SCOM - Chapter 18
Chapter 18
When Zuo Luohuan received Jiang Hong's communication, she had just emerged from a private clinic. Seeing the message, she casually replied: [Don't know, but I know your schedule prediction was wrong.]
The widely circulated schedule for Ji Yuezhi had both interest courses on Thursday, but reportedly, no one had seen him yesterday.
Jiang Hong: [...Let bygones be bygones. Guess what he chose. I guarantee you absolutely won't guess!]
Zuo Luohuan's interest was slightly piqued. She replied: [He chose courses from A-rank instructors?]
Ignoring S-rank courses and choosing the remaining A-rank courses on Friday could only mean Ji Yuezhi was interested in those instructors.
Jiang Hong didn't message back but called directly. Zuo Luohuan answered and saw him, excited yet mixed with confusion, his eyes still holding considerable bewilderment.
"I knew you wouldn't guess either!" Jiang Hong's camera swung around, pointing first at room 606, then aiming at 612. "Flower Arranging Art and Soft Yoga. Ji Yuezhi came to attend these two classes this afternoon! Isn't it outrageous!"
Hearing this, Zuo Luohuan paused for a moment, recalling Jiang Hong's words, certain she hadn't misheard: "What on earth is Soft Yoga?"
Her first reaction upon hearing the names of these two courses was that the Combat Department had developed new interest courses, but judging from Jiang Hong's reaction, it wasn't that simple.
"It's just yoga, a course from Omega academies before equal rights," Jiang Hong said, looking constipated. "He also does flower arranging! The kind with real flowers and vases! This time, it's really not my fault I messed up. Who could have guessed Ji Yuezhi chose these two courses?"
"Before equal rights," "Omega academy" – these terms appearing together often carried a certain connotation, inevitably making one think in a particular direction. But this connotation shouldn't be associated with Ji Yuezhi in any way.
Zuo Luohuan subconsciously remembered the night of the coming-of-age ceremony, how she had half-held Ji Yuezhi's waist, placing him on the bed. She looked down at her hands, momentarily feeling the illusion that the soft, warm touch still lingered.
Across the optical link, Jiang Hong was still puzzling over Ji Yuezhi's motives. Usually, military students stiff enough to need this specialized class wouldn't have very good skills, and were mostly Alphas, along with some rigid Betas: "His skills aren't bad, not nearly stiff enough to need this class."
"He doesn't need it," Zuo Luohuan agreed with Jiang Hong.
"Huh?" Jiang Hong looked at Zuo Luohuan strangely, feeling her 'doesn't need it' sounded a bit odd.
"Nothing." Zuo Luohuan snapped back to reality, adopting her usual nonchalant demeanor. "No need to stare at someone else's interest courses. Hanging up first."
"Wait, G..." Jiang Hong watched the communication cut off, rubbed his head, feeling Zuo Luohuan was acting strange today.
If even Jiang Hong was this shocked, needless to say the other military students who found out later.
For the Soft Yoga course, to accommodate the students' psyche, photography was forbidden, and the classroom curtains were drawn year-round, preventing anyone from seeing inside.
Other students only found out what Ji Yuezhi's last interest course was after the students in that class finished.
This led to the entire weekend being dominated by discussions about this matter. All students at the First Military Academy knew Ji Yuezhi had chosen the Soft Yoga course.
[???]
[What on earth is yoga? Why did Ji Yuezhi choose this kind of course? Plus Flower Arranging Art, what is he trying to do?]
[Ji Yuezhi should have a purpose in doing things, right? It can't be as simple as it looks.]
[Ah? I heard there used to be some kind of soft technique that could strangle enemies in combat. Does this yoga class teach moves like that?]
[I think so. Senior Ji must have chosen the yoga class to research this soft technique.]
[To the person above, just a reminder, this soft technique isn't called 'what'.]
[Wow, then I'll choose this course too in the future! Learn soft techniques, strangle opponents!]
[...Bullshit, I took this class last year. What soft technique? Strangling yourself maybe!]
[Exactly, my legs almost got twisted off every time! The instructor even stepped on my leg and wouldn't let go, sob sob sob.]
[Learned for a year, besides being able to do the splits faster, learned absolutely nothing. Still forced to go this semester, tragic.]
[So many people have taken yoga? Isn't this the school's most unpopular course?]
Shock aside, the military students were all discussing Ji Yuezhi's reasons for choosing these courses. Almost everyone believed his actions held some deep meaning. Some fan club members even decided to take the Soft Yoga course next year to experience it.
No one considered that the person involved simply chose it for the original purpose of yoga class.
...
Ji Yuezhi didn't know or care what others thought. Upon entering the classroom, he found the changing room, placed the flowers aside first, then changed into training clothes before walking out.
The instructor was a dance teacher hired from another university, coming over once a week for class. She was a typical Omega with excellent flexibility.
The teacher waited for everyone to arrive and change into training clothes, then checked the roster to familiarize herself with the students. Different secondary genders had different flexibility levels; she needed to know in advance to plan the course.
The Omega teacher called names while pressing students' shoulders, waists, and legs, recording the situation on her optical computer.
"Ji Yuezhi..." The teacher looked at the information in her hand, hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Are you an Omega?"
Omegas naturally had better flexibility than the other two secondary genders. At the First Military Academy, basically no Omega students took this course. For an Omega to come here, could his limbs be stiffer than an Alpha's? That would be tricky.
Ji Yuezhi nodded: "Yes."
Other classmates nearby looked shocked and horrified. They naturally knew Ji Yuezhi was an Omega; after all, the school had been buzzing the day he returned after differentiating – a perfectly good Alpha suddenly becoming an Omega. Now he was here taking this class. They were classmates with the Head of the Disciplinary Committee. They couldn't pull any small tricks in the future; the slightest misstep meant point deductions. Terrifying!
The teacher went through the motions, finally sighing in relief. "Don't worry, the course won't be too difficult for you." This student's limbs weren't stiff either, so why did he come to yoga class?
The class started with splits. Unsurprisingly, most students couldn't go all the way down and were stepped on by the teacher, resulting in wails of agony.
Ji Yuezhi adapted well. While the teacher guided others, he zoned out slightly.
Once differentiation was successful, secondary gender characteristics would gradually become more apparent. For example, an Omega's skin would become finer, their limbs softer.
Ji Yuezhi was fundamentally different from other Omegas. He had almost differentiated years ago, forcibly suppressing it until now. No one knew what side effects there might be. He didn't want to be different from a normal Omega.
Ignoring other aspects, Ji Yuezhi hoped more that when facing the person he liked in life, he could become the kind of sweet-smelling, homely, traditional Omega.
The Soft Yoga course was excellent. It was said that before the equal rights movement, it trained Omegas' flexibility and other aspects to ensure harmony in life with their loved ones.
At this point, Ji Yuezhi didn't yet realize that the yoga at the First Military Academy was modified by the teacher to target improving stiff limbs, completely different from the type of exercise with certain connotations.
...
News traveled fast in the Capital circles. Returning home for the weekend, Ji Xixiu asked his son with a complex expression, "I hear you chose a course called Soft Yoga?"
"Mm."
"How does it feel?"
"Not very difficult." Ji Yuezhi paused, then added, "Perhaps it's because it's the first class. Maybe it gets more in-depth later."
"...Is that so? I haven't looked much into this course," Ji Xixiu fell silent for a moment, then changed the subject. "How are your main courses going?"
"Instructor Jia and Instructor Bai are just as you said. The new Instructor He is very skilled." Ji Yuezhi mentioned how He Yue taught using the YU-93 Sniper Light Gun that day.
Ji Xixiu knew more internal news: "That gun came from the Winter Army. They urgently needed a long-range, high-firepower sniper light gun back then, didn't care about weight. It was popular for a while, but the scrap rate was too high, and it wasn't suitable for other army groups, so the Ministry of Finance eventually phased it out."
The Winter Army was currently the strongest force among all Federation army groups, strong enough to ignore such details.
"Right," Ji Xixiu remembered something. "What injury did Zuo Luohuan sustain?"
Ji Yuezhi froze: "What?"
"She seemed normal at school? Not necessarily injured." Ji Xixiu said, "I saw tracking information about her in the intelligence department the other day, visiting a private clinic several times."
The Federation intelligence department collected a vast range of information, including some irrelevant bits that were later filtered out during classification. Zuo Luohuan was the Commissioner's daughter; such tracking information occasionally appeared and was then cleared.
Ji Xixiu only paid attention to this news because of his son.
"Never heard she was injured." Ji Yuezhi lowered his eyes, but remembered the faint scent of blood mixed with her pheromones on the night of the coming-of-age ceremony. She had left the banquet midway, where else did she go that resulted in injury?
"Then she probably went to a friend's place. She has plenty of messy friends," Ji Xixiu snorted coldly. That Zuo Luohuan didn't interact much with peers, always running off somewhere since childhood, meeting all sorts of people.
The father and son didn't talk long before Ji Xixiu had to go to the Military Council for business.
Ji Yuezhi stayed home alone, starting to investigate anomalies in the Federation on the night of the twenty-eighth. Soon, he found the news about the Armament Database building.
—An SL-9 light gun was stolen, suspected to be the work of black market personnel taking advantage of the situation.
The time of the theft matched Zuo Luohuan's departure time perfectly. Ji Yuezhi then found out that He Yue was among the guards on duty that day. She injured the thief, who subsequently used the SL-9 light gun to successfully evade sniper fire.
Combined with the scent of blood he smelled that night, he could likely confirm the person was Zuo Luohuan.
If Zuo Luohuan hadn't come over to give him the coming-of-age gift, Ji Yuezhi wouldn't have guessed it was her.
Stealing an SL-9 light gun to sell for a high price on the black market? Ji Yuezhi didn't believe it. She wasn't short of money; there must be some purpose.
Ji Yuezhi didn't delve deep into Zuo Luohuan's purpose, only wanting to know one thing: visiting the clinic several times, was her injury serious?
During shooting class that day, he hadn't noticed anything abnormal, but Ji Yuezhi recalled Zuo Luohuan's appearance emerging from behind the rockery that morning – pale face, fine hair at her temples damp.
While Ji Yuezhi was still guessing the severity of her injury, Jiang Hong had already clearly found out what checks Zuo Luohuan underwent, what medicine she took, and had stormed over to the Zuo residence to question her.
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