booktalesy Chapter 1059: My Daughter Has Grown Up
Chapter 1059: My Daughter Has Grown Up
Huo Miao was naturally heartbroken when he received his daughter's call, but there was nothing he could do!
He can't let his daughter desert, can he?
All he could do on the phone was to patiently persuade her: "Listen to me, just hang in there. I've heard that the first month is the hardest, but you'll get used to it."
Huo Xinyuan was just making a phone call to vent her frustrations. She wasn't stupid; she knew she didn't even deserve to be a deserter.
She had already looked around when she arrived. Apart from their military camp, there was no other people in the valley. Even if she wanted to run, with her stamina that always put her last in the three-kilometer race, she wouldn't be able to run more than three steps before being caught and brought back.
Moreover, money is useless here. There's only one military store, which mainly sells basic necessities, such as instant noodles, sausages, and canned goods. The most expensive item doesn't even cost more than fifty yuan.
So after making that phone call, she wiped away her tears and went back to her dorm.
Seeing her return, Wu Jiabao leaned over and asked, "Did you call home?"
Huo Xinyuan nodded. Among them, Wu Jiabao was the one with whom she had the best relationship, which was one of the reasons why she had been able to persevere until now.
"It's okay, just hang in there. You'll be fine once you get to your unit," Wu Jiabao tried to comfort Huo Xinyuan.
After receiving her suitcase, Huo Xinyuan took out an exquisite box from it and handed it to Wu Jiabao.
"It's yours!"
Wu Jiabao curiously took it: "What is it?"
When she opened it, she gasped in shock: "Van Cleef & Arpels' panda five-flower design?"
It was a bracelet from the top French jewelry brand "Van Cleef & Arpels". Huo Xinyuan had more than a dozen bracelets of this brand in various styles. Seeing that Wu Jiabao had always taken good care of her, she gave one away out of gratitude.
Wu Jiabao, who also hails from the metropolis of Shanghai, certainly knew her stuff. She looked at the black and white floral bracelet in her hand with surprise.
She had seen this bracelet, which girls call the Panda, at the Van Cleef & Arpels boutique in the IFC Mall. She knew that the bracelet had a list price of 188,000 yuan and was a limited edition.
But then she began to have doubts: could it be a high-quality fake?
But it doesn't look like it, and the box also contains an invoice from the Van Cleef & Arpels boutique in the IFC Mall, which is enough to prove that the bracelet is genuine.
She reacted as if she'd been given a hot potato, immediately handing it back to Huo Xinyuan: "I don't want it, it's too expensive."
Unexpectedly, Huo Xinyuan casually stuffed it into her hand again: "Take it, I have a lot, I can't wear them all anyway, consider it a favor to help me wear them."
Wu Jiabao, holding the jewelry box, looked both amused and exasperated: "Xinyuan, you can't wear this here."
Huo Xinyuan waved her hand dismissively: "Then you can keep it. Wear it when you go on vacation in the future, and you can wear it when you go home." She acted as if she were giving away a very ordinary gift.
Wu Jiabao then became curious about Huo Xinyuan's family background: "Xinyuan, what does your family do?"
Huo Xinyuan didn't hide anything about this: "My dad owns a factory, and my family has some other businesses as well."
Upon hearing this, Wu Jiabao blurted out without thinking, "A rich second-generation?"
"I guess so!" Huo Xinyuan did not deny the use of this new internet slang term that identified her.
"If your family is so rich, why did you join the army?" Wu Jiabao asked, puzzled.
It would have been better if this matter hadn't been brought up, because once it was, Huo Xinyuan felt even more resentful!
"My uncle is no good. He's the one who tricked my parents into sending me to join the army. Just you wait, I'll never acknowledge him again."
"So what does your uncle do?"
Despite her anger, Huo Xinyuan wouldn't say it aloud; she brushed it off with a few words.
Two days later, the recruits began their first tactical training.
The training ground was paved with gravel. After the squad leader demonstrated the crawling posture, he ordered the new recruits to follow suit and begin training.
Huo Xinyuan stood there, looking at the dusty field and then at her training uniform, refusing to lie down on the ground no matter what.
"Huo Xinyuan, what are you doing poking there? Are you trying to starve?" The squad leader was furious.
"Report! The ground is too dirty, and there are many small stones that might hurt my hands!"
Well! The entire training ground fell silent.
Now, Huo Xinyuan was completely famous in the recruit corps. Perhaps some people didn't know the leaders of the recruit corps, but wherever Huo Xinyuan went, people would greet her, but behind her back they would point and whisper about her.
Training is training, and she couldn't escape it. In the end, she crawled on the ground in a low posture many times, her body covered in bruises. When she saw them while taking a shower, she cried her eyes out.
But without realizing it, she was slowly changing.
Under the leadership of her squad leader and with the help of the other new recruits in the squad, she finally caught up little by little.
Under the leadership of her squad leader and with the help of the other new recruits in the squad, she finally caught up little by little.
At least during an emergency assembly, they won't just carry a blanket downstairs to assemble; they can tie it up properly with three horizontal and two vertical lines.
I can fold my blankets into neat squares now, though of course, I can't compare to the class monitor.
I'm no longer at the bottom of the 5km race, I can do 20 or 30 push-ups in one go, and I can do a few pull-ups too.
The Spring Festival of 2013 is just around the corner.
On the 30th, the new recruits were organized to make dumplings together. Under the guidance of others, Huo Xinyuan learned how to make dumplings, although her first creation did not look like a dumpling at all.
She also drank a beer during the dinner party that evening.
Throughout the entire process, someone was filming the video; they appeared to be from the military's propaganda department.
That evening, she called her parents, maternal grandparents, aunt, cousins, and younger cousins, but she didn't call her uncle.
But what she didn't know was that the next day, the first day of the Lunar New Year, her family saw a video of her spending Lunar New Year's Eve in the new recruits' corps.
Upon seeing her on the screen, her mother, Zeng Xia, burst into tears, unable to stop.
While crying, she asked, "Why is Liu Jin so dark-skinned?"
After glancing at it, Huang Xiaochuan said, "It's not far from the sea there, so there's a lot of sea breeze, but it's nothing serious. She can just stay home for a month after she comes back."
At this moment, Qian Jiazhen pointed at the big screen with a look of surprise: "Look, Liujin can make dumplings now, and he's doing a pretty good job!"
Upon hearing this, Zeng Jiahua quickly looked at the big screen: "Really? Let me see! Let me see!"
When the whole family saw that Liu Jin, who had been pampered at home, could actually make dumplings, they were all stunned. The video contained a lot of footage, including scenes of Liu Jin's dormitory, where the blankets were folded so neatly that no one could believe that Liu Jin could do such a thing.
Huang Xiaochuan said to Huo Miao, "Brother-in-law, wasn't it the right thing to let Liujin join the army?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" Huo Miao was convinced. Seeing his beloved daughter change so much, he felt a little heartache but even more joy at the sight of his daughter growing up.