The others shook their heads, declining the milkshake. Only Lenard nodded his head. "I'm thirsty. I'd like to drink some."
"Alright. Let's share it," Talbot suggested and poured half of the drink into two disposable paper cups.
At that moment, the door opened and Wesley walked inside the office.
Upon seeing him, Talbot waved at him. "There you are, Chief! We've left you a few cakes. Oh my! The cakes were so delicious. Where did you buy them?"
Wesley's face darkened once he saw the scattered lunch boxes on his desk. "Who ate them?" he asked rigidly.
Talbot didn't see the sullen look on Wesley's face as he proceeded to drink a mouthful of his milkshake before answering, "We all ate them. But don't worry. We've left some for you."
"Who opened the boxes?" Wesley asked.
"I did, Chief. Why? Is something wrong?" Talbot pursed his lips in confusion
Wesley cast a cold glance at him before saying, "You'll get fat after eating all those desserts. Go out and do sit-ups. No less than a hundred sit-ups in one minute. Talbot, you'll do additional thirty push-ups for every sit-up missed. As for the rest of you, additional twenty push-ups for every sit-up missed." He then caught sight of the cups of milkshake that Lenard and Talbot were holding. "Since you two drank the milkshake, you get more exercise too. It will help burn off the calories. Go run two kilometers with five-kilogram weights. Finish it in ten minutes. You'll do additional thirty push-ups for every minute excess."
Everyone in the office fell silent, not quite understanding what was going on. It was the first time that Wesley had given them punishments for such a seemingly harmless reason.
Nonetheless, they didn't dare protest. They were soldiers, and soldiers must obey orders. They exchanged a few stumped glances at each other and then rushed out of the office posthaste.
On the training grounds, while they were doing sit-ups, Talbot gazed at the office building with his brows knitted together in confusion and murmured, "What exactly did we do to piss him off? Where was he before he arrived at the office? Did someone snitch on us to him?" He paused to consider it. "But we haven't made any mistakes recently," he continued.
Lenard was also confused by Wesley's behavior. "Beats me," he replied with a shrug. "I caught a glimpse of his face as we walked out of his office. Seemed like he was in a bad mood. Did we unknowingly piss him off somehow? Or was he perhaps just taking out his anger on us?"
"Of course we pissed him off! Our chief isn't the kind of man who would make things difficult for us for no reason," Bowman chimed in without second thoughts. But like the other two soldiers, he too couldn't think of anything they did that would have offended Wesley so much.
A soldier who had been keeping quiet suddenly opened his mouth. "Ah! I know it!" he exclaimed as if he just discovered life's greatest secrets.
"What is it?" The others all turned to look at him with their eyebrows raised.
"He must have been dumped!"
"Meh!" The soldier was met with blank stares and a variety of disdainful looks. The other soldiers then brushed him off and went back to carrying out their punishments.
'Wesley? Dumped? He didn't even have a girlfriend. How could he have gotten dumped?' they thought to themselves.
Before long, they soon found out why Wesley punished them. The following day, Talbot happened to see Blair's latest update in her Moments while browsing through his phone during lunch break. She posted a picture showing several fancy-looking mung bean cakes and mooncakes—the cakes that they had eaten. The caption read, "Looks yummy, huh? After countless failures, I've finally made the perfect pastries!"
'No wonder Wesley was so angry. We ate the desserts that his beloved girl had made for him.'
Talbot eagerly showed the update to the others. They all looked at each other, at a loss for words.
Back inside Wesley's office, he stared at the remaining mooncake, two mung bean cakes and half a bottle of milkshake. He pursed his lip in annoyance. 'What a pity, ' he thought.
Blair had worked hard to make these pastries for him, but most of them ended up getting eaten by others.
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