Three-Yellow Chicken

After spending a night at division headquarters, Li Zhi took a helicopter to the Bird's Nest early the next morning.

Lei Hu had originally planned to take Li Zhi there himself, but something had happened at another base that night.

Li Zhi didn't know exactly what had happened, but he had heard it was also connected to Peacock Country. Peacock Country had been rather active lately, so Lei Hu had to stay at division headquarters, just in case.

After takeoff, the helicopter flew straight toward the outskirts. Ten minutes later, all Li Zhi could see below was dense forest. It seemed the Chicken Coop was in a very remote location.

Although he had been mentally prepared, the helicopter still showed no sign of landing after half an hour. Li Zhi knew then that calling the place remote was an understatement. It was in the absolute middle of nowhere!

Earlier, Li Zhi had thought that a base called the Bird's Nest was pretty lavish, using a helicopter just to deliver supplies.

Now he understood. This wasn't lavish at all. They had no choice but to use a helicopter!

An hour later, the helicopter finally began descending slowly toward a spot halfway up a mountain. If they hadn't landed soon, it would probably have run out of fuel.

The base was very well hidden. At least, Li Zhi hadn't noticed anything unusual before the helicopter flew over it.

The runway was built in a valley between two mountains. Unless you looked down from directly above, there was no way to spot it. The valley was shrouded in clouds and mist year-round, and with Yuzhou's cloudy weather, that all but ruled out the possibility of satellites spotting it from above.

Xu Feng, the squadron leader in charge of the Chicken Coop, had received word from Lei Hu the previous night that a pilot would be sent to him today. He had been overjoyed.

He didn't look down on Li Zhi for being a rookie. He knew his own situation: he was more than satisfied that a pilot was willing to come to his godforsaken corner of nowhere. How could he afford to be picky?

Besides, everyone started out as a rookie and worked their way up. Nobody was born an ace.

When Xu Feng was told that the supply helicopter had arrived, he knew the pilot he'd been longing for was here. He went to the runway himself to welcome the new arrival.

"You're Li Zhi, right? Welcome, welcome! Haha!"

As soon as Li Zhi stepped off the helicopter, Xu Feng came up to greet him warmly.

"Hello, sir. And you are?"

Xu Feng held the rank of lieutenant colonel, so there was nothing wrong with Li Zhi calling him sir. He didn't know Xu Feng yet.

"I'm the base's squadron leader. My name's Xu Feng. Just call me by my name. We don't stand on ceremony with titles here!"

There weren't many people in the Chicken Coop, and Xu Feng wasn't one for bureaucratic formalities.

"Captain Xu!"

"Your arrival has solved a major problem for us. Right now, we're so short-handed we can barely even cover patrols!"

Xu Feng was flattering Li Zhi. As things stood, Li Zhi wasn't even qualified to fly solo. It would probably be a while before he could ease their workload.

For the time being, Xu Feng and the others would probably be even busier, since they also had to train a rookie like Li Zhi!

"Stick with me for now and get familiar with the area!"

As captain, Xu Feng had to take on the job of training Li Zhi himself. Aside from him, there were only two other pilots at the base, so there was no one to spare.

"Yes, sir!"

No matter how short-handed they were, Xu Feng couldn't let a rookie fresh out of school fly solo right away. That wouldn't just be irresponsible toward the pilot; it would be irresponsible toward the country!

"You've arrived at a good time. Because of what happened last time, the higher-ups have been paying more attention to us. I hear we're getting reequipped with 10s soon, probably by the end of the year!"

The country's air force had already been gradually phasing out the Eighth Master, so reequipment was only a matter of time.

As it happened, the last conflict with Peacock Country had prompted the higher-ups to pay more attention to these bases along the border. Their commanding officer had moved them up the reequipment list.

Li Zhi smiled without saying anything. Just yesterday, he had envied Liu Zhixin for getting to fly the Jiaolong 10 right after graduation. Now there was no need for envy; they'd all have them!

Still, none of it was certain yet. What Xu Feng had heard was only a rumor.

When the other two pilots returned that evening, the four of them shared a meal in the base's aircrew mess to welcome Li Zhi!

The other two pilots were named Liao Yifei and Zeng Yuan. Both were experienced veteran pilots and very easygoing.

Their workload had been heavy lately, though, so they barely exchanged a few words before the meal ended in a hurry. The two needed a good rest, as they still had combat readiness duty that night!

Having only just arrived at the base, Li Zhi naturally had no duties. Captain Xu Feng also benefited from Li Zhi's arrival and was able to get a full day's rest.

"Xiao Li, have you flown an Eighth Master before?"

On his third day at the base, Li Zhi could finally get into a plane!

"No!"

He had only just graduated from the academy. How could he have had a chance to fly a real fighter jet?

"Want to get in and give it a try in a bit?"

"You want me to fly it right away?"

The Eighth Master in regular service was a single-seater, but practically every base had at least one two-seat Eighth Master, provided for rookies like Li Zhi.

These two-seat Eighth Masters weren't trainer aircraft, and the rear seat had no authority to directly take control away from the front seat, so Li Zhi was a little surprised that Xu Feng was letting him fly right away.

"What's wrong? Is there a problem? Scared?"

Xu Feng had his reasons for doing this. Over the phone, Lei Hu had praised Li Zhi to the skies and given a brief account of what he had done.

Xu Feng had never been one to cling rigidly to the rules either. He wanted to see what Li Zhi was made of, since that would determine when he agreed to let him fly solo.

"No problem!"

Of course Li Zhi had no problem with it.

"Good. Get ready. We leave in ten minutes!"

"Oh, right. Before that, you need to pick yourself a nickname!"

Seeing Xu Feng's mischievous smile, Li Zhi suddenly had a very bad feeling.

"Our base's code name is the Chicken Coop, and all our code names are chicken-related too. Let me think of one for you!"

"How about Chick? No, no, I think someone already had that one!"

Before Li Zhi could reject the code name, Xu Feng had already ruled it out himself. Seeing how enthusiastic he was, Li Zhi felt awkward about suggesting one of his own.

"Imperial Consort Chicken, how's that? Pearl Chicken isn't bad either. Or maybe Three-Yellow Chicken..."

"Good, Three-Yellow Chicken it is!"

Li Zhi hurriedly settled on one. Imperial Consort and Pearl didn't sound suitable for him at all. Afraid the names that followed would sound even worse, he quickly made his choice.

"I don't think Three-Yellow Chicken sounds as good as Imperial Consort. How about..."

"It's just a code name. There's no need to keep changing it. Three-Yellow Chicken is fine!"

Xu Feng still looked a little disappointed. It seemed he wasn't very satisfied with the code name.

"Oh, right, Captain Xu, what's your code name?"

"You'll find out later!"

Xu Feng didn't seem keen to tell Li Zhi his code name, and he looked a little embarrassed. But it succeeded in changing the subject, and Xu Feng stopped dwelling on the matter of code names.