Ace Special Forces in Movies and TV Shows

Chapter 0114: The Silence About to Erupt

For the cadets huddled in the old military barracks, there was never enough sleep, but today was an exception. Before the reveille even sounded, Tuo Yonggang and Wu Zhe were already excitedly dressed, like new recruits on their first day of target practice.

It might be because they felt they had been holding it in for too long.

"This time I'm going to show these arrogant bastards what target shooting is all about—I can get near-perfect scores with eleven different firearms, I refuse to believe I can't take down these old A's!" Tuo Yonggang excitedly rubbed his hands together, completely lacking the demeanor of a master. Looking at the three still fast asleep, he simply went up and woke them one by one, then asked:

"Tell me what your skill level is."

"We don't have eleven types of firearms," ​​Xu Sanduo said dejectedly—this statement revealed that he had already woken up earlier. Wu Zhe, who was practicing his aim with two books in each hand, said upon seeing this, "Xu Sanduo, don't worry about him—just focus on mastering your own gun. All that fancy stuff is useless."

Despite being meant to comfort, there was a sense of superiority in his words, as if those who had achieved something were superior.

Zheng Yingqi, still in bed, chuckled. Wu Zhe asked, puzzled, "Zheng Yingqi, what are you laughing at?"

"I don't know where your sense of superiority comes from—Xu Sanduo, whom you lectured, was the number one marksman in low-light shooting in the T Division, and served as an instructor in the division's training team. Cheng Cai was the sniper who killed the most Old A soldiers in the exercises. Ask them how they feel about the Old A soldiers." Zheng Yingqi sneered.

Wu Zhe looked at Xu Sanduo and Cheng Cai in surprise. He had heard Cheng Cai boast before that Xu Sanduo was good at low-light shooting and that he was also a sniper. But in that atmosphere, he assumed that Cheng Cai was just bragging. But when these words came from Zheng Yingqi's mouth, it was no longer bragging. After a week of getting to know each other, he knew that Zheng Yingqi was telling the truth.

The statement about the sniper who killed the most members of the T Division is rather vague and its significance is debatable. However, the statement about the instructors of the division's training team is much clearer. The T Division is a Class A unit, so the high level of their qualifications as instructors in the training team is self-evident.

"So fierce?" Tuo Yonggang looked at Xu Sanduo, who seemed particularly easy to bully, with surprise.

"It's not as exaggerated as Zheng Yingqi said..." Xu Sanduo said embarrassedly, then pointed at Zheng Yingqi: "Yingqi is the real expert. His shooting ability is the strongest. He used to be the undisputed number one in our company."

Cheng Cai added with a sneer: "More than a year ago, he was second in the overall score and first in shooting in the group army's reconnaissance soldier competition."

Cheng Cai used to think that Zheng Yingqi's strength was just a way of mocking his own weakness, but now that he said it, he felt incredibly proud.

Tuo Yonggang and Wu Zhe looked at each other, feeling a sense of unreality. So all that bragging was just the three of you pretending to be weak while actually being strong?

"You guys... are you just flattering each other?" Tuo Yonggang asked suspiciously.

"Heh!" Zheng Yingqi chuckled. "Just take it as mutual flattery—but our shooting against the Old A was absolutely awe-inspiring, you know? We always thought that there was no enemy our company couldn't defeat, but in the confrontation with the Old A, our company suffered a 1:8 casualty ratio, and that was when we truly felt despair."

"One to eight?" Tuo Yonggang and Wu Zhe exchanged glances. Wu Zhe said, "Keep it calm, keep it calm, let's not talk about this."

Tuo Yonggang actually wanted to laugh. His airborne unit suffered a devastating defeat in the confrontation with the Old A, with a casualty ratio of 1 to 19. He had heard that this casualty was the lowest among all the units. He never expected that this guy in front of him would either not brag or brag so much that it was boundless.

One to eight?

You're really bold!

Zheng Yingqi saw through their disbelief and the veiled sarcasm, but pretended not to notice. The reason he said so much was simply to make Tuo Yonggang realize the situation and not be foolish enough to throw his life away. If he couldn't listen, then it was his fate.

The reveille sounded, and a new day began. However, this time the trainees were full of confidence and wanted to use firearms to make a different start.

But is all of this even possible?

The students, who were well-prepared, lined up neatly downstairs at a faster pace than usual. Yuan Lang looked at the line without a single point deduction for being late and wondered to himself: Could they have been sleeping in their clothes?

He really didn't expect what kind of mentality the trainees would have, otherwise he would have laughed wildly three times - it's normal for a newborn calf to be unafraid of a tiger, but are you newborn calves?

Following Qi Huan's command, the troops ran towards the shooting range. Upon arrival, everyone lined up in the dark, and Qi Huan announced:

"Ready in forty seconds! Empty the magazine in one minute!"

The lighting at the firing range was terrible, even worse than the low-light shooting conditions that Xu Sanduo was good at. If Gao Cheng liked to have his subordinates adapt to combat in harsh environments, then the Old A preferred combat training in extreme environments—like now, the targets fifty meters away were so blurry that their outlines were barely visible.

But as soon as Qi Huan gave the order to begin, all the trainees instinctively jumped into the foxholes.

After Zheng Yingqi jumped in, he quickly reached for the gun at the gun emplacement, but only touched a barrel. Upon closer inspection, he found it was a trigger assembly.

He instantly understood what this meant—no wonder they said it would take forty seconds to complete the preparation; those forty seconds were for assembly time!

"What is this?"

One of the trainees stared blankly at a part, not understanding what was going on, until he saw Zheng Yingqi assembling a gun at lightning speed next to him. Only then did he come to his senses and hurriedly started looking for parts in the dark.

Yuan Lang was watching from not far from Zheng Yingqi. He had expected the trainees to be at a loss at first, but he was surprised that the three men from the Steel Seventh Company were able to assemble firearms immediately.

But what surprised him most was Zheng Yingqi. He completed the assembly in the dark in about twenty seconds, but did not fire the gun. Instead, he remained motionless, aiming at the target in the distance.

"Shoot! Fire! The targets are already in the second batch, why aren't you firing? Do you want to get points deducted? I heard you were all top marksmen in your original units? Is this the level of your unit's top marksmen?" Yuan Lang deliberately stirred things up. As soon as he finished speaking, two gunshots rang out—it was Xu Sanduo and Zheng Yingqi.

"They've all gotten smarter; they've remained calm for almost forty seconds!"

Yuan Lang muttered to himself.

At this moment, Zheng Yingqi was estimating the trajectory of the bullet—the gun in his hand had not even had its sights calibrated. The first shot was seriously off target, and he couldn't even see where the bullet was going. Logically speaking, he should have calibrated the sights like Xu Sanduo, but how much time could he have to calibrate in a minute?

So he plans to play by feel.

Bang

He fired another shot, but the bullet still missed the target. However, Zheng Yingqi had already figured out the method. He continued shooting, and the next bullets did hit the target. He no longer cared about the specific score; he only cared about the number of hits.

Of the 43 people, only Xu Sanduo and Wu Zhe were calibrating their sights; the others were shooting at targets, but their shooting methods were quite absurd. Some were firing in bursts, while others simply switched from semi-automatic to fully automatic fire—aiming to fire as many bullets as possible.

Qi Huan stopped the stopwatch, and after one minute, he shouted, "Stop!"

Bang

The last gunshot rang out; it was Cheng Cai's final burst.

Yuan Lang: "Two points!"

"A bunch of sharpshooters—they all seem to be doing pretty well. Looks like most of them have emptied their magazines. Hmm, let's report the targets."

The trainees remained silent. Should they report the target? What kind of humiliation was about to follow?

After Old A finished reporting the results to the target reporter via walkie-talkie, Yuan Lang revealed a smug smile, the kind of smile a conspirator would have: "Forty-two people, twenty-two bullets hit the target—right, 42 people fired a total of 1156 bullets, so, can I call those 22 bullets stray bullets?"

"As for the results—we've never seen this bad before. I just don't understand why you guys were considered the best marksmen by your former unit, just because you can hit the target with stray bullets?"

Sharp-tongued and mean-spirited!

It was an almost humiliating blow to the face, a relentless slap in the face, and then followed by a slap with a "he" sound.

"Report!"

"Number 7 said."

"Why are there 42 people?" asked number 7.

"One point!" Yuan Lang announced the deduction first: "The reason is that you asked before I even announced the last score."

It's a shameless way of deducting points, but I've gotten used to it.

"One of you hit the target 26 out of 30 times, achieving an average score of 4.9—I don't want to single him out to show you, because I think it's a failure. Out of so many top shooters from the military, only one person achieved a score worse than a new recruit!" Yuan Lang's explanation was full of his personal style, but the contempt in his words silenced the trainees.

It was a silence that was about to erupt.