Chapter 43: The Origin of Emotions

  After eating the clear porridge sent back by Alice, Chen Bin came to the balcony and gazed at the distant military port.

  Gradually, his thoughts inadvertently returned to the International Special Forces Competition two years ago, which was his first time going abroad as a soldier of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. At that time, he changed the 38th Army's armband and put on a bright little red flag.

  Since leaving Baoding, every day and night, he has been reminding himself that what he represents is not an individual, but the sacred profession of a Chinese soldier, the honor of this collective, and even more so, the honor of China as a nation.

  They say the People's Liberation Army is a mighty force, and the stunning 60th National Day military parade has led the world to re-examine this awakening giant in the East. Five years have passed since then, what is the actual strength of China's individual soldiers? Chen Bin knows it clearly, and it's something every foreign soldier and officer wants to see.

  As the team leader walked into the arena in Nigeria, Chen Bin was immediately surrounded by a tense atmosphere. Unlike the foreign soldiers who had arrived earlier than the Chinese delegation, they turned their heads to look at them without exception, and each soldier's eyes were filled with ferocity. Moreover, the physique of the foreign soldiers seemed to be much stronger than that of the Chinese military.

  This couldn't help but make Chen Bin feel a little afraid in his heart, afraid that he would lose the face of Chinese soldiers.

  However, the team officer in charge appeared to be very calm and smiled and exchanged greetings with the leader of the foreign delegation. The fluent English made Chen Bin completely incomprehensible, and only a few simple greetings could be understood, such as "hello", "goodbye", nothing more.

  After passing through three to five tents, Chen Bin arrived at the temporary quarters of the Chinese delegation. Although it looked like just a simple tent from the outside, inside was a different story altogether. Not only were there comfortable and soft beds, but also fitness equipment. More importantly, Chen Bin's beloved gun had already been transported here through a special channel and was quietly resting on its rack.

  As soon as Chen Bin saw his beloved gun, he didn't even bother to put down his backpack and went forward to pick it up, blowing a mouthful of air on the barrel and wiping it with his sleeve.

  The black gun body shone brightly enough to reflect his smiling face, and Chen Bin was satisfied with putting the beloved gun back on the gun rack.

  He looked up and inadvertently glanced out the window, just in time to see Alice passing by outside. Her shoulder-length golden hair, paired with a crisp American camouflage uniform, made her look particularly elegant and spirited.

  At this moment, Alice is debugging her beloved gun, she holds the muzzle high up, but doesn't know what to aim at.

  Her right index finger had always been resting on the gun body, not on the trigger. The sunglasses reflected the sunlight, shining directly into Chen Bin's eyes, making him raise his hand to block it, and from between his fingers, he looked at this somewhat awkward female soldier.

  Alice held the gun for over a minute, and Chen Bin stood at the window staring at Alice for a whole minute.

  Until Alice put down her hand and turned around to see Chen Bin staring at her, she was stunned for a moment before rushing towards the smile at the corner of Chen Bin's mouth. Only then did Chen Bin put down his hand and raised it to shout at Alice: "Hello!"

  His English pronunciation was not very standard, and it took Alice a few times to hear clearly that the Chinese soldier was using Chinglish to greet himself. Alice walked to the window without any estrangement, raised her hand in front of Chen Bin's eyes through the tent, and said politely in English: "Soldier, welcome here, from now on we are opponents, I will knock you down!"

  Chen Bin didn't understand what Alice was saying at all. He looked at the hand Alice placed in front of him and knew that this blonde female soldier was greeting him, so he hurriedly wiped his hand on his clothes before raising it to shake hands with Alice, responding in broken English: "Good...good, I'm also...very happy...to meet you!"

  Listening to Chen Bin's poor English, Alice smiled lightly and then turned around and disappeared from Chen Bin's line of sight.

  At this moment, the officer in charge walked up to Chen Bin with a smile and asked, "Have you greeted the foreign beauty?"

  "Captain, how's that? My English didn't lose face for you, did it?" As he spoke, Chen Bin couldn't help but break into a proud and silly grin.

  Chen Bin didn't even know what Alice meant, and he thought he hadn't lost face. The officer in charge didn't want to discourage Chen Bin, so he said tactfully: "You're not wrong, but her real meaning is that... she'll knock you down. And you..." The officer couldn't bear to continue, so he just sighed, patted Chen Bin's shoulder and turned to leave the tent.

  Chen Bin stood there in a daze for half a day, before he finally came to his senses and understood what the officer was saying. He couldn't help but laugh, turned his head to look out the window and said: "Knock me down? We'll see who's crying when the time comes!"

  Fate may have been decided. Foolish Chen Bin, in the International Martial Arts Competition, can be said to have gone through five passes and six generals, breaking through thorns and thistles like a hot knife through butter, entering the final match. He felt that he had already proven himself to all foreign soldiers, and in the last battle, he wanted to defeat his last opponent, thus proving Chinese soldiers!

  It wasn't until he saw his opponent, the blonde girl he had met on his first day here, that he was taken aback.

  Just as he was stunned, Alice let out a loud cry and rushed forward, kicking Chen Bin's chest with a fierce kick.

  Chen Bin was immediately kicked flying out, and after falling to the ground, he rolled more than three meters before stopping.

  As he recalled the past, Chen Bin couldn't help but raise his hand to gently touch the bandaged wound on his chest, which was exactly where Alice had kicked him before.

  At this time, sitting at the seaside food stall, she had sent away all members of the Black Shark Gang, including Alice, and was staring blankly at the military port alone. She suddenly lowered her head, spread out her right hand, gazed at it for a moment, and burst out laughing.

  She remembered that at the beginning, she took advantage of Chen Bin's daze and kicked him flying, then chased after him to his front, just about to ride on Chen Bin's lower back and lock him down, but before she could land a flurry of punches, Chen Bin suddenly stopped and quickly flipped over, turning sideways and raising his fist in a defensive stance.

  Seeing Chen Bin's reaction was so quick, Alice immediately dispelled the idea of attacking him from behind and instead turned sideways with her fist raised, staring at Chen Bin intensely.

  Chen Bin never thought that as soon as he came up, he hadn't even gotten into position yet and was kicked to the ground, what a humiliating thing.

  Moreover, Chen Bin still remembered the words Alice had said to him, so he couldn't be knocked down. Thinking of this, Chen Bin let out a loud roar and rushed towards Alice.

  Rushing up to Alice, Chen Bin stood firm with a small bow step, and then threw a combination of punches at Alice.

  At this moment, Chen Bin did not regard Alice as a weak woman at all. In his eyes, the person standing in front of him was his opponent, an obstacle that prevented him from reaching the pinnacle. He wanted to make this obstacle surrender under his fists and feet.

  Although Alice was prepared to defend herself, she was still intimidated by Chen Bin's aura and only dared to dodge hastily. However, Chen Bin's movements were not as clumsy as she had imagined, and after dodging the first two feints, she saw Chen Bin's right fist coming straight at her forehead with a speed like lightning that was hard to evade.

  It was already too late to dodge, so Alice had no choice but to quickly pull her right leg to the right and step on the ground with her heel, raising both hands to block Chen Bin's attack.

  However, as a female soldier, Alice's physical quality was inferior to that of male soldiers from the start, but she managed to make it to the finals thanks to her faster reaction speed. Now, in the midst of lifting her hand, she couldn't help but want to seize Chen Bin's right hand after blocking his attack.

  So she didn't clench her fists and block the attack with her forearms. Alice chose to block the attack with her palms, so that she could take advantage of the momentum to grab Chen Bin.

  But she was cleverly deceived by her own cleverness, and she didn't think that this Chinese soldier's sweeping punch would be so powerful. When her palm took Chen Bin's horizontal punch, the whole person shook with a tremor that spread throughout her body, and in an instant, she was beaten back, stumbling and retreating for at least ten feet before stopping.

  Moreover, Alice felt that her arms were numb from the shock and for a while she couldn't muster up the strength.

  She couldn't help but shake her arm to get rid of the numbness as soon as possible, so that she could deal with Chen Bin's next attack. Now, she knew more or less that Chen Bin was not as weak as he looked, and could burst out with astonishing power when punching.

  Perhaps this is Chinese Kung Fu, which emphasizes concentrated bursts of energy to avoid wasting unnecessary physical strength.

  Having found this out, Alice was no longer eager to attack, but instead kept a certain distance from Chen Bin, her eyes fixed on him, and she circled around him with her fists raised.

  Chen Bin saw the female soldier starting to play tricks on him, couldn't help but smile, and said in English: "Aren't you going to knock me down? Come on!" As he spoke, he raised his hand and wiggled his fingers at Alice.

  Alice didn't expect that a week ago, the Chinese soldier who couldn't even speak for himself, could now say provocative words in fluent English, and she was surprised. But she wasn't enraged by Chen Bin's words, instead, she walked around him, looking for an opportunity to attack, while smiling and responding in awkward Chinese: "I didn't expect that you would learn English so quickly!"

  Although Alice's Chinese and Chen Bin's English were equally poor, Chen Bin at least understood what she meant and couldn't help but burst out laughing, saying "Sorry, I only learned this one sentence!" As he spoke, Chen Bin saw that behind where Alice was standing was a rock, so he immediately got up and rushed towards her.

  Alice saw Chen Bin rushing over and immediately retreated to avoid Chen Bin's brutal attack, waiting for Chen Bin to exhaust his physical strength before counterattacking.

  But she didn't expect a stone behind her foot, when her right foot retreated and accidentally stepped on the stone, her feet slipped, and she fell backwards. Just as an astonishing scene appeared, Chen Bin rushed forward with one step and hugged Alice's waist, looking at Alice falling down and seeing the small wooden stake on the ground, he let out a sigh of relief.