Evolution - Chapter 71
Chapter 71
“Ji Changqing, fall out!” the instructor barked.
Ji Changqing strode forward from the ranks, snapped her legs together, straightened her back, and held her hands flat against her sides. “Here!” she answered in a clear voice.
“Tell me, why were you carrying her weight?!”
“As comrades, we help each other!”
The instructor strode up to her. Towering over Ji Changqing by nearly fifteen centimeters, he stared down at her for several seconds before scoffing, “She’s your comrade on the battlefield, not your date to a banquet!”
The Omega in the formation flushed crimson.
Ji Changqing’s lips tightened.
The instructor turned to the cadets in the formation and said sternly, “In the future, you will be soldiers. The people beside you will be comrades to whom you can entrust your lives. Get rid of that damned Alpha chivalry of yours! Get rid of that foolish idea that Omegas are delicate and need to be protected!”
The group of students bowed their heads under the scolding, but inwardly, they were unconvinced. On the battlefield, if a comrade was exhausted, were they not supposed to offer a helping hand?
“Since you chose to come here, you must be responsible for your choice! Before you ever set foot on a battlefield, all this training is meant to give you a better chance of survival! Today, you hand your pack to someone else. Does that mean tomorrow, you’ll hand your life over to someone else too?!”
The students’ hearts went cold. Ji Changqing’s expression was unreadable.
Perhaps this was what they meant by “the more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war”?
The instructor looked at the female Omega whose pack Ji Changqing had helped carry and frowned. “Zhou Sheng, ten-kilo pack, run ten kilometers, plus ten sets of frog jumps.”
If her fitness and stamina were lacking, she would just have to train them up slowly. With enough practice, she would adapt.
“Ji Changqing, thirty-kilo pack, run twenty kilometers!”
“Yes, sir!” Ji Changqing replied, strapping on the weights and starting her run.
Their training ground was a standard track; one lap was exactly five kilometers, meaning she had to run four laps.
“Everyone else, fifteen-kilo packs, five kilometers!”
A collective groan went through the students.
On the first lap, the other running cadets smiled encouragingly as they passed Ji Changqing and Zhou Sheng, making fists to cheer them on.
Although the young students understood the instructor’s point, it didn’t stop them from feeling that the punishment was unfair.
Why use humiliation when you could just talk things out properly?
Yes, on the battlefield, the enemy wouldn’t go easy on you because of your gender. Therefore, during training, every cadet, regardless of gender, should give it their all and strengthen themselves.
But from another perspective, seeing a comrade at their limit and lending a hand wasn’t necessarily about gender; it was simply because they were comrades.
It all just depended on how you looked at it.
“Sheng Sheng, look, adjust your breathing and pace like this, circulate your cultivation method… Ah! Why did you hit me?!” Someone was trying to teach Zhou Sheng by example how to get through this, only to be unexpectedly smacked on the head. Their attention immediately shifted as they glared angrily at the assailant.
The assailant paid them no mind and turned to Zhou Sheng. “I can see you’re already getting the hang of it. Just take your time to feel it out and understand. You’ll be fine.”
With that, she dragged her chattering companion away.
Her friend was really a bit dense. After all this time, had she still not realized? Everything Zhou Sheng practiced was the basic version available to the public. If not for her natural talent and hard work, she would never have made it to the Fourth Military.
What cultivation method could she possibly have?
Zhou Sheng smiled wearily, a light flashing in her eyes.
Compared to the awkward “it’s for your own good” advice from the past, where people tried to persuade her to take seemingly easier shortcuts, she much preferred the quiet support of these companions.
They wouldn’t say things like, “Why work so hard? Good enough is good enough.”
They would only encourage her, saying, “Ah, this is great. It’s a bit tough and tiring, but I’m sure you can do it.”
She was incredibly grateful that she had been able to get into the Fourth Military.
The utterly exhausted cadets stubbornly finished their lap and then collapsed right where they stood, sprawling in every direction.
The instructors had already gathered in their own group some distance away. With them gone, the cadets couldn’t suppress their urge to gossip, whispering among themselves:
“Is the instructor targeting Ji Changqing a little?”
“A little? I’d say it’s more than that,” someone chimed in grimly.
How many times had she been punished? Sometimes the reasons were high-sounding, like this time. Other times they were completely ridiculous, just random excuses to punish her.
Someone looked thoughtfully at Ji Changqing’s retreating figure. “Have you guys noticed? Ji Changqing’s performance doesn’t seem like someone who just broke through to level seven.”
Generally, instructors wouldn’t target a student for no reason. It was either genuine dislike, or they were constantly testing the student’s limits by imposing punishments and adjusting their severity.
“Now that you mention it, I didn’t notice before. She’s completed every single punishment!”
They were already exhausted just completing their daily training tasks, feeling as if every drop of their energy and stamina was being squeezed out by the instructors in various ways.
Ji Changqing was punished every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and she always completed the tasks without a change in expression. They had all thought she was just incredibly tough, refusing to back down or beg for mercy, determined to show them what she was made of.
But looking at it now, maybe she hadn’t even reached her limit yet?
At that moment, the instructors huddled together were also talking in low voices, and the topic of their conversation was also Ji Changqing.
“That should be enough, right? It’s been three months.” One of them looked at Ji Changqing’s instructor and offered a tactful piece of advice. “If you keep this up, you’ll go too far.”
Their job was to continuously unearth the students’ potential during training, but there had to be a limit. Constant pressure and criticism would only destroy a promising seedling.
Ji Changqing’s instructor took a sip of water and frowned. This Ji Changqing was a real headache.
He had known a month ago that the testing should stop, but every time the opportunity arose, he couldn’t help but add more weight to her load.
“I don’t know why, but whenever I see that unflappable face of hers, I just really want to see her crack.”
The other instructors all wore expressions that said, “I get it.”
When faced with a problem student, they couldn’t help themselves. They just had to discipline them a bit, let them feel a little “love” from the instructors.
“Control yourself, control yourself. Her attitude is actually quite good,” said an instructor from another squad with a world-weary look.
Ji Changqing’s instructor thought about it and realized it was true. Compared to the troublemakers in other squads, Ji Changqing’s attitude was impeccable.
She never talked back to the instructors. No matter how reasonable or unreasonable the punishment, she accepted it.
Not only that, but even when others in her squad felt the instructor was being too harsh, she could keep their restless emotions in check and lead everyone to train like crazy.
That was quite remarkable!
But that remarkableness was also what frustrated the instructor.
These young people… their eyes, their expressions, their attitudes… they all conveyed the same message:
Trash instructor, just wait for the combat tournament!
He was now extremely worried that when the time came, this group of youngsters would disregard the bigger picture and focus solely on taking him out first.
Well, what else could he expect from someone who had shown such brilliant command during the entrance exam? She was already leading a team to go up against her instructor.
The new students’ half-year of training was, in the end, an adaptation period.
The main goal was to correct their cultivation methods and bad habits to prevent physical injury. Another was to teach them the military’s advanced version of physique techniques and to observe their weaknesses for targeted remedial training.
But it wasn’t limited to physique, stamina, and footwork. It also included the use of various handheld conventional weapons.
The instructors had a detailed report on every student. Since Ji Changqing had performed exceptionally well in the entrance exam, she naturally received more attention.
And that attention revealed something incredible. Aside from not practicing the military’s advanced physique techniques, her movements were all flawless. She had no bad habits, and she was even proficient with some standard conventional weapons—though that was understandable. After all, she came from Blue Star and had likely trained with the Sixth Fleet for a while, where all the details would have been corrected.
If he had to point out a problem, it was that her physique technique level didn’t match her true strength.
He had observed her closely for the past three months and had a rough idea of her current limits, but he just couldn’t help himself.
Perhaps this was what it meant to be delighted by talent and eager to nurture it?
That was why he kept wanting to push her, to see just how far she could grow.
If Ji Changqing knew her instructor’s thought process, she would have definitely cursed him out. What the hell kind of “delighted by talent and eager to nurture it” was this?!
The instructors from the Sixth Fleet were a normal example of being delighted by talent and eager to nurture it, okay?
They would mercilessly beat you down while pointing out your flaws and correcting you by hand. With every little bit of progress, they would smile like a gratified old mother.
What her current instructor was doing wasn’t being delighted by talent and eager to nurture it. It was… it was ruthlessly crushing a budding flower!
She was on the verge of snapping from the silent pressure, okay?!
On the first lap, Ji Changqing, still having energy to spare, ran without much difficulty. She wondered if the instructor particularly favored her or particularly disliked her. That sour face of his was really annoying.
On the second lap, as she ran past Zhou Sheng, the other girl whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Ji Changqing smiled and shook her head. “I’m the one who got you into trouble.”
Zhou Sheng looked like she could drop dead at any moment. Her pace was incredibly slow. This was her last lap, but it was clear the burden was still very heavy for her. “No. The instructor was right. Every training exercise has its purpose. What we need to do is give our all to complete it.”
Does every training exercise have its purpose? The goal of the new students’ half-year adaptation training wasn’t to cultivate teamwork, but to quickly identify and fix weaknesses, adapt to the training intensity, and not fall too far behind, right?
Ji Changqing ran on, her mood lightening considerably.
On the third lap, not far from the finish line, she passed Zhou Sheng again. Zhou Sheng’s speed was barely faster than a brisk walk, but she was still trying her best to maintain proper form and not let her movements fall apart.
Her face as pale as a ghost, Zhou Sheng said between gasps, “I think… I’m really getting the hang of a more energy-efficient way to run. I won’t drag you guys down as much in the future.”
“Keep it up, then!” Ji Changqing passed her, crossed the finish line, and began her fourth lap.
On the fourth lap, as her breathing grew heavier, her legs moved mechanically, and her mind went blank.
After the punitive increase in her training load, Zhou Sheng said she had found a more energy-efficient technique. Did that mean that every training exercise, no matter how tedious, and every punishment, no matter how crude and unreasonable, always had a deeper meaning intended by the instructor?
If she hadn’t taken it upon herself to help Zhou Sheng share the load so the small team could reach the destination faster, would Zhou Sheng have reached her current state sooner?
So, was she really helping her by lightening her burden so she could keep up, or was she, in a “for your own good” way, unintentionally hindering her from improving herself and keeping pace because she didn’t trust that she could do it on her own?
As she thought about it, she broke out in a cold sweat.
It was just like on Blue Star. As a woman, at every critical crossroads in life, the people around you rarely encouraged you to choose the harder path. Intentionally or not, they would all say, “Why should a girl work so hard? Choose this one, it’s easier.”
And so, swept along by this environment, most women chose the seemingly easier path time and time again, until finally, they discovered their road had grown narrower and narrower, and they no longer had the right to choose.
It turned out that it was so easy for a person to change. With just a slight shift in position or perspective, one could unconsciously do the very thing they once despised.
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