Chapter Fifty: This is How Steel is Forged

  At 4 am, Xu Mingliang looked down at the training outline in his hand, Ma Xiangdong and more than 20 instructors stood quietly around him. After a long time, Xu Mingliang slowly raised his head, with obvious conflicting emotions in his eyes. He silently took a deep breath, nodded to Ma Xiangdong: "Let's do it."

  The instructors immediately ran to the dormitory building, kicked open the trainees' dormitory doors, and threw a tear gas grenade inside. With the continuous "bang" explosion sound, a pungent tear gas spread rapidly in the 12-square-meter dormitory.

  The students woke up with a start, grabbing their clothes and putting them on hastily as they rushed out of the room. After inhaling the gas, they felt extremely uncomfortable. One by one, they clutched their chests and stamped their feet, tears and snot streaming down their faces, as if they wanted to bury their heads in the ground. Qi Yunfei ran forward a few steps before falling to the ground, rolling back and forth on the hard concrete floor like a drug addict in withdrawal. He kept shouting, "I'm going to die! I'm going to die!"

  Xu Mingliang, who had been waiting outside the building, shouted loudly: "Get up and take a look at yourselves. Do you still look like soldiers? A single gas grenade has reduced you to this state. If real enemies come, all you can do is go die! Everyone get up!"

  The students who had slowly caught their breath at this moment truly felt the threat of death and really experienced the cruelty of the devil training camp.

  Qī Yún Fēi jumped up from the ground and rushed to Xǔ Míng Liàng's face, shouting: "You are simply devils! No, you are even more cruel than devils! More heartless! I'm going to complain about you to your superiors!"

  "You're absolutely right!" Mingliang's tone was extremely calm: "I'm going to train you in the devil's way, if you don't like it, you can leave, no one will force you to stay! Those who are afraid of death, afraid of hardship and fatigue, get out of here! The special forces don't need cowards!"

  "You're full of crap! I'm not a coward!" Qi Yunfei furiously swung his fists, about to pounce forward. Zhan Peng used all his strength to grab him from behind and pull him back with all his might. Chu Heng, who hadn't even tied his belt yet, rushed up to help, and the two of them blocked Qi Yunfei at the dormitory door.

  Xu Ming said disdainfully, "What, you want to prove you're strong with your fists? Let's not say you don't have the ability, even if you could beat me, what does it matter? The Leopard Special Forces need iron-boned and steadfast special soldiers, but you're just an impulsive little kid!"

  The students were stunned, staring at Qi Yunfei with red eyes and Xu Mingliang who seemed to be fine, not knowing what to do for a while.

  "Let me go, I'm not..." Qi Yunfei was firmly held down by Zhan Peng and Chu Heng's iron-like arms, and could only shout loudly in discontent.

  "Stop yelling, don't you understand the meaning of training? Don't you know what it means to start from a practical perspective? They're doing the right thing, don't let one grenade scare you into pissing your pants!" Zhan Peng whispered in his ear. "Are you going to complain to their superior if an enemy throws a grenade on the battlefield? Idiot!"

  "Attention, everyone! Gather on the playground in formation!" Ma Xiangdong shouted loudly.

  The students immediately tidied up their uniforms and ran to the playground. Zhan Peng shouted, "Hurry up!" and also buttoned his shirt and ran towards the playground with Chu Heng.

  Qī Yún flew into a rage, listening to the report of numbers from the playground, and cursed viciously: "Damn it!" He ran to the side of the formation and shouted loudly: "Report, No. 19 requests to join the formation."

  Xu Mingliang didn't respond to his words, but instead stared at him for a long time before slowly saying: "Avoiding danger is human instinct, and being afraid of death is nothing to be ashamed of! I apologize to you for my previous words. However, to be honest, I hope you can withdraw from the training camp."

  Qī Yún Fēi was momentarily stunned, even he himself couldn't understand why his body was filled with a sense of powerlessness and weakness. A mysterious fear had tightly grasped his heart, this unprecedented fear caused his entire body to tense up. He opened his mouth, trying to make a sound, but found that he seemed to have suddenly lost the ability to speak.

  Xu Mingliang stared at him intently, his voice becoming warm and calm: "You have the potential to become an excellent special forces soldier, but you lack the awareness of being a special forces soldier. You have an unconventional and flexible mind, which is your advantage, but you are not strong enough, lacking battlefield consciousness. Your personality is too flashy, too impulsive, and too self-centered. If you continue with this personality, on the battlefield, the smarter you are, the more stubborn you will become, and this stubbornness will cause fatal harm to your team! Withdraw!"

  His voice was so calm, but every word he said, every syllable that came out of his mouth, was like a sharp steel needle, piercing Qi Yunfei's body, making him tremble incessantly.

  Xu Mingliang was very clear about Qi Yunfei's abilities and knew that he was one of the most likely candidates to become an excellent special forces soldier among the 58 trainees, but Qi Yunfei's personality was too frivolous and needed to be tempered severely in order to refine him into a good steel. However, Xu Mingliang also understood that such tempering might drive Qi Yunfei away and make him resentful for life. In life, there are always things that don't go as planned, nothing is perfect, and gaining something means losing something else.

  Those who hold power must wield a sword of life and death. The sword has two edges, one facing outward and the other inward. Even if there are countless regrets in one's heart, it is still worth taking risks when necessary; otherwise, on the battlefield, one may lose their life at the hands of Qi Yunfei, or even drag down the entire squad.

  Zi Yunfei stood still on the playground, his soul lost and he didn't want to move. He just stood there quietly, slowly savoring every word of Xu Mingliang's. Gradually, his body straightened into a tree-like posture! "Report!" he shouted loudly: "Officer, please give me another chance! I will work hard to correct my shortcomings!"

  No one paid attention to him, all the students started their daily 30km cross-country run, they quietly looked at the tall and straight figure in the middle of the playground, Qi Yunfei, who seemed a bit lonely and helpless. Chu Heng whispered to Zhan Peng: "Does the instructor really not want him?"

  Zhan Peng ran silently without responding until he had run a lap and suddenly shouted: "Report!"

  Xu Mingliang just glanced at his position, but didn't give him a chance to speak.

  Zhan Peng stopped and shouted again in a stubborn tone: "Report!"

  Xu Mingliang's cold eyes swept past Zhan Peng with a stormy gaze, and after a long time, he said in a low voice: "Speak!"

  Zhan Peng was looked at by him and felt a chill in his heart, but he straightened his back and said fearlessly: "Please, Officer, give No. 19 another chance. The ancients said: to know one's mistakes and correct them is the greatest virtue."

  Ma Dong furrowed his brow, took two steps forward, wanting to stop Zhan Peng. Xu Mingliang waved his hand at him and said calmly, "Can you fully trust him and be willing to entrust your back and even your life to him?"

  Zhan Peng looked at Qi Yunfei, who was also staring at him without blinking. He suddenly smiled, and no one could have imagined that a man's smile could be as bright and refreshing as the thawing of ice rivers and the revival of all things: "I trust him, I am willing to entrust my life to him!"

  Zi Yunfei's heart was filled with shock and emotion, he felt that all the blood in his body had already boiled up, just for this one voice of trust!

  Xu Mingliang's eyes revealed a hint of uncontrollable smile, he turned to Qi Yunfei and said: "You disobeyed your superior, deducting 20 points from you, do you have any opinion?"

  "No, Instructor!" Qi Yunfei replied loudly.

  "Fall in!" Mingliang Xu waved his hand and turned away.

  After a 30-kilometer long run, waiting for them was an entire morning of 400-meter hurdle training.

  The trainees continuously and non-stop crossed one obstacle after another, nearly four hours of training without a drop of water to drink or rest, only the scorching sun, sweat all over their faces, non-stop footsteps, and the stench of black water on the obstacle course.

  Running non-stop and struggling to crawl in the foul water had left Zhang Peng's legs trembling, dizzy and nearly faint. His training uniform was soaked with sweat and foul water, emitting a strong stench under the sunlight that made him vomit repeatedly, almost spitting out his bile.

  The instructors' shouts kept coming from the side: "No. 17, lower your head a bit, lift it so high, are you waiting to be shot?" "No. 42, your butt is almost reaching the sky, do you think you're a girl?"

  Chu Heng lay beside Zhan Peng, vomiting while sneaking glances at the instructors: "Damn it, are we too cheap? Why do we have to come and suffer like this?"

  "To become even stronger, to be a true special soldier!" Zhan Peng stretched out his dirty sleeve, wiped away the vomit left on his mouth, and stubbornly got up, bending forward and rushing ahead.

  Chu Heng stared blankly as he quickly passed the plum blossom stake, splashing into the foul-smelling water of the square deep ditch with a plop. He scrambled up the edge of the ditch in three or two steps and sprinted forward. When he was five or six meters away from the barbed wire obstacle, he suddenly fell to the ground, causing the foul water to splash everywhere. Zhang Peng didn't care about the stench that splashed onto his face and body; with his abdomen flat against the ground, he used the inertia of his run to slide under the barbed wire and quickly crawled forward on all fours towards the other side.

  On another path, Qi Yunfei was splashing water in the stinky ditch, silently and desperately crawling forward...

  Chu Heng looked at their silhouettes, as if suddenly understanding something. He slapped the ground fiercely, got up and followed Zhan Peng from behind, throwing himself into the stinky and smelly polluted water again and again.

  Zhan Peng's series of nearly flawless tactical movements earned him a subtle nod of approval from Xu Mingliang, but as he looked at the other students, his expression turned dissatisfied and he furrowed his brow. "Too slow! If they go onto the battlefield like this, it'll be a dead end for them. They need to speed up!"

  "Mount the machine gun and use live ammunition." He turned to Ma Xiangdong and gave a faint order, "The trajectory height drops from 5 meters to 1.5 meters. Let them experience the meaning of 'running faster than rabbits'."

  "Understood!" Ma Xiangdong responded with a single word and immediately instructed several instructors to set up machine guns.