Rebirth of a Mercenary: The Ace Mercenary Forced to Be the Beloved of the Group

When Lu Xiao and Li Mo returned, this was the scene they saw: twelve special forces soldiers were lying on the parade ground, some were panting heavily, some were gulping down water bottles, and some were rubbing their shoulders where the weighted shoulder straps had left red marks.

The team member who had been sitting on the rock and was startled by Bai Ye's shot, causing him to roll into the bushes, was wiping the bloodstains on his face from the branches with a tissue, looking as if he had just escaped from the battlefield.

Shen Zhuo stood by the playground, his expression a mix of schadenfreude and lingering fear. Xuan Xiao stayed by Bai Ye's side, his thermos already filled with brown sugar ginger tea for the third time.

Bai Ye himself sat quietly on the cement platform, wrapped in Li Mo's thick coat, a communications encryption textbook spread out on his lap, sipping brown sugar ginger tea, his expression as calm as if nothing had happened. Only the sniper rifle at his feet hadn't been put back on its rack, and a faint smell of gunpowder lingered at the muzzle.

Lu Xiao walked over to Shen Zhuo, glanced at the team members scattered haphazardly on the playground, then at the sniper rifle at Bai Ye's feet, and raised an eyebrow: "What's going on?"

Shen Zhuo opened his mouth, but before he could even organize his thoughts, the people on the playground had already spotted Lu Xiao and Li Mo. The twelve people, as if they had seen saviors, sprang to their feet and rushed over, chattering excitedly.

"Report, Instructor! During the cross-country run just now—" The first to speak was the team member who had almost been shot in the heel. He pointed at Bai Ye, "He—that short guy—he fired a sniper rifle at us! Not a blank! A live bullet! It hit the back of my heel! Just one centimeter! If I had been a step slower, I would have been shot through!"

"Instructor, aren't you going to do anything about this? Is this training or murder?"

"He's the one who did this to my face! I rolled into the bushes and got scratched!"

After listening to everyone's accusations, Lu Xiao shifted his gaze from the indignant team members in front of him and looked at Shen Zhuo.

Shen Zhuo briefly recounted what happened: Five minutes after the start of the trail running, Bai Ye noticed someone slacking off at a bend. He picked up his sniper rifle and fired a shot at the heel of the last runner. After that, everyone's pace picked up, and for the next ten kilometers, no one dared to slack off. The overall time was almost two minutes faster than usual.

After listening, Lu Xiao remained silent for a moment. Then he turned his gaze to Bai Ye.

Bai Ye had already stood up from the concrete platform, holding the sniper rifle in his hand, and was walking towards the equipment rack, preparing to put the gun back.

He looked at Lu Xiao, his expression remaining calm, without any guilt, panic, or intention to tattle. He simply put the gun back on the equipment rack, then turned back to Lu Xiao and said, "They're slacking off. Normal warning."

Everyone on the playground heard it.

The team member with a band-aid on his face opened his mouth, wanting to say, "What do you mean by a normal warning? That's a real bullet," but before he could finish speaking, Lu Xiao interrupted him.

Lu Xiao pulled his hand out of his pocket, drew his sidearm from his waist, cocked it, and pulled the trigger towards the sky.

The gunshot rang out across the empty playground, much louder than Bai Ye's shot earlier, causing everyone to simultaneously shrink back. Everyone fell silent.

Lu Xiao lowered his gun, but didn't put it back in its holster. He held the gun at his side, took a step forward, and stood between the twelve team members and Bai Ye. He spoke, his voice neither loud nor soft, but every word carried a chilling weight.

"You've all said a lot. I understand." He twirled the gun in his palm, muzzle down, and pointed at Bai Ye behind him with his other finger. "Now I'll say a few words too, and you all listen carefully. First, he's in charge of supervising this afternoon's cross-country run; I personally assigned him that role. He has the authority to take any measures he deems necessary to ensure the quality of training—any measures, understand? Second, he didn't hurt any of you, not because he was lucky, but because he didn't want to hurt you. Third—"

He paused, his gaze lingering on the teammate with a band-aid on his face for a moment, then sweeping across everyone's faces. His voice suddenly deepened, reaching a chilling intensity.

"He's joined Pokong, so he's one of us. If you have a problem with him, you have a problem with Pokong. You think he shouldn't have fired? I think he did. You feel bullied? Fine, I'll train with you properly tomorrow. As for him—" He gave Bai Ye a thumbs-up behind him, his tone unequivocally protective, "If he wants to fire, you'd better run faster. Even if he shoots you in the head, it'll be because you weren't fast enough, you deserve it. Understand?"

The playground was so quiet that only the wind could be heard. Everyone stood ramrod straight, not daring to breathe.

They had always thought that Lu Xiao, Li Mo, and Shen Zhuo were the three most dangerous people among the five, as those three instructors exuded an aura of pressure honed from real combat.

But at this moment, Lu Xiao stood in front of everyone, exuding an aura of power. Every word he spoke told them one fact—that silent, quiet, and seemingly weakest boy was the one among the five people whose bottom line was the most untouchable.

Xuan Xiao stood beside Bai Ye, looking at Lu Xiao's back as he stood in front of everyone, and his lips moved slightly.

He always knew that Lu Xiao was good to Bai Ye—from the first day of recruit training, Lu Xiao had been taking care of Bai Ye in various details, although sometimes the way he took care of him was by hurting the people around him.

But he had never seen Lu Xiao protect Bai Ye in this way before—directly drawing his gun, directly declaring, directly telling everyone—this person belongs to us, and no one can touch him. He suddenly felt that in this matter concerning Bai Ye, he seemed to have been outdone by Lu Xiao.

Bai Ye stood behind Lu Xiao, watching his back.

No one had ever stood in his way like this in his past life. 007 was the organization's most powerful killing weapon; everyone stood behind him, waiting for him to solve their problems.

Instructors, superiors, teammates—they needed his marksmanship, his tactics, his ruthlessness; no one felt a weapon needed maintenance. But now Lu Xiao stood in front of him, telling everyone in an utterly unreasonable way: He is one of us at Pokong, and none of you should say a word against him.

Lu Xiao put his pistol back in its holster, clapped his hands, as if he had just done a warm-up exercise. He turned back to face the twelve team members, and the standard smile on his lips returned, as if the imposing figure from before was just a collective illusion.

"Alright, that's enough for today. That's the end of this afternoon's business. Anyone who has any further objections can have a one-on-one match on the training field tomorrow." He clapped his hands. "Dismissed."