Folk Strange Stories: Part 1: The Witch Ancestor of Miao Township Chapter 5 Section 1: A Preliminary Test of the Edge

Three months later, I achieved a miracle. Despite failing in all aspects of training except marksmanship, I was assigned to a team. To my surprise, I, who had earned the reputation of being the weakest special forces soldier in the world, was placed in the elite Hawk 9-member team. I replaced their recently retired sniper.

You can imagine the expression on Captain Wang Donghui's face at that moment. I heard he even stormed into the office of the Company Commander and they had a three-hour-long shouting match. But it was already a done deal, there was no turning back.

After joining the Hawk team, my daily life still revolved around training. Captain Wang Donghui's training style could be summed up in one word: relentless! Couldn't complete a five-kilometer loaded cross-country run? No problem, make it ten kilometers with the same load. Impossible task, you say? A rubber baton appeared before me, or more precisely, met my nose. To be precise, it had an intimate encounter with my nose.

Captain Wang didn't hit too hard, only using about 80% of his strength. At least, he didn't break my nose. But even so, I saw stars and my nose started bleeding. Captain Wang didn't give me a chance to cry out in pain. He grabbed my collar and dragged me, along with my 80 kilograms of gear, on a ten-kilometer journey.

In the end, I was carried back by Captain Wang for the last six kilometers. My weight, combined with the equipment, totaled more than 160 pounds. Captain Wang even managed to jog with me back to camp. Looking back now, Captain Wang, you were like a drug-induced Xu Sanduo!

From that day on, every morning before sunrise, I was yanked out of bed by Captain Wang, loaded up with 40 pounds of gear, and sent on a five-kilometer cross-country run (I couldn't finish ten kilometers even if my life depended on it). If I couldn't keep up with Captain Wang's pace, he'd turn back and use his rubber baton again. After breakfast, we'd lie prone and crawl back and forth under a 100-foot-long barbed wire thirty times (in the first few days, my back had these crisscrossed marks). And that wasn't all, after lunch, we'd go to the indoor combat training arena to "cleanse our stomachs." Luckily, I had two hours of shooting practice every day to vent my frustration.

Under Captain Wang's rigorous training, I barely managed to keep up with the pace of special forces training, although my performance was still hovering around the pass line.

Not long after, one noon while I was still crawling under the barbed wire, a sharp bell rang out suddenly. Captain Wang gave the barbed wire a light kick and said, looking at the command post in the distance, "Come out, today I'm letting you off easy. We have a mission."

Two hours earlier, four robbers had been discovered by patrolling police officers as they tried to escape after robbing a bank. A gunfight had ensued, and although they didn't manage to kill the robbers, they forced them back into the bank. The robbers took bank employees and customers hostage. More police officers arrived as reinforcements.

As the incident occurred in the capital region and was classified as a major emergency, the Capital Public Security Bureau requested assistance from our company. Half an hour later, Captain Wang, along with me and seven others, arrived at the scene.

Captain Wang's plan was a routine one that we had practiced regularly. The sniper (that's me) would fire the first shot as a signal, and he and his team would rush in to eliminate the criminals as quickly as possible.

I had already chosen the best sniper point in the building across from the bank. In my earpiece, I heard Captain Wang's voice, "La Zi, it would be great if you could take out the guy in the corner with the five-round magazine..."

"Bang, bang, bang, bang!"

Before he could finish his sentence, I had already pulled the trigger four times.

"Damn it! What's your rush? I wasn't ready yet!" Captain Wang shouted in frustration. By the time they stormed into the bank, there was no trace of the criminals, only four lifeless bodies on the floor.

My debut as a sniper was nearly perfect. From the first shot to the last, it took only a little over two seconds. I heard that not long after, the Company Commander planned to transfer me out of the Hawk team, but Captain Wang went to his office and made a scene to keep me there. When I returned to the company, I was sent for psychological counseling (a necessary procedure after my first shooting incident), and the conclusion was that Comrade Shen La had exceptionally strong psychological resilience. This continuous shooting and killing of four criminals had no psychological impact on me.

After that, Captain Wang started to pay more attention to me. Although the intensity of training remained the same every day, that rubber baton never made an appearance again.