5. I had a cold war with Lao Pao, and in the end, I beat him up.

  How to describe this old gun? In fact, he is not bad, and his prestige in the army is still quite high. His military skills are solid, and he is also a down-to-earth person. He comes from an extremely poor background, the kind of poverty where you can't eat if you don't join the army. This type of officer makes up a large proportion of many grassroots units, in other words, they are part of the backbone of the current army. In our new recruit company, he is also the most senior and respected squad leader, roughly equivalent to the role of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in "Full Metal Jacket". However, old gun has a weakness, or rather a shortcoming, which is that he is narrow-minded. This was told to me by another squad leader later on. I am not someone who divides people based on regional stereotypes, because this is proven to be unscientific. I also know many people from Shanxi province, and many of them are very good friends, but old gun indeed has the reputation of being a typical Shanxi person - narrow-minded, vengeful, and likes to secretly bully others. At that time, a squad leader who was from the same hometown as me joked with me in private, why is his squad always the model for the whole regiment? Is it because the soldiers under him are bullied into submission?

  He advised me to apologize to Lao Pao, and be sincere about it, with the mindset of having lost many battles but still willing to fight again. I didn't believe in this nonsense, what did I do wrong? It wasn't like I was going to run away or anything. Why should I apologize when he's the one who wants to run? But soon I discovered Lao Pao's power. There's a reason why I call him Lao Pao, and it's not because he's someone you can mess with openly.

  At first, no one in the whole class dared to answer me, and they didn't dare to talk to me much. The old gun probably looked at my file and understood, openly provoking the rural soldiers to clash with me. There was also a city soldier in our class, from Fujian, who looked like a vegetable, and didn't dare say he was a high school graduate, usually pretending to be uncultured.

  I was thoroughly isolated, and from then on, my room chores were never up to standard again. Because every time I cleaned up, as long as I wasn't careful, someone would mess with the quilt when I went to the bathroom or stepped out to chat with someone, and they would do it in a way that wasn't very obvious on the surface. At first, I couldn't figure it out, but by the time the inspection came around, I was always failing. After several times, I finally caught on, so after cleaning up, I didn't dare leave, but Old Cannon would call me out to chat about something trivial, or have me go to the service company to buy a pack of cigarettes for him. When I got back, I quickly cleaned up again, but often the squad leader had already arrived, and seeing that I was still cleaning, he would scold me. After being scolded by the squad leader, Old Cannon would continue to scold me, and even hold a class meeting to have the whole class scold me together. Later on, my temper flared up, and after doing what I was supposed to do, that's it, whoever likes it can like it, whoever doesn't like it can just deal with it.

  At that time, I really knew what it meant to be sinister. Although I didn't talk much with everyone (they didn't respond to me either), I still respected them very much. If my dad hadn't joined the army at 16 and then transferred to a civilian job, he would still be a farmer now. I actually have a lot of feelings for farmers. My grandfather and aunt are still in the countryside. It's not that I want to create an image of myself as a city-born university student, it's just what Lao Pao deliberately made me into.

  On the surface, you can't tell that I'm being trained, eating, taking a bath, or doing whatever. But this kind of ostracism is highly contagious, and all the new recruits and squad leaders gradually stopped talking to me, even my fellow villager only dared to whisper some warm words to me when it was my turn to stand night watch. Old Cannon was simply born to be an activist, I later thought that when the US was fighting Iraq, Saddam should have come to find Old Cannon to mobilize the Arab brothers, it would have been very useful.

  After two weeks of training in the new recruit company, Lao Pao gradually figured out the attitude of all the new recruits and knew that no one would report him, so he started openly collecting protection fees from me.

  First, it's picking on the flaws in my formation, making me stand at attention for a step at a time, and standing for at least half an hour until I'm exhausted. Next is various crawling exercises, until my arms, elbows, and knees are completely numb. Then there are various single-bar exercises, with no rest in between, meaning that my movements aren't up to par.

  What I admire most about this old fellow is that he never scolds me or hits me.

  I never had a rest on weekends, and the old gun always found various excuses to make me exercise. For example, 400-meter hurdles, I was not good at it before, probably taking more than 2 minutes to finish, but he trained me hard, and I fell down from various obstacles countless times. However, my physical foundation was still okay, plus I didn't want to admit defeat, so he continued to train me, and in the end, I ran to 1 minute and 25 seconds, which not only broke the record in the new recruit regiment but also ranked first or second in the whole division.

  The old gun saw that this was not enough, so he added more subjects. He called it cultivating new recruits' elite, but I'm afraid my internal affairs score wasn't the worst. After going through various trainings, under the old gun's personal supervision, my military quality improvement wasn't small at all. Plus, although my brain is a bit slow, it's still relatively active, so I grasped it quickly. If he trained me more, I would be consolidating and improving already.

  The first assessment of the new recruits, I was ranked first in military performance, and last in all other aspects including internal affairs and politics.

  This matter shocked the deputy commander in charge of training, and my enlistment was a very important thing for the team leaders. He came to the new recruit company to understand the situation, but no one dared to speak. What kind of person is the deputy commander? An old oil slick who has been tempered in the troops, basically understanding what soldiers think with a glance. He talked to me, and I spoke straightforwardly, telling him everything about Lao Pao and me. The deputy commander thought for half a day, but instead of finding Lao Pao, he directly gave an order to our company commander, transferring me to the same squad as my fellow villager.

  It wasn't until then that I found a sense of belonging in the troops, like one big family. The squad leader and I were from the same hometown, and the other brothers all followed his lead. Gradually, our relationship became harmonious. Moreover, under the tempering of the old gun, my military quality and technical skills improved greatly, so my prestige gradually rose.

  I'm used to being hammered, and I'm also used to being scolded. As a result, every time I rest, I get restless and go to the training ground to run obstacles and practice single and double bars, otherwise I won't be able to bear it. The family building of the team leader is just behind the training ground, and the balcony faces directly onto the playground, so they can all see me, naturally praising me highly.

  I'm getting more and more praise, it's almost like I've become a model soldier. I still see Old Cannon every day, he never says anything to me when we meet, but I still call him Squad Leader. It's the rules, otherwise I wouldn't bother with him anymore.

  When I thought everything was over, something happened.

  One night, I was sleeping when the door of my dormitory was kicked open. Several people rushed in and covered me with a quilt, beating me up before I could even wake up from my dream. By the time I came to, they had retreated as quickly as they had arrived.

  The light came on, and the cadres all arrived. All my classmates were staring with wide eyes, not daring to say anything. The cadre took a look at my wound and told our class monitor to take me to the infirmary for a check-up. To be honest, it wasn't that serious outside, they didn't hit my head, just my stomach directly. I suffered internal injuries, probably not too severe, but they still had some restraint in their hands, however, it hurts!

  I gritted my teeth and went to the infirmary with the help of the class monitor. As we passed by the construction site of our school's garden, I was tripped up by something, and when I looked down, it was an iron shovel. I pushed away the class monitor, picked up the shovel and ran back fiercely. The class monitor hurriedly chased after me.

  I ran towards the new barracks like a madman, and the soldiers on guard were stunned. Just as our squad leader was making his rounds, he came up and kicked me to the ground, snatching my shovel away from me. I bit down hard on his hand, and he yelled out in pain and let go. I got up and rushed towards the barracks, accurately kicking open the door to the old gunner's room: "Old Gunner! Fuck your mother!" The old gunner, who had clearly been pretending to sleep, immediately sprang up, as did several other squad leaders in the room - none of whom had actually been sleeping.

  I picked up a stool and smashed it: "Old gun! I fuck your mother!"

  The old cannonball flashed and hit me on the arm. The others came up to press me, I wielded a stool to force them away: "It's none of your business! Get out of my way!"

  A classmate came up and snatched my stool, another one hugged me from behind. Then I got beaten, fists flying. I was like a mad beast, kicking and biting, still rushing to the old gunner who covered his arm, grabbing his hair (all the old soldiers in the army liked to shave their lower hair short and leave it on top, so they could wear hats without violating regulations) and beating him hard. I don't remember why everyone else was stunned, maybe because of my screams, or maybe because they saw that I didn't care about dying. People who are not afraid of death are feared by all, it's an unbreakable truth.

  At that time I was covered in blood and kept repeating a sentence over and over again:

  "Old fart! Screw your mom!"

  ．．