He even pointed at Hela as if to prove it to the other team members, then sat down on the sofa without caring whether they believed him.
Hela, meanwhile, remained standing there in a daze.
"Hey, Captain~" Liu Xiaogang sat down beside Sun Hai and lowered his voice.
Sun Hai turned and looked at him with some impatience.
"Um... how old is Hela this year? Is she an adult yet~?" Liu Xiaogang's face was slightly red, perhaps because even he thought it was shameless to ask.
Sun Hai said nothing. He slowly raised his right hand.
Smack! He slapped Liu Xiaogang across the face.
Liu Xiaogang instantly flew straight through the air like a missile, traveling several meters.
Bang~!
A deafening crash rang out.
Liu Xiaogang fell in the corner, his whole body twitching and his eyes rolling back.
"Captain! You hit him way too hard." Si Xiaobei immediately ran over to check Liu Xiaogang's injuries. Finding that he had only passed out, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Feng Xuan, Liu Xiaogang's good brother, was mercilessly laughing at him.
"Hahahaha! Serves you right, dumbass!"
Then he got punched too.
"What did I do?" Feng Xuan complained, clutching his head.
"That'll teach you a lesson. And consider it a warning: if you act like Liu Xiaogang, you'll end up even worse." Sun Hai's tone was icy.
Meanwhile, Si Xiaobei laid the still-unconscious Liu Xiaogang on the sofa, then sat down himself.
Seeing Hela still standing there in a daze, he slowly moved over to make room.
He gently patted the empty spot twice and spoke softly to Hela.
"Sit down too~"
Hela first looked at Si Xiaobei's harmless-looking face, then at the empty spot she had left for her.
After thinking for a little while, Hela understood what he meant and walked straight over to sit down.
"Huh? Wow! Captain, look! Miss Hela can actually understand what I mean now!" Si Xiaobei looked at Sun Hai, both surprised and delighted.
Sun Hai was just as surprised and dumbfounded.
So Hela could understand what Si Xiaobei said to her?! When he'd asked Hela to eat, she'd grabbed the food with her hands!
Sun Hai didn't think he was much worse-looking than Si Xiaobei. Why the double standard?!
Though waves churned in Sun Hai's heart, his face remained a block of ice, showing no trace of emotion.
Si Xiaobei turned to look at Hela sitting beside him, and even he was stunned by her beauty. Her long hair fell past her waist, white and soft as snow.
Her pupils looked as though they had been infused with blood, a perfect shade of pink.
Her skin was as impossibly white as if it had been made of snow. Aside from her pupils, even her eyelashes and eyebrows were snow-white.
With that angelic face to match, even Hela's vacant expression couldn't keep people's hearts from fluttering.
It was no wonder Liu Xiaogang had risked his life to say something like that to Captain Sun Hai.
"By the way, how much longer until the newcomer arrives?" Sun Hai took a sip of coffee and spoke casually.
"I heard she'll be here next week," Nanming, who had been sitting quietly to one side, suddenly said.
"Hey, I remember she's a woman too, right?"
"Shut up."
"Yes, Captain!"
Seeing Sun Hai's icy gaze, Feng Xuan immediately shut his mouth.
Sun Hai took another sip of coffee and spoke unhurriedly.
"What's her basic information?"
"Her name is Xing Lan. She's nineteen, enlisted two years ago, and is an ability user. Her specific ability isn't very clear yet, but I've heard she's very strong in combat. Her strength has reached the 'High Rank' level."
Nanming answered briskly and efficiently, as quick as a machine.
"Wow~! She's an ability user like the captain and me! And she's even stronger than me!" Si Xiaobei exclaimed, his mouth wide open.
Everyone else, Sun Hai included, was also a little surprised. After all, High Rank ability users that young were a rare sight.
"After all, you're not a combat-type ability user.
"Hmm~ she enlisted at seventeen, just one year later than me." Feng Xuan rested his chin on his hands, then seemed to think of something and gave a lecherous smile.
"By the way, is she pretty~?"
"Hm~?! Who? Who's pretty?"
Liu Xiaogang, who had been unconscious just a moment ago, sat up groggily as though he'd heard a keyword.
But the moment he met Sun Hai's eyes, his whole body shuddered, and he immediately sat up obediently.
Nanming scratched his cheek in slight embarrassment, then cleared his throat.
"Uh... I do have a picture of her."
"Let's see it!" ×2
Nanming: ...
Nanming took out his phone, opened a picture and put it on the table.
"I took this while I was looking through her file. I was in a hurry, so I didn't bring the file. This will have to do," Nanming said mildly.
But Liu Xiaogang and Feng Xuan weren't listening at all. They immediately crowded around the phone, eager to see whether the "newcomer" was pretty.
"Whoa, she's the mature beauty type!"
"Too bad I'm not really into mature beauties, but she really is gorgeous!"
"I'm in love, I'm in love."
Hela: ⚆_⚆
"Huh? Ah!" Liu Xiaogang turned his head and saw Hela's face right beside his, startling him so badly that he jumped away.
"H-Hela?!" Liu Xiaogang clutched his pounding heart.
"Y-you really scared the..."
Liu Xiaogang stopped before he could finish. The terror on his face slowly gave way to a blush, and his eyes stayed fixed on Hela as though they'd been caught on a hook.
His heart was still pounding, but it seemed fear was no longer the reason.
He hadn't seen Hela for long before the captain slapped him unconscious, so he hadn't gotten a clear look at what she actually looked like.
But now, after taking a close look at her,
Liu Xiaogang felt that every beauty he had seen from childhood until now was like an ant compared to Hela.
At that moment, Liu Xiaogang even felt as though he had been born just to meet Hela.
If he absolutely had to say what this feeling was, it was...
The feeling of falling in love!!!
"Hey, hey, Gangzi! Wake up, Gangzi!"
Feng Xuan waved his hand in front of Liu Xiaogang, trying to wake him up, but Liu Xiaogang remained as motionless as a statue.
"Ahem. All right, I'll go to the base next week to meet her and personally test her strength."
"Huh?! Captain, don't tell me you've got your eye on her? I didn't get that kind of treatment when I first came..."
Then Feng Xuan met Sun Hai's eyes, which were looking at him as though he were already dead.
"Ah! Captain, spare me! I know I was wrong, don't kill me!" Feng Xuan crouched down, clutching his head as he shouted in terror.
After quite a while, he realized that nothing had happened to him.
"Huh?!" Feng Xuan looked at Sun Hai in confusion.
Sun Hai, meanwhile, remained seated and took a sip of coffee, as though nothing had happened.
"Huh? Something's not right, Captain. Normally, if I said something like that, you'd have killed me already. What's going on?!"
But Sun Hai went on speaking as though he hadn't heard him.
"Our reconnaissance team is a rather special team. Although we don't have to fight head-on, the places we go are dangerous, like battlefields.
"If a girl doesn't have enough strength, it's easy for her to go and never come back. I won't let her join.
"That's why I decided to test her strength personally."
"Oh~ I see. Captain, you really are thoughtful!" Realization dawned on Si Xiaobei's face as he praised Sun Hai.
"But Captain, weren't you suspended for two months? How are you going to go?"
Nanming was the first to spot the problem and ask, but Sun Hai wasn't flustered in the least.
"Don't worry, I can still take care of a little thing like that.
"You should hurry back and get ready. Things might get a little lively next week."