Chapter 332: Visiting Family, Targeted By Pickpockets?
Chen Jun and Gao Cheng and others returned from the war zone fully loaded. Along the way from the Group Army, Division Headquarters, and then to the Regiment, the standard operation of a celebration banquet was naturally unavoidable.
Every time they arrived at a local area, there would be another round.
However, due to Chen Jun having fought for too many honors for the Group Army and the Division in the past three years, the frequent celebration banquets had already become commonplace.
The scene was still as grand as before, but it was no longer as shocking as it was initially.
To be able to turn the celebration banquets that many people rarely encounter in a lifetime into everyday meals, it has to be said that just this point alone makes Chen Jun awesome.
And for Chen Jun himself, he was really a bit tired of eating them.
From the Group Army to the Division, the Regiment, and then to the Battalion, after going through it all, it took nearly a week, and while his body wasn’t tired, his spirit was truly exhausted.
Chen Jun also conveniently used this as an excuse to begin his next Combined Arms Regiment layout.
He submitted a report to the Regiment requesting family visit leave, with the reason being that the Combined Arms Battalion matter had come to an end, and next would only require routine training, while he hadn’t rested for several years and wanted to apply for a one-month leave.
Regiment Commander Wang Qing Rui was very accommodating and straightforwardly gave Chen Jun two months’ leave.
The reason for giving sixty days of holiday at once was mainly because Steel Seventh Battalion truly had no major matters now, and the next period would be a long stable phase.
By the time Steel Seventh Battalion had fully stabilized everything learned during the year’s special training, it would take at least half a year to a year.
During this time, whether Chen Jun was there or not wouldn’t have much impact on Steel Seventh Battalion anyway, as Chen Jun had already provided a detailed training syllabus.
Secondly, it was out of Regiment Commander Wang’s affection and care.
Chen Jun had been working at high intensity for the past few years, either building combined arms units or preparing confrontation exercises, and in between, he had gone abroad to participate in the international martial arts competition.
From joining the company until now, it had been nearly five years, and Chen Jun hadn’t taken a single family visit leave.
Giving him two months off was completely reasonable.
Not only did the Regiment Commander feel that Chen Jun must take leave, but he should seize this opportunity to take a good, thorough rest and fully adjust his body and mind.
Even old comrades like Gao Cheng and Shi Jin were happy for Chen Jun’s family visit leave.
Without Chen Jun needing to lift a finger, everyone busied themselves up.
Gao Cheng prepared a suit for Chen Jun, saying he had specially asked his mother to have it custom-made at a shop, so that Chen Jun could take the opportunity to go on blind dates with a few girls while back home; wearing the suit would make him look even more spirited and handsome.
Shi Jin was a meticulous person who prepared food for Chen Jun to eat on the way home, and even toothpaste, toothbrush, and socks were all prepared.
Familiar people like Man Guangzhi and Tuo Yonggang also prepared various gifts for Chen Jun.
Some gave Chen Jun casual wear to wear back, some gave him travel shoes and leather shoes, and others gave some small gifts unique to the troops.
Essentially, Chen Jun just submitted a leave report, and he didn’t need to worry about anything else.
Everyone helped him prepare everything!
On the day Chen Jun officially departed, the entire leadership of Steel Seventh Battalion came, and even Regiment Commander Wang Qing Rui personally came over.
For a family visit leave to have so many people seeing him off, this kind of face was probably only something Chen Jun could have.
Due to the remote location of Steel Seventh Battalion base, Wang Qing Rui specially sent a Leopard off-road vehicle to take Chen Jun to the nearest small town to catch the minibus.
After taking the minibus to the Capital, he would then transfer to a domestic flight straight to Magic City.
Chen Jun had been in the troops for so many years, and his salary basically had nowhere to be spent. Although flying was expensive these days, it was still within his means of consumption.
The minibus from the small town was extremely slow, swaying and shaking, taking two hours to reach the Capital.
The environment inside the vehicle was very average, but there were quite a few people, and almost every passenger was sizing him up, or secretly glancing at Chen Jun.
It wasn’t that Chen Jun was particularly handsome or peculiar.
It was mainly his 89-meter height paired with a sturdy build even in short sleeves, sitting there with his body habitually straight and erect, exuding the unique masculine aura of a soldier.
It clashed with everyone else in the vehicle; it was hard not to attract attention.
Fortunately, Chen Jun had a strong heart from big scenes, and being secretly stared at by a dozen people had absolutely no effect on him.
It was just that sitting in the vehicle was really boring, and outside the window was the monotonous yellow sand that he was tired of looking at, with no scenery to appreciate.
Chen Jun could only take out the Nokia 6110 that his father Chen Zhenhua had specially mailed him at the beginning of this year, turn it on, and play Snake game to pass the time.
This phone was currently the most high-end model, and also the first phone with built-in games.
A phone that could only smash walnuts twenty years later was definitely a rare item these days, drawing frequent side glances from the other passengers in the vehicle.
Almost everyone was just marveling at what rare treasure Chen Jun was holding.
Except for one man with triangular eyes, skinny like a bamboo pole, wearing a polyester short-sleeve shirt, whose eyes had been darting around since boarding.
After seeing Chen Jun pull out the high-end phone, his eyes started rolling around slyly.
The woman sitting next to him seemed to understand, and seeing the man’s shifty-eyed look, she knew he was a pickpocket, so she quickly gripped her cloth bag tightly.
She wanted to remind Chen Jun behind her to the left not to flaunt wealth while traveling, lest he be targeted by thieves.
But the triangular eyes man glared viciously at the woman, deliberately patted the long, protruding object in his trouser pocket, which scared the woman into a shiver.
During this period around the turn of the millennium, domestic security wasn’t very stable.
Things like motorcycle gangs robbing on the street, train station scams where they step on your leather shoes and extort money, pickpocket gangs operating, and even beating people if caught, had basically become commonplace.
The woman was just one woman traveling alone, so naturally she didn’t dare offend the pickpocket.
If pushed too far, they really would stab with a knife.
And Chen Jun, as a tough guy from the troops, burly and tall, and a professional special forces soldier in his previous life, truly never imagined anyone would dare rob him.
Plus, with the rare family visit leave to go home, he didn’t want to stay tense like in the troops; he was completely relaxed.
So he hadn’t noticed someone with such boldness, who, seeing his phone, got evil thoughts and dared to target him.
After playing Snake for about an hour, they had now entered the suburbs of the Capital.
The phone, which had had no 2G signal all along, finally showed one bar of signal. Just less than two minutes after getting signal, the phone actually rang.
Someone had called.
It even automatically displayed “Father,” clearly Chen Zhenhua had pre-saved the number when he mailed the phone.
“The old master is quite thoughtful.”
Chen Jun smiled and pressed the answer key, starting his first mobile phone call in this life.
“Xiao Jun, is that Xiao Jun? Finally got through…”
On the other end, Chen Zhenhua’s tone was very anxious. After confirming it was Chen Jun who answered, he spoke rapidly like a machine gun, words pouring out like beads from a string.
Chen Jun initially thought it was something major, but after listening, he held his forehead with his right hand, amused and helpless.
It turned out to be that same old matter from before.
Last time Chen Zhenhua visited the troops to see Chen Jun, he had mentioned arranging for Chen Jun to meet Liao Qiuxue, so the two betrothed before birth could see each other, but it ended up not happening due to an accident.
Chen Zhenhua was truly very serious about this childhood engagement.
A couple of days ago, he received a call from Chen Jun’s troops saying the family visit leave had been approved, so he could come home then.
While happy about his son coming home, Chen Zhenhua again thought of the childhood engagement.
He specially called his old comrade and learned that Liao Qiuxue had now returned to the country and was in the Capital on business these few days.
Chen Zhenhua felt this was a heaven-sent opportunity and immediately arranged it for Chen Jun.
But by the time Chen Zhenhua had contacted everything and confirmed the specific meeting place for the two, he called the external line at Steel Seventh Battalion.
The response was that Chen Jun had already departed and was now on the way for family visit.
Chen Zhenhua had already arranged everything, and if Chen Jun couldn’t arrive at the meeting spot on time, missing their first “date,” their marriage fate might fall through.
Chen Zhenhua was truly anxious now!
To not miss what he saw as a match made in heaven, he had no choice but to treat a dead horse as a live one.
He frantically dialed the phone he had mailed to Chen Jun earlier and topped up with credit on time.
Calling every two or three minutes.
At first, it was all “The user you have dialed is powered off, please try again later,” which cooled Chen Zhenhua’s heart by half.
It was as if he saw his daughter-in-law slipping away.
But just when he was about to give up, the prompt tone suddenly changed.
“The user you have dialed is temporarily unavailable, please try again later.”
As one of the first mobile phone users, Chen Zhenhua knew better than anyone what this change meant, instantly sweeping away all gloom.
The place where Chen Jun was in the wilderness, last time Chen Zhenhua went there the phone had turned into a brick.
And now the prompt proved Chen Jun had turned on the phone, and the vehicle he was in was approaching the Capital direction, with signal likely to recover at any time.
This meant connecting to Chen Jun’s phone was just a matter of time.
…
After listening to his old father’s words, Chen Jun knew that if he didn’t go meet Liao Qiuxue this once, this matter would probably stick to him.
Moreover, he was now Deputy Battalion Commander, and once the Combined Arms Regiment was set up, he would go to regiment level.
From Deputy Battalion Commander to Deputy Regiment Commander, there were fully two levels in between.
Assuming the war zone meeting passed it within a year, from starting preparation to completion would take another half year, plus a year and a half of training afterward.
That left only three years for Chen Jun.
Chen Jun had been Deputy Battalion Commander for just over half a year, and to rise two levels in the next three years was actually somewhat difficult.
And to reduce the difficulty of this promotion and increase the probability of being selected as Deputy Regiment Commander of the Combined Arms Regiment.
Getting married and starting a family would indeed add quite a few points.
Therefore, Chen Jun now didn’t reject starting a family. If he could meet a truly suitable woman, getting married wouldn’t be out of the question.
Finally, the point that most moved Chen Jun was that Liao Qiuxue had studied software development in the United States.
These days, software development and such technology were indeed at the world forefront in the United States, with Microsoft and Silicon Valley as top synonyms.
Liao Qiuxue definitely knew experts in this area. If she could introduce a few domestic experts and have them join the troops to be responsible for developing the digital command system, that would solve a major problem for Chen Jun.
With these three aspects of demand and consideration, Chen Jun decided to go through with it.
And very seriously, not just going through the motions.
By the time the minibus swayed into the Capital and stopped at a bus station Chen Jun didn’t recognize, it was already past ten in the morning.
Only a little over an hour remained until the time Chen Zhenhua and Liao Haidong had agreed on.
Taking a taxi from the bus station to the agreed Shihua Kai Coffee House would still take about an hour, so the remaining time wasn’t very ample.
Fortunately, his old comrade Gao Cheng had foresight and solved a big trouble for Chen Jun.
Chen Jun already had a neat flat-top short haircut, paid attention to military hygiene with his beard cleanly shaved, so as long as he changed into the suit and put on leather shoes, he could go on the blind date looking dignified.
No need to waste time buying clothes, otherwise running around would really not leave enough time.
“Need to find a place to change clothes.”
Chen Jun dragged a suitcase with his right hand, carried a travel bag in his left, stood outside the station looking around, and quickly selected a place to change clothes—
The station bathroom!
But when he went over to check, the environment inside was indescribable, completely incomparable to the clean public toilets of the 21st century.
If he changed clothes here, he’d definitely carry a smell when he went out.
Then what blind date would there be.
Unable to change in public, Chen Jun could only carry his things out of the station, thinking of finding a way outside.
While Chen Jun went to the station bathroom, the triangular eyes man from the same vehicle ran to a nearby public telephone booth to leave a pager message.
When Chen Jun carried his luggage toward the station exit, he immediately followed quietly.
Chen Jun’s battlefield-honed senses had actually noticed the triangular eyes staring at him on the vehicle, but he hadn’t paid much attention while talking to his father.
Now seeing the triangular eyes following again, his eyes turned and he knew what was up.
Realizing he had encountered the most troublesome scourge of this era for ordinary people, Chen Jun smiled and didn’t mind.
Mainly, he needed to quickly find a place to change into the suit.
After exiting the station and walking a hundred meters or so to the side, he saw a small shop selling men’s clothing by the roadside, and Chen Jun immediately targeted it.
By purchasing a suitable tie as the “transaction,” he exchanged for the use of the shop’s changing room.
Although Chen Jun believed that even just saying a few nice words would make the boss agree without buying anything, he didn’t want to waste breath on small matters.
Buying an extra tie didn’t delay things and solved the problem in one go.
However, just as Chen Jun took the purchased tie, carried his bag into the changing room to change, the following triangular eyes darted into the nearby alley.
Soon.
Five men with unfriendly faces, dressed sloppily and gangster-like, who specialized in causing trouble near this bus station, successively ran into this alley.
