Chapter 71: The Number One In The Martial Arts Competition
Gao Cheng had no mind-reading ability or clairvoyance, and had no idea that Chen Jun was deliberately holding back.
He had the strength but didn’t use it, intentionally not hitting fifty rings.
He only saw that Chen Jun had hit 49 rings, which proved there was a chance to compete for first place in this individual event. With some good practice, if luck was on his side and he hit a fifty rings, it would basically be secure.
Even if it couldn’t be secured, he could still tie for first.
As for the Second Platoon Leader and Third Platoon Leader’s shooting results, let alone taking first in an individual event, in Gao Cheng’s mind, they didn’t even have the qualifications to participate in the competition.
As competitors going to the regiment-level competition, yet only able to hit 44 rings.
Gao Cheng truly couldn’t afford to lose that face.
Plus, although the First Platoon Leader and Third Platoon Leader were considered excellent, in the Steel Seventh Company where everyone was a top student, neither of them had a top three in any other projects.
Gao Cheng didn’t want to occupy a precious competition quota for this pistol event.
So for the pistol 80-meter precision shooting project, unlike other projects where the top three were selected, only Chen Jun was retained.
The missing quota would wait until the competition special training team was formed, then add the pistol project to the training subjects.
After four months of competition special training, no matter what the final pistol shooting special training results were, they would pick the tallest dwarf from the already selected ten-person list to make up the numbers.
Anyway, Chen Jun had easily hit 49 rings on his first time participating in the shooting test.
Gao Cheng, in his surprise, had already taken the reassurance pill.
After special training, the probability of hitting fifty rings was very high, and since it was an individual competition project, there was no need to worry about team scores; Chen Jun alone could sprint for first in this project.
The last remaining vehicle-mounted machine gun precision shooting also didn’t require a full company test.
Only the machine gunners from each squad participated, selecting the top three from them to join the special training team, and there were only about a dozen machine gunners in the whole company.
Even though shooting from a vehicle was more complex, with a dozen people it would take only half an hour.
In total, it took three and a half days front and back, and the three major subjects’ fourteen competition projects were all completed with testing; the competition special training team list was also officially released.
For each project, the top three were selected to join the special training team, but the final number wasn’t 14 projects’ worth—3 people for individual projects, 5 for team projects, totaling 48 team members.
Instead, only 18 people were selected for the special training team.
The reason for this situation was mainly that many projects had overlapping selected team members, with many team members entering the top three in multiple projects.
The most typical example among them was Chen Jun.
Even though he deliberately hid most of his strength, just to save a big explosion for the competition itself.
Then he could wildly grab results, and if anyone was curious why he progressed so fast, it could be explained as good competition state stimulating his potential.
After all, some people really were like that—the bigger the competition, the better they performed.
Otherwise, a baggage at the bottom of a company suddenly getting fierce a bit could still be explained clearly.
But if he got fiercely strong beyond reason, that would be a bit eerie.
Yet even in this situation, Chen Jun still took down a whole bunch of projects.
200m rapid movement shooting, pistol 80m precision shooting, 3 kilometer sprint, 5 kilometers light load, 10 kilometers light load, 10 kilometers cross-country with load, grenade throwing, weapon disassembly and assembly.
One person took eight projects, equivalent to compressing eight competitor slots.
And for Chen Jun taking on so many projects, aside from worrying if Chen Jun’s body could handle it, Gao Cheng truly wasn’t worried about Chen Jun’s strength.
Except for 200m rapid movement shooting and pistol 80m precision shooting, which were abilities that suddenly emerged, surprising Gao Cheng while also delighting him.
The other projects were all Chen Jun’s strengths; in Seventh Company, he dared claim second and no one would dare claim first.
As for that grenade throw flung out to 62 meters, leading the second place by a full 11 meters, in Gao Cheng’s view it wasn’t that unexpected.
After all, a 89-meter tall guy was right there; even a skinny dead camel is bigger than a horse.
Besides Chen Jun being the first and only person in Steel Seventh Company to take eight projects alone, there were a few others who also took three or more projects.
Ranking second was Wu Liu Yi, once the fiercest soldier in Steel Seventh Company and still the fiercest now.
He took six projects in one go.
They were 3 kilometer sprint, 5 kilometers cross-country, 10 kilometers cross-country, 10 kilometers cross-country with load, 400m obstacle course, vehicle-mounted machine gun precision shooting.
Ranking third was unexpectedly Cheng Cai.
Cheng Cai, who had shown shooting talent in the new recruit company, had been training in Seventh Company for nearly two months, during which he had shot at targets no less than fifteen times, firing no less than 2000 bullets.
Steel Seventh Company’s bullet supply was very plentiful.
Other companies calculated shooting bullets by the box, while Steel Seventh Company calculated by the truck; every time they shot at targets, they had to use up at least one truckload of bullets.
Even though armored vehicles carried fewer bullets than trucks, one truck could still hold about ten boxes.
Over ten thousand bullets distributed per person meant nearly 200 rounds per person.
The plentiful to luxurious bullet supply, plus the top-level shooting talent, added together equaled N, producing a powerful chemical reaction.
This allowed Cheng Cai’s various shooting skills to fully bloom in just two short months.
In this baseline test, he easily took 150m rifle precision shooting, sniper rifle 500m precision shooting, vehicle-mounted machine gun precision shooting.
For every company weapon he had touched, he took that project.
As a new recruit, he took three projects.
Gao Cheng was amazed by Cheng Cai’s shooting talent and specifically told special training team captain Chen Jun that he could train Cheng Cai a bit on pistol and rapid movement shooting.
Gao Cheng felt Cheng Cai had potential in these two projects.
Especially since pistol was still missing one quota; if Cheng Cai could train it up, he could perfectly fill it.
Chen Jun also felt Cheng Cai had potential and promised Gao Cheng he would keep an eye on Cheng Cai; if the special training effect was decent, he would let Cheng Cai participate in five competition projects.
Besides these three being relatively stunning, the other team members basically had two competition projects each.
Those who only got top three in one project didn’t meet the most basic level for participating in the competition and were all screened out by Gao Cheng.
Among them were Third Squad’s Gan Xiao Ning and Third Squad’s squad leader Shi Jin.
Gan Xiao Ning was originally at a medium to upper level, so not getting top three in two or more projects was normal; Shi Jin not being selected was still quite regrettable.
Young Shi Jin had very strong personal ability, the undisputed most excellent squad leader in Seventh Company.
Unfortunately, he was almost thirty years old after all, and his body couldn’t compare to the young ones; it was reasonable that competing for top three was difficult.
Of course.
It couldn’t be ruled out that Shi Jin deliberately went easy, giving such a good opportunity to show off in the grand competition to younger, more promising comrades.
Anyone else couldn’t do something like that, but good guy Shi Jin truly could.
But no matter the exact reason, Shi Jin missing such a good opportunity to shine in the grand competition left Chen Jun feeling very regretful.
However, with things as they were, there was no other way.
Chen Jun could only think of other methods later, adding bricks and tiles to Shi Jin through other channels.
