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

The next morning, the sky above the special forces base cleared up for once. The December sun cast a thin layer on the training ground, the wind was still biting cold, but the visibility was excellent—perfect for high-altitude training.

The roar of the helicopter rotors came from the direction of the helipad, shaking the remaining snow on both sides of the runway and causing it to fall in a rustling sound. It was a medium-sized transport helicopter with its side doors wide open. Inside the cabin, there were two rows of seats on the left and right, with several boxes of parachutes and emergency equipment piled in the middle.

Shen Zhuo stood by the cabin door, one foot on the landing gear, checking each person's parachute pack straps one by one. He patted each strap once and tugged it twice, muttering in rhythm with the patting, "Tight, tight, this one is tight too."

Lu Xiao stood in the center of the cabin, holding the overhead handrail with one hand and the training record board with the other.

"This morning's training content is high-altitude parachuting." His voice remained clear and powerful despite the roar of the propellers, each word carrying a trained penetrating force that steadily reached everyone's ears. "You've all done it before in your previous units, so I don't need to go over the basic procedures. Altitude: 3,000 meters, parachute opening altitude: 800 meters, landing point: open area on the south side of the back mountain. Standard procedure, standard actions. This isn't an assessment; just consider it a change of pace. Let you get out of all that crawling on the ground, lying in the snow, rolling in the mud and catch your breath."

The twelve special forces members sat on both sides of the seats, and after listening, one of them visibly breathed a sigh of relief.

Skydiving wasn't unfamiliar to them; in fact, it was one of the few things they could avoid being punished for during the past two weeks of grueling training. Compared to lying in the snow for four hours with Shen Zhuo squatting beside them and taking their pulse, or being chased by a sniper rifle for fifteen kilometers with bullets flying all around them, jumping from three thousand meters was practically a vacation.

"However," Lu Xiao's tone shifted, a familiar, chilling pleasure creeping into his voice, causing everyone to reflexively tense up, "today we're using a wing-shaped parachute. After opening, you need to manually control the direction and descent trajectory. The horizontal speed is faster, making it a level more difficult to control. If the landing point error exceeds fifty meters, we'll have extra practice tonight."

A suppressed wail echoed through the cabin.

"What are you wailing about? It's not like I'm telling you to die." Lu Xiao tucked the clipboard under his arm and began checking each parachute pack one by one.

He moved with lightning speed. Each time he approached someone, he would open the parachute pack, check its folding, inspect the buckles, and pat the straps. The entire process took no more than a few seconds, yet he noticed every detail. Shen Zhuo checking the straps at the cabin door was the first line of defense, while Lu Xiao checking the parachute packs inside the cabin was the second.

Bai Ye sat in the back of the cabin, his seatbelt fastened around his waist, holding the thermos cup that Xuan Xiao had given him.

His parachute was personally inspected by Li Mo—he checked it before boarding and again after boarding the plane, even confirming the folding order of each parachute line.

Xuanxiao sat next to him, his parachute pack slung neatly over his shoulder, but every few minutes his fingers would unconsciously touch the buckle on his chest to see if it was loose, silently reciting the steps for opening the parachute. He didn't have much skydiving experience; he had only jumped a few times with a basic round parachute at military school, and the wing parachute was a completely new thing to him.

Bai Ye glanced at him, took a blueberry candy from her pocket, and handed it to him. Xuan Xiao took it, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth. After the sweetness melted on his tongue, he visibly relaxed and gave Bai Ye a knowing smile.

As the helicopter climbed to an altitude of 3,000 meters, the airflow began to become unstable, and the fuselage occasionally swayed.

Lu Xiao walked around the cabin again to make sure everyone's parachutes had been checked, then clapped his hands to signal the start of training.

The first group of three people were patted on the shoulder by Shen Zhuo, and they jumped out of the cabin at the predetermined altitude with swift and decisive movements. Parachute deployment was normal, trajectory was normal, and landing point error was within 30 meters.

The second group also went smoothly, gliding in a diagonal line towards the open area behind the mountain after their parachutes opened. Lu Xiao stood at the cabin door, watching the parachutes unfold one by one in the air, made a few notes on the record board, and turned to Shen Zhuo to say that this batch was alright.

The third group's turn was the member with a band-aid on his face.

He was the one who was so frightened by Bai Ye's shot yesterday that he rolled into the bushes; he was the one who pointed at Bai Ye and accused him of "training or murder" after returning to the training ground; and he was the one who was so frightened by Lu Xiao's shot into the sky that he dared not breathe.

He was unusually calm today—he hadn't uttered a single word since boarding, his face was expressionless, his parachute pack was neatly slung over his shoulder, and the buckles were fastened securely, as if he had completely processed yesterday's events. When it was his turn to jump, he stood up and walked to the cabin door, his movements swift and decisive, without the slightest hesitation.

Shen Zhu checked his parachute straps, gave him a thumbs-up amidst the roar of the propellers, and mouthed "Go." He nodded and jumped out of the cabin. The parachute opened normally. The wing-shaped parachute unfolded into a beautiful arc high in the sky, and the handling was smooth and stable.

Just then, the team member's posture in the air suddenly changed. He manipulated his paraglider to change his gliding direction, no longer landing on the open ground behind the mountain, but instead making a beautiful arc turn and using the airflow to fly back.

His paragliding skills were indeed excellent—so excellent that he could precisely fly back to below the cabin door at an altitude of three thousand meters, maintaining a distance that was neither too close nor too far in the swirling airflow of the helicopter, with the paragliding wings as stable as if they were nailed to the air.

He looked up at Lu Xiao at the cabin door, a smile spreading across his face, which still had a band-aid on it. It wasn't an embarrassed smile after being praised by the instructor, nor a relieved smile after completing a training mission; it was a smile that said, "This is the moment I've been waiting for."

Lu Xiao was bent over, carrying the parachute pack in both hands. His weight was entirely on his toes, and his back was facing the open hatch, completely unaware of what was happening behind him.

The team member maneuvered the parachute to pull up sharply, and at the moment it was parallel to the hatch, he reached out, spread his fingers, grabbed Lu Xiao's arm that was sticking out of the hatch, and pulled it out with all his might.

The yank came without warning, and Lu Xiao was pulled straight out of the cabin door.

He tumbled and fell into the cold wind at an altitude of three thousand meters.

"Vice Captain—!"

Shen Zhuo's roar was torn to shreds by the roar of the propellers. He lunged toward the hatch, his entire body pressed against the edge of the deck, his right hand reaching down desperately—but he couldn't grab anything.

He watched helplessly as Lu Xiao's body rapidly shrank in his sight, tumbling and plummeting three thousand meters below without a parachute or a parachute.

The person was maneuvering the paraglider, hovering at a height parallel to the hatch, watching the direction Lu Xiao was falling, a strange smile on their lips.