CHAPTER 17 

The first stage rehearsal was scheduled for 9:00 a.m. the next day.

That morning, Sang Miao didn’t get up early to practice. Instead, she had breakfast in the mess hall with the dance team, then headed to the stage.

This initial rehearsal wasn’t meant to be nerve-wracking. It was mainly to work on stage positioning, get familiar with the layout, and perform the full piece in its proper sequence.

They also needed to coordinate with the orchestra.

By 8:30, everyone was already backstage preparing. The male and female performers had changed into their practice outfits. Since this wasn’t a dress rehearsal, the actual costumes hadn’t arrived yet.

Even though it wasn’t a full run-through with makeup and costume, Director Yang Xin had still arranged for all the art troupe members who weren’t participating to come and watch. Several long benches had been set up below the stage, and the seats were gradually filling up.

Lu Xiao, the officer assigned to oversee the troupe from the infantry regiment, had also arrived. He sat in the center of the front row. His presence was so commanding that he took up an entire bench meant for at least three people. No one dared sit beside him.

Sang Miao and the dancers were already dressed and waiting in the wings. The dance and orchestra teams were both standing by.

Zhao Shenbin, who played the villain Nan Batian and had the first entrance, checked the time—it was already 8:55, but Yang Xin still hadn’t arrived.

“She mentioned she has a meeting today and might not make it,” Sang Miao explained. “She said not to wait for her. Since the audience is ready, we’ll start right at nine.”

As the lead and the production’s core, Sang Miao had been told directly by Yang Xin. No one objected, so Zhao Shenbin gave a signal to the orchestra, indicating they would proceed on time.

The conductor nodded in acknowledgment.

Backstage, Zhao Weiwei subtly glanced toward the right-side iron staircase.

The music began—violins and trombones rising together. Nan Batian and the villagers took the stage. His tyranny was portrayed vividly in the performance. Hidden among the villagers, Qionghua suddenly leapt into the air in a dramatic jump—unwilling to be oppressed, she stood up to the cruel landlord.

Sang Miao’s entrance stunned the entire audience. No one had expected the lead’s first appearance to feature such a technically difficult move.

The pitiful and delicate Qionghua was once again harshly suppressed by Nan Batian and the others during a moment of desperate resistance. The contrast between the strong and the weak was stark—her frail body was practically crushed to the ground, looking utterly pitiful. Yet her eyes remained resolute like steel. She wasn’t weak. In her gaze burned an unyielding flame.

Her lonely courage and helplessness seemed to instantly awaken the audience’s outrage at the injustices of the old era.

The rhythm of the dance drama picked up. Liu Feng appeared next, portraying Hong Changqing, who led Qionghua to join the Red Army. The pitiful and fragile girl gradually transformed into a tenacious female warrior.

Training, battle—along with the shifting storyline, the stage rhythm grew more and more intense. Different from traditional choreography, Sang Miao brought out the valor of the women’s army and the charm of female warriors in full force. The red was fiery and passionate.

In the second half, Sang Miao incorporated Lu Xiao’s moves—sharp, dangerous, carrying a fierce aura almost identical to Lu Xiao himself. Gasps of amazement rippled through the audience. Most in the cultural troupe had never truly seen combat or experienced a battlefield. Sang Miao’s performance gave them an almost real sense of being there.

Offstage, Lu Xiao’s gaze stayed locked on Sang Miao. Her dance carried traces of him, as if it had taken on his scent. It left Lu Xiao with a strange, indescribable feeling.

His throat itched for some reason.

When the performance ended, thunderous applause from the audience signaled to all the performers that their show had been a resounding success.

Amid the continuous applause, all the dancers lined up to take their bow. At the front of the stage, lead dancer Sang Miao stepped forward alone and bowed deeply to the audience.

When her slender figure moved forward to bow alone, the applause became even more intense—almost ceaseless.

Behind her, buried among the other dancers, Zhao Weiwei stared at Sang Miao who stood in the spotlight, receiving all the applause. Her nails dug so hard into her palms it nearly drew blood. But suddenly, as if remembering something, her grip slowly loosened, and her gaze gleamed with malicious excitement.

Zhao Weiwei was standing just behind and slightly to the side of Sang Miao—she had an important role too, and her position onstage was very close.

Lu Xiao, still watching from the front row, suddenly furrowed his brows and looked up in Zhao Weiwei’s direction. He had a sharp instinct, and he thought he sensed a hint of malice.

Onstage, Zhao Weiwei lowered her head, making it hard to see her expression, but a faint smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

Lu Xiao frowned—was it just his imagination?

Just then, the curtain call ended, and Sang Miao led the dancers offstage on the right side.

As she reached the second step of the iron-frame staircase on the right, the step suddenly gave way on one side. Sang Miao stepped into thin air and lost her balance, falling straight down.

There was a fair distance between the first row of the audience and the stage. The moment Sang Miao missed the step, Lu Xiao reacted instinctively and shot forward, just a step away from grabbing her arm.

But it was too late—it all happened in the blink of an eye. Sang Miao’s body slammed heavily onto the floor below the stage.

Even Xiao Honghong behind her didn’t react in time.

No one in the audience had expected that Sang Miao, who had just been dancing onstage, would suddenly fall off like that.

At the moment of impact, pain exploded from her ankle—a pain so familiar it filled her with dread.

A suppressed groan escaped her lips. “Mm… ah… it hurts.”

Lu Xiao immediately scooped her off the ground and asked in a low, steady voice, “Where does it hurt?”

In his arms, Sang Miao’s face had turned pale. She trembled as she answered, “My ankle… it really hurts.”

Lu Xiao pulled off her dance shoe. Her slender ankle was already badly swollen. He gently pressed on the swollen outer side. “Does it hurt here?”

Sang Miao nearly broke out in a cold sweat. “It hurts a lot.”

Lu Xiao’s frown deepened. It could be a fracture.

People had already gathered around them. Lu Xiao turned to Xiao Honghong and said, “Get me two short boards.”

Xiao Honghong was panicked, but Lu Xiao’s calm direction gave her something to hold onto. She turned back to the cultural troupe and shouted, “Everyone help! Quick, find two short boards!” Then she rushed into the rehearsal room herself.

With everyone working together, they quickly found two short sticks the female soldiers usually used for stretching. Lu Xiao tore a strip from the hem of his camouflage T-shirt and used it to tie the sticks around Sang Miao’s ankle, securing it in place.

Looking at the pale, frightened Sang Miao, Lu Xiao picked her up again. “Don’t be afraid.”

With his long legs, he pushed through the crowd and strode toward the military infirmary.

In his arms, Sang Miao’s mind was still blank. The pain in her ankle and Lu Xiao’s swift treatment had left her terrified. It brought her back to her previous life—when she’d been sidelined for over half a year due to a torn Achilles tendon.

A terrifying thought crossed her mind—had her bone… broken?

She didn’t dare dwell on it. Even the thought made her tremble all over.

Lu Xiao noticed her shaking more violently and assumed it was from the pain. The body in his arms suddenly felt so soft and fragile that he instinctively became even more gentle in his movements.

The infirmary wasn’t too far from the stage area. Lu Xiao walked quickly with Sang Miao in his arms. Xiao Honghong and a few others close to her struggled to keep up with his pace.

Inside the infirmary, an elderly military doctor named Zhao Weiguo, his hair already graying, was holding a tray of cotton balls soaked in alcohol when a tall figure suddenly burst in with a young woman in his arms. The sheer force of it startled him.

“What happened?” Zhao Weiguo asked quickly.

“She just fell from a one-meter-high stage stair. Her ankle is badly swollen and in a lot of pain,” Lu Xiao answered rapidly as he gently placed Sang Miao on the white bed in the infirmary.

Hearing that, Zhao Weiguo immediately put down the tray and hurried over.

Having worked in the cultural troupe for many years, he could tell at a glance that the young woman in the dance costume was from the dance team. Falling from a height and injuring her foot… if it involved the bone, and she couldn’t dance again…

Zhao Weiguo looked down at Sang Miao’s ankle and saw that it had already been roughly stabilized. A short stick had been used to fix the joint in place. He carefully unwrapped the bandage and exposed the injured foot.

Her ankle was severely swollen, an unnatural red hue spreading across it.

Zhao Weiguo put on his gloves and gently examined the area. With practiced hands, he pressed lightly around the injury, watching Sang Miao’s reactions as he assessed the severity.

He asked about how she landed and how the weight had shifted when she fell. Once he heard she had twisted her ankle on the last step and instinctively used her hands to break the fall, he had a rough idea of the situation.

The bone likely wasn’t broken.

The swelling was intense, but there was no bruising or internal bleeding, and she could still bear weight and move slightly. It was probably a soft tissue injury.

Zhao Weiguo went to the old-style freezer, took out a sealed medical ice pack, wrapped it in gauze, and gently placed it on Sang Miao’s ankle.

“Fortunately, the bone doesn’t seem to be broken. But the swelling isn’t minor—it looks like a strained ligament. Ice it first to reduce swelling, and then make sure to rest properly for a while.”

After speaking, he turned to Lu Xiao and nodded approvingly. “You handled it well, young man. Even though there’s no fracture, the temporary splint helped prevent the injury from getting worse.”

Sang Miao finally regained a bit of color upon hearing that the bone was intact. A fracture would be catastrophic for a dancer—it could even end her career.

She turned to Lu Xiao with a grateful look and said softly, still a little weak, “Thank you, Captain Lu.”

“It’s nothing.”

Knowing it wasn’t too serious, Sang Miao finally relaxed.

As the tension in her body faded, she became aware of another pain—her hands. She slowly uncurled her tightly clenched fists, and only then noticed the raw, bloody scrapes covering her palms. When she had fallen, she had instinctively thrown her hands out to protect herself, scraping them badly on the gravel-covered ground.

She had been so focused on her ankle that she hadn’t noticed until now.

The moment she opened her hands, Lu Xiao saw them too. Those fair, delicate fingers were now bloodied and torn, the wounds filled with dirt and grit.