Chapter 156: Zero Plan

Regarding the Chief Instructor's suggestion, the Elder Principal hesitated only a moment before nodding in agreement.

The Zero Plan had been formulated since the Warrior School's founding.

Of the three original drafters, only the Elder Principal remains alive today.

Although the Chief Instructor knew of this plan, he was not one of its drafters.

This was an emergency response plan devised at the school's establishment to prevent anyone from using infiltration tactics to sabotage the Warrior School.

The Chief Instructor's proposal to activate the Zero Plan shows how seriously he takes the current potential threat.

Simply put, the Zero Plan is essentially a self-destruct operation.

Activating this plan would mean that many people would die during its implementation.

The only exception is Liu Xiaotian.

In one, at a glance, nothing, one wrong version!

However, over the following days, seven people quietly arrived at this small island, each taking up residence at different locations around the Warrior School.

Reporting to the Chief Instructor about a trainee's "extra hard work" for no reason—what's the point? To prove you're observant? Or to warn the Chief Instructor about lapses in his duties? Not until the morning of the tenth day, after the trainees had gathered, did anyone notice that the instructor responsible for their combat training hadn't shown up, realizing something was off.

However, as training intensity increased, over a dozen trainees were eliminated, three or ten voluntarily quit, yet Liu Xiaotian continued unchanged, and not even the instructors, not even the assistant instructor, noticed him.

Unlike at Wolf Fang, Liu Xiaotian's warm-up training at this point was not something an ordinary soldier could easily complete.

A few minutes later, a signal wave rose silently from above the Warrior Academy, relayed through multiple stations, and was accurately captured by a signal receiver on another small island hundreds of kilometers from the Warrior School, then converted on an electronic screen into a long string of letters.

However, Pi Te had merely come to chat with Liu Xiaotian; he completely overlooked—or deliberately ignored—the fact that Liu Xiaotian had given himself extra training.

This isn't a primary or middle school where you can just swap homeroom teachers at will; even if you did, the frequency shouldn't be this high. Two instructors were replaced in ten days, and this third one vanished without explanation—if there weren't some shocking reason, even an honest person like Li Erniu wouldn't believe it.

Oh, it's not entirely true—at least the Chief Instructor's obstruction instructor, Pi Te, saw it.

The two previous instructors also disappeared suddenly one morning, with no one explaining why they were replaced.

At first, some thought he was merely putting on an act to show off, hoping to graduate from the Warrior Academy with an "Outstanding Student" medal.

Anyone with a bit of firearms knowledge knows that, theoretically, the difference between shooting left- or right-handed is not significant.

As an assistant instructor, Pi Te naturally knew what he ought to see and what he should pretend not to have seen.

And that eyeball happened to be the right one.

For over a week, Liu Xiaotian and the other trainees returned to training, enduring up to fourteen hours of high-intensity drills each day, to the point that after training they'd rather go to bed without washing their faces, leaving no time to ponder what happened after the scorpion was captured. This group included Wang Yanbing, He Chen Guang, and Li Erniu, one of whom had lost half his left arm and an eye.

But he didn't notice that, as he left, a surveillance camera on the corner of a building's roof to his right began to swivel silently after capturing his image, continuing until his figure vanished completely.

Over the past two-plus years as an assistant instructor, Pi Te has constantly been scolded by the Chief Instructor yet never punished or formally warned, which speaks to his caution.

After receiving the Elder Principal's consent, the Chief Instructor immediately left the small building where the Elder Principal lived.

They were seven elderly people averaging around sixty years old, with nothing else in common besides age, their identities all different, so no one would associate them with each other, let alone see them as potential enemies.

With less than seven hours of sleep, not to mention the trainees enduring high-intensity drills—even an ordinary young person would barely get enough rest—but Liu Xiaotian, this "oddball," actually gets up half an hour earlier each day to do a warm-up routine on the drill field.

As for how many might be innocent, that falls outside the scope of the Zero Plan's considerations.

It seems that, in the past ten days alone, the combat instructor has been changed twice.

If translated into Chinese, it would mean: "The Zero Plan has been activated; prepare for withdrawal, please respond."

Besides age, another important factor is that these seven elders' physiques are clearly not in good shape.

If he aims with his left eye, he lacks a left forearm, making it impossible to sight and fire a rifle; if he uses his right hand, he lacks a right eye, making aiming impossible.

Such an elderly person—no one knows him, and even if someone knew he was once a formidable figure, now reduced to this state, who would pay him any attention?

Fifteen minutes of continuous rope skipping plus fifteen minutes of continuous air punches—this level of exertion is comparable to a ten-kilometer cross-country run in full gear.

Over this period, he has become a monster in the eyes of the fellow trainees.

The Warrior School's wake-up time is 4:50 a. m., and lights-out is at 10:00 p. m.

At the Warrior School, aside from the Elder Principal and Chief Instructor, who know and have begun implementing the plan, everyone else and everything proceeds as usual, as if the scorpion incident had already been declared over, with no one mentioning it anymore.

Yet this old man could never possibly use a firearm.

The trainees have all noticed; the lurker hiding in the dark, carefully observing, would naturally not escape detection.

In fact, he had already become alert after the first instructor quietly disappeared.

Yet now he has received no response at all; neither the people supposed to meet him nor the withdrawal plan have given any word, and he dares not carry out the withdrawal recklessly.

For a moment, this habitually cautious person couldn't help but feel a little panicked......

(End of chapter)