Night was like ink, and the cold wind wove through the camp, making a weeping sound.
Inside the tent, the new recruits had long since fallen into deep sleep, their exhausted snores rising and falling in turn.
Only Wei Zhe opened his eyes in the darkness, bright as cold stars.
His hearing had become exceptionally sharp after his constitution improved, and those few muffled breaths and stealthily approaching footsteps outside the tent were crystal clear to him.
It seems that this so-called "welcome ceremony" cannot be avoided in any military camp.
Wei Zhe gave a cold laugh in his heart.
This was an unwritten rule in the military camp. On the very first night the new recruits entered the camp, the veteran soldiers would give them an "unforgettable" lesson, using their fists to tell them who the master here was. At the same time, it was also a cruel screening process to grind away the sharp edges and pampered airs of the new recruits.
If it were anyone else, at this moment they would either be completely unaware or panic-stricken and unprepared to take a beating.
But Wei Zhe was different.
Far from feeling even a trace of tension, he was actually somewhat... expectant.
He was just worrying that he had no opportunity to establish his authority, and never expected that such an opportunity would deliver itself to his doorstep so quickly.
The footsteps stopped outside the tent.
"It's this tent, that kid named Wei Zhe is inside," said a lowered voice.
"Hmph, he was arrogant enough at the recruitment office this afternoon. Tonight, I'll let him know that in the Northern Frontier Camp, if you're a dragon you coil up, and if you're a tiger you lie down!" Another voice was filled with malice.
"Keep it down, don't make a scene over human lives. Instructor Shi Meng said to just loosen up their joints."
"Got it, go in! Start with that biggest one called Hu Lei first!"
With a low shout, the door curtain of the tent was violently jerked open, and five or six black shadows sneaked in noiselessly.
The veteran leading the charge used the faint moonlight to instantly spot Hu Lei, who was sleeping in the middle and had the most robust physique. With a grim smile, he raised his foot and prepared to kick out.
However, the very moment he raised his foot, a black shadow was even faster!
"Bang!"
A muffled sound was exceptionally abrupt in the silent night.
The veteran only felt a sharp pain hit his lower abdomen, as if he had been struck by a wild bull, and before he could even let out an "ao" cry, he was sent flying backwards with his body arched, crashing heavily against the wooden frame of the tent and producing a loud noise.
"Who?!"
"What's the situation?"
The rest of the veterans were greatly startled, stopping in their tracks one after another.
The new recruits inside the tent were also awakened by the huge commotion, sitting up one by one with sleepy eyes and looking blankly at the scene before them.
"Who dares to make trouble in the military camp?!"
Hu Lei was also jolted awake. He scrambled to his feet, and seeing several black shadows, he didn't even think before roaring and rushing forward with his fists the size of sand-cooking pots.
"Courting death!"
A veteran gave a disdainful cold laugh, dodging Hu Lei's powerful and heavy punch with a sideways movement, and then delivered a tricky whip kick, viciously lashing at the back of Hu Lei's knee.
"Ouch!"
Hu Lei let out a miserable shriek and fell to his knees on one leg. Though he possessed brute strength, how could he possibly be a match for these veteran soldiers who had rolled and crawled their way through the battlefield?
Another veteran stepped forward and knocked him flat onto the ground with a single punch.
"All of you, be good and behave yourselves!" Once the veterans reacted, their ferocious nature was fully exposed, and they prepared to teach all the new recruits a lesson.
Yet right at that moment, the root cause of it all, Wei Zhe, moved.
He didn't act recklessly like Hu Lei, but instead moved through the darkness like a ghost.
A veteran had just raised his fist, preparing to smash it toward a new recruit who had been scared silly, when he felt his wrist tighten, as if clamped by iron tongs, unable to budge an inch. He turned his head in shock, meeting a pair of icy pupils.
"Crack!"
Wei Zhe twisted his wrist, and that veteran's arm was folded backward at a bizarre angle, emitting an ear-piercing sound of snapping bone.
"Ah—!"
A shrill scream finally pierced the night sky.
This time, Wei Zhe did not hold back.
He understood that in dealing with these veterans who believed in the law of the jungle, mercy was cruelty to oneself. You had to be more vicious and stronger than them to make them fear you from the bottom of their hearts.
He didn't stop, kicking the screaming veteran squarely in the chest and sending him flying out of the tent.
Immediately following that, his figure shifted, and he actively greeted the three remaining dumbfounded veterans.
Thousand Refinement Force!
He didn't use inner energy, but the force-generating techniques from that set of hammering methods were integrated into his punches and kicks. Every punch and every block he executed carried a concise and efficient rhythm, as if he weren't fighting a battle, but rather conducting a precise forging process.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The dull sounds of striking were endless, accompanied by suppressed groans of pain and the collisions of bones.
The new recruits inside the tent were all dumbfounded.
They could only see that under the dim light, Wei Zhe's figure was like a cheetah, swift and lethal. Those three veterans, who seemed unimaginably powerful in their eyes, possessed no ability to counterattack whatsoever before Wei Zhe, acting like three clumsy puppets easily taken apart and beaten down.
In less than ten breaths of time.
The battle ended.
Except for the first one who had been kicked flying, the remaining five veterans were all lying inside the tent, curling their bodies and moaning in agony. Each of them had suffered not insignificant injuries, but Wei Zhe struck with extreme precision, avoiding all vital points and merely causing them to temporarily lose their combat capability.
Inside the entire tent, absolute silence reigned.
All the new recruits, including Hu Lei who had been beaten to the ground, looked at Wei Zhe with the gazes one would reserve for a monster.
Wei Zhe stood in the center of the tent, his chest rising and falling slightly, his gaze as cold and sharp as a blade.
He swept his gaze around a circle, and wherever his gaze reached, the new recruits subconsciously lowered their heads, not daring to meet his eyes.
"Get up, all of you, and throw them out."
Wei Zhe's voice wasn't loud, yet it carried an undeniable majesty.
A few new recruits gave a start, hastily scrambling to their feet in a flurry and lifting the groaning veterans with a jumble of hands and feet, tossing them out of the tent like bags of trash.
After finishing all this, they stood before Wei Zhe, silent as a cicada in winter, not daring to draw a single heavy breath.
"Sleep."
Wei Zhe uttered two bland words, then nonchalantly returned to his own bunk and lay down, as if nothing had happened just moments ago.
Only until this moment did the clamor and curses from outside the tent finally reach them.
"What is going on?!"
"Which tent is making a ruckus?!"
Instructor Shi Meng's booming voice drew closer from afar, clearly having been alerted by the commotion here.
Soon, heavy footsteps stopped outside the tent.
Shi Meng lifted the door curtain and instantly spotted those battered and bruised veterans lying on the ground outside, as well as the unscathed Wei Zhe standing inside his tent.
His pupils abruptly constricted.
As an instructor, of course he knew about tonight's "welcome ceremony." This was something he had tacitly permitted in the first place.
Yet the scene before his eyes completely exceeded his expectations.
The new recruits had turned the tables and beaten up the veterans responsible for the "welcome"?
Furthermore, it was a single person who had beaten a whole group?
"Did you do this?"
Shi Meng's gaze locked dead onto Wei Zhe, his voice so low it seemed capable of dripping water.
"Ding, issuing sequential mission: Making a Name in the Military."
"Mission One: Stand out among the new recruits and be promoted to Squad Leader. Reward: 100 Tempering Points."
Right at that moment, the cold system prompt sounded quietly in the back of Wei Zhe's mind.
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