Chapter 54 of Volume I: Traveling Together

  Qu Mingjun had just discovered something when he suddenly heard a faint rustling of footsteps behind him, his heart skipped a beat, and without caring if there were thorns in front of him, he hastily crawled into a bush.

  A person slowly walked closer.

  Isn't that Choi Tae-oh?

  Qu Mingjun was shocked to find that Cui Ze had actually walked to the place he had planned to go out earlier. How could it be him? Wasn't he in the second car? How did he end up walking around and finally meeting himself?

  Cui Ze is not a simple-minded and physically strong person, he has roughness with refinement, otherwise how could he have been admitted to the Shimen Lu Institute? Just looking at him walking to the edge of the forest and not going out immediately, but squatting down to observe for a while, it's clear. He doesn't seem to have discovered anything unusual either.

  Yeah, it's normal, there shouldn't be any issues, let's go, and I don't even know what position I'll end up in. Cui Ze thought to himself as he slowly got up from his crouching position and prepared to leave the forest area.

  He hadn't even left yet when Cui Ze's shoulder was firmly pressed down by a hand. Cui Ze was so startled that he just wanted to shout loudly, but before he could make a sound, another hand quickly covered his mouth, and then a low voice whispered in his ear, "Don't move, it's me."

  Choi Tae-oh, who had been tense, quickly relaxed when he heard the voice and crouched down, turning his head to whisper, "Damn it, you scared me half to death. Do you know that? When did my mom come up behind me, I didn't even notice."

  "Scram! I came first, is that okay? You're the one following me, got it?" Qu Mingjun cursed with a smile as he squatted down beside Cui Ze.

  "Come on, I remember you should be the seventeenth one to get off your bus? I was the seventh one to get off our second bus. Can you outrun me?" Cui Ze didn't believe it.

  "Believe it or not, but you'd better not go out, otherwise don't blame me for not warning you if you get caught." Qu Mingjun rolled his eyes.

  "Are you kidding me? I took a look and there's nothing going on." Cui Ze snorted in disdain.

  "Nothing's happening? I've been observing for almost 20 minutes, the more I observe, the less I dare to go out." Qu Mingjun pointed to a small mound on the other side of the lawn, "Take a closer look at the mound in the two o'clock direction."

  "Hmm? Looks normal, nothing's wrong?"

  "Look at the soil, the soil on top of the mound."

  As expected, the soil on top of the small mound seems to be a bit darker in color than the surrounding area, but it's not very obvious.

  "Is there a sentry at that place?" Cui Ze asked in a low voice.

  "I think so. The small patch of soil on the top of the hill is darker in color, and it looks like it was dug up from underground. And not just that patch of soil, but also the grass in that area, when blown by the wind, doesn't seem to have roots." Qu Mingjun felt that his observation was correct.

  "What's going on?" Cui Ze looked carefully for a while, couldn't be sure, but being cautious wouldn't hurt, so he assumed there was an ambush in that place.

  "It's okay, let's take a detour." Qu Mingjun said, taking out the map. "Hey, do you know our current coordinates?"

  "Not very clear, it should be this line anyway." Choe Jae-soon drew a line along the edge of the forest with his hand.

  "Close." Qu Ming Jun was depressed, and Cui Ze actually found his way here by relying on luck.

  "Let's go, we'll head west first. There's a small lake over there, I reckon it won't be possible to set up an ambush there either. We can decide whether to cross the water or go around it later." Qu Mingjun patted Cui Ze on the shoulder.

  "Alright, I'll listen." Cui Ze was completely unpretentious and unaffected, after all, Qu Ming Jun's military geography skills were right there.

  The two brothers naturally acted together, without any intention of separating and acting on their own.

  Two people moved quietly and quickly along the edge of the forest in a hidden place, swiftly heading westward, stopping from time to time to listen for sounds and look around.

  When they arrived at the small lake, good luck seemed to have arrived, and after searching around for half a day, the two brothers did not find any signs of a certain point with sentry posts.

  Then they won't have to suffer from getting wet. The two brothers, taking advantage of the dense aquatic plants along the lake's edge as cover, slowly infiltrated into the grassland area.

  "Wait a minute!" Cui Ze suddenly stopped Qu Ming Jun, then walked towards the lake. Suddenly, a group of water birds by the lake were startled and flew up.

  Qu Mingjun was startled and soon saw Cui Ze running back, pulling Qu Mingjun hard and shouting "Run fast!" Then the two of them fled in a hurry.

  "Choi Zei, what kind of trick are you playing?" After running for a while, Qu Mingjun and Choi Zei made sure that they didn't attract any search parties behind them, and finally let out a sigh of relief, sitting on the ground to rest.

  "Heh heh heh, take a look at this." Cui Ze effortlessly pulled out five or six bird eggs from his pants pocket.

  "What? How did you get this." Qu Mingjun was shocked.

  "Nonsense, we haven't even had breakfast yet, and this bird egg is just right. Come on, let's divide it up and eat it." Cui Ze was satisfied, and he casually picked up a bird egg.

  "Wouldn't it be protecting animals?" Qu Mingjun felt a little uneasy in his heart.

  "No way." Cui Ze thought for a moment, "I haven't heard that there are any protected water birds around here... damn it, I'm telling you to stop talking nonsense, my stomach is rebelling, if you don't eat then it's all good for me."

  Watching Choi Ze crack open an eggshell, he tilted his head and swallowed a bird's egg in one gulp, smacking his lips and exclaiming it was delicious. Qu Ming Jun smiled slightly, and followed suit by cracking open another egg to eat, which wasn't bad at all, although there was some fishy smell, but also a kind of bitter freshness.

  The two brothers giggled and shared a few bird eggs, feeling much better in their stomachs. They hastily took out the map to confirm their location and set off again.

  After several close calls with the search party on the road, thanks to Qu Ming's keen senses and Choi Jae's experience, the two brothers finally arrived at the gathering point. As soon as they finished reporting, before anyone could say anything else, Choi Jae rushed towards the food truck. "Damn it, after trekking for over nine hours, all we had were a few bird eggs, and we still had to climb and hide from the sentries and search party. I'm starving!"

  Qu Mingjun also didn't go far and followed Cui Ze to the food cart. As they walked over, Qu Mingjun suddenly realized that the two of them weren't the first to arrive at the gathering point.

  Feng Shaojun has arrived, and there is another contestant from an external institute who I don't know yet, eating. They can be excused, maybe they got off the bus earlier than me. But surprisingly, Tu Bao from Chun Cheng Lu Institute has also arrived, he was the one who got off the bus after me!

  Tu Bao raised his head and saw Qu Mingjun staring at him in shock, chuckled and handed Qu Mingjun a small stool, saying: "Starving to death, come eat something quickly."

  "When did you come back?" Qu Mingjun first went to get something to eat, he held a bowl of vegetables and two steamed buns and walked over to sit down next to Tǔ Bǎo.

  "Not long after, you just finished eating and came back." Tǔ Bǎo said with a smile, looking very pleased with himself for being able to turn the tables on Qū Míng Jùn in their second-day showdown.

  "You're awesome, really awesome." Qu Mingjun couldn't help but admire. His two brothers joined forces and unintentionally obtained the coordinates of the standing point, yet neither of them could outrun this guy.

  "Haha, we Miao family men, once in the mountains, it's like being at home. This test is nothing difficult for me today, compared to you, I've got an easy ride." Tu Bao laughed loudly.

  Qu Mingjun smiled and shook his head, lowering his head to eat a big meal. It's already past one in the afternoon now, he was starving.

  After two o'clock, the returning contestants gradually increased, most of whom rushed to the food cart as soon as they came back to eat. There were also a few who seemed to have solved some food on the way and didn't look so urgent.

  At the final three o'clock, several two-person search teams that had been prepared at the assembly point set off according to the report. They were going to pick up the lost and those who had not yet arrived at the assembly point. Their results were also invalidated.

  This time, the results of the Shimen Lu Institute's training team were not the best either. Out of nine people, one was caught by a midway ambush and another went in the wrong direction and failed to arrive at the assembly point on time. The players from Chun Cheng Lu Institute were the strongest, with all of them returning to the assembly point on time without exception. However, there were also some of the worst institutes, where almost half of the players failed due to various reasons, and one player was seriously injured, it's unclear how that happened, Qu Ming Jun saw an ambulance depart.

  On the way back, in the car, some families were joyful and others worried.

  ……

  After dinner, the representatives of the dormitory team welcomed the last pre-war meeting.

  "Tomorrow is the last event." Captain Li sighed, "Tomorrow may be your most arduous competition, a full-strength event. First, it's a 3,000-meter armed obstacle course, then an armed 5-kilometer cross-country run, and finally, carrying ten fully-loaded ammunition boxes to 50 meters away. No rest throughout the entire course, group work, and only one time is counted."

  The team members looked at each other, with unknown thoughts in their hearts.

  "This is the last project, after listening to everyone's results, I feel that our scores are still pretty good. Although we can't be sure of getting the first place in the team total score, I think we should at least be among the top three. Tomorrow will depend on everyone's hard work, these contents are what we usually practice, anyway tomorrow it's all or nothing." Captain Fan began to encourage everyone.

  "Feng Shaojun, Qu Mingjun." Captain Fan pointed out two people's names.

  "Here!" "Here!"

  "You two should now be the top two performers in our team. How about it, do you have confidence to bring back individual championships?" Captain Fan smiled as he looked at the two of them.

  "We will try our best!" Feng Shaojun said with a glance at Qu Mingjun.

  "I'll definitely give it my all and fight for it!" Qu Mingjun clenched his fist.

  "Great! I'm looking forward to you guys giving us a surprise!" Fan Shaoxiao laughed, turning his head towards everyone, "Work hard! Add oil! Struggle! Tomorrow, let's have the entire training base witness our glory together!"

  "Kill!" The passionate representatives' team members put their hands together and shouted in unison.