wei Zhao remembered.

"Ah?" Wei Zhao shrugged helplessly. "You were the one who said it first..."

"All right, all right, I'm rested. Let's get moving again." Wang Xinyan changed the subject, and with that she stood up and walked on ahead.

Wei Zhao smiled faintly. Wang Xinyan was rather interesting. From the look of her, she was not some creature above worldly things; it was only before people she did not know well that she came across as somewhat aloof. Once she grew familiar with someone, her nature turned cheerful—a little like the eldest young lady in that respect, though not entirely the same.

The eldest young lady was cold on the outside and warm within, but she would never be as quiet as Wang Xinyan.

They walked on for a while longer until it was nearly noon. Wei Zhao took some compressed biscuits from his backpack and asked, "Hungry? How about we eat something first?"

"I'm not really hungry yet. How about we hold out a bit longer before eating?" Wang Xinyan was afraid there would not be enough food. She had looked at other people's GPS units earlier, and not one of them had coordinates as far-flung as the one in her hand. It was practically at the end of the mountain range, and they would have to cross over to the other side of the mountain to find the flag.

Wang Xinyan did not know why she had been so unlucky as to draw such a GPS, so she was not about to waste food. Perhaps she and Wei Zhao would be the last team to complete the mission.

In fact, Chen Yutian had deliberately given her this GPS. In his view, it was safer to give the most distant coordinate to Wei Zhao; with Wei Zhao's skills, retrieving that red flag would be simplicity itself.

"It's all right. The supplies the two of us drew are one pack too, with enough food for three people." Wei Zhao smiled faintly and tossed a bag of biscuits to Wang Xinyan.

"Then... I suppose I'll eat a little..." The sight of food made Wang Xinyan hungry. If Wei Zhao had not brought it out, she might have held out a while longer.

The two of them found another clean spot and sat down, ate some compressed biscuits and drank a little water, then set off again.

After the meal, Wang Xinyan's strength had recovered considerably, but the distance to their goal was simply too great. They walked for nearly four more hours, and only then had they covered half the route!

Seeing that Wang Xinyan's stamina was beginning to falter, Wei Zhao sighed. "There are still at least twenty kilometers as the crow flies to the destination. We have to get there before dark, or I'm afraid we won't be able to make it back tomorrow to finish the field training mission."

For the fastest updates and ad-free reading, please visit.