Chapter 1074 The Right Time!
But, not all the soldiers realized this point. Some of the soldiers that got thrown to the exit wasn"t urgent at all, they just continued their journey at a comfortable pace.
At that moment, in a normal logistics department of a normal mecha clan, a bunch of female JMCs was changing out of their uniform in the changing room as they prepared to end their work for the day.
“Staff Sergeant Mei, are you accepting Captain Lin"s invite to the Shallow Moon House?” A pretty female soldier jumped in front of a cold-looking female soldier after she finished changing and asked curiously.
“Not interested.” Mei Gu, or Lady Mei as we normally called her, gave a look of disgust in response.
In the afternoon, when they were on their way to their workplace, Captain Lin suddenly popped out of nowhere and asked Lady Mei to meet him at Shallow Moon House (The private room in the cafeteria) at 3 pm. He appeared so arrogant when he spoke to Lady Mei. It was as though his action of inviting Lady Mei was a blessing from the heavens for her. Lady Mei felt like puking when she saw that arrogant face.
This scene made Lady Mei recall the 250 Ace Mecha Clan. If anyone dared to look at Senior Captain Han like that, she would beat the person up furiously and show them what the result of appearing arrogant in front of her was.
“Haha, she has merits on her and she is a staff sergeant. Moreover, the moment she came here, she became our leader. How can she be satisfied with just a captain? She must have placed her attention on those majors.” Another sergeant started jeering at her.
All the female soldiers in the changing room suddenly turned quiet. Some even shrunk into the corners to hide themselves from the upcoming fight between two sergeants. One was their leader while the other was their deputy leader who had been with them for a long time. By right, they should listen to Staff Sergeant Mei. However, in terms of relationship, they were closer to their deputy. After all, their leader only just came five months ago
The fight between these two people caused them to be in a dilemma. Ultimately, this was the result of Staff Sergeant Mei not suppressing her deputy leader.
Lady Mei frowned. Ever since she took away the position of the leader, this person kept teasing and jeering her whenever she had the chance too. Even after five months, she still continued doing it.
Actually, Lady Mei had the means to suppress her. She just didn"t want to do it. This position wasn"t what she wanted so she didn"t place much importance in her position.
When she knew that she got sent to this mecha clan, she immediately contacted Senior Captain Han in hopes that Senior Captain Han could transfer her to 250 Ace Mecha Clan. She was willing to be a normal soldier if she had to. Unfortunately, Senior Captain Han told her to remain calm and wait for her message.
Hence, Lady Mei had no choice but to come to this mecha clan. She waited for the antic.i.p.ated message. Yet, after five months, she received no message or any follow up for that matter. After waiting for so long without any news, even the always calm Lady Mei started to get agitated. Sometimes, she would even wonder if Senior Captain Han had forgotten about her.
In actuality, she wasn"t the only one waiting to get back to 250 Ace Mecha Clan. The other JMCs from Base 013 were waiting to be transferred back too.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Lady Mei finished changing and was about to leave the changing room when her communicator suddenly vibrated.
Lady Mei looked down and saw a message. Her heart started pounding quickly as she finished reading the message.
“The time has come. Go apply for the logistician rea.s.signment.”
“This is from Senior Captain Han!" Lady Mei jumped up in excitement. When the female soldiers in the changing room saw Lady Mei"s sudden outburst of joy, they were shocked at her uncharacteristic behaviour. But, when the deputy leader saw her acting like that, a look of fear flashed pa.s.sed her face.
Was Staff Sergeant Mei going to do something to her now? Lady Mei had disregarded her for the past five months so she had forgotten the fact that her military rank was lower than Lady Mei. If Lady Mei wanted to teach her a lesson now and punish her for being disrespectful, she wouldn"t be able to resist at all.
“Sergeant Yang, congratulations,” Lady Mei suddenly said to the deputy leader in all seriousness. She was finally able to get out of this backward clan and move to a progressive clan where females were treated as equals.
“Huh?” The deputy leader was stunned. Why was she congratulating her?
But, Lady Mei had no intentions of explaining herself. She just left the changing room immediately after saying her congratulations and rushed to the logistics department office.
“Did the headquarters announce for a logistician rea.s.signment?” Lady Mei went right to the topic.
“Yes.” The logistics department was bothered by this announcement too. Most of the logisticians liked to work in a place they were familiar with, so not many of them would want to be sent to a new department on a short notice. Only those logisticians who had no home would be sent to other mecha clans.
“I want to register.” Lady Mei slapped the table fiercely.
“Huh?” The staff member from the logistics department looked at Lady Mei"s rank and was surprised. “Staff sergeant, all the logisticians who are partic.i.p.ating in this rea.s.signment are just normal soldiers. If you apply, you will have to rise up from a normal soldier again.”
This was the reason why rea.s.signment was tough. If the rea.s.signment came with a promotion in rank , the number of people applying would increase significantly. However, in this rea.s.signment, there wasn"t such benefit for the applying soldiers. What was worse was that, they had to start from the bottom all over again. Which veterean logistician wanted to start all over from the bottom again? As for the new soldiers… there were three more months before the recruits officially came.
“Even if I have to start from the bottom, I will want to apply for this rea.s.signment,” Lady Mei said firmly.
“You are as stronghearted as any male soldier I"ve met.” The staff raised his thumb at her and then helped Lady Mei with her application. He seemed afraid that Lady Mei might suddenly regret her actions.
The corps department above them had ordered all the mecha clans to choose one logistician each for this rea.s.signment. Luckily, Lady Mei"s appearance resolved this difficulty.
When Lady Mei saw her information being entered into the system, she was so excited that her toes were dancing around in her shoes. The staff member from the logistics department heaved a sigh of relief too. He finally completed this hard order. He almost thought that he needed to force someone into applying this rea.s.signment.
The same scene happened in some of the other mecha clans too. However, in most of the mecha clans, some unlucky logisticians got picked for the rea.s.signment. They cried as they got sent to the headquarters.
Qiu Yang experienced quite a difficult time in the trek to their final destination. He came to a river but there were no bridges, so instinctively he figured that he should swim across the river, but what they didn"t expect was that there were people hiding inside the river, waiting to ambush without any prior notice. These people removed almost a third of the partic.i.p.ating soldiers.
Qiu Yang took much effort to swim across the river amidst all the mess. Then, he arrived at a canyon. However, in this canyon, every nook and cranny was laced with traps. This was also out of their expectations. Half of the leftover soldiers collapsed there, even some elite aces got stopped there too.
However, even after all those secret ambushes and dangerous traps, it was still not the end of the a.s.sessment. When the lucky Qiu Yang reached the final destination, there were already 28 people who arrived before him. He was the 29th person to arrive.
22 of the 29 soldiers were elite aces. Expectedly, elite aces performed much better than normal aces in this a.s.sessment. There were six normal aces there including Qiu Yang. Qiu Yang looked at them. To his surprise, five of them were infamous people like him. They even had fought before. There were even some grudges between them. He didn"t expect them to find the real aim of the a.s.sessment and arrive at the destination on time.
Qiu Yang was the most curious about the only special-cla.s.s operator who arrive at the final destination. Compared to everyone"s haggard appearances, this special-cla.s.s operator looked very clean and neat. He looked as though he didn"t meet any obstacles at all.
But, that was impossible! Qiu Yang knew that there was no shortcut to the final destination. They had to pa.s.s through all the obstacles. In the end, there were only two possibilities for his arrival, either this person was very strong or that he was very lucky. He might be so strong that those obstacles were nothing to him, or he might be so lucky that he evaded all the obstacles and arrived at the destination smoothly.
What was the ident.i.ty of the special-cla.s.s operator? Qiu Yang secretly observed the special-cla.s.s operator. No matter who he was, he was not a simple person.
Qiu Yang wasn"t the only one who noticed the special-cla.s.s operator. The other 27 soldiers got on their guards too. In order to reach the destination within the designated time, this special-cla.s.s operator must be someone very hard to deal with.
The special-cla.s.s operator didn"t seem to realize that everyone looking at him with vigilance. He just smiled as he looked at the two people standing in front of all the soldiers.
One of them was a serious lieutenant colonel while the other was a colonel wearing a mask. When the soldiers arrived at their destination, these two officers were waiting for them there already.
Li Lanfeng looked at his communicator. Then, he raised his head and said, “The time…”
“Wait… I"m here!” A soldier ran over quickly from afar. In the next second, he arrived in front of everyone. He was the 30th soldier to arrive. Did he arrive on time?
Everyone looked at Li Lanfeng for a response. Li Lanfeng smiled. “Sometimes, it"s better to be on time than to be early. I haven"t completed my sentence yet so you"re on time.”
The soldier that had just arrived was elated. He felt that the officers of 250 Ace Mecha Clan were easy to talk too. The 29 soldiers that had already arrived heaved sighs of relief too.
“Now, I announce that the time is up.” Li Lanfeng finally ended the a.s.sessment.
“Zhong-qing, your task is up now. If you need help, you can look for us.” Li Lanfeng turned around and smiled at Lin Zhong-qing.
“Yes, I know,” Lin Zhong-qing replied seriously. He wouldn"t reject the help from his comrades.
It turns out that those soldiers who didn"t complete the a.s.sessment would be sweep into Lin Zhong-qing"s logistics department to undergo h.e.l.l training. Only 30 soldiers pa.s.sed the a.s.sessment to become the mecha operators of 250 Ace Mecha Clan. This was only around 1% of the soldiers who partic.i.p.ated in this a.s.sessment. This meant that a lot of soldiers would be entering the logistics department, which would place a huge burden on the logistics department. This was why Li Lanfeng asked Lin Zhong-qing to ask them for help if he required it.
Soon, Li Lanfeng left with the 30 soldiers that had pa.s.sed, leaving Lin Zhong-qing behind to wait for the remaining soldiers.
The remaining soldiers finally arrived at the destination as the sky turned dark. They were tired and hungry. They didn"t expect this a.s.sessment to be so dangerous. Some of them were even locked in the traps for half a day before they were let out.
“Is everyone here?” When they heard the question, all the soldiers just exchanged glances with one another in confusion. They didn"t know if everyone had arrived.
However, Lin Zhong-qing wasn"t asking them. Many messages suddenly appeared on his communicator. The ambushes throughout the a.s.sessment were done by his logisticians. That meant that none of the official mecha operators took part in this a.s.sessment.
When his logisticians confirmed that no one was left behind, Lin Zhong-qing said coldly, “Follow me!”
“It"s already so late. We"re hungry and tired, and you"re bringing us to the a.s.sessment now?” One of the soldiers couldn"t help but voice out his complaint, “You should at least let us fill up our stomach first.”
When Lin Zhong-qing heard the complaint, he turned around slowly and sneered. “Do you think you have the right to partic.i.p.ate in the a.s.sessment based on your lousy results?”
“What?!” All the soldiers exclaimed in anger. Many of which appeared indignant. “If you are not bringing us to the a.s.sessment, where are you leading us?”
“You want a chance, right?” Lin Zhong-qing wasn"t afraid of their anger. He replied coldly, “Our regiment commander gave you a chance but you can"t even meet the lowest requirements. What a bunch of useless soldiers.”
“What did you say? b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you are the useless one.” One of the elite aces got trapped in an ambush for hours so he was feeling quite frustrated now. Hence, when he heard what Lin Zhong-qing said, he rushed out angrily and attempted to attack Lin Zhong-qing with his fist.
Boom! The elite ace was suddenly pressed flat to the ground. An arrogant young lieutenant colonel, who had a vicious look in his eyes, said dangerously, “Who are you calling a useless, punk? Are you looking for death?”
He lifted the elite ace off the ground and then slammed him to the ground again. This time however, the elite ace got injured as blood could be seen flowing out of his mouth.
Lin Zhong-qing remained calm as he flicked the dust off his sleeves and looked at the elite ace on the ground. He said coldly, “You can"t even withstand one attack. How are you not a useless soldier?”
The elite ace got so angered by his words that he vomited another mouthful of blood again.
The other soldiers on the other hand, felt their anger being doused by a large bucket of water when they saw an elite ace getting defeated in a single blow. Everyone turned quiet. They appeared to have lost their rebel spirit.
Lin Zhong-qing shook his head in disappointment. This performance was kind of expected out from the soldiers from the unused prep department, but they had way too many problems. Luckily, their 250 Ace Mecha Clan was only afraid of having not enough people and nothing else.
He turned to look at the young man who subdued the elite ace. “Leader Li, have your men arrived yet?” The person who helped him was the leader of Team 10, Li Yingjie.
“They"re here. Zhong-qing, you can give your order.” Li Yingjie released the elite ace"s throat and stood up.
“Bring these people to the cafeteria. Although I don"t think these people are useful, we"ll still bring them to the cafeteria to fill up their stomach on behalf of Chief Yan.” Lin Zhong-qing turned around and left after he finished speaking.
The soldiers had different reactions to his words. Some were furious, at loss, and some just seemed indifferent.
At that moment, a bunch of soldiers suddenly appeared around them. What was weird was that these soldiers had very excited expressions on their faces. They seemed to be hoping that they would resist so that there would be more fun for them.