Chapter 251: An Unexpected Discovery in the Command Room (Part 2)
Searching for something from all those sc.r.a.ps of paper was even more difficult than in those complete doc.u.ments. Xiao Lin spent more than half an hour at it and finally gave up.
The shreds were far too many and Xiao Lin did not bother to tidy them up. When he realized it was getting late, he simply lay them on the stone table and was about to leave. As he went to blow out the oil lamp, he subconsciously noticed the b.u.mpy floor near the edge of the table from the corner of his eye. A torn piece of paper had fallen there.
Initially, it was not something that was worthy of much attention. Xiao Lin glanced briefly at it before blowing out the oil lamp and leaving the room. Barely a few steps later however, the paper’s contents flashed quickly in his mind like a slide projector, as if a flash of lightning struck him. He suddenly halted his footsteps as his expression changed in the darkness. Something appeared to have popped up in his mind.
Xiao Lin hurriedly turned around back and hurriedly re-ignited the foul-smelling oil lamp. He carefully picked up the paper from the floor near the table edge and wiped the dust off of it. He observed it closely with the dim light closely. The paper was not that large and there were few words on it, but it was those incomplete and completely unfamiliar words that caused Xiao Lin’s expression to become more complicated as he looked at them.
After a long time, Xiao Lin sat down on the leather-covered stone bench. Amidst the orange glow, his expression was rather dull and he seemed to be overcome with shock.
“How is this possible?
“This can’t be!
“What kind of joke is this!”
...
Xiao Lin muttered repeatedly to himself. He held the piece of paper in his hand and read over it countless times. The piece of paper was clearly already torn by the orcs, but the command room was basically untouched after the siege of the fortress. He therefore searched every nook and cranny in the command room, even in the corners full of garbage and dust. More and more pieces of paper were soon found.
The endeavor lasted half a night, and it was already very late when Xiao Lin walked out of the command room again. Everyone had fallen asleep in the silent fortress, except for a team of patrollers. Based on the headquarters’ joint decision, patrol work would be carried out in shifts according to turns, and it was probably the fifth shift who were doing their rounds.
Xiao Lin was able to gradually gain a certain degree of popularity during the two days of fighting, even among those from other cla.s.ses. The patrol team quickly came over when they saw a silhouette, but they soon recognized that the person was Xiao Lin. A girl led the patrol team, and she tried talking to Xiao Lin after greeting him with a smile.
“Haven’t you slept yet, Monitor Xiao? Are you still worrying about the situation? Hehe, why don’t you come join us for a walk!”
The woman’s enthusiasm soured the expressions of the men behind her. They were supposed to patrol, yet she took it for a night walk?
Xiao Lin ignored the woman’s warm greeting and suddenly asked, “Where is the girls’ dormitory?”
After entering the fortress, the students naturally borrowed the orcs’ barracks, but everyone was faced with an awkward problem. There was no distinction between men and women in the barracks. Although a small number of people felt that this was a matter of course during the war and it was not the time to be worrying about these minor details, most of those who held that view were men.
That opinion was immediately met with extreme dissatisfaction from the women, who were headed by Han Manman. The orcs did not mind, but they were all humans. Many were unmarried women, and it was unacceptable to have them live as mixed genders. In a rare show of support, Xiao Lin sided firmly with Han Manman’s.
Xiao Lin’s question stunned the woman. For a man to suddenly ask about the girls’ dormitory in the middle of the night was a weird enough question regardless of how one looked at it, but he had the authority to question it because he was the acting cla.s.s monitor. After the woman pointed the way, Xiao Lin thanked her and went straight away.
The woman felt inexplicable and muttered to the person behind her, “Could Monitor Xiao be bored with such a long night ahead?”
“You’re the one who’s feeling lonely in this long night!”
“Sigh, it’s a pity that Monitor Xiao doesn’t fancy me.”
“I think you’re a love-struck idiot!”
“Don’t you think Monitor Xiao was really handsome this afternoon?”
“For f*ck’s sake! We’re men!”
...
Of course, Xiao Lin didn’t hear the complaints from the patrol team behind him. At that moment, his emotions were a mess and he did not realize how bad of an idea it was to be going into the girls’ dormitory at night. His heart was getting very anxious and he could not wait until the next day.
Xiao Lin’s appearance finally broke the calm and tranquil night. Fortunately for him, his brave fights in the past two days had won over a lot of ordinary students. In particular, many young female students have always admired heroism, just like the girl from the patrol team. Many found him to be very handsome and even hoped that some spark might appear between them.
However, they all left in disappointment after hearing that Xiao Lin came only to Gu Xiaoyue, who had not gone to bed yet. She looked as though she did not care about anything, but her thought processes were very meticulous. She had taken up the responsibility of caring for a family and her younger sister from a younger age, and she usually had much more on her mind as compared to her peers.
She was equally as surprised when Xiao Lin came to see her in the middle of the night, especially when the girls all around her looked at her with strange and teasing looks. Gu Xiaoyue did not like that kind of feeling and atmosphere, so her slightly irritated reaction was to be expected. Regardless of how one put it into perspective, looking for a woman in the middle of the night was far from normal, and her initial thought was to refuse without hesitation.
For some reason however, the words Xiao Lin said before leaving the fortress in the afternoon came back to Gu Xiaoyue’s mind: I won’t let you die here, even if it means fighting with all my life!
Gu Xiaoyue always believed that she was a very calm person whose emotions did not fluctuate too much at any given time, but that sentence alone tugged at her heart when it popped up in her mind again. She vaguely understood why Xiao Lin gave it his all that afternoon.
Finally, Gu Xiaoyue sighed, then got out of bed and got dressed.
The door to the barracks was closed, but Xiao Lin did not need to look inside to know that there must be countless gossip mongering women who were listening in on them. He did not intend to let anyone else hear their conversation.
“Let’s take a walk around the fortress wall,” Xiao Lin suggested.
Gu Xiaoyue froze, then nodded in agreement and followed Xiao Lin obediently to the top of the wall.
The seascape of Planet Norma was very beautiful at night. The bright moonlight shone down and shimmered on the surface of the sea. About ten or so meters above the sea was a layer of light blue firefly-like lights, adding even more charm to the night. When they were on the battleship, Xiao Lin asked the sailors about them and found out that those were the elemental floating fish that Song Junlang made into soup and fed him. The occasional appearance of elemental floating fish was unsurprising given the high concentration of water element in the sea.