My Little Poplar - Chap 29

From their conversation, Bai Xinyu realised that Xu Chuang was Huo Qiao’s comrade at the military school and later in the regiment, and they trained together until Huo Qiao went to the Snowleopard brigade, they were very close friends, comrades, he always thought Xu Chuang must be over 30 but he never thought he’d just turn 30, it’s true that angry people age quicker.

The two of them are chatting animatedly, reminiscing about their first days in the army, with a sense of pride.

Xu Chuang, after two glasses of wine, not only is he in high spirits, his voice rises and he says, “Hey, Huo Qiao, do you remember the days, when… Chen Jing, when I first came here… Chen Jing Chen Jing, do you remember, Huo Qiao was still a platoon leader in the Reconnaissance Company at that time, the first time he saw you, what did he say.”

Chen Jing laughed and said, “That I could act like a big girl with six months of hair.”

“Hahahahaha, that made us laugh.” Xu Chuang laughed so hard he just slapped his thighs.

Huo Qiao took a sip of wine, he laughed awkwardly.

Chen Jing said helplessly: “Is that so funny, you’ve been laughing for so long.”

“Hahaha, actually, we are laughing at this, there is a deeper reason, this reason Huo Qiao won’t let us tell you, today Huo Qiao is not in the Reconnaissance Company either, you don’t see each other normally, Huo Qiao, just tell him.–”

Huo Qiao smothered his mouth with a mouthful of the small pot of dipot, he exhaled and smiled: “Okay, I’ll tell you. When I first started military school, I was a little shorter than you are now, the first thing my instructor said when he saw me on the training ground was, ‘you can pretend to be a big girl with a cool haircut, how did you get into military school?”

Chen Jing snorted with laughter, half-jokingly, half seriously said: “It turns out that what you look like has nothing to do with being a good soldier.”

Huo Qiao narrowed his eyes and smiled slightly, raised his glass to Chen Jing and said, “Of course, with me as a precedent, I didn’t mean to look down on you, I just thought you were funny and wanted to tease you.”

Xu Chuang, “You’re just looking for revenge, otherwise you’d have been called a girl for the first two years of military school, how frustrating, isn’t that right Huo, ha ha ha ha ha.”

Huo Qiao winked, “When have I ever held my breath, from my superiors, to my comrades, to the lady sweeping the floor at school, to the man serving food in the canteen, there’s no one who doesn’t like me, how can I hold my breath, I’m happy.”

Xu Chuang made a pounding motion and said, “You’re shameless.”

Huo Qiao laughed loudly and said, “Come on, come on, let’s drink.”

Yu Fengcheng looked at him with a smile and said, “Little Uncle, don’t blame me for not warning you, you’re not a very good drinker.”

Huo Qiao blew into the goblet and said, “Really, I’m not a good drinker.”

“I forgot you got drunk last New Year’s Eve, you had to do push ups on my mother’s back.”

Huo Qiao tugged on his ear, “Didn’t you provoke me, saying I mustn’t do as many as you when I’m drunk.”

“You just don’t do as much as I do, you crawl on the floor and fall asleep afterwards.”

Huo Qiao said with clenched teeth, “You can’t forget to train when you’ve had too much to drink, that’s good drinking.”

Xu Chuang scoffed: “You’re bragging, once when you were in the company, you got so drunk you had to kiss our Company Commander, the commander was so scared he almost smacked you with his shoe, don’t you remember that?”