Chapter 46: Gao Cheng Wants A Third-class Merit
Cheng Cai had made it so clear, just short of directly saying the three words “pull strings,” yet Xu Sanduo still acted like he understood nothing.
“I really want to crack open your brain and put my brain inside it.”
Cheng Cai was so frustrated his teeth itched, yet he had no method; with Xu Sanduo’s dumb mouth and brain, if he tried to pull strings, he might even get himself in trouble.
Cheng Cai gave up.
“Cheng Cai, teach me, I can learn, I definitely can learn it,” Xu Sanduo said.
“Enough, you’re like this, no hope, just put in more effort yourself for the graduation assessment; if it doesn’t work out, that’s your fate.”
To avoid being angered to death on the spot, Cheng Cai wisely chose to give up guiding Xu Sanduo.
Afterward, the two chatted about this and that; feeling that the time in the big toilet was about up, they sneaked back to the dormitory.
In the blink of an eye.
Two days later, the graduation assessment officially began.
The three months of new recruit training had seventeen subjects, mainly divided into major categories like military, stamina, theory, and so on, with military subjects being the most numerous.
Theory was the written exam on learned military content, knowledge points like weapon weight, range, and such.
It mainly relied on rote memorization!
Stamina subjects were also pretty straightforward, all basic ones, mainly testing push-ups, sit-ups, single bar exercise, 3 kilometer cross-country, and such subjects.
After three months of grinding and training as new recruits, the new recruits’ physical fitness had all improved by leaps and bounds.
Though achieving excellent results was still quite difficult, with only a few new recruits able to do it, almost all new recruits could reach qualified, and most could reach good.
Among them, the one that was the most difficult for new recruits—surprisingly—was the seemingly easiest: running.
The 3 kilometer unarmed cross-country required fast running; the excellent standard was within thirteen minutes, which veterans could definitely run easily, but for new recruits, it was hell-level.
Even the qualified standard of fourteen minutes twenty seconds, some new recruits still couldn’t achieve.
The 3 kilometer cross-country sprint was also the only assessment subject where more than one-tenth of the new recruits failed to reach qualified.
It was also the subject where Xu Sanduo, the new recruit company’s baggage, was one of the only two to reach excellent.
Seeing the results, even Gao Cheng was surprised!
Xu Sanduo had a good memory and could recite after hearing once; getting full marks on the theory written exam for excellent was not surprising to Gao Cheng, but that he could run like this was something he had never imagined.
No.
If Gao Cheng knew the real situation—that Xu Sanduo’s leg work was forced out from childhood, being beaten by his father every day and having to run all over the village for self-preservation to survive—he definitely wouldn’t be surprised anymore.
Being chased and beaten was the best way to stimulate potential, and it was even better if it went from childhood to adulthood.
Compared to Xu Sanduo’s two excellents, with other subjects barely hovering between qualified and good, and some just a tiny bit short of unqualified.
Cheng Cai, as the new recruit company’s most excellent new recruit, was exactly the complete opposite of Xu Sanduo.
He had excellent in all subjects, and achieved them very easily; some even far exceeded the standard by a large margin, with only a very few subjects a bit risky, but no graduation subjects were unqualified.
As Cheng Cai kept refreshing excellent results, the assessment subjects proceeded steadily without disruption.
All platoon leaders and squad leaders began to join in together!!
Military subjects were more numerous and took more time.
The three major tactical movements—high stance, low stance, and prone—required a large open field for assessment, performed one platoon at a time in sequence.
The time for each stance over a fixed distance would be recorded as the result.
Subjects like wearing gas mask, battlefield first aid, weapon maintenance and disassembly/reassembly, grenade throwing, and so on, each took a lot of time.
Fortunately, the assessment subjects were planned very scientifically, so the new recruits didn’t need to run around wasting time.
After an assessment that lasted a day and a half, they finally reached the subject that Gao Cheng had specially arranged for last, and the most important one in the graduation assessment—
100-meter prone supported shooting!
The reason shooting was specially arranged last was mainly because the deputy regiment commander was coming to watch the assessment, and secondly because Gao Cheng anticipated creating a record.
In his first live-fire target practice shooting, Cheng Cai scored as high as forty-eight rings.
In the subsequent two live-fire target practice shootings, he also scored forty-eight rings and forty-nine rings respectively, far ahead of the other new recruits.
His three shooting sessions were all very stable, proving the probability of luck was very low, and proving Cheng Cai had real strength.
At the same time, all three shootings were just a bit short of full rings, especially the last one with forty-nine rings, which gave Gao Cheng hope of full marks.
Since the 702 Regiment established the dedicated new recruit camp, no new recruit had ever hit full marks.
Cheng Cai could be said to be the new recruit with the best opportunity to break the regiment record since the camp’s founding; naturally, Gao Cheng wanted to take a shot at it.
If a new recruit could break the regiment record, the honor would belong not only to that new recruit, but also to the squad leader who led him, and even more to the company commander who led the troops.
Gao Cheng wanted this honor!
Not only did he want the honor of an excellent troop-leading cadre, but more importantly, it was for Shi Jin.
The matter originated two days ago.
After that meeting that internally decided on the new recruit ended, during an evening stroll after dinner, Chen Jun deliberately followed Company Commander Gao Cheng for a walk in the barracks area.
During it, he deliberately guided the conversation to the issue of Shi Jin, and came up with a little trick for Gao Cheng.
A little trick that Gao Cheng liked!
Cheng Cai was a soldier brought out by Shi Jin; if Cheng Cai could break the record and get a third-class merit, that would add a brilliant stroke to Shi Jin’s resume.
A backbone non-commissioned officer who could bring out a third-class merit new recruit would have some weight when turning fourth-level non-commissioned officer.
Grassroots backbone non-commissioned officers didn’t have much professional technology in hand.
What they looked at was troop-leading ability!
And if at the target practice assessment site, there was a leader from the regiment personally witnessing it on site, then the probability of getting a third-class merit would greatly increase.
If there was no leader from the regiment personally witnessing it, then the authenticity of fifty rings would be discounted.
Whether there would be a third-class merit or not would be hard to say.
After Chen Jun’s reminder, Gao Cheng suddenly realized, beaming with joy, highly praising that Chen Jun’s brain was quick-witted; otherwise, he almost missed a great opportunity.
The eager Gao Cheng couldn’t even be bothered with the stroll and immediately returned to his room to start operating.
Gao Cheng leveraged his connections advantage, wanting to specially pull a leader from the regiment to come watch the assessment on site, and specially arranged it for the last event.
Originally, Gao Cheng wanted to invite Regiment Commander Wang over.
A third-class merit could be directly approved within the regiment; if Regiment Commander Wang saw a new recruit break the record, Gao Cheng only needed to guide a bit from the side, deliberately bringing up the topic.
The greatly pleased Regiment Commander Wang would wave his hand, and perhaps the third-class merit would be granted on the spot.
Unfortunately.
Regiment Commander Wang had no time to come.
