Chapter 14 New Recruits Report for Duty 12

  As the sanitation worker said, after turning that bend, Lei saw a tall pine tree 20 meters away. This pine tree was different from other trees, it grew slantingly from the slope, perhaps because of this it was called the old crooked tree, and others were resting under the tree. Lian Chang kept staring at his watch, while Lei and the others used their last strength to sprint towards the finish line, the new recruits shouting at them: "Add oil, add oil! A little faster!"

  "Bang!", several people fell down at the feet of Lian Zhang, Lei looked up and asked Lian Zhang: "Lian Zhang, did we arrive on time?"

  The medic standing behind Lian Chang's back took a look at Lian Chang's wrist and said in a low voice, "Oh, it was really close, only five seconds left."

  Lei heard that they had arrived at the finish line on time, a smile appeared on his face, and he lay on the ground panting heavily. He really didn't even have the strength to stand up. Zhang Nan also excitedly shouted: "Too, too good! This way everyone will... today we'll have food to eat!"

  Li Yuan and Zhang Biao struggled to press down on Zhang Nan's body, with hands constantly slapping him, shouting: "You little devil is really heavy, almost starving us to death."

  "Hehe......" Zhang Nan could only smile foolishly to express his gratitude towards them.

  The company commander turned around and looked at the others, and the new recruits who were still excited about Lei's timely arrival immediately fell silent. The company commander shouted loudly: "You are really rubbish! I don't know what you're laughing at. A short distance of two kilometers, and it took you twelve minutes to arrive last!" As he said this, the company commander turned around and glanced at Lei and others who were still lying on the ground, then he shouted again: "This is far from enough! If there was a war, you would have been captured by the enemy long ago! Next time, anyone who can't arrive here within ten minutes will be punished with no food for a day!"

  Ten minutes? Lei looked at Zhang Nan beside him, it seemed he needed to strengthen his training.

  The two kilometers were just the beginning of today. After breakfast, Lei and his team started their physical training again. For the whole day, except for eating, it was running, push-ups, sit-ups, duck walking, interval running, single and double bars, etc. Among all the physical training, the most difficult one for Lei and his teammates was the plank exercise. The plank exercise is to lie flat on the ground with your arms stretched out to the sides and your legs straight up at an angle of about 30 to 40 degrees. These movements look simple, but it's hard to persist. When Lei did this movement for the first time, he only persisted for one and a half minutes, and then he started to feel his legs trembling constantly and had muscle cramps. As long as your legs are slightly bent, the long belt will be mercilessly whipped on your legs. In order not to let your legs come down, Lianzhang used all kinds of methods. He would put burning candles under your legs. If your legs were slightly lowered, the scorching pain would come immediately. This is still considered mild. If you're not happy, Lianzhang will find a steamed bun and insert more than a dozen large needles on it and place it under your legs. If you can't persist and let your legs fall, the needles will pierce into your flesh. At that time, it's hard to do other training. So, all they could do was to persist, persist, and persist again. When you feel like you really can't persist anymore, that's just the beginning.

  In these tortures, Zhang Nan can be said to have experienced everything except for the two mentioned above. Zhang Nan was often hung on a single bar to exercise his arm strength. Whether it was Zhang Nan, Li Yuan or Zhang Biao, whenever someone received punishment, Lei would also receive joint responsibility. During this period, due to various reasons, Lianzhang threw five more people into Lei's class, namely: Huang Rui, Zhang Hao, Wang Bing, Liu Qiang and Han Guang. Now there are nine people in Lei's class, called the first class, while others were divided into five classes, with five new class leaders appointed.

  After a week of hellish physical training, Lian Chang let Lei and the others rest for two days, but they were not allowed to go anywhere, only staying in the house where Officer Gao Wen and Superior Soldier Liu Ming taught them how to tidy up their quarters. In just two short days, Lei's quilt was folded into a neat cube, the bedspread was smoother than ice, and the cabinet looked like it had been cloned from another one.

  Looking at the dormitory's earth-shaking changes, Gao Wen lightly smiled and said: "It looks like this is what it means to have a military camp's style."

  What the other military camps were like, Lei didn't know, he only knew that he was now a completely different person from before. After two days of rest and recovery, Lei felt that his strength had increased a lot, and even Zhang Nan completed the test to Lao Wai Tree in under seven minutes without anyone's help this time.

  After this rest, Le and his team's training changed completely. Every morning, they would run 5 kilometers first, then do 200 push-ups and sit-ups each, from breakfast to dinner was the firearms training that Le and his new recruits had been looking forward to the most, before dinner was another 5 kilometers, and after dinner was the unchanged physical training again.

  It was the eleventh day since they arrived here, and it was the most exciting day for all new recruits because today they finally got to touch guns. After breakfast, Sergeant Gao Wen took them to the armory, where rows of metal cabinets were lined up, some as tall as a person, others only half as high. The company commander opened a large metal cabinet, and a row of rifles appeared before everyone's eyes. Although it was different from what they had seen in movies, it was enough to make these silly birds overjoyed.

  Whoever took away a gun, Sergeant Liu Ming would take a look at the gun and then register it in his notebook. After everyone had a gun, they all stood up straight with their chests out and heads held high, each one seeming to finally breathe a sigh of relief after being oppressed for so long, standing upright in the icy snow as they listened to the company commander's speech.

  Lian Chang scanned the crowd with a sweeping gaze, and shouted loudly: "You bunch of trash, now that you all have guns in your hands, are you all extremely happy or what?"

  Everyone was overjoyed and shouted in unison: "Hurray! Commander!"

  "Good, you have the right to be happy! Because in this world there are still many people who haven't even touched a gun, let alone seen one! The guns in your hands each have a unique serial number on them. You must remember this serial number because it belongs only to you. If I find out that someone has forgotten their own serial number, they will be in big trouble!", he said, adjusting his tone slightly as he asked everyone: "In Country M there is a poem about guns, does anyone know it?"