Love Began with the First Meeting

"To be honest," the man who had talked to Edgar the night before broke the silence since he knew more about their relationship than anybody else. "I don't care if you act in your own interest, but I'm afraid that her father will kill you. "Edgar sighed. "Wasn't it you who advised me to face my problems head on?" he mumbled in a discontented tone.

The man said sincerely, "Yes, I did say that, but-Wait a minute..." He stopped mid-sentence, as if something had just struck him. He asked excitedly, "Edgar, are you saying that you have straightened out your thoughts after last night and have finally decided to find a girlfriend?"

The man's question kicked awake the rest of the military officers on the intercom. Immediately, they started speaking all at once, creating chaos on the communication line. They sounded more like a bunch of school boys than the leaders of an army.

Finally, Edgar sighed and said in an indifferent tone, "All right, the duty officer is here to take the next shift. I'm going to get some sleep. Sir, excuse me." Although he had been a major general before, he was now just a colonel because of the demotion. None of the military officers on the intercom were inferior to him, so he had to show them the respect their ranks demanded. However, a shoulder badge was nothing but a mere worldly possession, one which could not impact his status in the army.

By the time he returned to his dormitory room, Gordon, his secretary, had already prepared a basin of water to wash his face and a cup of water for him to brush his teeth. After cleaning himself up, Edgar advised Gordon to contact Daniel in case of any emergency. Gordon walked out of the room soon after and Edgar went to bed.

He had stayed up the whole night, but he wasn't sleepy at all. His mind was filled with thoughts of Maggie. He had indeed straightened up his thoughts, but he hadn't decided to pursue Maggie. He wanted to make Maggie quit from the idea. And he could surprise the leaders who were waiting to hear his touching love story.

While he was busy with his thoughts, Maggie was not sitting around idle either. Due to the regular training sessions every morning, her biological clock couldn't adjust to the sudden holiday. Even though she could rest for the day, she woke up at the same time she got up every day. She tried but could no longer fall asleep after that.

So, after cleaning herself up, she went to the communication company. First, she made calls to her best friends in the college, Monica and Benjamin informing them about her relationship with Edgar. Hearing their different opinions, she could do nothing but roll her eyes. She figured that it was meaningless to ask them for any valuable advice. In the end, she made a call to William.

All the telephones in the communication room were connected to the control room servers. No matter which number she dialled, the number would be transmitted to the central control room. The guys in the control room would never eavesdrop on others' conversations, but they knew the telephone numbers.

"Wow! This is our deputy commander's phone number. Who is calling him?"

"Oh my God! Who is this Maggie Du? How could she make a direct call to him?"

While the people in the control room were talking about her curiously, Maggie was beating around the bush for quite a while after William answered the phone. She didn't know where or how to start the conversation.

William was running out of patience. He asked helplessly, "Maggie, is there something you want to tell me?" Stroking a stack of documents on his desk with his right hand, he continued, "You have a rest day, but I have to write a very long summary report on the exercise." "Dad," Maggie said hastily to prevent her father from hanging up. "Um..." She was hesitating again. William threatened that he would hang up the phone if she didn't say anything soon. Taking a deep breath, Maggie said, "I want to get your opinion on something." William almost burst into laughter. He wondered what was wrong with his daughter. She had always done everything on her own volition, without asking him. To his surprise, she was asking for his opinion this time. "Hmm, could you tell me what this is about first?" he asked with a grin on his face.

Maggie curled her lips downwards in a frown. She looked around and made sure that there was nobody else in the room and then she said, "I want to know about your expectations for my future boyfriend. Tell me what kind of person you want me to find as my boyfriend. I want to hear something explicit."

A wide smile appeared on his face. It seemed to him like she had already found a man, since she was asking him for advice now. "Okay. Let me tell you what I think. You know that your mom and I are both open-minded."

"You are open-minded, but I don't think your wife is that kind of a person," Maggie mumbled in a low voice, interrupting her father.

William chuckled lightly. "All right. Then, I will tell you what I feel. It's pretty simple. I will like anybody my daughter likes. And I will be satisfied with any man she chooses. No matter what type of man he is, I will recognize the man you love as my son-in-law." "What if I find a boyfriend who is only a few years younger than you or maybe even older than you?" Maggie asked without thinking.

William was speechless, not knowing how to answer his daughter's bizarre question. His hands had stopped moving and his face fell. Later, his secretary, who was by his side at that moment, would say that he thought that William was informed of an imminent attack from the enemies.

"Ahem..." William coughed to conceal the great shock he received from his daughter's words. He could not bear thinking about the possibility of her getting married to someone who was older than him. "Well, Maggie, even though I support you wholeheartedly, I hope you will make the right decision for yourself. You may find a man who is older than you, so that he could take good care of you, but you can't choose someone older than Edgar. That's my limit of tolerance." The reason why he had said that he would accept any man Maggie chose without any reserve was because he thought that she had fallen in love with Edgar. However, if his daughter wasn't referring to Edgar, he would suffer from the bitter consequence of his own words.

"Don't worry, Dad. I was only joking," Maggie said. She found that people outside were gazing at her in confusion and curiosity. "All right. I'm hanging up. If I talk to you for too long, others would suspect my relation to you. Goodbye. Tell Hana that I miss her." As soon as she finished saying that, she hung up without waiting for her father's response.