However, when this group came out of the cafeteria and saw those people striding in from the outskirts, heading back to their own rooms, they stopped as well. Those people did not eat in the cafeteria, instead returning to eat meals prepared by assistants. That alone showed they had passed the assessment!
Passing the assessment meant becoming Qianlong reserves. As long as their points met the standard, they would become the true Hidden Dragon Gold Medal members everyone dreamed of.
"Hey, brother!" Lin Xiaosu patted the shoulder of the young man beside him, who was eating timidly.
The young man looked up and gave him a small smile in response.
"What's your name?"
"Zhou Zhen. And you?" the young man asked.
"Lin Xiaosu." Lin Xiaosu said, "What are you good at?"
Zhou Zhen said, "I might have come here by accident. I... I just like tinkering with computer viruses."
"A hacker?"
"No. The big brother who brought me here said I can't call myself a hacker anymore. I should be called a Red Hacker."
"When did you get here?"
"Just now! What about you, Xiao Su?"
"Me too, just now... You chose the Spycraft Zone, right?"
"Yeah, the Cyber Control section in the Spycraft Zone. Which section did you choose?"
It was an ordinary question, yet Lin Xiaosu hesitated. After a long while, he said, "Firearms, I guess."
After lunch came training time. Lin Xiaosu and Zhou Zhen parted at the entrance to the training area. Zhou Zhen went to the Spycraft Zone, while Lin Xiaosu entered the Firearms Zone.
On the mountaintop behind them stood a small courtyard, like something out of a Jiangnan water town. A woman sat on a swing. With a light tap of her toes, the swing soared upward, and her bearing was utterly carefree.
She was Changye.
Yet the Changye now was entirely different from the Changye Lin Xiaosu had met.
Her facial features had not changed, but her skin was several shades fairer than in the Outside World. She had removed her simulated protective skin, and once it came off, her skin was like that of a baby who had never seen daylight.
Her hair was no longer perfectly neat, but flew high in the air.
It was as though she had cast off her shackles, revealing the light, unrestrained grace of a fairy floating through the sky.
Across from her sat a petite beauty with exceptionally lively eyes. Her tiny mouth was extremely busy as she ate grapes. The grapes on the table vanished at a rate so absurd it defied belief. In mere moments, as her mouth moved in a blur, the pile of grapes visibly dwindled, flattened, scattered into little specks, until only one remained.
The petite girl spoke. "Sister Changye, you really haven't figured out a medicine to cure the poison in your body?"
"I have some leads, but I haven't truly succeeded yet."
"You need to work harder. Really, you're already completely ripe. You need to make arrangements for your future man. Otherwise, wouldn't all that boundless charm of yours have grown for nothing?"
"Xin Yue, Xin Yue, can't you think about something normal at your age?" Changye sighed softly.
"I've always been thinking about normal things. I keep wondering which immortal I offended. Why is it that whenever my reserve points get close to the threshold of one thousand, some accident always happens and knocks me back down?"
"Cough..." A trace of conflict appeared on Changye's face...
Suddenly, her gaze fixed on a certain direction.
Xin Yue followed her gaze.
A projection appeared in the empty air before them.
It showed a handsome man walking toward a testing area with the swagger of a whoremonger. Two large words marked the testing area: Zone B.
"Zone B! The Firearms Zone!" Xin Yue cried out. "Didn't you say the guy you brought back was a criminal investigation genius? Why isn't he entering the fourth section of the Spycraft Zone? Why did he go into the Firearms Zone?"
"This guy... this guy is pretty strange. Sometimes he looks smart, but sometimes he gets muddleheaded. It's fine. Once he takes a lap around in there, he'll soon learn what it means for a profession to be the wrong fit. Once he hits the south wall, won't he turn back?"
Lin Xiaosu entered the Firearms Zone.
He swiped his card across the door, and a large screen before him displayed his personal information, along with the basic rules of the Firearms Zone.
The Firearms Zone was a broad category containing all kinds of firearms and equipment. Whether guns or tools, everything was laid out there for use at any time, with instructions displayed beside them.
Lin Xiaosu walked along the racks ahead, taking in sights impossible to encounter in the Outside World.
Dragon Dagger, seven inches and eight tenths long, made of Tungsten Gold. It could stab, flick, and chop. The dagger body could bear two hundred jin of weight...
Dragon Cord, eighteen meters long, capable of bearing five hundred jin...
Hairpin Needle, range of fifty meters, a weapon of espionage...
Dragon Blade, three chi long, designed for special operations...
Reverse Bra, for women only, with Hairpin Needles concealed within. A weapon of espionage...
Looking at the bewildering array of equipment, Lin Xiaosu's thoughts completely went off the rails. Fuck, what kind of place did I enter? Forget teacups, plates, briefcases, and umbrellas being usable as murder weapons—even bras and hairpins can be murder weapons. Aren't you afraid everyone will end up traumatized, tense even when they're dating? Are people supposed to enjoy life happily or not?
Lin Xiaosu did not touch the cold weapons.
Ahead were the proper firearms.
Every kind of gun was available.
Submachine guns, machine guns, rocket launchers—every model was there. There were even miniature missiles.
Of course, they were all loaded with training rounds...
Lin Xiaosu picked up a small pistol. It was only around eight inches long, about the size of a larger phone. He considered that, if he were truly carrying out missions outside, this was probably the only size of gun he would be willing to choose.
Then, holding that gun, he pushed open a door beside him.
Beyond the door was a huge platform enclosed by walls on all four sides.
But the moment Lin Xiaosu entered, the lights came on, and the platform space transformed out of thin air into an open wilderness, as if by magic.
He knew it was not magic. It was modern holographic projection technology.
The gun in his hand was not actually a real gun either. It was similar to a game controller.
At its core, he was playing a game. It was simply a highly simulated game. If he could hit targets in the game, then replacing the gun in his hand with a real one would allow him to hit targets in the same real environment.
That was why it counted as training.
A target appeared ahead of him, roughly a hundred meters away.
"He chose the G2 Pistol. It's short and easy to conceal, but its weakness is that its accuracy is difficult to control. How many shots do you think it'll take him to hit the target?" Changye lightly touched her toes to the ground.
The projection before her showed the complete scene in front of Lin Xiaosu.
Xin Yue laughed. "For someone who studied himself stupid, it'll be impressive enough if he can even see the target. You expect him to hit it?"
"You'd be wrong about that. You can say his physical skills are lousy, but don't ever say his eyesight is lousy. I bet he'll hit the target within three shots!"
Psh!
Lin Xiaosu pulled the trigger. The first bullet landed at least ten meters away from the target.
That was the weakness of a pistol.
Pistols were short, and their accuracy was exceedingly difficult to control. In modern crime prevention, anyone who could hit a criminal from fifty meters away was already a sharpshooter. At a hundred meters, it was purely a matter of probability.
"See? This is what you call the wrong profession!" Xin Yue cried happily. She somehow produced a bag of sunflower seeds and began cracking them...
The second shot rang out, and Xin Yue froze. "Fuck, he hit the target! A blind cat ran into a dead mouse, right?"
The third shot. The electronic screen displayed: 8 rings!
The fourth shot, 9 rings!
The fifth shot, 10 rings!
The sixth shot, 10.5 rings!
Lin Xiaosu spun the pistol once around his fingertip, increasing the difficulty for himself. He raised his hand, and the seventh shot landed at 10.5 rings!
Changye sprang up violently, her eyes shining brightly.
Xin Yue let out a strange cry. "I'll fuck his eight fathers, that's fierce! He must have trained before, right?"
"According to the files, he really hasn't! And his 10.5 rings were achieved by gradually rising from missed shots. At first, he clearly wasn't familiar with the gun in his hand, but after only seven shots, he became as fluent as flowing water. Watch his movements."
Lin Xiaosu suddenly spun around in a full circle, turned three hundred and sixty degrees, raised his hand, and fired!
From raising his hand to firing the bullet, there was not the slightest hitch. Yet the electronic screen displayed 10.6 rings!
"This defies all reason!" Xin Yue said. "Back then, it took me a full three months of practice to achieve over a hundred rings in ten shots. That was already an unprecedented—well, almost unprecedented—level in Qianlong. But this kid did it in an instant! And you still dare say he never trained before?"
Changye's eyes flickered. "Shooting depends first on eyesight, second on the coordination and stability of hand and eye becoming one, and third on the aptitude to adjust parameters. I have never doubted his eyesight, and his aptitude seems outstanding as well. Now we'll see his stability. If every shot afterward stays above ten rings, then he'll be the second Gun God after 066!"
Lin Xiaosu fired ten shots in succession. Every shot scored 10.8 rings.
After ten shots came another ten—10.9 rings!
The highest standard!
Over the next fifty shots, every shot scored 10.9 rings.
Changye and Xin Yue's mouths both fell slightly open.
His stability had frightened them.
Then Lin Xiaosu actually began showing off tricks. He spun around, ran a few steps across the ground, fired while running, even suddenly leaned backward and fired. His movements completely overturned shooting-range conventions. Ordinary people had to remain relatively still to maintain good results, fearing that even a tiny mistake in stance would cost them the best shooting angle. But he bounced around like a monkey, and whenever the gun in his hand fired, it was unfailingly 10.9 rings.
That level of stability was unprecedented and would never be surpassed.
One hundred shots!
Two hundred shots!
Three hundred shots!
Five hundred shots!
With a boom, a huge flower appeared on the electronic screen. A bullet streaked through it like a stream of light, breathtakingly dazzling and shocking.
Xin Yue and Changye cried out together, "He triggered the Gunslinger Line..."
Five hundred consecutive shots above ten rings triggered the Gunslinger Line. It represented directly clearing the fixed-target course, and it also represented the birth of the best score ever seen on the firearms training ground.
Before you continue