Chapter 67: Selection Begins
Chang Ning and the other four obediently climbed into the Mengshi Off-road Vehicle, not even daring to move a muscle, keeping their eyes straight ahead the entire way.
Qiang Zi and Ostrich, who had been clamoring earlier to teach Gao Zhong Dui a lesson, were even more like quails, hunching their bodies as much as possible to avoid drawing attention.
But their gang was only five people to begin with, and with Qiang Zi and Ostrich looking so guilty, it made them stand out even more.
After getting on the vehicle, Chang Ning’s mind remained in a dazed state, and Lao Pao looked at him with eyes full of worry.
“Chang Ning, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
In this incident, Chang Ning felt his behavior had been too immature.
Without Chang Ning’s interference, Qiang Zi and the others could still join Wolf Fang in the end, and while he helped them this time, what about next time?
This incident made Chang Ning put away his pride and heightened his inner vigilance: don’t act impulsively on matters, think three times before acting.
Throughout the journey, Gao Zhong Dui kept a straight face, and the atmosphere in the vehicle was oppressively heavy.
In this uncomfortable atmosphere, everyone finally arrived at the camp for this training camp, with many rookies squatting on the ground and looking toward Gao Zhong Dui.
They wanted to see which tough guy had managed to evade the special forces soldiers’ pursuit and drag it out until nightfall.
After the vehicle stopped, the five were escorted off by the special forces soldiers.
Without even uncuffing their handcuffs, each was kicked one by one into the pile of rookies, knocking over several people at once.
Gao Zhong Dui sat in the vehicle without getting off; he turned his head to the rookies squatting on the ground: “Do you know what this place is? This is the hall of Yama, and you are the little ghosts here to report!
Whether you die well or cling to life, I have the final say! Weren’t you claiming to be tough guys?
I tell you, this is the hell specially made to deal with tough guys!”
“Now, you have no military rank here, no name, only a code name: rookie!
I swear, you so-called scout elites, the bullshit soldier kings from various military units, will go through the hardest times here!
You’ll regret coming to this place to suffer this foreign torment! You’ll regret the choice you made in a heated moment after reading bullshit trash novels, trash TV series, and movies!
This choice will make your life worse than death! Because the place you’ve now arrived at is a living hell!
If you don’t regret it, that’s my mistake! And you must remember, I don’t make mistakes!”
After delivering this fierce speech, Gao Zhong Dui pointed at Ma Da standing nearby: “This is Hui Lang, your direct superior. And I am his direct superior; I am called Wild Wolf.
Some of you know me; you can privately ask them about my character.”
At this point, Gao Zhong Dui’s eyes turned to Chang Ning. Clearly, the person he mentioned who knew him was Chang Ning.
“Now I’m going to have all your backpacks opened; everything that doesn’t belong to the military must be thrown away!”
Chang Ning squatted in the crowd and rolled his eyes toward Gao Zhong Dui.
He did know the man, but the problem was they had only met a few times, and the number of conversations could be counted on one hand.
The scouts heard Gao Zhong Dui’s words and silently opened their backpacks.
The special forces soldiers weren’t so gentle; they rushed up and roughly kicked over the backpacks one by one, spilling everything out with a clatter.
The scouts could only watch passively, not daring to speak.
Gao Zhong Dui paced back and forth in front of the backpacks with his hands behind his back: “Now I announce the first precept of Wolf Fang training camp: anything that doesn’t belong to the military is not allowed to remain here!
During training, no entertainment, no rest days, no communication, and no going out!
You will be cut off from the world! You are the most lowly rookies here, with no status whatsoever! The rule here is that the strong are king!
I now seriously doubt if your IQ is normal, because normal people wouldn’t come here to be abused, so why exactly did you come here?”
The scouts looked at Gao Zhong Dui roaring hoarsely, and not a single person at the scene dared to speak.
Seeing no one speak, Gao Zhong Dui felt a bit disappointed; he had hoped someone would stand up and refute him, and that person was best Chang Ning.
Gao Zhong Dui sneered and ramped up the mockery: “Do you know what Huaxia Army Special Forces Soldiers are? Huaxia Army Special Forces Soldiers are warriors from hell!
Touch your conscience and ask yourselves, are you worthy?
Look at your pathetic state; you’re just short of bringing diapers and pacifiers! And you still want to become Army Special Forces Soldiers?”
After speaking, Gao Zhong Dui bent down to pick up a book about two fingers thick from the ground, with 《Huaxia Soldier King》 written on the cover.
Gao Zhong Dui flipped through it casually in his hand and said: “Whose is this?”
Chen Xiwa in the crowd swallowed hard and stammered: “Report, it’s mine…”
Gao Zhong Dui tore the book apart right in front of Chen Xiwa and threw the scraps in his face: “Use it to wipe your buttocks.”
The contents of the book were all fabricated by the author, and the reason for Gao Zhong Dui’s anger was that he feared Chen Xiwa would be influenced by it.
Two stories to tell separately.
Ma Da squatted on the ground and rummaged through Xiao Zhuang’s backpack; Xiao Zhuang watched Ma Da carefully, praying inwardly that Ma Da wouldn’t see that photo album.
This was obviously impossible; such a large photo album unless Ma Da was blind.
Sure enough, Ma Da pulled out a photo frame from the backpack; upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a photo of Zhuang Yan and his partner.
Ma Da, being kind-hearted, just smiled at Zhuang Yan, said nothing, put it back, carefully covered it with miscellaneous items, stood up and said: “This side is done!”
Seeing that the other had let him off, Zhuang Yan looked at Ma Da gratefully; Ma Da smiled without saying anything.
“Are you sure it’s done?” Gao Zhong Dui looked at Ma Da.
“Done… I suppose.”
Ma Da was a bit stunned by the question, but as an old partner, seeing Gao Zhong Dui’s look, he said again: “No, there’s still one more.”
After speaking, Ma Da walked toward Chang Ning’s backpack.
And all of this was seen by Chang Ning; he knew Gao Zhong Dui was starting to target him.
But was it okay to be so blatant? It was just short of directly saying he was going to mess with Chang Ning.
Immediately after, Ma Da pulled out a pack of candy from Chang Ning’s backpack.
Seeing this, Chang Ning didn’t even know what to say; he didn’t like that brand of candy in Ma Da’s hand.
“Look at this, are you still children? What do you think this place is? Are you here on vacation?”
Gao Zhong Dui held up the candy for the rookies to see, then looked down at his watch and smiled: “It’s still early now; it would be a pity to sleep.
How about this: let’s run ten kilometers first.”
Xi Wa shouted fearlessly: “Report, we… we haven’t eaten yet…”
The rookies had come from their respective companies, sat in vehicles for several hours, and then were chased all over the mountains by the special forces soldiers.
Having not eaten all day, they were starving. Seeing that Gao Zhong Dui wasn’t providing food and still making them run ten kilometers, Chen Xiwa thought maybe Gao Zhong Dui should let them eat first.
Chang Ning in the crowd wanted to kick the silly Chen Xiwa to death; how could they not know if the trainees had eaten? It was clearly a trap, and he was jumping right in?
Gao Zhong Dui pretended to apologize: “Oh, I forgot about that. Then let’s run twelve kilometers first as pre-meal exercise to whet the appetite; we’ll eat after.
What do you all say?”
“Good…”
At this point, no one was stupid; Gao Zhong Dui clearly had no good intentions, and the scouts replied listlessly.
The rookies’ reactions were not within Gao Zhong Dui’s considerations, and he didn’t care: “Then let’s do an armed cross-country of 12 kilometers first. Depart now.”
Chang Ning looked at the scouts around him and shouted loudly: “Report!”
“Rookie, speak.”
Gao Zhong Dui looked at Chang Ning with anticipation, hoping he would stir things up.
Chang Ning raised his still-cuffed hands: “Wild Wolf, you’re not going to make us run with these things on, are you?”
“Yeah, you haven’t experienced this novel sensation before, right? Experience it more.”
Smiling one second, Gao Zhong Dui flipped faces the next: “Now you need to run 14 kilometers.”
“Why!”
The scouts were unhappy; they were tired and hungry and needed rest.
“Every question you ask adds 2 kilometers. Now it’s 16 kilometers. Anyone else have questions?”
The rookies didn’t dare speak; who would dare? One sentence adds 2 kilometers. The rookies slowly got up, dawdling.
Ma Da picked up his assault rifle and fired into the air, urging: “Like a shy bride on her wedding day—first time! Hurry up!”
The other special forces soldiers also began driving the scouts on the ground, firing into the air from time to time to create a tense atmosphere.
Now the scouts had learned; no one spoke, silently forming four columns, and began running at Ma Da’s slogan.
The scouts had never run with handcuffs on, and fully armed for 16 kilometers at that—it was extremely exhausting.
At first, everyone’s pace was similar, but by five kilometers, the gaps began to show; some fell behind, some moved up.
Chang Ning stayed in a middle position in the team; no matter how the comrades around him changed, he remained unmoved, even his breathing rate unchanged.
‘This kid is really a pervert! Load bearing run of five kilometers with no change in breathing rate shows Chang Ning’s cardiopulmonary function is beyond what ordinary people can compare to.’
In all these years, Ma Da had never seen such a pervert; at this moment, his thought was: if Chang Ning’s subsequent training scores are decent, such talent must not be let go.
“Huff… huff… you kid… how are you… not tired at all.”
Deng Zhenhua followed behind Chang Ning, slightly panting, but it didn’t affect his speech, just made it discontinuous.
“Born with it; you can’t learn it.”
This was the safest excuse Chang Ning could think of; so what if Huaxia had a few naturally gifted people.
“I didn’t read much; don’t fool me.”
Deng Zhenhua said jokingly; no matter how gifted, it couldn’t be this perverted.
How talented Chang Ning was didn’t matter to Ostrich; now he saw that Chang Ning was a tough guy who could go toe-to-toe with Gao Zhong Dui in some areas—not befriending him would be a pity.
His previous attitude toward Chang Ning hadn’t been great, so now striking up conversation was in case he couldn’t hold on and could rely on him for a pull in future training.
This wasn’t Ostrich licking Chang Ning; it was just human nature to seek benefit and avoid harm—not yet fawning.
Ostrich was calculating inwardly; anyone who could enter the Wolf Fang selection training camp had some skills, either a sharp mind or a specialty.
This selection training camp could be called a den of hidden talents; Wolf Fang still had to select from this batch, showing just how impressive the special forces soldiers’ individual qualities were.
Don’t think Wolf Fang hadn’t suffered losses at Chang Ning’s hands; in other areas, the scouts really might not be better.
“I’m a doctor; from my observation, Chang Ning really is naturally gifted.
Because even with scientific training, it’s impossible to maintain unchanged breathing rate after a five-kilometer load-bearing run.”
The medic with the red cross armband spoke up.
The medic didn’t know about things like the system that defied logic; he could only attribute it to natural talent.
After finishing the 16-kilometer load-bearing run, the scouts who came for training were panting like oxen, drenched in sweat, most exhausted.
Only one person at the scene was an exception: Chang Ning.
This guy was just slightly panting, sweating on his forehead, standing out as the center of attention among the nearly collapsed crowd—you couldn’t ignore him.
“Rookies, I don’t understand why you insist on coming here to suffer.
Anyone else want to quit? To tell you the truth, training like this is just an appetizer before meals in the training camp; the main course hasn’t come yet.”
Gao Zhong Dui picked up the loudspeaker and began intimidating the rookies again.
Wolf Fang starting with a 16-kilometer load-bearing run made these elites from various companies a bit intimidated.
A few couldn’t take it and chose to quit the selection; they stepped out of the line, placed their helmets under the red flag, got in the vehicle, and left.
Chang Ning and the others just silently watched those who quit; no one tried to retain them.
“Anyone else quitting?” “…”
The line was deathly quiet; no one answered Gao Zhong Dui’s question.
First, they were truly too exhausted to speak; second, Gao Zhong Dui had added two kilometers per question before—who knew if he’d do it again?
“No problem; since you won’t speak, I’ll assume you’re not quitting.
Very good, welcome to the Wolf Fang selection training camp.
Ma Da, take them down to wash up and eat.
Remember, they only have half an hour.”
Gao Zhong Dui glanced at his wristwatch and said to Ma Da.
“Yes.
Everyone, assemble! Right face, quick march.”
On the training ground under the night sky, the exhausted rookies were driven into the muddy mud pit.
Gao Zhong Dui held the loudspeaker standing at the edge of the mud pit: “How is it? Feels pretty good, right?
If this were abroad, this mode is called mud therapy; enjoying it once costs a fortune!
See how good I am to you, letting you enjoy foreign pastimes and connect with international standards!”
Gao Zhong Dui shouted at the rookies, acting like they should thank him.
This disgusted the rookies terribly; Xiao Zhuang would have retorted long ago if Chang Ning hadn’t held him back.
