Infiltrating the Superhuman Training Girls’ School of the Republic of China!

The Huangpu dormitory was almost as huge as the main school building. Although I call it the main building for convenience, given the size of the gate, it would be more appropriate to compare it to the main hall of a palace, with its enormous size.

Contrary to the concern that we might wake up future classmates if we entered the wrong place, every window was lit up. After receiving my room number from Instructor Zhou, I said to her,

“Still, all the dormitory room lights are on.”

“Yes. It seems you won’t have to worry about waking up sleeping students.”

“…Is this normal?”

“Isn’t it natural that there are more Chinese than foreigners staying in this dormitory?”

Major Zhou smiled slightly. Indeed, while Beiping and Guangzhou are relatively generous to foreign students, this is fundamentally a Chinese military academy for nurturing Chinese talent. Moreover, considering China’s enormous population, it’s natural that the number of Chinese in this dormitory would be overwhelming.

At the very least, it seems this school has separated the floors where foreign students stay, if not the entire building.

“Yes, that’s true…”

“Huangpu is a military academy. As I said before, that role is still somewhat valid even now. Do you think China would demand only a moderate level of will and determination from the heroines who will lead the country’s future? Don’t you think it would be an environment where one couldn’t survive if they fell asleep at this hour?”

“Ah…”

“But don’t worry. We don’t apply such strict standards to foreigners. More than anything, there’s no particular reason to do so. Of course, if you’re willing to do your best to learn, we won’t stop you.”

I’ve heard that Huangpu maintains quite a high level in practical education, but does this mean that the difficulty of written, theoretical, and basic learning education is also high? Damn, the Major says it like that, but if the rumors about her are true, she’s a person who does all sorts of ugly things using her grading authority as a weapon. It’s hard to distinguish whether she’s speaking sincerely or just trying to intimidate.

I entered the dormitory, which was the size of a detached palace building, and called the elevator. Since the instructor turned her back and headed towards the main school building after seeing us enter the building, only the Soviet colonel and I were left alone in the elevator.

I cautiously spoke to Barbara Tikhonov.

“Um… I’m sorry.”

“Yes, for what?”

“For suddenly calling you a spy. From what the instructor said, it seems you’re definitely a foreign student…”

“Ah, no. You don’t need to apologize. More than anything, I was very suspicious too. I was doing suspicious things. I looked suspicious. That’s how it happened. Something like that. By the way, your name is…”

“Shin Eun-young. As you said, I’m a case of deciding to study abroad after attending university in Korea.”

“I see. But I haven’t heard about your ability yet.”

Ability. Is she referring to the ability as a superhuman?

I nodded, glancing at the silver-haired Russian.

“Yes, my ability is…”

“Ah, the elevator.”

At that moment, the elevator reached the 11th floor. Unlike me, who was assigned to the 12th floor, Tikhonov’s room was on the 11th floor. She nodded, looking at the slowly opening elevator doors.

“We’ll see tomorrow. We’ll all have time to introduce ourselves to each other tomorrow anyway.”

“Y-Yes, Colonel.”

“Call me Barbara.”

The colonel said with a slight eye smile. Her naturally smiling eyes looked more like those of an ordinary woman in her 20s working at a company rather than a high-ranking officer of the fearsome Red Army.

“Soviet military ranks and such, they’re meaningless in a place like this. We’re not in a communist country, nor in a country friendly to communist countries. I don’t want to show that I’m a weapon of the Kremlin while surrounded by students from China and countries friendly to China.”

With those words, she disappeared into the 11th-floor corridor.

And the elevator headed for the 12th floor. The very floor where room 1201, where I was set to stay, was located.

“Briar Churchill…”

I’m not unfamiliar with her face. I know quite a bit about the rumors and information about her. But this is the first time I’m actually seeing this celebrity. It’s also the first time I learned that I’ll be sharing a room with her.

To be honest, my brain is still slightly rejecting this concept of ‘roommate’ itself. Cohabitation, that is. And with a woman at that. Me, who was a man until just a few months ago… am I going to share a room and live together with a lady from a noble family?

I’m not sure if it’s ethically okay. Actually, saying that is just an excuse, and I’m not confident that I’ve adapted to being a woman enough to live with another woman without causing any problems.

With a trembling heart, I approached room 1201. As I slowly approached the door, I could hear what sounded like the playing of a string instrument from inside the solid wooden door.

The moment I stopped abruptly to knock, the violin sound coming from inside the door simultaneously stopped. As I waited for a moment without knocking, surprised by the interrupted performance, a heavily accented British English was heard from inside the door.

“A visitor? That idiot instructor? No. A commoner. My kind roommate.”

The sound of high heels clicking on the floor inside the room grew closer to the corridor. With a click, the door opened inward, and a pretty face I had only seen in newspapers popped out through the gap in the door.

“What are you doing standing there, Korean?”

She asked in English, still not using Chinese. I also recalled that it wouldn’t be strange for me to be good at English ‘according to my setup’, and answered in the American accent I was familiar with.

“I’m Shin Eun-young, who will be sharing the room with you from now on. Miss Briar Churchill, I…”

“American accent. Have you lived in America before?”

“Uh, not particularly…”

“Then you’re quite elite. Come in. It’s your room anyway. I prefer a single room, but since the noble Chinese insist that students must share a room with someone, what can I do?”

With those words, Churchill flung the door wide open, fully revealing herself to me. She was standing there wearing a nightgown with red lace, holding a violin in one hand and the doorknob in the other. Briar Churchill asked me,

“Did you hear? Since you didn’t knock.”

“Um… yes, a little.”

“How was it? My violin.”

“Was it Brahms?”

“You seem to know your music reasonably well. Good, you pass for now. I’ll give you a bed, you should be grateful to me, commoner. This room is luxurious not because of you, but because of my name value. Isn’t it funny? Anyway, it shows that they care about the name of the Duke of Marlborough. What do you think? Is it the name of a British political family that they pay attention to, or is it my ability that can shatter even the barriers they’ve carefully set up in one go?”

I avoided answering her question and asked a completely unrelated counter-question. It was because I didn’t want to answer.

“I don’t see a bow in your hand. And it doesn’t look like you’ve put it somewhere, where on earth is it?”

“Ah, aah.”

Churchill shuddered as if annoyed and rubbed the strings of the violin with her fingers. A sweet sound that couldn’t possibly be produced by fingers alone flowed from the instrument she was holding, and she perfectly played a phrase from some violin solo piece right where she stood.

No, perhaps even beyond perfect.

“It’s a good instrument. Antonio Stradivari. I’m not sure of the exact year, but it’s definitely a late work.”

“Just now, with your fingers on the strings…”

“I couldn’t find a bow worthy of this instrument. I thought I might find one among traditional Chinese musical tools, but it seems their string instruments are plucked with fingers. It seemed like a good method, so I tried it. What do you think?”

“That just now… was an impossible performance.”

“Hmm, but it was sound, wasn’t it?”

She grinned as if finding it amusing to watch my expression change moment by moment.

“Listen, Asian lady. If you want to live with this Briar Churchill from now on, you can forget everything else, but remember one thing. If there’s one field where the word ‘impossible’ doesn’t apply to this stupid and ugly Briar, it’s sound and music. Got it?”

Ugly? Her?

That can only be irony no matter how you look at it.

If so, calling herself stupid must also be irony. Even in the British upper class, who don’t particularly like her somewhat reckless and unconventional behavior, I’ve never seen anyone criticize her face as not being beautiful. I’ve heard countless criticisms that her behavior doesn’t live up to her face value, though.