Chapter Twenty-Four: A Carefree Life

  Gong Qian finished speaking, and the girls heard him soften up, all giggling. Gao Xiang pretended to be an honest person, even making a gesture of bowing his head, before saying in a flattering tone: "I'm the most honest one, haven't you ladies noticed? Even when we're not training, I don't dare look at you straight..."

  Gong Qian hadn't even had time to ask a question, when Jia Junpeng chimed in: "What's wrong with you! Are you stupid? You're not even looking at the beautiful girls... Oh, I get it, you must have looked from behind and thought about committing a crime!" He drew out his words and snuck a peek at the girls.

  Another cheap trick: "I think it's from the side and then retreated?"

  Gao Xiang shook his head and said seriously: "As soon as I see Fat Spherical Sister, I want to defend myself!"

  It's even more unbearable, the boys in the front row of the team all started snickering, and the girls behind were suddenly choked, they exchanged a glance, and Gong Qian, who was the tallest on the left, stretched out her leg and kicked it up...

  "Ah yo..." Gao Xiang was caught off guard, let out a loud cry and fell to the ground. Two more cries followed, and two more people fell down. The three of them struggled to get up, glaring angrily at the seven girls, but the row of girls behind them looked like they didn't care, their faces expressionless.

  "High flying! It's you again! And the two of you: Jia Junpeng, Wen Qi!" Old Hei instructor's face turned red with rage, and he directly caught the three of them red-handed.

  Gao Xiang reluctantly got up, severely underestimating the level of violence these female student police had. Usually they just used their mouths, who would have thought this time they'd use kicks!

  "You three, disperse and leave one person behind to pick up the shell casings! After that, 5,000 meters for each of you!"

  As soon as the shooting ended and the instructor shouted "dismissed", a group of girls giggled and swarmed over, while the boys didn't want to leave and stood aside watching the commotion.

  "Hey, this mantis who wants to defend himself, your pose of picking up the shell is so sexy, the round and plump little butt is simply tempting to commit a crime!" Ye said to the first one.

  "Xiao Xiangzi, call each of them sister one by one, and the sisters will help you pick it up..." Wang Min said with a pretended gentle tone.

  "This doesn't count, this doesn't count! Jia Junpeng, your butt isn't in position, change your posture and try again!"

  Several girls were chatting and laughing, their heads thrown back in laughter. The instructor hadn't gone far when he turned around to see the scene before him, shook his head helplessly, and couldn't help but laugh too.

  Just as they were preparing to tease the girls and High翔's little rascals, they saw a police off-road vehicle entering the base gate. Knowing that their superiors had arrived, they quickly blew the whistle to gather everyone back, and Instructor Gong led the team to welcome them, jogging along the way.

  The instructor of the training team didn't know what his name was, and he didn't introduce himself. However, there was a nickname called Lao Hei (Old Black), who was black and sturdy in appearance, but slightly short in height. The title of Lao Hei was indeed well-deserved.

  The car door opened, and the first one to get out was quite sturdy, nearly 1.9 meters tall. Who else could it be but Zhou Bin, the captain of the entire team? Next to get out from the passenger seat was none other than his direct superior, Li Xiang, the chief of the Han Tang Middle Team of the Da Yuan City Special Police Brigade. There was also a female comrade, Zeng Yan, Li's deputy and the "Queen of Fighters" of the special police team, a Double Flower Red Club-level fighter!

  "Wow, Captain Li, what's the big fuss about? Chief Zhou, nice to see you! Swallow, let's skip the formalities, shall we? Haha, welcome!"

  The three of them were invited upstairs, and after some more small talk, they sat down. Zhou Da Dui first took out a printed document and started joking: "I'm telling you, Old Hei, this time we really have an order, the Municipal Bureau's Director Zhang has permitted me to come over and pick people, you must cooperate unconditionally."

  Lao Hei took over the file and smiled: "No problem, no problem, you can choose me, I said to Director Zhou, your criminal investigation team still has such a big loophole?"

  "It's all the same, they all want to go into the government offices and sit in the office, who wants to work on the front line? It's easy for us to train a few people on the front line, but they can't last a few days before running away. We've never had enough people." Captain Zhou said helplessly.

  "Let me see... Gao Xiang? Ah, I'm telling you, Chief Zhou, this kid is not a simple guy, he's got a sweet tongue, and he just arrived here not long ago, but he's already got seven female classmates surrounding him..."

  Everyone in the room burst out laughing, and Zhou Dui even laughed loudly: "That's right! Doing criminal investigation requires being clever. This kid usually looks silly, but he has a lot of tricks up his sleeve. I thought Captain Li had also taken a liking to him, no wonder he eagerly grabbed him first."

  After listening to Zhou Bin's words, Li Xing glared at him with a bad temper. Zeng Yan continued the conversation and asked: "Old Shen, how is this batch of trainees? Tell us about it."

  It turned out that Lao Hei's surname was Shen, and this person finally understood after hearing Zeng Yan's words:

  "I said you guys aren't together, okay, so Captain Zhou chose Gao Xiang, then it's Gao Xiang. Li Tou'er, I suggest we choose people from another group instead, this group of young masters and ladies are not up to our standards!"

  Li Xing frowned and asked, "What did you say?"

  It seems that I've gotten used to the straightforwardness of my superiors, but Old Hei's detailed explanation was: "Let me put it this way, their cultural 'theory' is still passable, and several of them have high educational backgrounds; however, their physical quality is too poor. And with such a deep background, there are a few individuals that I won't mention, I'm sure you all have an idea who they are; every day, I don't dare to speak, I don't dare to train them, I really don't know if I'm training them or if they're training me.

  These post-90s young masters and princesses are really hard to serve. On the first day of closed management, they were asked to hand over their mobile phones and computers for unified custody. Guess what? They almost rioted, with some saying that I was illegally confiscating other people's property and wanted to sue me...

  Lao Hei's instructor shook his head in dismay, while Li Xing and San listened with smiles on their faces.

  "I'm just one person, a girl named Zhang Tong..." Li Xing said slowly.

  The city, in the boundless night, is like a dormant monster, devouring the goodness in everyone's heart, devouring the beauty of the world, devouring the dreams, hopes and passions that each person holds dear. Until only a cold, icy shell remains, then living indifferently in a space isolated by steel and concrete. And thus emerges an enviable term: city dweller!

  Living in an increasingly diversified modern city, when mobile phones and express delivery have become necessities of life, in this era where even buying chopsticks requires going to Taobao or JD.com; seeing two dogs mating on the street also requires sending a Weibo or WeChat message, you can't help but sigh, has life changed us, or have we changed life?

  In the past, when friends gathered together, they would have a few cups of hot tea and a pack of melon seeds, engaging in lively discussions and conversations that flowed freely. Nowadays, either people gather to play card games or sit silently playing with their phones while waiting for food to arrive. When the food comes, instead of digging in, seven or eight high-end smartphones are first used to take pictures of the dishes, followed by a flurry of posts on Weibo, WeChat, and QQ. People have slowly come to realize that those friends who suddenly lost contact must have encountered difficulties in life. Why? If they were doing better than you, they would have already posted about it on their social media...

  Let's talk about national affairs; Beijing's PM2.5 exceeded the standard, and experts affectionately gave it the academic name "haze". The biggest joke of 2014 was a student asking: "Teacher, is school still in session with bad air?" The teacher replied disdainfully: "Even without air, we still have to go to school!"

  Let's just consider this a sudden brain fart from the author...

  Compared to the outside world, Linfen Training Base is a rare and precious haven. The simple and dull training life made Gao Xiang feel like he had returned to his days as a soldier.

  At 6:00 in the morning, the wake-up call is sounded, and at 6:30, the first exercise session begins.

  Wash up at 7 o'clock and have breakfast on time at 7:30.

  Then from 8:00 am to 11:30 am is police basic subject training, and lunch at 12:00 sharp.

  12:30-13:30 is lunch break, 13:30-14:00 is free activity time.

  Afternoon training, occasionally interspersed with cultural classes on political ideology education and basic knowledge of police.

  Dinner at 6:30 pm, watching CCTV News at 7:00 pm, and then it's free time until 10:30 pm.

  Compared to the training in the troops, the intensity of the training here is just a little stronger than that of university students' military training. But even so, all the trainees still can't bear it and are complaining endlessly. In addition, during the intensive training period, there are no holidays, strictly prohibited from going out, and only free activity time in the evening to contact the outside world through fixed phones, many young police officers are crying out in misfortune.

  What's even more unbearable than this is the inability to access the internet, and the damned training base doesn't even have a WiFi signal; let alone those who are uncomfortable without their phones like Tian Miao Miao, not being able to go online will drive Su Su, an alien from a planet that relies on the internet, crazy. Privately, Gao Xiang heard that with Su Su's computer skills, as long as the base can detect a WiFi signal, she would definitely be confident in cracking it. Unfortunately, no matter how high your computer skills are, you can't beat not having an internet connection and power outages...

  More than 20 days have passed since entering the base, and Zhang Tong is the most indifferent. Zhang Tong didn't like going online much anyway, and his mobile phone was a small machine that could only make calls and send text messages, which was sold online for over 100 yuan. As for training, although it's tiring, he feels relaxed overall. He doesn't know if it's because his future has become clearer and more relaxed, or if it's because in this isolated environment, there are many things that don't need to be done or thought about, so he feels relaxed without knowing why. In short, Zhang Tong even thinks it's not bad for such days to continue indefinitely.

  Just as Gao Xiang was kicked by Gong Qian and turned back to pick up shell casings under the penalty of Officer Hei, Tian Miao Miao saw Officer Hei sending off two women and one man from the battalion headquarters when she went to buy "female private products" at the small grocery store after returning with her team. The man was tall and majestic, and Tian Miao Miao recognized him at a glance: wasn't this Zhou Bin, the captain of the First Detective Division of the Municipal Public Security Bureau?

  The woman next to him was also familiar, seemingly named Li Xing. Tian Miao felt a strong aversion towards this female police officer, who rarely smiled and when she did, it seemed fake. What's more, her eyes were always on high alert, filled with suspicion, making people feel uneasy. Tian Miao curled up her lips, rather than wasting her mind on them, why not think about how to get Zhang Tong and Di Lei together instead?