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

A week is enough time for a lot to happen.

Bai Ye stayed in the recuperation room for seven days, honing his one-handed life skills to the maximum level. On the second day, he learned how to fold a quilt with one hand—first, he used his left hand to flatten the quilt, pressed one end down with his chin, and then folded, pressed, and pinched the seams with his left hand. The movements were twice as slow as when he used two hands, but the resulting square quilt was perfectly angular and no different from before.

On the third day, he began practicing disassembly and assembly with one hand. The armorer moved a training rifle into the rest room, and Bai Ye sat on the edge of the bed, disassembling it with his left hand—using his knee to hold the rifle in place, and using his left hand to remove the magazine, pull the bolt, and take out the recoil spring. It only took him two days to go from clumsy to fluent in the same set of movements.

By the fifth day, his one-handed disassembly and assembly speed had surpassed Zhao Xiaohu's two-handed performance.

The military doctor came to check on the patient twice a day, morning and evening, and the healing of the fracture was better than expected. The external fixator was removed on the fifth day and replaced with a lighter splint.

Then the day for shooting practice arrived.

The air was filled with the mixed smell of gun oil and gunpowder smoke, and everyone was a little excited—it had been more than a week since the last live-fire exercise, and in between, there had been the suicide incident and the forced running incident. The atmosphere in the recruit company had been too oppressive for too long, and now they were finally back to the rhythm they were most familiar with.

Qian Duoduo stood in line, flexed his fingers, and his expression could be summed up in four words—smug and self-satisfied. He turned his head and glanced at Bai Ye standing to his right.

Bai Ye's right arm was still in a splint, with white gauze wrapped from his wrist all the way up to his elbow, bulging out of the sleeve of his training uniform. He stood in the line, his posture no different from before his injury—his back straight, his feet shoulder-width apart, and his left hand hanging naturally at his side.

"Brother Ye," Qian Duoduo lowered her voice, a hint of barely suppressed anticipation on her lips, "you can't use both hands to fight today."

Bai Ye tilted her head to look at him, raising her eyebrows slightly.

"I mean—your right hand is injured, so you can only use your left, right?" Qian Duoduo became more and more convinced of her point, and her voice grew more and more confident. "I haven't had a moment's rest this past week. I've been practicing shooting in the dorm every night, and I've built up all the muscles in my arms. I'm sure I can beat you today. Just once. If I win, I can brag about it until I retire."

Zhao Xiaohu, who was overhearing this, chimed in and added, "Duoduo was so excited last night that she couldn't sleep for half the night. She kept tossing and turning in bed and almost got caught by the class monitor."

"Zhao Xiaohu, shut up!" Qian Duoduo turned around and glared at him, then turned back to Bai Ye, "Brother Ye, do you think I have a chance?"

Bai Ye looked at Qian Duoduo's expectant face and remained silent for a second.

"You can give it a try."

Qian Duoduo took those five words as a tacit agreement. He turned around, clenched his fists, and took a deep breath, as if he were mentally preparing himself.

Company Commander Zhou stood in front of the firing line and briefly repeated the safety regulations.

This time, he added a special sentence: "Under no circumstances should a gun be pointed at a person. Everyone has learned from the last lesson." The queue was quiet for a moment, and Zhao Xiaohu shrank his neck slightly, but he quickly straightened his back and looked ahead with a firm gaze.

Zhao Xiaohu was the first to go. He lay prone on the shooting mat, his stance much more stable than last week, and his breathing more controlled. After firing five bullets, the target score was reported—eighty-one rings. Zhao Xiaohu got up from the ground, brushed the sand off his knees, and looked fairly satisfied.

Qian Duoduo went second. His prone posture carried an unprecedented solemnity, and he adjusted his breathing more carefully than ever before. He squinted, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed across the firing range. After firing five bullets, he stood up, his expression a mixture of anticipation and tension.

The target stick was raised—72 rings.

Qian Duoduo's lips twitched. Seventy-two rings, three rings higher than his last score, was indeed an improvement. But it was still a long way from his ideal of "beating Bai Ye".

He comforted himself: It's okay, Bai Ye can only use his left hand, and the left hand is definitely not as good as the right. Even with a 72-ring shot, the chances of winning against a left-handed shooter are still very high.

Then Bai Ye walked to the shooting position.

The entire firing range fell silent.

Bai Ye fired the first shot.

Gunshots rang out over the firing range.

Then came the second shot, the third shot, the fourth shot, and the fifth shot.

The target pole was raised from the target trench.

One shot. Ring 10. Two shots. Ring 10. Three shots. Ring 10. Four shots...

The target stick paused for a moment, then raised the total score board for ten shots—one hundred rings.

One hundred rings. Left hand. One hand.

The entire firing range was silent for at least three seconds. Then came an uncontrollable commotion—some people in the back stood on tiptoe to look ahead, some were quietly calling out numbers, and someone let out a suppressed "Holy crap!"

Qian Duoduo stood there, staring at the sign that read 100 rings, his mouth agape, all his smugness shattered into dust. 72 rings. He'd scored 72, his best score yet. But Bai Ye had scored 100 rings with his left hand.

Zhao Xiaohu remained silent for a long time, then turned to look at Qian Duoduo, his mouth moving several times before he finally uttered a sound: "His left hand."

Qian Duoduo did not answer.

"He hit the 100 rings with his left hand."

Qian Duoduo shut her mouth and then slowly nodded.

Xuan Xiao stood next to Bai Ye, a wide grin spreading across his face.

He reached out and patted Bai Ye on the shoulder lightly, his tone tinged with pride: "See that? My partner. Left-handed full circle. Isn't that amazing? You tell me, isn't that amazing?"

Zhao Xiaohu and Qian Duoduo both looked at him as if he were a traitor.

Bai Ye turned around and looked at Xuan Xiao expressionlessly. His expression was as calm as usual, and his tone as indifferent as usual, but his words instantly froze Xuan Xiao's smile: "And you? Can you use two bullets at the same time?"

Xuan Xiao's smile seemed to have been paused; the corners of his mouth were still up, but the curve had stiffened.

He withdrew his hand from Bai Ye's shoulder, coughed lightly, and glanced at the distant mountains of the shooting range. His voice was two tones lower than before: "I—I won't compete with you, this sharpshooter. You can get perfect scores with your left hand, are you even human?"

Bai Ye looked at him without speaking. The silence lasted only a second, but Xuan Xiao felt as if he were being scrutinized for an entire century. Then Bai Ye withdrew his gaze, looked back towards the shooting range, and said calmly, "Then continue practicing."

Xuanxiao stood next to Baiye, hands in his pockets, chin slightly raised, and said in a seemingly nonchalant tone, "Let's practice. You wait, next time I'll definitely shoot two bullets in one hole for you to see."

Bai Ye didn't turn around, but Xuan Xiao saw that the corner of his mouth seemed to twitch slightly. A very faint, fleeting smile.