CHAPTER 22 ♦ A NIGHT VISIT TO THE WEAPON STOREROOM

last edited: 28.06.17

After a day of training, the students that had originally been filled with vigour and fervour went to bath and turn in for the day one by one. A while after the final bell for lights out sounded, the dorm elapsed into a succession of snores.

Suddenly, a figure sat up like a carp from one of the beds, and borrowed the moonlight filtered in through the window to check the time on the watch taken out, and listened attentively to the rest of the people snoring in the dorm. Everyone’s breathing was even and deep. They were all asleep. Qin Ke Xuan got up from her bed, and pressed their sleep acupuncture just in case, before changing into her black shirt and black pants she found and even concealed her face with a black cloth.

Her dorm was on the fourth floor, not considered very high. Qin Ke Xuan leapt off the balcony, stepping on several places along the way down to ease the impact, before dropping soundlessly on the ground, and used Qing Gong to dash rapidly towards the only building that was not a dormitory in the military school.

Just as she was about to approach the building, Qin Ke Xuan saw, from far away, that there were actually guards on posts at lit up building. She quickly concealed herself in a dark area and took measure of the little machine that was able to view everything mounted on the surrounding walls carefully with a glint of her eyes. She remembered that Wolf, Jackal and Leopard had mentioned it before, that thing was called a surveillance camera.

There was a camera every few distance apart, and they tightly enclosed the entrance without any loopholes. Such tight vigilance had her all the more confident that the guns were stored in the building, and all the more so she could not return empty handed.

There was no way to go in through the main entrance with the current situation. Also, she was unsure whether there was any surveillance in the dark corners other than where the guards were patrolling on the surface. She picked up a small pebble and shot them out simultaneously in several directions. The sound of the pebbles hitting the ground in the dead of the night produced startlingly abrupt clatters.

“Who’s there?!” The soldier at his post turned his head, looking at the direction where the sound was produced in vigilance but did no see anyone. He surveyed the area in suspicion, and still did not see any suspicious individuals. There was not even a ghost in sight. It had made sense; for this was a training base, there would not be anyone who would dare approach this area, and those who were capable, all the more, did not need to honour their presence at such an insignificant place.

Qin Ke Xuan lay in the dark, her sharp sight confirmed that there was only one guard at post. She stood quietly, rounding the surveillance camera from the side near the wall. If it were not for not inadvertently alerting they people inside, she would have long smashed the cameras with a pebble and strutted in with swagger.

Exhaling deeply, she tensed before leaping up, landing on the hallways that had extended past the railings without a sound. Her back against the wall, she tilted her head slightly to look into the hallways on the second floor. As expected, there was another surveillance camera there. She withdrew her head, surveyed the area for a little before her glance fell on the window.

Her hand extended to grab the edge of the wall as she inched her way to the window. Reaching the window very quickly, she stepped on the window edge, both her hands clutching the two sides of the window to stabilise herself before she released one hand to fish out a little knife. The knife was amongst the tools Wolf, Jackal and Leopard had given her, it was said that the knife was incomparably sharp.

She opened the knife and started to pry open the window carefully. Just a few tries and there was a breaking sound. As she pried open the window, and Qin Ke Xuan suddenly came to a sorrowful realisation that she was very practised with the surreptitious ways of being a thief…… She pulled open the window gently to contain the sound, lifted the curtains, and surveyed the insides of the room with the aid of the murky lighting filtered in from outside. There was only some wooden equipment. She relocated herself upstairs, and pried open the second storey window; it was military uniforms…

Until she pried open the fourth storey window did her exposed eyes on her masked face light up. Found it! She dropped into the room holding the guns and walked towards the guns arranged in rows at the side. She took one and found it to be pretty heavy. It a lot bigger than the ones she saw on television. Looked like bringing such a gun back would be quite impossible.

She deliberated with the gun in her hand. With this little thing’s power, even if someone used it in broad daylight, it would be impossible to block it, much less from the shadows. She had personally suffered its taste before. She swept her gaze over the box on the side and reached to open it. It was filled to the brim with bullets. She grabbed a handful and stuffed them into her top pocket, thinking to bring some back to ponder them over, before grabbing another one and tried to fix it into the gun, but no matter how she looked, she could not find any suitable hole to stuff the bullet in. She looked at the muzzle of the gun meaningfully, pushed the bullet in her hand into the gun through the muzzle, and proceeded to hold the gun in her hand, copying what she had seen on television and tried to press the trigger.

Nothing happened. Qin Ke Xuan tipped out the bullet disappointment, returning the bullet to the place and replacing the gun at its original place, and decided to look around again to see if there were any smaller guns she could bring back. Suddenly, she heard a soft click, it was from the direction of the door. The door was suddenly banged open and in rushed two people, yelling at Qin Ke Xuan loudly: “Who are you?”

Qin Ke Xuan did not reply. Her legs moved, and she rushed forward to where they were, her arm jutting out in attack towards of one of their faces. That person, very apparently, was no ordinary individual. Relying on a primal instinct to evade danger, he barely dodged Qin Ke Xuan’s attack. Qin Ke Xuan had originally thought she would finish him with a move by attacking suddenly, but who knew this person would be this apparently trained and was pretty quick on his foot too. On top of that, their height difference made it such that her hand would not be able to reach him if he bent backwards. Her lapse in judgement was her occasional forgetfulness in remembering her current physique was of relative difference to her original body.

She immediately raised her leg out in a horizontal sweep, but the other person on the side slashed out a leg too. Solely judging by the hardness of their body when the two of them met with pure force, Qin Ke Xuan was definitely the one getting the shorter end of the stick. She, herself, was deeply acquainted with this body’s frailness, and hence raised her knee, turning her sweep into a lift, the back of her foot hooking his calf as she pulled it backwards. The person was thrown off balance in a spilt second and fell.

Qin Ke Xuan seized the opportunity to bend down, both her hands pressing on his body as she flipped backwards, kicking the guy whom she had attacked first in his chest as she stood upside down. Her strength was just right, it was hard enough to topple him, but it was not enough to break any bones. She was clear that if she were to cause any deaths or injuries, she would definitely incite much trouble, and they would definitely not let her go, hence as to why she let them off leniently instead of brandishing her killing move.

The moment both her legs hit the ground, just as she was about to dash for the exit, both her hands were tightly gripped by that person. Her elbow slammed his temple, and he was knocked out by her bash. His grip loosened, and Qin Ke Xuan extracted her hand. With a turn of her body, she zipped out of the guns and ammunition room and gripped the railings on the hallway, her body positioned sideways as she leapt off the building and dropped on the ground.

The guard on patrol, upon suddenly seeing a dark shadow dropping down from the building, froze for a minute, before shouting loudly, dashing towards her, “Who are you?! Stand there and freeze!”

Qin Ke Xuan half kneeling on the ground turned and shot a pebble she had in her hand at the guard’s calf. The pain on the guard’s calf had him kneeling from the sudden loss of strength of his leg. And so, he watched helplessly and fearfully as Qin Ke Xuan zipped off in a such a demonically fast speed he could not even see her shadow, and plunged into the east side of the woods, disappearing.

The guard grimaced as he stood up, talking into his intercom about the strange situation at the warehouse.

In the guns and ammunitions room on the fourth floor, a person patted his comrade’s dazed face anxiously, “Xiao Song! Hurry wake up!” He only felt reassured upon seeing his comrade’s consciousness stirring, and helped him up.

Xiao Song’s head was still dizzy. He groaned softly, a hand rubbing his temples, before suddenly waking up from his daze with a start, and grabbed his comrade’s hand, asking anxiously: “Where’s that person?!”

Xiao Jiang rolled his eyes, saying gloomily, “That person ran long ago. That speed was so fast. I followed her out, but only managed to see her zip into the east side of the woods, trying to catch up was completely impossible. All we can do now is to report this to Captain and accept our punishment!”

The Qin Ke Xuan in the woods was lying on a tree. Only after she observed no one followed her over did she veer one round from the east side to the west side of dormitory. She used her Qing Gong and tapped the ground with a little strength before she leapt onto the balcony of her dorm effortlessly. Everyone was still dead asleep. She quickly changed her clothes, and hid the bullets she nicked in a hidden place before laying on the bed, and adjusted her breathings, slipping into a light sleep.

The next day when dawn had not even broken, the bell to gather sounded, and following which, the entire dorm was as though it had exploded. Everyone was frantically washing up and changing their clothes in fear of being punished for being late. Their caps and belts were all worn while they ran.

After Qin Ke Xuan had finished washing up, looked at her sweet-asleep dorm-mates despite the huge ruckus, and woke them up with a “slap” kindly, “Wake up, we need to gather.”

The people woke up in a daze, but when they heard the thundering footsteps and the faint announcement to gather, they got up frantically, getting off their beds tipsily.

Qin Ke Xuan was the first one from class 15 to reach the gathering point. After yesterday’s running punishment, the sergeant had already recognised this girl and admired her quite a bit. And so, he approached her to chat, “What’s your name?”

“Qin Ke Xuan.”

“Xiao Xuan, you’ve trained in long-distance?”

“No.”

“No? Really couldn’t tell your physical strength’s pretty good from your skinny figure. Are you trained in Taekwondo or Karate?”

“No.”

“Then have you thought about applying to a military school?”

“No.”

“I think you’re pretty decent. It’s real hard to recruit female soldiers nowadays; a lot of girls are not willing to endure the hardships. But actually, the pay for female soldiers’ pretty good……”

The sergeant from another class walked over, punching class 15’s sergeant, reproaching him jokingly: “What’cha doin’ trying to sway such a delicate little lass to join the military?! It’s real hard to serve in the military, you gotta endure the pains. Regardless of how vividly fresh a girl was, she’d be fried charcoal. Little lass, don’t listen to your sergeant, study hard and look for a proper job.”

“Aye, it’s also not too bad to become a literary soldier!” Class 15’s sergeant was discontented. He was trying to expand the nation’s militia strength, how would he allow his efforts to be undermined?

“Not interested.” To Qin Ke Xuan, serving the army was the men’s business, not women’s.

“The military school is only taking students that are currently in high school. There are still three years for you to consider this properly. You won’t make it with your current height though. If you can grow taller in the next three years then there’s still some hope. Remember to drink more milk.”

“……”

When everyone had gathered, the sergeant announced, his face one of gloom: “The shooting training for our class had been rescheduled to tomorrow. We’ll train standing at ease, at attention, turning left right forward and backwards today.”

“Aye? Why?!” The mass of them was very discontented. Who did not how to stand at ease and be at attention? They had originally thought today would be more relaxing and they would have fun with shooting the target!

The sergeant smiled demonically, and glared with his fierce eyes, shouting loudly: “Why’s there so much noise, this is an order! Your ten rounds have not been completed! Turn left, run!”

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Translator’s Note:

Will be pausing translations very very soon >< I have exams coming up and I’ve pretty much used up my pathetically little stockpile. Will be resuming translations in December. Take note that I am not abandoning this series nor “Endless Love”! Will definitely be coming back so don’t abandon this novel >< I may occasionally do up a chapter or two if I can squeeze out any time, but otherwise, it’s a 99.9999% not updating. 

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