Chapter 133 - 89: Plateau Achievement? _2

"Squad leader, can I give it a throw?"

Hao Chengbin was about to explain when he saw Fang Huai’s excited face and thought it was about time to knock this kid’s enthusiasm down a peg.

"Sure, you give it a try."

Fang Huai picked up the hose with its two connectors and knocked them together.

The sound of rust grinding, he could vaguely sense the wear level of the connectors and how much force was needed to snap them together.

Holding the hose in his hand, Fang Huai immediately felt he needed to make another adjustment to get it to whip out straight.

He immediately put it down on the ground and used his foot to loosen it in the opposite direction.

"Stop messing around!" Hao Chengbin immediately intervened:

"I just got it all set, and now you’ve gone and loosened it up again!"

Thinking that if he was going to throw the hose, he shouldn’t hold back any longer, Fang Huai chuckled and said, "Squad leader, I feel like this hose wasn’t coiled up smoothly."

"You’re full of..."

As Hao Chengbin spoke, he suddenly noticed Fang Huai’s expert movements, folding the extra length of hose between the connectors swiftly, refolding it, giving it a couple of tugs, and patting it down.

Both connectors aligned perfectly; the hose was tight and circular.

"Damn, when did you learn this?" Hao Chengbin was astounded.

"Squad leader, I learned it from sneaking lessons with Squad Leader He." Fang Huai didn’t bother explaining further; the military believed in Marx, not the supernatural, after all.

He stood up and grabbed the two connectors of the hose.

Hao Chengbin frowned again, "If you place this hose next to the barrier on the playground, it will hit the wall, and it will stop halfway through!"

"Squad leader, that’s how you can compare whether it’s been thrown straight or not."

"Compare my ass! The hose will spread out because it’s too hard to control both ends! You even learned from He Zhijun, but even if you called He Zhijun himself, he couldn’t throw it as straight as this!"

As he spoke, Fang Huai whipped the hose open, centering his force in both hands, not drifting off course for a second.

The hose flew out along the dividing line, parallel throughout, without spreading at all.

At the end, it unfurled completely with a snap, landing right next to the line.

...Silence.

Hao Chengbin’s face was full of question marks.

Fang Huai turned around with a cheeky smile, "Squad leader, does that work?"

"Monster, you’re truly a monster!"

Disbelief was written all over Hao Chengbin’s face. He then looked back at He Zhijun, thinking the whole thing was just a low-probability incident, and said:

"Do it again; I want to watch!"

Fang Huai coiled it back up and threw it again with the same result.

"Throw it again!"

Fang Huai coiled it up and threw it once more.

Far away, He Zhijun was instructing new recruits and glanced over to see Fang Huai still coiling hoses. He pointed to Fang Huai with some admiration and said:

"Right, that’s how you train to throw it straight! Understand?"

The new recruits watched Fang Huai alongside the dividing lines of the playground, throwing it farther and farther. Some disbelievingly said:

"Squad leader... from the very first throw, he managed to throw it really straight!"

He Zhijun didn’t take it seriously, thinking to himself that the new recruits simply didn’t know any better. He waved it off, saying:

"That’s because Squad Leader Hao taught him well!"

As the new recruits looked on, they saw that indeed Squad Leader Hao was very strict, constantly shouting, "Throw it again!"

Everyone thought Squad Leader Hao was stringent, but only Fang Huai knew that Squad Leader Hao was continually refreshing the odds of a low-probability incident happening consecutively...

...

In the days that followed, every evening after the exercise, Hao Chengbin insisted on practicing the water hose drill with Fang Huai, keeping it a secret from He Zhijun, who was now with the Special Duty First Squadron.

They were just waiting for Fang Huai to move on from the squad to astonish those "Turtle Sons."

Fang Huai was very sensible and always said it was all thanks to Squad Leader Hao’s good teaching.

Squad Leader Hao was all smiles.

...

Before you knew it, it was already the third day of the last week for the new recruit group.

Today was the new recruit evaluation.

With Wang Jian announcing "12 minutes and 45 seconds," the three-kilometer Task Completion was achieved.

This was the first official three-kilometer assessment in a month, a full minute faster.

The "12 minutes and 50 seconds" in three kilometers that Squad Leader Hao mentioned was nothing more than a guesstimate based on Fang Huai’s performance in five kilometers, just boasting to look good.

Today, it became a reality.

But then again, Fang Huai wasn’t too pleased with the last new recruit evaluation score of 12 minutes and 45 seconds.

As Wang Jian recorded the last performance of the group and saw Fang Huai counting sweat droplets in silence by the finish line, he walked over and laughed:

"Fang Huai, you are the most perseverant recruit I’ve seen, and you’ve improved the fastest in all aspects. To make such a big breakthrough in the training environment of the new recruit group is truly miraculous."

Fang Huai looked up with a wry smile, "Company Leader, don’t comfort me now. 12 minutes and 45 seconds, I really don’t think it’s good enough. The troop standard for three kilometers is 12 minutes for excellence!"

Wang Jian laughed heartily, "How can you compare our performance with the standard one?

Guizhou is a high-altitude area, and it’s a general plateau. The altitude at the Training Base Training Ground we’re on is over 1500 meters, making breathing much more difficult than at lower altitudes!

Our performance here is called high-altitude performance!

Just ask anyone who has taken the test at Nanjing Non-commissioned Officer School, those who can complete three kilometers in 12 and a half minutes here can get 11 and some in Nanjing!

They also run a minute to a minute and a half faster in five kilometers. If you ever get the chance to compete in Nanjing or Tianjin in the Grand Martial Arts Competition, remember this.

It’s not about beating others’ scores; surpassing yourself is enough. Once you go out there, your basic performance will see a significant boost."

Fang Huai had an epiphany.

Damn, I had overlooked the effect of altitude.

In my past life when I took the Military Academy entrance exam, I went to Nanjing for the physical test.

Back then, I spent a lot of time reviewing academic knowledge, organizing daily tutoring in the Squadron, with the Squadron Leader even giving the green light.

But after not running for so long, sitting all day, and smoking heavily, I gained a lot of weight.

Just before the test, after only two days of training for three kilometers, I recorded 13 minutes and 30 seconds, while the full score line was 13 minutes. I was quite stunned then.

But in Nanjing, somehow, I felt my breathing was incredibly smooth, and I got a score of 12 minutes and 46 seconds in the test.

Other examinees commented that soldiers from Guizhou and Yunnan run like madmen. Even such a fat guy as myself could run more than 12 minutes, which was insanely good.

"Alright, thanks Wang Lian, I get it!"

Fang Huai, revitalized, even wanted to rush to Nanjing to take a test and see if his fastest five-kilometer score of 22 minutes and 30 seconds could break through the 20-minute barrier in one fell swoop.

It might be a little tough.

Heck, rewards aside, what I really need is ’leg strengthening’!

The day I saw those elites from Special Duty showing off their legs, I felt an urgent need to prove myself like a common pheasant among phoenixes.

After finally getting used to being the top dog, was I going to be left eating dust again?

And after moving on from the squad, there would likely be plenty of new tasks. Could none of them be focused on leg strength?

Can rewards be saved for later use?

[Host detection indicates you’re too weak. Storing rewards is not recommended. Maintaining good performance is conducive to triggering more tasks.]

I’ll be damned.

You’re calling me weak?

And you describe this performance as ’good’?!

Your last host must have been Bai Qi, right?

(Starting tomorrow, two Chapters will be updated to get back into the flow.)