Green Dragon shook his head with a blank face, "He didn"t tell me anything about his plans. When you ran out of Shark Kun"s nest, didn"t you steal a list? Although we have completed our mission, by stealing the list, you angered Shark Kun, causing him to send all his forces to encircle us and causing the Golden Four to suffer its greatest loss since its establishment. Brother Xiao He has tragically left us and the whereabouts of Green Snake are unknown, while her fate is uncertain. The General is very angry about this. If I hadn"t explained Xiao He"s dying wish to him, I am afraid he would have already sent someone to Tianhe to arrest you. I think you should hand in that list. It might be very useful to the military! The merits and demerits of stealing it may be offset then. Captain Qin, you still have a bright future. You shouldn"t fall short of it because of this."Green Dragon had been thinking about this for a long time. He wanted to get the list out of Qin Feng"s hands in the simplest way he could without hurting his relations with his brother, completing his task without making an enemy of Qin Feng. Green Dragon was extremely unwilling to attack Qin Feng. Especially after the unsuccessful sniper attack, he was very afraid to do so. He was afraid that Qin Feng recognized him. If things went south between them, he wouldn"t have the courage to face Qin Feng.
Being brothers in arms for so many years, how many trials and tribulations had they experienced together? Could there even be a firmer friendship?
But after this mission, in the face of Xiao He"s tragic death and Green Snake"s disappearance, Green Dragon was afraid. He was afraid that he would lose his life too on his next mission and would not even be remembered as a martyr in the end. His parents, whose most basic living necessities hadn"t even been a.s.sured, were still in his rural hometown. What would he get for his troubles after all these years of struggle? Was he really doing it just for the national emblem on the brim of his beret?
Once upon a time, Green Dragon had ideals. He wanted to face the sacred military banner with the purest of hearts, but after so many years, he realized the military was not as pure as he thought. Without personal contacts, one could not be promoted, no matter how much effort one put in. At the same time, any 200-jin fat pig with a puddle of mud in his head could achieve a high rank in the military if he knew the right people.
This was the reality. No one could change the system. If you want to survive, you can rely on your own hard work. But if you want to rise higher in society, tough luck. People from poor families in particular, like Green Dragon, had no chance at all. They thought they had to join the Special Forces to get anywhere. Green Dragon thought that when he became one of the elite among the elites, things would change.
The Special Forces did have a high enough salary, but in order to keep their minds focused on the job, their salary was nothing more than a rubber check. When they quit the Special Forces, only when they were no longer able to meet the physical and mental demands of the service, could the salary be paid out. Green Dragon was just 23 years old. It would be another 12 years before he would normally be deemed too old to serve on the front lines. In those 12 years he could acc.u.mulate nearly 2 million in salaries and bonuses, but he asked himself whether he"ll still be alive to claim that money, since each mission was a tooth-and-nail battle to the death.
People were selfish. Even Qin Feng wasn"t an exception. He had his own little plan, but in the face of l.u.s.t and faith, some people would choose to stick to their plan, while others would falter.
Different choices formed different fates. There was no wrong or right there, but only those who didn"t abandon their core convictions could have a good fate.
Green Dragon first joined the army because he was poor and he had no money to buy food at home. After pushing himself to his limits, he became a member of an elite Special Forces team. But looking back, he wanted to live a good life. His original conviction - wanting to be successful in his official career - was still there.
And Qin Feng, who had been thrown into the wilderness by his old b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a father in his childhood, had set out from the very beginning of his life to save the world and save all mankind. It was difficult for him to spare a thought for himself. His environment doomed him to his future path. He was the incarnation of justice, the guardian angel of the world, who desired nothing in return.
Of course, he sometimes hated himself for it. He also wanted to live a free life, but he had a deep sense of justice in his heart and he would fight to the death whenever he met with injustice.
Such a person might only exist in cartoons, but Qin Feng was really like that. He sometimes felt he was very silly. Why was he so preoccupied with all that? The world was full of bad people. Disasters occurred every day. He could save people all his life, but it would never be enough. Even if he worked himself to death, this world would still be the same as it always was.
However, he also did not forget his convictions. His reason for joining the army was very simple. When his school councilor asked him what he wanted to do in life, he honestly answered: "Enlist in the army and serve the people for the glory of China."
Listening to Green Dragon"s arguments, Qin Feng felt quite lost.
But it was always necessary to face what should be faced. At least this time Green Dragon dared to mention the list.
Qin Feng laughed without restraint. "I will take responsibility for my mistakes. As for the list, I will not hand it over. Because it involves a lot of people, it is something that not you, not I and not even Gu Shaoyun should meddle with."
"What?" Qin Feng"s words aroused Green Dragon"s curiosity, "Does that list involve senior government officials?"
"Could Shark Kun set up so many strongholds in China without a few senior officials on his payroll who could keep things under control?"
Qin Feng did not hide it. In his view, Green Dragon did not really attack him. He knew Green Dragon. The boy wasn"t bad, but he wanted to get ahead too much; he wanted to prove himself too much.
Of course, without concrete evidence, Qin Feng would not get ahead of himself. Green Dragon was still a brother he would trust with his life.
"Oh." Green Dragon responded, and immediately said, "Do we need to report to someone higher up the chain of command?"
"No rush. I have no time to think about these things at the moment. Recent events in Tianhe have been keeping me very busy. The forces at play here are intertwined and complicated, and it is much more difficult to establish a foothold here than you might think."
Qin Feng changed the topic because he did not want to kill the conversation with Green Dragon. It wasn"t easy for them to get together, so they should talk about something a bit more relaxed.
"What? You are a Spec Ops operative. Shouldn"t it be a cakewalk for you to get a hold of things in this small prefectural city? What, are the local strongmen giving you trouble? Really? This is not the Captain Qin I know!" Green Dragon laughed.
"It"s because we are too strong. I do not want to stand out too much, so I have to use my brain to deal with these people. Sister Flower has decided to stay here, so I have to protect her from the shadows, which is a real pain in the a.s.s."
"Are you afraid of being exposed and attracting attention from other parties?" Green Dragon led the topic of discussion back to his subject of interest. "Does Tianhe have anything to do with that list?"
"What do you mean?" Qin Feng narrowed his eyes. He still hadn"t explicitly said that the list was a list of Shark Kun"s distributors in various parts of China. If Green Dragon blurted out any details he shouldn"t know about the list, it could be surmised that he had been instructed to recover it specifically.
More importantly, the sniper at the salt factory could be confirmed to be Green Dragon.