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

The scavenging operation ended ten minutes before lunchtime.

When the recruits of the first platoon withdrew from the septic tank area, each of them carried an indescribable odor.

Zhao Xiaohu and Qian Duoduo were in particularly dire condition. They stood under the tap for a full twenty minutes, their training uniforms nearly torn, and their hair washed three times, but the stench stubbornly clung to them, as if bound to them by some lifelong contract. Finally, when Lu Xiao passed by, he splashed half a bottle of disinfectant on them, making the smell even stronger and more complex.

"Stop scrubbing," Lu Xiao said, leaning against the sink with his arms crossed, his tone as relaxed as if giving travel advice. "This smell won't go away for three days. Just think of it as perfume, you'll get used to it."

Qian Duoduo lowered her head, sniffed her sleeve, and gagged.

"Squad leader, can I return this perfume?"

"No returns or exchanges once sold."

-

The cafeteria served braised pork for lunch.

This was supposed to be the most anticipated meal of the week, and the new recruits in Class One had been counting down the days since Monday.

As soon as the students from Class One stepped into the cafeteria, the people at the two tables near the entrance simultaneously stopped eating. Some wrinkled their noses, some turned around to look for the source of the stench, and some looked down at their plates to make sure the food wasn't spoiled. Then, as if drawn by a magnet, their gazes all fell on the group of people who had just entered.

Zhao Xiaohu tried to force a friendly smile. The second-platoon recruit sitting by the door leaned back, his expression as if he were dodging a biological weapon attack.

"Did your class 1 clean up the latrines today?" the class monitor of Class 3 asked, covering his nose.

"Hmm." Zhao Xiaohu had barely uttered a single word when the class monitor picked up the plate and moved it to the table by the window.

The group stood at the entrance of the canteen, watching their comrades quickly clear a vacuum area with a radius of five meters around them.

"This is too much," Qian Duoduo muttered, sounding aggrieved. As soon as he spoke, a new recruit at the next table picked up his plate and ran off.

Only Bai Ye was unharmed.

He had been pulled away by Li Mo earlier that morning, so he hadn't stayed by the septic tank until the end and hadn't picked up any smell. He changed into clean training clothes, his hair still damp from washing, and he looked perfectly clean. So when he walked into the canteen, he didn't realize the seriousness of the situation at all. He glanced at the reactions of the people around him, and then at the expressions on his comrades' faces, as if they had been abandoned by the whole world, and paused for a moment.

Then he walked toward the table where the class usually ate.

Normally, Bai Ye would sit with the other students at meals, so he naturally walked over there.

He had only taken two steps when two hands, one on the left and one on the right, braced against his arms.

On the left is Xuan Xiao, and on the right is Lu Xiao. Xuan Xiao's action of grabbing his arm is like stopping a prisoner trying to escape over a wall, while Lu Xiao's action is more like casually helping a lost kitten.

Bai Ye looked down at his two arms that were being held up, then at the two faces on his left and right, his expression full of confusion.

"What are you doing?"

"This way." Xuanxiao guided him toward the empty table by the window. Bai Ye dragged his feet on the ground, trying to turn back, but Xuanxiao tightened his grip, preventing him from breaking free.

"There are seats over there," Bai Ye pointed to a table where they usually sat.

"There's a smell over there," Xuanxiao retorted expressionlessly.

Lu Xiao added with a smile, "Little Bai, we don't eat with dirty stuff."

The sound was neither too loud nor too soft, just enough for the people at the table in Class One to hear.

The entire group stopped in their tracks. Zhao Xiaohu, still holding his freshly served food, his chopsticks hovering in mid-air, turned to look at Qian Duoduo. Qian Duoduo, holding her own plate, her lips slightly parted, her expression slowly shifting from confusion to hurt. The other recruits also stood frozen, staring at Lu Xiao, their eyes seeming to accuse a heartless man who had started something and then abandoned it.

"We've been... rejected by the class monitor?" Qian Duoduo asked, her tone filled with a sense of bewilderment, as if betrayed by a loved one.

Zhao Xiaohu lowered his head, sniffed his sleeve, and fell silent. Then he nodded.

"right."

"Aren't we in the same class?" Qian Duoduo continued to ask, as if confirming a fundamental principle that had been broken.

"Even a class can't change the laws of physics." Lu Xiao didn't turn around, pressed Bai Ye down into a chair by the window, and sat down opposite him. "The smell on you two will penetrate a ten-meter defense line. No one can eat this meal sitting together."

Bai Ye sat in his chair, looking at the expressions on the faces of the people at the table in the distance, and felt a little guilty. He tried to stand up and take his food over, but Xuan Xiao pressed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back into his chair.

"Sit still."

"I'm not clean either; I participated in cleaning up the latrines this morning," Bai Ye stated truthfully.

"You're different." Xuan Xiao and Lu Xiao spoke almost simultaneously, then exchanged a glance. Xuan Xiao coughed and looked away, while Lu Xiao's smile deepened.

Li Mo walked over with two plates and placed one of them in front of Bai Ye. The plate was piled high with braised pork, almost twice the standard portion, and there was also a fried egg next to it.

There were no fried eggs on the cafeteria menu today; only Li Mo knew where they came from.

Bai Ye glanced at the fried egg on her plate, then at the braised pork rice bowl on Li Mo's plate, which had no fried egg.

"Squad leader, where did you get the fried egg?"

"Food." Li Mo didn't even look up.

Lu Xiao rested his chin on his hand, his gaze sweeping between Li Mo and Xuan Xiao, the curve of his lips growing increasingly suspicious.

Xuanxiao sat on the other side of Baiye, picking up lean meat from his own plate and transferring it to Baiye's plate with such natural movements that it seemed to be written into the rules and regulations.

Bai Ye used his chopsticks to push the meat that Xuan Xiao had picked up back, but Xuan Xiao picked it up again, and the two of them silently fought several rounds above the plate.

At the table in Class 1, Zhao Xiaohu and Qian Duoduo sat side by side, looking towards the window.

"I suddenly realize that shoveling manure isn't the worst thing that happened today," Zhao Xiaohu said, poking at the braised pork on his plate with his chopsticks, his tone carrying a sense of detachment as if he had seen through the illusions of the world.

"What is it?" Qian Duoduo asked.

"After finishing the meal, you still have to write a 2,000-word self-criticism."

Qian Duoduo stopped using her chopsticks.

Two thousand words. Due before bed tonight. Rewrite if even one word is missing.

The two of them slammed their chopsticks on the table at the same time.

The braised pork suddenly doesn't taste good anymore.

At the table by the window, Bai Ye gave up her tug-of-war with Xuan Xiao over the chunks of meat and lowered her head to eat. Lu Xiao drank her soup, glancing over the rim of her bowl at the two dejected people in Class One, and a slight smile appeared on her lips.

"Remember to remind them to write the self-criticisms," he told Li Mo.

Li Mo placed a piece of meat into Bai Ye's bowl, saying calmly, "No need to remind me. If you forget, just double the amount."

Bai Ye looked up at him, hesitated for a moment, and then ate the piece of meat that Li Mo had picked up for her.