Chapter 25: Stubbornness

  "It's not necessarily like that, his personality is just like that. Let's go and take a look at our dormitory, I'm exhausted, my whole body is about to fall apart."

  Yao Jia rubbed her sore joints while looking at Xia Wenjie and asked, "Wenjie, can you still hold on? You must hold on... even if every time we score points, you only get one point for the team." Yao Jia silently added in her heart.

  Xia Wenjie was now exhausted and almost fainting, but he still shook his head stubbornly and said, "I'm fine."

  "That's good, that's good..."

  They walked along, counting the dormitory door numbers. When they reached the door of Room 11, they found Shao Bing standing there, with the door open, staring blankly inside.

  Everyone was puzzled and walked up together. Yao Jia asked: "Shao Bing, why didn't you go in? Are you waiting for us here?"

  He suddenly stopped talking and looked around the dormitory, only to find that everyone was stunned.

  The walls, ceiling and floor of the bedroom were not inlaid with any metal plates, but were all made of stone and mud. There was no decent bed inside, just a few simple folding beds placed inside. Even standing outside the bedroom, you could feel the dampness and coldness inside, and there was also a faint musty smell emanating from it.

  "This...this is the elegant environment and superior conditions of the dormitory?" Yao Jia stared with her mouth agape, stuttering as she spoke.

  In his opinion, the dormitory should be at least for two people, after all, many groups are mixed with men and women, how can it be that men live in one room and women live in another? Now it seems that it's not like that at all, their dormitory is just a dimly lit, damp and moldy broken cave.

  "Are we going to stay here for the next three months?" Yao Jia muttered.

  Xia Wenjie, Tang Xin, Shao Bing, Xu Jiehui and Zhang Zhaoyang's faces looked equally ugly.

  Finally, it was Shao Bing who first walked into the mountain cave, no, the dormitory, and casually lay down on a folding bed.

  Xia Wenjie and others looked at each other in dismay, but eventually they all steeled themselves and walked in.

  Yao Jia still wanted to assign beds to everyone, but no one listened to him. Tang Xin chose the bed closest to the inside and then pulled over Xia Wenjie, letting him sleep beside her. Xia Wenjie didn't have any objections; for him, it didn't matter who he slept next to.

  Everyone was really tired and soon fell onto their beds.

  After a while, Shao Bing was the first to crack. For a professional soldier, the folding bed was really too soft and uncomfortable to sleep on. One or two days were tolerable, but staying for three months was unbearable for him.

  He simply pulled off the bed sheet and spread it on the floor, then lay down.

  Seeing this, Yao Jia and Zhang Zhao-yang also followed suit, sleeping on the ground, while Xia Wen-jie, Tang Xin, and Xu Jie-hui still slept on the folding bed.

  They had been lying down for less than five minutes when three men in black walked in from outside, one of whom was Yan's assistant, and the other two were ordinary soldiers, one holding a cardboard box and the other carrying a stack of clothes.

  The assistant who came in said, "Hand over your watches, mobile phones and all personal belongings. They will be returned to you when you are eliminated or after the special training is over."

  It's understandable to hand over mobile phones, but it's too inhumane to hand over watches as well. Yao Jia muttered: "Officer, you have to leave them something to tell the time with."

  The assistant didn't say a word, but silently turned his head and stared at him with unblinking eyes. Under his gaze, Yao Jia raised her hands in surrender and said repeatedly: "Okay, okay, okay! Whatever you say goes."

  As he spoke, he took out his mobile phone and also removed his watch. The soldier carrying the cardboard box walked up to him, indicating that he should put all his personal belongings into it.

  After finishing with Yao Jia, he walked up to Shao Bing in order and nodded towards the cardboard box.

  The soldier walked around the dormitory, collecting a whole box of miscellaneous items. Then, his assistant gestured to another soldier, who distributed the clothes in his hand to Xia Wenjie and others. After finishing the distribution, he walked out of the dormitory and brought back six pairs of shoes from outside, still distributing one pair to each person.

  The instructor's assistant said: "From now on, these clothes will be your uniforms. During the training period, you can only wear these clothes."

  As he spoke, he glanced at his watch and continued: "You have one minute to change your clothes." With that, he walked out with two soldiers.

  Yao Jia picked up the clothes that had been handed down, shook them out and said: "Great! We're dressed just like them now." Their clothes were the same as those of the instructors and soldiers - black vests, black trousers and black military boots.

  Holding her clothes, Tang Xiang felt most embarrassed. She looked around the dormitory, which was just a small space, and there wasn't even a place to change clothes without being seen. Her eyes rolled around, and she stood up, picking up the bed sheet and patting Xia Wenjie's shoulder beside her, saying: "Wenjie, can you help me hold this sheet?"

  Xia Wenjie was stunned at first, but when he saw Tang Xin's face turning red and her ears burning, he immediately reacted. He nodded, took the quilt, held it high, and blocked Tang Xin behind him.

  Yao Jia glanced over at Xia Wenjie from time to time while changing clothes, and also shook her head from time to time. At this moment, Xu Jiehui came over and asked in a stiff Mandarin accent with a low smile: "Are you very envious?"

  "Sigh, if only I could be a few years younger."

  Xu Jiehui burst out laughing upon hearing this.

  Tang Xiang changed her clothes very quickly, finishing in just over ten seconds. She thanked Xia Wenjie gratefully and said while putting on her shoes: "Wenjie, you'd better hurry up and change too, we've only got a minute left."

  Xia Wenjie nodded, put down the quilt, and quickly changed his clothes. The six of them were not uniform in build, but the clothes that came out were surprisingly well-fitting, apparently the training camp had done a thorough study on each of them.

  Looking at Xia Wenjie wearing a vest, Tang Xin burst out laughing and said: "Wenjie, I didn't expect you to be so sturdy."

  Xia Wenjie was originally wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt and casual shorts, looking quite slender. Now he has changed into a tight-fitting vest, and the muscles on his body are immediately exposed.

  "Tang Jie's figure is also very..." As he spoke, his gaze naturally fell on Tang Xin's chest, and after a glance, his face suddenly turned red, and he immediately withdrew his gaze, saying in a low voice: "Also great."

  His appearance amused Tang Xiang, and she stretched out her hand to gently pinch his cheek, smiling and saying: "If I had a younger brother as cute as you, that would be great." As she spoke, her gaze was drawn to the necklace on Xia Wenjie's chest.

  The necklace was ordinary, just a black shoelace, but the pendant hanging from it was quite unusual, a silver ring with a wolf-like pattern engraved on its surface.

  She felt a stir in her heart and couldn't help but pick up the ring, gazing at it seriously while muttering to herself: "What a beautiful ring..."

  This is the ring that Uncle handed over to Xia Wenjie before he left, and he has been wearing it all along. It's just that it was covered by his clothes usually, so outsiders couldn't see it. Now that he's only wearing a vest, the ring is exposed.

  Xia Wenjie smiled calmly and said, "It was given by someone else."

  "Who brought you?"

  "A very close relative." Xia Wenjie said lightly.

  "Oh." Tang Xian still looked at it seriously and said suspiciously: "This pattern seems a bit familiar."

  Her words suddenly changed Xia Wenjie's complexion, his heart racing rapidly, and he immediately asked: "Has Sister Tang seen this pattern before?"

  "It should be, otherwise it wouldn't look familiar, it's just that I couldn't think of where I saw it for a while." Tang Xin carefully examined the pattern on the ring, her eyes were puzzled, and she slowly shook her head.

  Xia Wenjie felt disappointed but also let out a sigh of relief.

  Tang Xin is from the National Security Department, and eight or nine out of ten people he comes into contact with are criminal organizations. When Xia Wenjie heard that Tang Xin was familiar with the pattern on the ring, his heart was in his throat, both tense and excited. He worried that Uncle might be from a certain criminal organization, but at the same time, he really wanted to figure out Uncle's true identity and background, and find out what kind of person Uncle really is.

  Unfortunately, Tang Xin didn't give him a definite answer.

  At this moment, the instructor's assistant and two soldiers walked in from outside, glanced at everyone, nodded and said: "Not bad, the speed is still quite fast."

  The two soldiers behind him took away all the clothes that everyone had changed, and when one of the soldiers walked up to Xia Wenjie, he found the necklace around his neck, stretched out his hand and said: "Hand it over."

  Xia Wenjie was stunned by what he said and asked back: "What are you talking about?"

  The soldier was lazy with many words, his eyes fell on his neck.

  Xia Wenjie suddenly realized and subconsciously took a step back, saying seriously: "I can let you take care of anything else, but this necklace is the only thing I won't give up."

  The soldier frowned and said again: "Hand it over."

  "No way." Xia Wenjie stood firm, his attitude resolute as he said this.

  The soldier was about to speak when the assistant walked over, took a look at the ring Xia Wenjie was wearing and said in a low voice: "There is a rule in the training camp that trainees are not allowed to bring any personal items. You either hand over the necklace for safekeeping or pack your things and get out of here."

  Xia Wenjie nodded and said: "In that case, I choose 'roll away'."

  No one had thought that Xia Wenjie, who was always so gentle, would become so fixated on a mere necklace, even to the point of quitting the training camp, including his assistant.

  His face was unusually gloomy, and he stared at Xia Wenjie with anger in his eyes, not blinking for a long time without speaking.

  Yao Jia was the first to come back to his senses, he shivered with a chill, ran forward, grabbed Xia Wenjie's arm forcefully, and whispered with a smile: "Wenjie, it's just a necklace, besides, we'll return it to you later, let's hand it over to them for now..."

  Before he could finish speaking, Xia Wenjie suddenly flung his arm and pushed away his hand, saying seriously: "Everything can be exchanged, including my life, but this one thing is not possible."