CHAPTER 30 ♦ TARGET SHOOTING COMPETITION

Qin Ke Xuan after zipping out the bar upon seeing those people not chasing her stopped, took out her phone and dialled Zhou Lin. “Why didn’t you chase me?”

“Hehe, I’ve said that if you escape the bar alive, I’ll let you go. I’ve always been a very trustworthy person.”

“…” Z L T

“Hehe, you don’t believe me?” 

“Why?” Z L T

“Hehe, do you really need me to give you a reason? First of all, my people may not even be able to catch you even if they chase. Next, they may not be able to kill you even if they catch you. Lastly, won’t fighting with firearms in the broad daylight a perfect excuse for the police to finish us off? Oh, and one more, you could have killed my people and me just now, but you didn’t make your move, so I’ll return that. I’ll let you go, but if you let out anything about our organisation, then don’t blame me for being merciless.”

“Just like that?” Z L T

“Just like that. When I had scouted you to join the organisation, I’d knew that you’ll leave one day, just that I never expected it to be so fast.”

No wonder that guy had her do all the thievery jobs and did not let her come into contact with the high-clearance ones. He had never trusted her, but it’s good like that too because it made disengaging herself easier.

Qin Ke Xuan didn’t return to school immediately but turned towards another direction.Z L T

Standing before the gates, Qin Ke Xuan was refrained from entering by the sentinels at the gate. “This area is under military supervision, outsiders are prohibited from entering.”

Qin Ke Xuan took out the ID Chang Jiang Lin had given her to the Sentinel. The guard took it and examined it before immediately standing up straight and gave a military salute. “So you’re the soldier from the Special Forces Reserve Squad. Leader had said you will only be coming tonight, how come you are here already?”

Qin Ke Xuan returned a military salute as well. She learnt this during the military training. She knew lots of changes had occurred to this world. The etiquette of kneeling when seeing a senior officer no longer existed. She still lacked comprehension with regards to this military salute but had cheerfully complied. Nobody liked to kneel down before others; half kneeling was the same. Z L T

“I was thinking of coming ahead of time to see.” 

“Oh, one moment please. I need to stand guard at the gates so I’ll call someone to bring you in. There are quite a few people in the Reserve Squad already.” The sentinel informed her enthusiastically, and shouted at the duty room: “Xiao Ye, come out for a bit.” Z L T

Another sentinel walked out of the duty room, asking: “Why?” Z L T

“New soldier from the Special Forces Reserve Squad, you go and get someone from their troop to come and pick her up.”

“Enh, hold on.” And then he returned to the duty room to make a call to explain the situation. Z L T

Before long, a car drove over to Qin Ke Xuan. A robust man alighted from the car. After saluting them, he stretched his hand out at Qin Ke Xuan. “I’m Li Jian Zhong from the Special Forces Reserve Squad.” Z L T

Qin Ke Xuan lightly shook his hand. “Qin Ke Xuan.” 

“Get on, the people from our squad are all waiting to meet you.” Z L T

Qin Ke Xuan got in the car and Li Jian Zhong introduced the building and areas along the road as he drove. The military supervised zone in City B was a desolate suburban area. Other than some necessary buildings, everything else was wild vegetation and jungle. Squadrons of soldiers could be seen training along the road.

“You probably knew that the reserve squad we are in is under Chinese People’s Liberation Army, under the Tercel* Brigade in the east when you joined right. You can join Tercel as a proper member if you can pass the examination, it’s okay even if you don’t pass the examination, you’ll still be deployed to the different battalion and company and take up different duties in the military area.”

* 雄鹰 = xiong ying; tercel (aka: male eagle) Z L T

“Enh.” Z L T

“Oh yeah, there are a total of 15 people in the squad, three of which, inclusive of you, are female. You are the only one among us that is still a high-schooler, the youngest here. The rest are university students. Our squad’s been assembling for training since a month ago. We’ll look out for you so you need not worry about lagging behind.”

“Enh.” Z L T

“And also, because we are still in the reserve squad and are still not proper soldiers yet, we attend normal lessons if we have any in the morning, else we will come over for training. Gathering for night training is compulsory. Also, we will live here. It will be stressful studying and training together, so you need to be mindful about managing the time on your side.” Z L T

As he talked, they reached a warehouse and Li Jian Zhong brought Qin Ke Xuan into the warehouse. Just as she stepped into the warehouse, she realised there were concealed weapons attacking in their direction. She immediately moved two steps to the side to evade the concealed weapon before hearing two pops coming from Li Jiang Zhong’s body. The two spots that were hit by the concealed weapon had a small hole each in his shirt.

Li Jian Zhong’s face darkened and he clenched his teeth bellowing in anger: “Who the hell did this?” Z L T

Two people with ropes around their waist jumped down from above. They were both donned in camouflage clothing and carrying rifles. One of them said to Li Jian Zhong cheekily: “Squad leader, your alertness is too low! If that was a real bullet by the enemy, you’d be dead already!”

Li Jiang Zhong punched him, scolding: “This is how you welcome a new member?! Fudge it, it hurts even if it’s an empty ammo I was shot by!” ♢

He immediately withdrew his smile and set his expression and gave Qin Ke Xuan a military salute. His frivolous expression returned the minute he dropped his hand, and he said to Qin Ke Xuan: “Hellooo, I’m Chi Qu Qi, may I ask for this beauty’s name? And the age of this young lady? And whether you have a boyfriend? Do you want to consider this handsome guy?”

Another guy elbowed Chi Qu Qi, amused, saying: “I’m Tian Xue Qin. You don’t need to mind this wonky starry-eyed guy, he flirts with every female he sees.” Z L T

Chi Qu Qi shoved Dian Xue Qin in melancholy, arguing in discontent: “Aye aye, what are you saying? When did I flirt with every female I see? I someone who has a lot of principles, I only flirt with beautiful females!” As he said, he started sorting things out with Tian Xue Qin with his actions.

Li Jian Zhong facepalmed and said to Qin Ke Xuan: “They’ll always be like this when the two of them stay together, you don’t need to mind them. This warehouse is a site especially for us to use. The dormitories are the two rooms over there, one for females, one for males. The one there is our lounge, the rest of the rooms are for the different activities and training. It’s a little like the backdrop in CS*, have you played CS* before?”

* CS = counter strike; a multiplayer first-person shooter online video game Z L T

“No.” Qin Ke Xuan sized up the surroundings. This warehouse was remodelled into different rooms of large and small sizes. There were some that were stocked with all sorts of equipment, and some others that just had a bumpy wall that was probably for people to scale. So they use all these weird kinds of methods to train? She believed it would be more straightforward and fast to just fight and kill.

Chi Qu Qi followed over, asking Qin Ke Xuan cheekily: “The newcomer babe, even though you don’t look very strong, you managed to dodge my attack which even the squad leader could not dodge, that’s pretty sick. Wanna play a shooting game with me?”

The squad leader knocked his head sternly. “Don’t think I don’t know you’re looking for someone to be a target. Let me warn you, don’t bully newcomers.” Z L T

“Squad Leader! The person wouldn’t be in our unit if she didn’t have her own move or two right? Didn’t she miss a lot of training, I’m just helping turn on a private oven* for her, promise you it’ll be like she hitched a ride on the Shenzhou Seven* Eight Nine and catch up with everyone!” Chi Qu Qi patted his chest making a solemn vow.

*开小灶 = (lit.) turn on private oven, (fig.) give someone special attention Z L T

* 神七八九 = shen 7 8 9; referring to Shenzhou 7 (the spacecraft in the Chinese space program launched in 2008) and Shenzhou 8 (launched in 2011) and Shenzhou 9 (launched in 2012).

“Squad leader, don’t worry about him. He’s dreaming about being a godly shooter every day to the extent he’s catching us all to be his shooting target. The newcomer will end up being pulled to be his target sooner or later. In my opinion, we should let this newcomer set him back a little!” Z L T

The squad leader turned his head and asked for Qin Ke Xuan’s opinion, “Qin Ke Xuan, what do you think? Have you used a gun before, want to try it?” 

Qin Ke Xuan felt that there was nothing to do anyway. Besides, she wanted to learn how to use those guns anyway, and so she nodded her head. At the same time, she took out the gun she had snatched from Zhou Lin’s people from her pocket. “Can do.”

“You’re bringing around a gun? … Fuck! That’s a real gun! Where did you steal that from? And a loaded gun at that, hold that properly don’t point that at me!” Chi Qu Qi stared at the gun in Qin Ke Xuan’s hands, making a big fuss. “Looks like there’s a lot for you to learn. You actually dare to bring around a loaded gun, you should be thankful the gun didn’t accidentally fire.” Z L T

The squad leader took over her gun and opened the magazine. Upon seeing the fully loaded bullets, he couldn’t help but feel his head throbbing. This newcomer was another troublemaker. “Where did you get this gun?” Z L T

“I picked it up on the road.” Qin Ke Xuan said calmly. Z L T

Who the heck would believe that! Z L T

Qin Ke Xuan had no intentions of broaching this topic with them. She looked at Chi Qu Qi. “Still shooting?”

“Of course! But since you’re a newcomer, let’s not play the real stuff first, how about 100m moving target shooting?”

Tian Xue Qing snorted: “Hoho, scared you’ll accidentally die in her hands after seeing this xiao mei mei is someone who has used a real gun before?” Z L T

“What you talkin’! This is me letting the rookie a little!” Z L T

The other female in their squad who had gone to collect Qin Ke Xuan’s uniform came back just at this time. Qin Ke Xuan changed into the camouflage clothing similar to theirs. But once she stood before them, they laughed. She was currently at the Lolita age stage, her figure was also very Lolita-esque. The uniform she had on was a size too large so it was baggy.

“Qin Ke Xuan, sorry, I didn’t know your frame was so… exquisite, so I had collected the uniform based on my height, I’ll change it for you later.” The girl who had collected the uniform apologised. Z L T

Chi Qu Qi was beyond amused, and laughed: “Qin Ke Xuan, how tall are you? Are you sure you have reached the Special Forces requirement? In my opinion, it’d be useless even if you change her uniform! Even the smallest size here on you would still be a chunk too long.” Z L T

Qin Ke Xuan rolled up the too-long sleeves and pants, shooting him a cold gaze. “Don’t nonsense, the results will be apparent on the battlefield.”

The bunch of them reached the target-shooting arena in a buzz. There happened to be other soldiers who were practising target shooting. A soldier who had a noticeably different uniform from them asked: “What do you want to do?”

“Reporting Sergeant One, we are just coming here to practice target shooting.” The squad leader replied.

“Go go, don’t you see the people from our platoon’s using the place? You guys can come use it after we’re done.” Sergeant One sent them away with impatience.

“Sergeant One, we are only using the 100 metre moving target shooting arena, we will not hinder your target shooting practice here.” Z L T

“Lad what do you mean? What, are we soldiers useless scoundrels that can only shoot dead targets?” Sergeant One glared at them. “You guys are but a reserve squad, it’s hard to say if you’ll even get into the actual squad! Look at how arrogant you are!”

“I don’t mean it that way…” The squad leader tried to explain. Z L T

Chi Qu Qi said, indignant: “Why don’t all of us compete then!” 

“Then let’s compete! Who’s afraid of who!” Sergeant One accepted Chi Qu Qi’s challenge and instructed his people to put up the shooting target, and called a few soldiers to go to smash them.

The squad leader couldn’t help but lowly scolded Chi Qu Qi: “Private fights is strictly prohibited in the military, even if you’re looking to be beaten up, don’t drag us the entire squad down with you!”

“Qie*!” Chi Qu Qi rolled his eyes and whispered to the Qin Ke Xuan on his side sneakily: “That Sergeant One has always found us unpleasant to his eyes, where have we ever done anything wrong to him? Who’s fault is it, not being able to enter the Special Forces Squad?! Just because he’s a sergeant and a senior soldier for two years, he’d desperately taunt us every time he sees us. If it weren’t the fact that we’re all in the same troop, I’d have shot him several times over from impatience! You wait and see, I’ll make him throw his face and his insides at the shooting arena!”

*切 = qie; scoffing or dismissive interjection (works the same way as ‘pssh’/’yeah right’) Z L T

Qin Ke Xuan however, didn’t mind it much. It’s just that the original two-peopled competition becoming a two-partied competition only.