Chapter 603 - 445: Leave After Receiving the Award_2

But at the national martial arts competition, aside from the Guizhou Brigade, there were a total of 290 participants. That night, still, over a dozen daring souls unencumbered by any ties had successively entered the dormitories of the Guizhou Brigade.

...

On the third day, at half-past nine in the morning, during the siege tactics skills event, an old comrade from Jiangxi suddenly exerted his strength and broke the national record with a time of 1 minute, 34.67 seconds.

Of course, the record he broke was the one set by the Fang Huai team before the competition.

Before the cheers even had a chance to warm up, Fang Huai mercilessly smashed the record with a violent update, 1 minute, 31.11 seconds, a full 3.5 seconds faster.

First place in three events!

By noon, the news had already reached the highest level of leadership.

The entire hierarchy was stunned.

If a dual champion was a standard occurrence every two or three years in the competition, then taking first place in three events was like a cactus flower, blooming just once every few years or even a decade.

Let alone this year.

The great contention year.

When the competition started, the leadership had heard from Vice Bureau Chief Yu that Fang Huai’s individual strength was "very strong," but they could never have imagined it to be to such an extent.

Before the competition began, there were endless speculations: this brigade was strong in this, that brigade was strong in that. It looked like a showdown between New Oriental and Lanxiang, poised as if ready to cook with an excavator, and even the leadership thought that this year’s competition would be a feast of the uprising masses. They prepared individual gold medals to pay tribute to the Olympics, planning a gold medal award ceremony where the champions of each event would stand on stage, showcasing the endless emergence of firefighting talent.

Who would have thought, in this martial arts era’s Mount Hua competition, that after teasing public opinion for half a year, an immortal-like figure would arrive, wielding a glittering Silver Dragon Spear, facing the heroes from all sides and saying:

"I only need one spear."

Everyone saw that while we all use swords, you damn use a spear—an inch longer, an inch stronger.

Just as they thought he had some remarkable move, he tossed away the Silver Dragon Spear and brought out another gun.

A semi-automatic rifle.

A million words of pre-competition preparation, and when the action started, just four words:

All heroes met death.

How to proceed?

How to conduct the award ceremony?

It was arranged that two heads and four deputies from the Firefighting General Office, followed by nine wheat ears and the descending Leader Liu from the ministry at the closing ceremony—ten in total—would each present a gold medal.

Now, the Guizhou Brigade had secured six out of the ten awards, with Fang Huai claiming three out of the four individual awards.

And Fang Huai was also the captain, tasked with receiving the team award.

Would half of the leadership end up serving just him?

The entire competition organization team got busy.

...

In the afternoon, several reporters from clearly different media outlets shouldered their cameras and microphones to interview the soldiers competing in the martial arts competition.

Actually, reporters had already visited the day before yesterday, mainly asking about some group drills, but today’s visitors brought much more equipment.

"Do you feel pressure during the competition?"

"Uh... I’ve already finished competing, so there’s no more pressure."

"Hmm... but during these past few days of competition, was there pressure?"

"... There’s definitely some pressure because many brigades made mistakes, and some had exceptionally good performances."

"I heard you won third place in siege tactics skills, how did you cope with the pressure?"

"I’d take a walk in the evening, brought my MP3 player, and listened to some music."

"Are you satisfied with this result?"

"Pretty satisfied because, with so many brigades and top-notch experts participating, getting third place in one event is quite good."

The reporter nodded: "Thank you."

Then, after walking a few steps away, he saw the tall and handsome Fang Huai among the crowd and approached him, extending the microphone.

"Hello, did you feel a lot of pressure during this year’s competition?"

Fang Huai: "... It was okay."

"I heard there were top experts. Didn’t that pressure you?"

Fang Huai paused, looking around the room.

"I guess... it was okay."

Everyone around him laughed.

The reporter was baffled: What are you laughing about?

The soldiers couldn’t help but joke: "You might as well interview us! No matter who feels pressure, he can’t possibly be under pressure!"

...

The leadership had also arrived at the venue before Fang Huai’s final event.

In fact, the leaders had called the referee team, expressing their wish to watch Fang Huai’s last match. Consequently, his place in the lineup was pushed back time and again, from the first group at two o’clock ending up all the way past three.

The reporters’ arrival had everyone still appearing quite relaxed, after all, among the three hundred competitors present were the top talents from each brigade; at least half had experienced interviews before.

But once the leaders arrived, the ten or so who hadn’t yet competed became extremely nervous.

However, they all pretended to stand tall and proud, eager to compete.

That’s the military for you—no matter how strong the opponent, you can never show fear; courage is essential.

Yet those who had already finished their events and were resting in the area to the side quietly demoted their own scores by one place.

Everyone had resigned themselves to the inevitable: once Fang Huai entered the stage, they would all have to step back one rank.

A group of leaders swept their gaze across the arena, striding forward. Although no whistle was blown to halt the competition, the referees also held back the progress of the event, allowing the entire arena to quiet down.

Director Wei immediately took out a big notebook, showing the leaders the currently tallied scores.

The referee team and competition organizers, quite wisely, had listed Fang Huai’s scores in a separate column, leaving two lines of space before the other competitors’ scores appeared.

If you don’t want to see the freak show, start from below so it isn’t too jarring.

By removing the highest score, the competition results suddenly became orderly, no one obtaining dual second places, with the second-place scores for each event distributed evenly, and overall, a step up from last year and the year before.

Today, the most prominent figure wasn’t Director Chen or Commissioner Xie, but Leader Liu.

Director Chen briefly flipped through the team scores, then symbolically spread them out in front of Leader Liu, saying: