"How co the new recruits are arranging to have a midnight snack?"
"Everyone else is holding a class eting, what are you guys doing?"
"A bunch of new recruits, standing without proper posture, sitting without proper form. Is this how the squad leader taught you?"
Instructor Liang, with his hands clasped behind his back, was about to unleash a storm of thunder and lightning.
But just as he had uttered a few words, Hao Chengbin arrived behind him, breaking through the clouds to the clear sky.
"Instructor Liang, what brings you here?"
Instructor Liang turned around, and his tone instantly weakened by three degrees, "Why aren’t you with your squad?"
"Oh, I just went to Old Black’s place and got back. He asked to help him write a teaching plan for the column separation, which I went to deliver to him," Hao Chengbin said offhandedly.
Old Black, Brother Hei, were nicknas for the Chief of Staff.
When Instructor Liang heard this, his montum weakened by another two degrees.
Not to ntion anything else, when it ca to queuing action, Hao Chengbin was the Model Squad Leader of the new recruit group for five consecutive years, and every year, the whole corps had a queuing competition, during which he would be at the Training Base for a few days. At that ti, he wasn’t leading new recruits but non-commissioned officers participating in the queuing competition.
Thus, even though Fang Huai’s queuing standards were quite good, he never showed off during queuing training, not daring to show off before an expert.
The authority of the other man was absolute, and even as a re-born old soldier, Fang Huai knew it was best to listen and obey, and he might even learn sothing.
Instructor Liang, recalling this man’s title as the Chief Instructor of Queue, finally gave it so thought.
"Oh, I ca to check. How co you’re giving the new recruits a midnight snack in the second week? Not a single other squad is snacking, only yours, isn’t that inappropriate?"
He couldn’t just leave, so he still found an excuse to maintain his sternness.
Hao Chengbin smiled and said naturally, "I promised them, if they perform well and get the red flag for the squad, I’d treat them to a midnight snack. Now we have 111 points, 6 points higher than the second place, so I just redeed the promise to them a bit early."
The red flag squad is an honorary title "bestowed" by the Chief of Staff upon the squad with the highest points. And the last place squad was called the black flag squad.
A black flag would hang in the squad with the lowest points, with four big characters "Dead Last" on it—Chief of Staff was truly harsh.
Hearing this, Instructor Liang couldn’t say much else. The first place in the whole corps, if he denied it, he would be slapping the face of every other squad.
HIs eyes did another sweep, and the blind monk finally spotted an opportunity. He raised his hand and pointed to the corner of the wall beside Fang Huai.
"That, that guitar, don’t keep it in the squad room anymore, it disturbs the Internal Affairs! Take it to the Brigade Departnt first!"
Everyone’s gaze turned to the black guitar case.
It caused quite a sense of reluctance.
This was Squad Nine’s big toy, a treasure!
This past week, every day after lunch, everyone wanted to hear Fang Huai take out the guitar and strum gently, which lifted everyone’s spirits a lot while repairing their blankets!
This instructor, such a villain!
"That guitar is for Fang Huai to compose music, it wouldn’t be appropriate to take it away," Hao Chengbin couldn’t help but retort.
"When you need it, co to the Brigade Departnt to get it! I’m not stopping him from practicing! He can co over during rest ti and practice at the Brigade Departnt too!"
Liang Longhui’s words were clearly much more resolute this ti.
Hao Chengbin’s eyes narrowed as well.
He was beginning to catch the drift.
Practice at the Brigade Departnt? If Fang Huai actually produced a song, why not just say you guided him well?
No wonder he has been so oddly moody all day; the problem was here!
Hao Chengbin turned and smiled, "Fang Huai, will it inconvenience your songwriting if you have to go to the Brigade Departnt every day for the guitar?"
Fang Huai had long sensed sothing amiss but just chuckled, "No worries, Squad Leader, I don’t need to practice every day. I’ll write in my spare ti, and just go over it a couple of tis with the squad on the weekend.
Lyrics aren’t hard to write either. The stories that you, Squad Leader, tell are already enough material! I was even planning to credit you as the producer!
Oh, Wang Lian has provided with so material as well. If we can make a MV, his na can be included too."
After all, there’s plenty of room on a MV.
Now was the ti to shine for the Squad Leader, and one couldn’t afford to be elegant in speech—the more irritating, the better.
Hao Chengbin himself was stunned.
He had only ant to use the songwriting to put a bit of pressure on his tone, since the Chief of Staff had already said he would report it to the leadership.
But who would have thought the kid would be so direct! Already talking about credits?
Turning to see Liang Longhui’s expression, Hao Chengbin laughed.
Being the closest, he could hear Liang Longhui’s heavy breathing the clearest.
Fang Huai, that kid, had a real knack for aggravating people: Squad Leader credit, Company Leader credit, but deliberately not ntioning the instructor.
"Alright then, since it won’t cause a holdup, let’s send it to the Brigade Departnt. Instructor Liang, that guitar isn’t cheap, given by one of my relatives, 1500, you know! Be sure to take good care of it!"
As Hao Chengbin said this, he couldn’t hide his pride, believing that a 1500-yuan guitar was indeed expensive, and thinking that lending this guitar to Fang Huai was a comndable act.
But with this move, he had hit a nerve with the already-frustrated Liang Longhui.
Liang Longhui casually took the guitar case carefully passed by Fang Huai, lifted his hand, and flashed the watch on his wrist, scoffing openly.
"Rest assured, look, a Longines, bought for 4200. If your guitar breaks, I’ll compensate you with this."
Saying this, he also looked down at Hao Chengbin’s wrist.
"Of course, it’s cheaper than a Rolex."
Damn, what a cutting remark.
Hao Chengbin’s face turned green in an instant.
Internally fuming, Hao Chengbin still managed a breezy exterior, saying, "The guitar breaking is a minor issue, but delaying the creation of the promotional song, that would be a big deal!"
"Artistic talent needs to be promoted, but it seems your training might need a bit more effort!"
Having said his piece, Liang Longhui turned and left.
Hao Chengbin’s face darkened, wanting to curse out but not wanting to set a bad example for the rookie recruits.
What’s the aning of this? Suggesting our squad’s training is inadequate?
Do you get to have the final say on that?
Forget it, I’ll tolerate you one more ti.
Things shouldn’t happen more than three tis.
Hao Chengbin waved his hand at so hesitant new recruits, "Don’t worry about it, keep eating. After you finish, we’ll have a squad eting. From now on, just generously eat whatever the squad leader gives you!"
"Any responsibility is mine!"
"But after you’ve eaten your fill, train hard! Queue drill is the most important assessnt before leaving the squad!"
"It also contributes to the overall score of the squad!"
"I’ve been leading soldiers for six years now. For the first five years, I was a Model Squad Leader. Of course, if your performance is even passable this year, I’ll definitely award a Model Squad, but I don’t want people to say that it was just given to , an old soldier, as a favor!"
"Squad Nine has received a lot of praise so far, but you all know, deep down, it’s mostly thanks to Fang Huai, not you."
"Right now, to put it in literary terms, your rits don’t match your positions."
"That being said, queue is the best reflection of a military unit’s ethos!"
"I hope that when you leave the squad, you can truly live up to the title of a Model Squad!"
Squad Leader Hao hadn’t boosted morale in a long while, but today, he seed to have been seriously provoked.
With his encouragent, everyone beca sowhat excited.
"Squad Leader! We’ll definitely work hard on the queue! Be good soldiers!"
"Right! Squad Nine is the strongest!"
Fang Huai’s face showed excitent too, but he couldn’t help but smile inwardly.
Is queue really the standard for judging a good soldier?
In his past life, Fang Huai had a friend who joined the guerrilla troops, the predecessor of the People’s Liberation Army field forces. After being discharged and returning ho two years later, the friend boasted about their experience with queues.
"What’s the point of those damn queues?" his friend began.
He said once they left the squad, their brigade conducted queue training fewer than five tis – morning till night, it was all practice. With over a hundred people in the brigade, they could hardly pick out ten queue commanders.
Not a single soldier had completely mastered the individual queuing actions, let alone the marching steps. They never even tested the proper march after leaving the brigade; everyone used the fake army step.
"Fixing the attire," that movent – ten people could produce eight versions of it.
The other two stood there, not knowing what to do.
If you ask, the answer is they never learned.
As for Firefighting, the new recruit group spends almost three months, aside from set physical training, purely practicing queue, not even learning the enemy-capturing fist anymore. After leaving the group, queue exercise class happens at least once a week. Pull out a second-year soldier, and they can complete a set of procedures for both stationary and marching queue.
Optimistically speaking, it ans the queue training is strict.
To tell the truth, aside from the period after new recruits leave the base when training takes precedence over police dispatches, in terms of daily physical training, old soldiers indeed fall short compared to others’ intensity.
There are no conditions for it either.
Forget about a three-day, two-night field training; even pulling them out for a small city run ans the combat uniforms have to be loaded onto vehicles, and the vehicles must follow the troops, so they don’t get scattered. If the cadre receives a police dispatch command, they must frantically call everyone to get into their combat uniforms, board the vehicles, and rush to the destination.
Of course, every troop has its elite soldiers, and Firefighting has its own freaks, but freaks can’t represent the majority.
...
The next day.
Today, they practiced marching in step and the proper march.
They learned the stationary movents and military posture reasonably well before, but as soon as they began practicing marching movents, Hao Chengbin sighed in frustration.
It was like witnessing early humans taming their legs on the spot.
Fang Huai was numbed as well.
He initially thought this would be the easiest task to accomplish, intending to teach Liu Yue before finding Han Yong. But soon, he realized he was wrong.
This task was the most difficult one he had ever received.
Initially, Fang Huai corrected Liu Yue’s habit of faltering steps. Then, it shifted to Liu Yue leading Fang Huai astray.
An old soldier who still practiced queues occasionally even after a decade since discharge was thrown into confusion by Liu Yue’s stubborn mistakes.
Hao Chengbin, as an experienced squad leader, resorted to so rudintary thods.
He had Fang Huai stand in front of Liu Yue, leading him forward, instructing Liu Yue to watch Fang Huai’s hands for adjustnt.
But just as they thought it was working, upon rejoining the queue, he’d imdiately copy whatever the person next to him was doing.
The person beside him, thinking they were wrong, also started fiddling with their legs, causing general disarray in the group.
In the end, Hao Chengbin could only exempt Liu Yue from the queue, then sourced two long bamboo poles from sowhere and handed them to Fang Huai.
"Fang Huai, you march in step the best, and you’re the Deputy Squad Leader too. Liu Yue is your responsibility now!
You stand behind him, holding the bamboo poles. Have Liu Yue hold onto the poles in front of him, and forcefully correct his hand movents as he walks!
Liu Yue, either correct your form, or... I’ll cut these poles shorter, and you can go practice fencing instead! With those movents, you’ve got a real talent for fencing!"
Everyone listened and their imaginations kicked in.
That’s so true!
Yue Tao laughed and said, "Haha, yes! Squad Leader, his movents are just like those... fencers on TV! Both arms and legs moving together!"
As he spoke, he imitated the lunging motion of fencing.
Hao Chengbin couldn’t help but show a toothy grin, gritting his teeth in amusent.
You think this is funny?
"Yue Tao, you have the nerve to mock him? Walking like you’re stealing landmines, and even when learning fencing, it looks like you’re reaching for soone’s bird!
Why do all your movents look criminal? Why are you hunching your neck?
You already don’t look like a good guy, did you know that?
Ah, damn, there goes my five years as a Model Squad Leader. Looks like I might lose it to you guys this year!
I don’t think even my old face can handle it anymore!"
Fang Huai wanted to offer so comfort, but thinking of today’s chaotic marching, he, too, was at a loss for words.
After a long struggle, he said cheerfully, "Squad Leader... it’s only when you train us from this level that your true skill shows!
Squad Leader, I suggest we don’t train here anymore. Let’s go to the middle of the playground! Let everyone see our progress!"
Hao Chengbin looked sowhat astonished toward the middle of the playground, that sacred land belonging to the "Flying Tiger Team."
After staring for a while, he suddenly laughed.
"Hmm, that’s a good suggestion."
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