Chapter 25: Sniping Mission

  I adjusted the collar of my disguise, gave a middle finger to the back of the surveillance camera, and turned around to re-enter the woods. Leaning against a tree, I had to eat something before heading to the front line, so I opened my backpack and took out beef jerky, chocolate, and energy bars, which I ate with some water from my canteen. While eating, I checked my equipment: a modified SSG69 sniper rifle (not mine), 10 magazines and 200 rounds of ammunition; an MP5K-PDW submachine gun, three magazines and twelve rounds; a pistol, four magazines; two military knives (one spare); two hand grenades; four landmines; and three days' worth of rations. I was supposed to be outside for seven days, but my backpack was almost all weapons, with barely any food. It looked like this would be a tough test and a valuable lesson.

  I really don't know what the hell the system is thinking, this mission is so dangerous. Everything has a first time, but do you have to throw me into actual combat right from the start? This is too stimulating! My first solo mission and my heart is racing like crazy. If it were just stealth training, that would be fine, but they've given me 100 sniping tasks. Seven days, 100 tasks, which means I need to take out at least 14 targets per day. That also means I'll have to relocate to a new sniping position 15 times, which will consume a lot of my physical strength. But I only have three days' worth of rations. This is really "exciting". Damn it!

  I folded up the MP5K-PDW and put it in a holster under my ribs, still seething with resentment. I made my way back to enemy territory along the mountain road, crouching behind a large tree. I looked down at the small road below, and although it was only a little after 4 o'clock, the sky was already dark like night in the dense forest, and there were no pedestrians on the road. Sitting in the shadow of the tree, I took a look around at the surroundings, which were now as black as ink. A chill ran down my spine. I had thought that I was already a qualified warrior, but it wasn't until now that I realized that my past bravery and courage seemed to have come from the support of my strong teammates by my side. Now, sitting here alone, even without any danger, I still felt a little timid. Slowly, I set up warning traps within 15 meters around me, and in my hiding place, which was about 3m wide and 1m high, I set up camouflage cover. Then I crawled back under the tree, now fully dressed in camouflage clothes, looking like a pile of leaves from a distance. Now I need to rest for a while, having been out for two days without a good rest, and then there's a seven-day solo mission ahead, so I need to conserve my energy.

  Lying on the moisture-proof pad, I closed my eyes and hoped to rest for a while, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fall asleep. In the end, I had to resort to my ultimate trick - counting sheep. After counting 500 sheep, I finally felt sleepy. As I drifted off into a deep sleep, it seemed as though I had returned home and saw my parents' kind smiles and heard my brother's loud voice.

  "Xing Tian! Come on, I know you can do it. Haven't you always wanted to have special forces-like abilities? Can't you take it just like this now? We share the same blood, if I can do it, so can you!"

  "It's not like I'm asking you to go to war, just run a few steps, look how scared you are!"

  "This brick is too soft! Anyone can break it! Use all your strength, ignore the pain! Hit! If you don't hit me, I'll kick you!"

  "Remember, if the sentinel is a bit tall, the knife can be inserted at an angle from behind, passing through the ribs and straight into the lungs. He won't make a sound before being taken care of!"

  "When fighting with the opponent, stare at his eyes, and the eyes will reveal his intention. Hold the knife in a virtual manner, don't hold it too tightly, otherwise the knife won't be flexible, and the angle of the knife will be limited!"

  "Open-bolt firing mode, where the bolt moves forward and fires before reaching its final position, reducing the weight of the bolt carrier group and heat dissipation. Closed-bolt firing refers to a firing method in which the breech is closed and locked after a round is chambered, with advantages including improved shooting accuracy; disadvantages include the risk of self-ignition of remaining rounds in the chamber during continuous fire when suddenly stopping."

  "Come on, just seven more days and I'll be back in the army, what are you smiling at? Do you think I'll let you have an easy time these next seven days? If you don't hurry up, I'll whip you with my belt!"

  "I've got two pieces of news for you, little brother! One good and one bad. The bad news is that I'm going to a military school for further training! I'll be leaving soon! Don't get too excited yet! The good news is that every year I'll have more family visit leave to come back and "visit" you! Look at you, you're so happy you're crying! I'm really touched! Next time I come, I'll work even harder to "cultivate" you! I'm off!!"

  Everything in my hometown replayed in my mind, calm and beautiful, until I killed Yang in the building. His wide-open, lifeless dead eyes were like a growing vortex that seemed to suck my soul in. I suddenly woke up from my dream, my heart racing non-stop, wiping away the cold sweat on my forehead, gasping for air, calming down my emotions!

  The butcher had assured me that the henchmen of the drug dealer did not know who Yang was killed by, he told them that Yang died at the hands of special police. But if any of the accomplices knew the inside story, what happened in the building would definitely be exposed. The captain also assured me that even if they knew I had killed Yang, they wouldn't dare to provoke the wolf pack. However, if I left the wolf pack, nothing could be guaranteed. Afraid of implicating my family and friends because of me, I haven't dared to go home for almost half a year now, and I don't know when I can return home. Just thinking about going home makes my heart feel like it's being squeezed by an invisible giant hand, with such great force that it could squeeze out blood. Since leaving, I have not dared to contact my family, afraid that anyone would discover that I am still alive. If Yang's henchmen found out, it would be unbearable. But this time after returning, I must...

  Just as I was worried about my hometown, the sound of a motorcycle passing by entered my ears. Looking at my watch, it's already 1 o'clock in the middle of the night. Unexpectedly, there are still vehicles coming and going. Never mind! Can't let him go, consider it the first task of the day! I slowly raised my head, far away, saw a Jeep driving with its headlights on, slowly opening from afar towards this side. In the night vision scope, you can clearly see that there are people in both the driver's seat and the passenger seat, and vaguely, there should be three people on the back seat.

  Perhaps it was the poor road conditions, but the car was moving very slowly. I slowly took out the silencer and installed it on the gun barrel (the SSG69 didn't originally have a silencer, I had added it myself), loaded the bullet, and began to consider where to shoot. In the end, I decided on the car's engine, and as the car entered the optimal killing distance, I took aim at the engine block and fired, hitting the engine. The car smoked and stopped in the middle of the road, and the people inside got out, bewildered, to see what was wrong with the vehicle. Gotcha! I smiled coldly, raised my gun, and aimed at a guy holding a rifle who was standing behind the car, keeping watch while the others stood at the front, arguing about the smoking engine. Since it was nighttime, I only aimed for his back heart, took aim, and fired, shooting through his heart and sending him flying over half a meter before crashing to the ground.

  The sound of the body falling startled the people checking the car at the front, and a sharp-eyed guy shouted: "Sniper!" The others quickly crouched down and hid on both sides of the car, but they still hadn't found where the sniper was. I pulled the bolt, the shell casing jumped out of the barrel with hot air, surrounded by a fascinating smell of gunpowder.

  Looking at the guy squatting right in front of me, looking around, I sneered again: "Idiot! What are you looking at? On such a dark night, if you can spot a sniper, that's weird." Very calmly, I aimed the sight at his leg and shot it through with one bullet. A scream pierced through the night. He was crying for help while firing his handgun in all directions with one hand, this is exactly what I wanted!

  Three people hiding behind the car heard his cry for help, and one of them immediately poked out their head, wanting to go around the front of the car to rescue him. I had just taken aim at his head, but before I could pull the trigger, he was pulled back by a hand from behind the car. Unexpectedly, there was another clever person behind the car! However, I'll see how long you can hold out - I took aim at the wounded man's hand on the ground and fired again, and another miserable cry rang out. If you don't come out, I'll shoot this guy full of holes one bullet at a time. Before I could fire my third shot, the guy who had poked his head out earlier rushed out again, and that hand didn't have time to grab him this time.

  What a great friendship! I suddenly felt myself to be very despicable, using such a noble emotion. From that person's body, I seemed to see the slow machine in the rain curtain stretching out its hand towards my shadow. In my moment of distraction, that guy had already rushed to the wounded man's side, grabbed his collar and pulled him towards the back of the car. Just as I hesitated whether to shoot and kill this person, he had already dragged the wounded man to the rear of the car, almost into my sniper blind spot. Gnashing my teeth, I worked the bolt action, and the emerging soldier fell headfirst to the ground. In the end, I still made up my mind to trample on this emotion.

  As the gunfire subsided, I felt as if something within me had also collapsed. Chewing on the bitter taste that surged up from my heart, I knew it was my morality, my conscience. I had no excuse to soothe my shame, I went against my sense of right and wrong, making a decision that a soldier should not have made but an ordinary person would not have made.

  Through the cracks of moral collapse, I finally gained the awakening that a killer should have, a feeling that made me shudder rose from the bottom of my heart, it rushed into my brain, instantly calming the emotions that had been boiling due to guilt, I could feel my thoughts becoming icy cold, indifferently taking out an armor-piercing incendiary grenade from my leg pocket, loading it, aiming, and through the scope, I saw the gas tank of the jeep and the wounded soldier lying underneath, the jeep's door opened and closed again, the enemy hiding behind the car took out a radio to call for help, I waited for a moment, waiting for him to finish his conversation, without any hesitation, I pulled the trigger, the armor-piercing incendiary grenade hit the gas tank right on target, the jeep exploded instantly, the two people lying behind the car caught fire and ran towards the woods opposite, rolling on the ground trying to put out the flames on their bodies, two burning human torches, in the dark night, they were as conspicuous as the sun, I easily took care of them without using the scope.

  I rolled over and lay on the ground, rubbing my face hard, that strange feeling slowly faded away from my body. Through the dense tree canopy, I vaguely saw the moon. I wanted to scream loudly, I felt panicked, chasing after the gunfire, for the first time I dimly saw my future career, a future filled with death and blood, what made me panic was not this terrible future, but my expectation of it, this is an irrepressible desire that my conscience cannot suppress! The other day, I still felt sad for the rebel child soldiers I saw, but now should I be happy or sad for myself?

  I picked up the shell casing beside me and drew my military knife to carve five notches on it. This was the first time I had single-handedly taken down enemies in combat. Staring at the shell casing, I was momentarily stunned. The five knife marks represented five lives that I had sent to hell through my own hands, giving me an unparalleled sense of control over life and death.

  Click to view picture link: MP5K-PDW submachine gun