I enlisted four times! My former unit blacklisted me.

On the playground, four tall streetlights illuminated the running track, and under the lights, four figures were crouching around a lamppost in an extremely disheveled posture.

To be precise, they were the captains and squad leaders of the four training teams.

As Wu Hanfeng just said, you either have to squat to write or bend over and lie down to write; there is no third option.

This is punishment, not evening self-study. The point is to make it painful so you'll remember this lesson.

Liu Zhen chose to squat.

He felt that as a squadron leader, it would be too undignified for him to lie on the ground writing a self-criticism; squatting at least preserved the last bit of dignity.

But after squatting for less than five minutes, his thighs started to ache, from the back of his knees to his quadriceps, as if he had just finished running a 400-meter obstacle course.

He had to change positions every now and then, switching from his left leg to his right when his left leg got tired, and from his right leg to his left when his right leg got tired, swaying back and forth under the lights.

Cao Meng simply sat on the ground, legs crossed, notebook spread out on his knees. But his knees were weak, and when the pen tip touched the paper, it sank in, and the words he wrote were crooked and looked like scribbles.

He tried to place his notebook on the ground like a primary school student would when doing homework, but the stool was made of soft canvas, and it would sink in as soon as he wrote.

He tried several positions before finally choosing an extremely contorted side-lying position—half of his body leaning against a lamppost, one leg bent to serve as a tabletop, and the other leg straight for support.

He Yong squatted there.

With all my weight on my calves, my legs started to go numb after squatting for ten minutes, the numbness spreading from my toes all the way to my thighs.

He had to stand up and move around every now and then, but Wu Hanfeng said—he would stand up whenever he finished writing.

He hadn't finished writing yet, so when he stood up to move around, he felt guilty, like a thief. He would sneak a glance in Wu Hanfeng's direction to make sure the other wasn't looking at him before quickly shaking his legs a couple of times and then obediently squatting back down.

Song Yizhou remained silent.

He laid his notebook out on the lamppost base, squatted in a standard military posture, and made a scratching sound as the pen tip poked at the paper, each stroke as if he wanted to pierce through the paper.

Several characters had strokes that had torn through the paper, and the ink had seeped into the next page.

The four people surrounding the lamppost, when viewed from above, looked like four drooping sunflowers, their petals all facing the ground.

Zhao Yihang stood at the edge of the playground, holding his notebook, gazing at everything with an almost reverent look.

His emotions were beyond words; excitement was the only word to describe them.

It was awe, it was awe, it was the exhilaration of witnessing history and legends firsthand.

Back in the Third Company, he had heard He Dong recount Feng Ge's glorious achievements countless times—

Why were they wearing military police uniforms and raiding the regimental headquarters building?

Why did they take He Dong to the Armed Police Detachment to raid their home?

How did you manage to get the team leader to voluntarily pay for the car repairs with just three sentences?

He listened with great enthusiasm, but felt that He Dong might have added some artistic embellishment.

Now he realized that He Dong had not only not processed it, but had also been too conservative in his assessment.

Brother Feng doesn't just ask people to open their wallets with three sentences.

Feng Ge made four notorious head coaches, who could usually stop children from crying at night, obediently squat on the playground and write self-criticisms with just one sentence!

That's the captain and squad leader of the training team!

During the day, I disciplined them like I was disciplining my grandchildren. The bamboo sticks cracked against their calves, and when I glared at them, no one on the playground dared to breathe.

What now?

Squatting under the lamppost, they looked like four elementary school students being punished to copy homework, even changing their posture had to be done secretly!

Zhao Yihang took a deep breath and secretly vowed in his heart: when he got back, he would definitely treat He Dong to braised pork for a month, no, two months, no, three months!

This was to express my gratitude to He Dong for the vivid stories of Brother Feng that he had told him.

He Dong was absolutely right. Following Brother Feng, there are always new things happening every day, and it's as exciting as riding a roller coaster.

Moreover, Brother Feng never suffers a loss; he's the one who cheats others, never the other way around.

He now finally understood why He Dong's eyes always shone with an almost devout light whenever he talked about Brother Feng.

That's the look in someone's eyes after they've been completely conquered.

He can surely see the same light in his own eyes when he looks in the mirror now.

The wind on the playground was a bit cool, causing the shadows under the lampposts to sway gently.

Cao Meng finally couldn't hold back any longer. He scribbled crookedly on the paper while squeezing out words through his teeth, keeping the volume just loud enough for the three people around him to hear but definitely not enough to reach the edge of the playground.

"Tell me, how did he manage to bring the disciplinary badge in? Weren't all the trainees' backpacks checked? Sergeant Song, didn't you say you personally checked his backpack? Why didn't you find anything?"

Song Yizhou said, "I searched his backpack three times. There were five pairs of training shoes, five sets of protective gear, a bunch of medicine, a big bag of braised food, twenty pairs of socks, and a dozen pairs of underwear. I even took out his insoles to check, but I didn't see his military uniform."

"Where did he hide it?" He Yong squatted to the side, grimacing and rubbing his numb calf. "It couldn't be hidden in his crotch, could it?"

"Who cares where he hides it?" Liu Zhen said through gritted teeth, biting the pen cap, each word dripping with fury.

"The key point now is that he has already produced the certificate. You all saw clearly whether it was real or fake just now, right?"

"Erected seal, watermark, and anti-counterfeiting code—can a fake certificate have that kind of workmanship? And you say he's faking it? Who's faking it now? Let's have the four of us squat on the playground writing 10,000-word self-criticisms—who looks more like the ghost?"

"Ten thousand words..." He Yong looked down at the few hundred crooked words on his paper, and then at Song Yizhou, who had written the most words, who had only written less than a thousand words. He felt like the sky had fallen.

"How long would it take to write 10,000 words? I could squat until dawn and still not finish! My legs are numb from squatting, and if I keep squatting like this, I won't even be able to demonstrate the movements during training tomorrow!"

"I have to write it even if I can't finish it." Liu Zhen looked up slightly at Wu Hanfeng's figure. "Wu Hanfeng, you're amazing, you really are amazing."

"They've been hiding it well. During the day, they act like ordinary students, deliberately holding back during the five-kilometer run, and pretending to be calm while cleaning the outhouse."

"I thought you had a good attitude, but it turns out you don't care at all—what do you care about? You're carrying a military police badge in your pocket, are you here as a trainee or on an incognito visit?"

Cao Meng said, "Exactly! What 'veteran who's been in and out four times,' what 'only in the second phase of the core training'? I knew this resume didn't look right—he's an undercover agent! A spy planted in our training unit by the garrison!"

"He's not an informant," Song Yizhou said. "I've been thinking about it the whole way here, and he probably wasn't sent specifically to keep an eye on us."

"The Garrison Command's Military Police Division has a secondment system, and he was most likely seconded there part-time."

"But regardless of whether it's a part-time job or not, the credentials he has are real, his law enforcement authority is real, and the stamps on his logbook are real. That's enough."