Chapter 78

Regarding the chief instructor's suggestion, the old principal merely hesitated for a moment, then nodded and agreed.

"Plan Zero" was formulated right from the inception of Warrior Academy.

Of the three original planners, only the old principal is still alive.

Although the chief instructor is aware of this plan, he is not one of its creators.

This was an emergency response plan devised at the school's founding to prevent sabotage via infiltration targeting Warrior Academy.

The chief instructor's proposal to activate Plan Zero shows how seriously he regards the current potential crisis.

Simply put, Plan Zero is essentially a self‑destruct‑like operation plan.

Activating this plan will mean that a large number of people will die during its execution.

How many of those killed might be innocent is not a consideration within Plan Zero.

After obtaining the old principal's consent, the chief instructor immediately left the small building where the principal resided.

However, he did not notice that, as he left, a surveillance camera on the corner of the roof of the building to his right, after capturing his silhouette, began to quietly swivel until his figure completely disappeared…

A few minutes later, a wave of signal rose silently from above Warrior Academy, passed through several relays, and was finally picked up accurately by a signal receiver on a small island several hundred kilometers away, where it was converted on an electronic screen into a long string of letters.

If translated into Chinese, it means: "Plan Zero has been activated, preparing for withdrawal; please respond."

。。。。。。

At Warrior Academy, aside from the old principal and chief instructor who know and have begun implementing the plan, everyone else and everything continues as usual, as if the Scorpion incident had already been declared over, with nobody mentioning it anymore.

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

They were seven elderly people, each around sixty years old, sharing nothing in common besides age, with disparate identities; no one would link them together, nor consider them potential enemies.

Besides age, another important factor is that the physical condition of these seven elders is clearly not good.

One of them is missing half of his left arm and an eye.

And that missing eye is his right eye.

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

Yet this old man could not possibly use a firearm.

If he tried to aim with his left eye, he lacks a left forearm, making it impossible to sight a rifle or pull the trigger; if he used his right hand, he lacks a right eye, so he cannot aim…

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

For over a week, Liu Xiaotian and his three companions, along with the other trainees, returned to training, enduring up to fourteen hours of high‑intensity drills each day, so exhausting that after training they would rather go to bed without washing their faces, leaving no one with the bandwidth to ponder what happened after the Scorpion was captured—this includes Wang Yanbing, He Chenghuang, and Li Erniu.

The only exception was Liu Xiaotian.

During that period, he had become a monster in the eyes of the fellow trainees.

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

With less than seven hours of sleep, not to mention the soldiers who must endure high‑intensity training daily—even an ordinary young person would probably find it insufficient—yet Liu Xiaotian, this "oddball," manages to get up half an hour earlier each day to do a warm‑up session on the field.

Unlike at Wolf Fang, Liu Xiaotian's warm‑up routine at this time is not something an average soldier could easily complete.

Fifteen minutes of continuous rope‑skipping plus fifteen minutes of nonstop air punches consume energy comparable to a fully equipped ten‑kilometer cross‑country run…

At first, some thought he was deliberately "showing off" to stand out, hoping to earn an "Outstanding Trainee" medal upon graduation from Warrior Academy.

However, as training intensity increased, over a dozen trainees were eliminated, three or ten voluntarily quit, yet Liu Xiaotian persisted unchanged, and not even any instructor—assistant or otherwise—took notice of him.

Oh, that's not entirely true—at least the chief instructor's resistance trainer, Pete, noticed him.

However, Pete merely came to chat with Liu Xiaotian; he either didn't notice or deliberately ignored the extra training Liu was giving himself.

As an assistant instructor, Pete naturally knows what he ought to see and what he should pretend not to have seen even if he did.

Over the more than two years Pete has served as an assistant instructor, although he is constantly scolded by the chief instructor, he has never been punished or formally warned, which sufficiently shows his caution.

Reporting to the chief instructor that a trainee is "exceptionally diligent" when there's nothing else to do—what's the point? To prove you're observant? Or to alert the chief instructor to a lapse in his duties? It wasn't until the morning of the tenth day, after the trainees had assembled, that the instructor responsible for their combat training was still nowhere to be seen, and someone realized something was off.

It appears that, over the past ten days, the combat instructor has been replaced twice.

The two previous instructors also vanished suddenly one morning, with no explanation given for their replacement.

This isn't a primary or middle school class teacher that you can swap out casually; besides, even if changes occur, the frequency shouldn't be this high. Two instructors changed in ten days, and this third one disappeared just as mysteriously—if there weren't some shocking reason behind it, even an honest person like Li Erniu wouldn't believe it.

The trainees have all noticed; the lurking figure hiding in the shadows, carefully observing, would naturally not fail to notice.

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

Yet now he has received no response at all, nor any word from the people meant to rendezvous with him or from the evacuation plan itself, and he dares not act rashly…

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

(End of chapter)