Chapter 249: Only I Have the Law Chapter 249: Apprenticeship at the Martial Arts Hall (3)

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Protagonist:

Chen Yi

The locust trees outside the window were in bloom, snow-white, snow-white, plump and round, like grapes with the pulp removed, strung in clusters, exuding a mellow fragrance, leaving nothing but that mellow fragrance.

Xie Wuyang jumped slightly, picked a locust flower and put it in his mouth, as if savoring a delicacy, closed his eyes and reminisced.

Southeast Province was wealthy; even the impoverished Jiangbei people regarded locust flowers as merely an ordinary flowering tree, and no one ever thought of eating them. Xie Wuyang was different—his hometown was in the north, his father had passed away early, and when he was young, locust flowers were a fine dish; if mixed with a bit of sugar, the fragrance lingered in the mouth.

Xie Wuyang jumped again, picking a branch of flowers.

Li Feng and Cao Zheng were anxious, watching him hopping about there, and couldn't help teasing: "Wuyang, practicing kung fu?"

"When I used to pick locust flowers, I had to climb up the tree," Xie Wuyang did not answer directly, but said: "I can now reach three meters high; not long ago I was thinking I could play basketball."

"The bottom of the hoop is two point nine meters; you can reach the hoop." Cao Zheng liked basketball, watching both NBA and CBA.

Xie Wuyang smiled faintly and said: "That means I can dunk. The locust flowers at the very top of the branch are the tastiest. Sigh, you tell me, if someone my age went to play basketball, would anyone want them?"

After the New Year he would be thirty; in the youth-oriented Martial Arts Hall, everyone called him Old Xie.

Cao Zheng was stirred by him, paused, then fell behind; when he came to his senses, he self-mockingly smiled: "Fifty thousand a month, seven or eight hundred thousand a year—among Chinese basketball players, few can earn that."

"Right."

The three stood dazedly under the locust flowers, swaying in the wind, like three locust tree spirits wanting to live another five hundred years.

After a long while, Xie Wuyang spoke first: "Taking Hall Master as a teacher would originally be perfect; among our Martial Arts Hall students and staff, who doesn't envy Naked Bear's conditions? Unlimited Divine Oil, separate training rooms and dormitories, and occasionally Hall Master's personal instruction..."

Li Feng chimed in with "Right."

So Xie Wuyang continued to sigh: "Speaking of training body arts, it really is good; without saying anything else, our bodies are now so strong—I dare say, whether working as a security guard or a coach, both are top-notch."

Xie Wuyang spoke faster and faster: "But wandering the four seas, training all over the world, there's also danger to life... this, I've heard, foreign mercenaries are just like that."

"Joining the army to fight?" Li Feng was startled; he was the youngest of the three and most easily influenced by others.

"Right." Xie Wuyang was worried about joining the army to fight. For most Chinese people attached to their homeland, joining the army to eat imperial grain was fine, but joining the army to fight was not. No matter how bad life in Jiangbei was, one could still make a living, let alone now earning a monthly salary of tens of thousands—Hall Master hadn't said, even without becoming a disciple, one could still sign a mercenary contract, and a twenty-year one at that...

Twenty years later, I'd be fifty years old.

But this salary of tens of thousands had unsettled Xie Wuyang's heart.

All three hearts were unsettled.

Body Art Level 6 came with a 100,000 allowance; Body Art Level 7... wouldn't that earn more than running a company?

Cao Zheng had his own plans; thinking as he walked, when he was about to go out, standing on the stairs, he said: "I don't want to be a staff member in the future."

Li Feng shivered and asked: "What's wrong?"

He had been thinking about what Xie Wuyang just said regarding joining the army to fight, and now he was unsettled again.

A group of students passed by noisily beside them, and the three naturally made way.

During the eighth and ninth sessions, many Jiangbei people sent their children who had dropped out of middle school or high school; later, more people queued to enter the hall, and those too young were hard to select.

Cao Zheng stood still and slowly said: "My father worked as a worker for thirty years, and when he got old he received a thousand yuan pension; my uncle was even unluckier, laid off and diverted, with no pension in sight... and besides, I like body arts!"

He said it both to others and to firm his own conviction; as the student with the fastest training speed in the entire Martial Arts Hall, even faintly showing signs of breaking through to Body Art Level 6, while others were still considering whether their talent was limited, he didn't worry about that.

Even American mercenaries couldn't earn a hundred thousand monthly salary, right—Cao Zheng said more firmly: "I want to become a disciple."

"What about your parents?" Xie Wuyang asked, but was thinking of himself. His father had died early, leaving only his mother; if he left home, he didn't know what to do.

"One hundred thousand a month? Do you think my mom would agree?" Cao Zheng was the earliest student to receive the Level 5 allowance, and had already sent no less than 200,000 yuan home.

Xie Wuyang smiled and said nothing.

Li Feng looked left and right, slapped his thigh, and said: "I'm going all in too."

"That's right." Cao Zheng, seeing someone agree, steadied his heart and said: "I'll go back and tell my family, and go see Hall Master tomorrow morning. Xie Wuyang, what about you?"

Xie Wuyang licked his finger and rubbed it on his nose: "If I go, I don't know what to do about home."

"Haven't you wanted to marry a wife for a long time? If you can earn 100,000 a month, what wife can't you marry?"

How many peers among leaders and cadres embezzled for a whole year, amounting to only 100,000 yuan.

Xie Wuyang gritted his teeth and actually turned back.

Cao Zheng hurriedly grabbed him and shouted: "What's wrong now?"

"Apply to Hall Master for marriage."

"No way? When did you find a wife?"

"That girl who came to see me last time, a Northeast person, remember?" Xie Wuyang's old-fashioned shyness was gone; he stuck out his neck and said: "I originally wanted to date for another year or so, but let's just get married!"

"Can she agree?"

Xie Wuyang said confidently: "Can she disagree?"

This sentence left Cao Zheng and Li Feng both stunned.

Half a day passed; Xie Wuyang had long walked far away, but his proud bearing remained in the two men's hearts.

Money is a hero's courage; a hero without money has only healthy kidneys and left hand.

Li Feng spoke after a long while: "How about I get married too?"

"You, a nineteen-year-old blockhead..."

"Hall Master is also nineteen..."

"Hush." Cao Zheng quickly covered his mouth, threatening: "Want to die?"

After sending off the three Body Art Level 5 students, Li Changning, Ma Zhongcheng, and eight others also came to the top-floor office. Among them were both the first batch of students to advance to Body Art Level 1 and new students who had come from behind; they belonged to the neither-high-nor-low level.

Of course, in Chen Yi's eyes, they were the lowest-level usable students. Those who couldn't even reach Body Art Level 3 were useless even sent to the West Continent.

However, this time he had no mind to take on disciples, yet he made the same demand: "I have some business abroad that requires five consecutive years of work, during which I can only write letters home. If anyone is willing to go, the allowance will be doubled."

Doubling the Level 3 Student's allowance comes to 25,000 yuan per month, equivalent to 3,000 dollars, or roughly 100 dollars a day—about the ordinary level of current senior overseas personnel. Compared to Level 5 Students, the treatment has dropped by a large margin.

Moreover, Chen Yi actually held back regarding the five-year limit; whether they could return home would still depend on needs and circumstances. The US Government dares to arbitrarily extend soldiers' service terms, so what does Chen Yi dare not do?

Said lightly, but the pressure on the students was not small.

If Cao Zheng and the other Level 5 Students were considering future development and life, then Level 3 Students were actually trending toward being working staff members. All they could consider were salary and the risk of working abroad—let alone leaving the Martial Arts Hall, that was unthinkable.

Level 5 Students are roughly equivalent to the level of martial arts experts such as Karate Black Belts, but Level 3 Students can only be described as specially trained soldiers with certain physical fitness who underwent crash training. The younger ones are fine, but the older ones theoretically have less value than military retirees who were special forces.

Retired soldiers are no longer assigned jobs nowadays; how many can earn a salary of over ten thousand? Even one thousand plus is not bad.

Li Changning and the others left the top floor of the fourth floor with heavy hearts, but Liu Xinyu blinked her eyes and asked, "Do you have a mercenary company abroad?"

"What do you mean?"

"Machine guns, working abroad, only communicating by letters." Liu Xinyu counted on her fingers, but she did not know Chen Yi's gaze was all focused behind her fingers.

Viewed horizontally it's a ridge, viewed sideways a peak; fingers embedded in the mountain peak, big big big, grapes protruding from the mountain top.

"Not bad." Chen Yi nodded in satisfaction.

Liu Xinyu, completely unaware, exclaimed in surprise, "You really have a mercenary company?"

She did not expect Chen Yi to admit it.

"I'm saying the weather is nice." Chen Yi waved his hand and said, "What about the machine guns?"

"The. 50 caliber Browning has great power..."

"Mm."

Seeing Chen Yi was displeased, Liu Xinyu became happy instead, and said, "You lost 100,000 bullets, said to be enough for you to fight a Normandy."

The theoretical rate of fire of heavy machine guns is usually useless; apart from newbies, who would hold down the machine gun trigger without stopping? Under normal use, firing eighty or ninety rounds a minute is already a lot. 100,000 rounds is enough for four heavy machine guns to fire continuously for four or five hours.

Chen Yi felt it was not enough, smacking his lips as he said, "Check if there are any heavy weapons, and buy them as before."

"More heavy weapons?"

"Mm."

"Strange." Liu Xinyu unconsciously could not help but evaluate Chen Yi a bit. In the past, she would not evaluate others—the leader focuses on matters, not people, and secret organizations must strictly adhere to principles.

After a while, Jin Douna's Mini car also stopped in the front yard.

She wore eight-inch high heels and went upstairs with a swish swish swish, her slender waist twisting so that the students twisted their eyes.

"So slender!"

"Like a willow leaf fluttering."

"I still prefer Instructor Liu, deep."

Jin Douna looked back; those hiding their heads and showing their tails while secretly discussing were mostly employees who had already given up. They had joined the Martial Arts Hall earlier, did not cherish the cultivation opportunity back then, and later conditions were poor, so no one could reach the Body Technique Level 3 standard to become students again. Actually, a salary of 3,000 yuan is not little; teachers and doctors in Jiangning City may not even earn that much. However, people do not fear scarcity but inequality. Seeing former fellow students from the Martial Arts Hall earning salaries of over ten thousand, many people gave up on themselves and liked to say strange things.

She shook her head secretly, thinking: They should just clear out a batch.

... (Unfinished, if you want to know what happens next, please log in to www. qidian. com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!)