Chapter 96: Oh rookie, you

"Dig faster!"

"Make the most of the time; there's only one minute left!"

On the firing range, more than thirty trainees were vigorously swinging their combat shovels.

They dug shallow pits only a person wide with their lives, while also stacking a long, low earth mound about twenty‑to‑thirty centimeters high in front.

This is a required part of sniper training: constructing a simple defensive position.

The goal is rapid concealment in open outdoor terrain and effective counter‑fire.

Although stray bullets on the battlefield usually travel in parallel trajectories, simply lying on the ground still gives the butt and back a certain chance of being hit.

Therefore, at this moment one must build a simple fortification, sink the body as low as possible, and use the front obstacle to block incoming bullets.

Most of the veteran trainees have practiced this in their old units, except Lu Yang, who is an exception.

Because the New Recruit Company lacks this training and doesn't teach it.

The only similar drills are prone lying and crawling forward.

Both are used on the battlefield to reduce target exposure and avoid bullets.

Nevertheless, Lu Yang worked hard, digging with sweat soaking his head.

In the final minute, he kept patting and hammering the defensive position with his combat shovel, as if mending a quilt.

"Time's up!"

Company commander Guo Yongwen shouted the stop loudly.

The soldiers, drenched in sweat, gasped and stood up.

Each looked like a farmhand, with sweat and mud covering their faces and bodies.

Guo Yongwen, hands behind his back, walked past the line of defensive positions in front, shaking his head, clearly dissatisfied with everyone's labor.

He asked a soldier, "Do you think the defensive position you built can stop the enemy's bullets?"

A soldier replied, "Report, it can!"

"Can it?"

Guo Yongwen laughed, "It can hold a few!"

He took a Type‑81 rifle from the deputy squad leader's hand.

He pulled a magazine from the pouch on his chest and inserted it into the magazine well.

He released the safety, pulled the charging handle, and fired two shots at the freshly built position.

Both...

Two muffled thuds rang out, soil splashed, and the position was clearly pierced.

Guo Yongwen stepped in front of him, staring into his slightly panicked eyes: "If you were lying behind the position, your head would already be blown to pieces by me!"

"Now tell me, what the hell did you build? Speak up!"

"Tofu dregs!"

"Wrong!"

"Dog shit!"

"Incomplete!"

"Tofu dregs, dog shit, trash!"

The soldier shouted in deep embarrassment.

Spittle sprayed outward, but Guo Yongwen was already experienced.

He stepped back two paces in advance, preventing the spittle from hitting his face.

Next came a round‑by‑round inspection, and, as before, firing straight at the positions.

But most of them were pierced by bullets.

Although nominally called a defensive position, it was really just a long, trapezoidal earth mound.

Thus its defensive capability was weak; unless the thickness was sufficient or the earth was compacted tightly, it could hardly stop a rifle bullet head‑on.

But given the limited time, this was the best the veterans could achieve.

"Tofu dregs!"

"Tofu dregs!"

"Heh, this damn unit is worse than dog shit; even calling it tofu dregs is a compliment!"

"Is this a sniper training squad or a trash transfer station? What the hell do you do every day in the old units?"

"Even scum like you get sent to training; it shows your unit truly has no talent. How terrible and trashy must they be to pick you shorties!"

Guo Yongwen cursed filthy, his mouth sounding as if laced with poison.

It wasn't just an insult to that soldier, but a tirade against his entire company as well.

Yet on the spot, not a single person dared to retort or argue.

Because Guo Yongwen belonged to the Armored Seventh Company, the undisputed elder brother of the Special Third Regiment.

To the prideful youths of the Seventh Company, other companies were mere jokes, a bunch of defeated subordinates.

Bang!

Guo Yongwen fired a shot at the bunker Lu Yang had built, then turned to leave without even looking.

In his eyes, Lu Yang, encountering fortification for the first time, was a complete novice.

What he didn't expect was that a 7.62×39 mm rifle round failed to pierce that seemingly insignificant little earth mound.

Guo Yongwen thought he had been too careless, not finding the right angle, so the bullet entered the ground at a forty‑five‑degree slant.

This time, he stepped back a bit, aligned the muzzle with Lu Yang's bunker, and pulled the trigger again.

The expected penetrating "thud" never came; after the bullet entered the bunker, it simply vanished without a trace?

Guo Yongwen looked up, his eyes full of astonishment, and asked Lu Yang: "New Recruit Company, when did they start teaching how to build defensive positions?"

Lu Yang: "Report, they never taught it."

"Never taught?"

Guo Yongwen disengaged the safety, pointed his barrel downward as he walked over, and stepped on Lu Yang's defensive position with his foot.

One foot down, the surface only sank a little, showing the position was built very solidly.

This scene also sparked curiosity among the other veteran trainees, especially those whose defensive positions had been pierced, who were even more incredulous.

Wan Baoshan was one of them: "Lu Yang, how did you do it?"

That question was also one Guo Yongwen really wanted to ask.

He deliberately didn't teach, just to watch the kid get embarrassed.

And during the process, just as he expected, Lu Yang swung a hammer east and a mallet west, flustered and clumsy.

Yet his position was built unusually sturdy, so that even assault rifle bullets couldn't pierce it.

Thinking this, Guo Yongwen switched to an 85 Sniper, ordered everyone to spread out, and fired again at Lu Yang's position.

With a bang, the shot went off, and Lu Yang's defensive position still wasn't penetrated.

Damn, this is really getting off the mark?

The sniper rifle uses 7.62×54mm machine‑gun rounds, with greater power and penetration.

For a hastily built simple position to resist machine‑gun fire is a pipe dream, yet this rookie Lu Yang actually managed it?

Guo Yongwen can be certain that Lu Yang's position was the only one among over thirty that could withstand sniper fire!

Yet earlier during construction, he hadn't actually watched what Lu Yang did, only saw him running around flustered!

"Tell me, how did you do it?" Deputy Leader Cheng Jun couldn't help but ask.

"Actually, it's simple." Lu Yang crouched, and with a military spade he pried open the position he had built.

After lifting the outer soil layer, a chaotic heap of stuff was revealed inside.

The most conspicuous item was a book—in fact, the very Firearms Disassembly and Maintenance Encyclopedia that Lu Yang always carried.

Some veteran couldn't understand: "Just stuffing a crappy book can stop 7.62×54mm sniper rounds?"

Lu Yang: "Of course not."

He had seen similar books on elite marksman training in the training unit's reading room.

Among them were mentions of rapid defensive‑position construction, with a few sketches attached.

Once he understood its purpose and general structure, Lu Yang, while building the position, thought not about speed but about how to truly make it bullet‑proof.

The position was about 35 cm high, 80 cm to 1 m long, overall a trapezoidal shape narrowing at the top, about 40 cm thick.

Its core was a book—specifically, a book that had been soaked and smeared with several layers of thin mud in the middle.

Then came assorted gravel, dry grass, twigs, and sand mixed together, a non‑solid semi‑fluid resembling concrete.

The outermost layer was soil, pounded tightly by Lu Yang with a combat engineer's spade to make it even more compact.

In fact, Lu Yang even stuffed two sand‑filled plastic bottles into the shelter as filler and buffer.

So when a bullet entered his shelter, some kinetic energy would first be absorbed by the surface soil layer.

Then the chaotic non‑solid semi‑fluid would soak up more energy, followed by the sand‑filled bottles.

Finally came the soaked book, coated with layers of rotten mud and decayed leaves—the Firearms Disassembly and Maintenance Encyclopedia.

After successive energy absorption, wouldn't the bullet be unable to penetrate?

The reason other positions could be pierced was that their structure was too uniform.

Relying only on earth, or a small amount of damp earth, how could it possibly stop bullet penetration?