Chapter Thirty-six Collective Honor

  "Following the notification from the higher authorities, the base will be holding an assessment; an assessment that all trainees must participate in! This assessment is related to your future prospects, and the results will be recorded in your files! So I hope everyone takes it seriously and trains actively!" After the morning exercise today, Instructor Hei announced this news. The students looked at each other, digesting the news while also exchanging glances with each other.

  "Let's talk about it! Take a break, some comrades don't need me to say it, they should also be clear in their hearts that these two months are just mixed up. Now I want to say, you mix here for three months, mix and wear police uniforms, mighty! Handsome! What about after graduation? Have you ever thought about what to do after graduation? Are you still going to mix it up? Now I'm telling you! Our team is not so easy to get in! Can't tolerate mixed people! You can mix for a while, but you can't mix for a lifetime!"

  After the dismissal, the students quickly scattered, and the giggling students didn't take the lecturing-style political education of Old Black Instructor seriously. They were all self-proclaimed geniuses with high aspirations, and they didn't want to be brainwashed by us.

  It was mentioned earlier that the special class is a collective with an abnormally complex composition. In other words, the boys and girls in the special class are all people who have a higher starting point in life than most people in society. Honor education and ideological education are all brainwashing to them, and a cartoon vividly illustrates this point:

  On the starting line, an old man pushed a flatbed cart, on which sat a small child with a backpack. The old man's neck was tied to a rope, and the other end of the rope was tied to his equally old wife, and even older parents... On the other side of the starting line, a convertible luxury car stopped there, another child with a backpack sat in the car, his father smoked cigars, held the steering wheel, and chatted with the teacher who was about to give the order.

  Society is so cruel, the Benz will always run faster than the flat car. This is reality. Jia Junpeng and his peers have been hiding in the tent since childhood, and that set of educational theories such as diligence can make up for clumsiness, hard work changes life, don't let children lose at the starting line, and stupid birds fly first are not applicable to them. There is only one thing that is the same, which is that they all hate exams.

  This assessment is divided into 5 subjects for males and females separately;

  5km Cross Country (3km, Women)

  Standing Posture Grenade Throw

  Crawling forward with low posture and obstacles

  4. Pull-up (Incline Bench Sit-up, Female)

  5000 meters steeplechase

  In order to allow everyone to test their true level, the base leaders decided to conduct a pre-examination before the formal examination, so that candidates can familiarize themselves with the subjects and make adequate preparations. The next day, the special recruitment class gathered at the main training ground under Gong Qian's leadership. When Old Hei drew lots to determine the order of the exam, he had good luck, and the special recruitment class got the 2nd place.

  The first assessment was from Datong's rotation class. A group of men, all grassroots police officers who joined the workforce last year. Lao Hei took everyone to watch the assessment and soon became restless, especially with so many people on the training ground today, including base leaders, watching others work together in unison, maintaining their formation during the 5km march; throwing grenades with ease; tactical movements were standard, with good spacing while crawling under barbed wire; doing pull-ups one after another on the horizontal bar; and finally, completing the 400-meter obstacle course with ease. Lao Hei knew he was going to lose face today.

  It's the turn of the special recruitment class to take the stage, and the first event, 5 kilometers, has already made a fool of itself. The front row with good physical strength ran a lap, while the back row of weak chickens only ran out less than 300 meters, Jia Junpeng ran a lap and directly fell down, saying that he would not get up to run again; the women's group 3 kilometers is even more unbearable, Han Juan ran less than 400 meters and sat on the ground crying...

  Standing posture throwing hand grenades, apart from Gao Xiang's stunning performance of 43.2 meters, all the other results were there, 17 meters, you didn't misread it, a male threw 17 meters.

  The girls' group in this subject assessment is better than the previous one, generally above 15 meters, Tian Miao Miao threw out 23 meters, which is also the minimum passing score for each.

  The other classes watching from the sidelines saw that the first subject was still disciplined, but when the second subject of the special recruitment class began, they openly ridiculed them. The young masters and ladies' class became the best object of ridicule, after all, such opportunities to mock them were not many. Some sharp-tongued people had already started booing:

  "Jia you, pang nu! Jia you, pang nu!"

  "Hey, hey! The effective killing range of a hand grenade is 30 meters. You only threw it 17 meters. Are you trying to blow yourself up?"

  "Haha that fatty, his butt is sticking out so high, the iron wire mesh even ripped his pants and his butt is exposed, I'm dying from laughter haha..."

  Gong Qian's face turned bright red with anger, stomping her feet in rage. Zhu Weitao, the big fatty, was also furious, jumping up and down like thunder - he was the one whose pants were torn by the iron wire mesh...

  He wasn't even dragged away by Gao Xiang, his temper was so bad that he wanted to go find someone to fight. The mocking voices grew louder and the cheering voices grew more numerous, the special class students were also getting a bit unsteady on their feet. Jia Junpeng, who had been laughing just before, couldn't laugh anymore, Vice Class Leader Zeng Cheng's face was red with effort on the horizontal bar, his joints were white from exertion, but he still couldn't pull one up. After coming down, he covered his face with his hat in shame and hid in the crowd.

  Su Su gritted her teeth, using the last bit of strength to try and do another sit-up, but her waist just couldn't lift up. With a passing grade of 40 in 1 minute, she had only done 23 when Gong Qian persuaded her to stop, after which she cried in frustration.

  When the 400-meter relay announcer shouted for special recruitment, Lao Hei went up and said that we didn't need to run anymore, so we took him back directly. The examiner patted Lao Hei's shoulder as a comfort, today the most embarrassed one was Lao Hei; the most humiliating one was also Lao Hei, and the one who felt the most heartbroken was probably still Lao Hei...

  The team's discipline has improved a lot, and the whispering that wouldn't change no matter how much criticism it received is gone. Gong Qian shouted loudly with a stern face, her feet not stopping. Just now, Lao Hei handed over the team to her and told her to lead them back, but Gong Qian hesitated for a moment before asking: "Instructor, where are you going?"

  "Haha, where are you going? With such grades, I have to give an account to the higher-ups, I'm going to get scolded...". As Lao Hei walked away, the students of the special class couldn't help but want to find a crack in the ground to hide in.

  "Everyone, right turn, quick march!" Gong Qian suddenly led the team in a turn and walked in the opposite direction of the dormitory. A voice from within the team shouted: "Class leader, you're going the wrong way, the dorm is over there..."

  "Halt!" Gong Qian angrily shouted to stop the team, "Who was it? Who spoke just now? You're not allowed to whisper to each other in formation, haven't you learned that?"

  "Attention, right face! Stand at attention, everyone! Gong Qian thundered: "Go back to the dorms, go back to the dorms, do you still have the face to go back to the dorms?! Look at the scores from just now, are your ears not ringing yet?! Can't you hear others' mockery?! Those who feel ashamed, follow me for training! Those who don't care, can go back to the dorms now!"

  Gong Qian's majestic aura stunned everyone, the team turned into the training ground, no one dared to move forward, and no one dared to stand up and challenge the authority of the class leader. Even Tian Miao Miao, who was not on good terms with Gong Qian, had to admit that when it came to establishing prestige, Gong Qian seemed to have never been at a loss, doing everything with such ease and elegance.

  The special class is actively training! Gong Qian pulled Vice Class Leader Zeng Cheng to deliver the inspection report to Old Hei's office, and the instructor team was stunned. These young masters and ladies knew shame and then bravely took the initiative to request strengthened training!

  The old black, who had already lost heart and was disappointed, comforted Gong Qian by patting her shoulder, and rekindled his enthusiasm, leading the classmates to practice together. Five days left before the formal assessment, the young masters and misses finally realized that this was their last chance to prove themselves.

  For a full five-day training period, Lao Hei found the base's party committee. The base leaders looked at him in confusion, as the three-month training was about to come to an end, what was the point of doing this? Even if they postponed all the cultural classes for these five days, could these young masters and misses really change their ways? The base party committee did not believe it, Lao Hei patted his chest with a loud thud: If the special recruitment class's assessment results couldn't even rank in the middle, he would resign as an instructor and return to the Special Police Unit.

  The political commissar gave him a glance, tossed him a pack of cigarettes: Hurry up and roll out, you're thinking too much, it wasn't easy for me to get you transferred from the special police unit, don't think about getting off so lightly.

  The old black slyly smiled and took a puff of smoke before running away...

  Back to the team, looking at these young masters and misses with serious eyes and solemn expressions, biting their teeth and persisting in training. It seems that people need to be urged a bit. With pressure comes motivation. After taking over Gong Qian's submitted strengthening plan, Old Black took a look and crossed out two items, saying: "Training is not a one-day thing, it's a process of persistence and accumulation; Gong Qian, I think the weakest link in our class right now is physical strength, so these five days of strengthened training will focus on physical training.

  Don't have too high hopes, heaven is fair, if you want to make up for the gap that has fallen behind, then you need to pay ten times, a hundred times more effort. The assessment results don't mean anything, but Gong Qian, you will all be wearing police uniforms in the future, can we say that as police officers, at least we should be able to run faster than thieves? Otherwise, when the people really need us, what can we rely on to rush forward?

  The only one who can take out his hand in the special recruitment class is Gao Xiang. Thanks to the old troops, he suffered three more years of hardship than others. It's no problem for Gao Xiang to get first place in 1 or 2 single-person events. For example, the 5-kilometer run is actually a light-armed 5-kilometer cross-country run; when Gao Xiang was training in his old troops, he ran with a 95-style rifle, two bricks in his backpack, a full water bottle, gas mask, first aid kit, four hand grenades, ammunition belt, and backpack containing a military quilt and mattress, all wrapped in a raincoat, with rubber shoes inserted. After finishing the run, he still had to pour out the water from the bottle for inspection; if there was too little water, he would be punished by running up a slope. Finally, he also wore an armed belt and steel helmet on his back.