Chapter 1564 - Special Mission
Huang Xiong nodded and said, "I know! She is pregnant now. Once she's done nursing the child, I'll give her a few good whippings on her bare bottom, and she'll naturally learn to behave."
Huang Ande said no more, feeling that his cousin was reasonably sensible. He had a vague feeling that the Chiefs had eyes and ears in the army, but he never dared to voice this thought casually to anyone.
Over there, Wang Qisuo had already started making noise: "What are you two big brothers whispering about? Come on, drink!"
The group continued to drink and guess fingers until nine o'clock in the evening before dispersing. If it weren't for work the next day, no one would have dared to go back too late; this drinking session would likely have lasted until midnight.
Everyone was half-drunk. seeing that Huang Xiong was already too drunk and had a pregnant woman with him, Huang Ande was afraid something might go wrong, so he went to the street himself to call two rickshaws to send the two of them back separately. He also wanted to call one for Zhu Si and his wife, but they said there was no need and they could go back by themselves.
As for the others, some went back on their own, and some were too drunk to move, so they simply slept on the floor at Huang Ande's house.
Seeing Wang Qisuo was also unsteady, holding onto the wall as he slowly made his way out, Huang Ande hurriedly asked, "Brother Wang, are you okay? If you're drunk, just rest here at your brother's place for the night."
"It's nothing." Wang Qisuo's tongue was a bit thick, but he looked reasonably sober. "Brother has to go to rehearsal tomorrow... it'll be too late to enter the city if I stay here overnight. Besides, the Chiefs are very clean and picky; I have to go back to wash and change clothes."
"Can you make it back by yourself?"
"No problem, the last bus hasn't left yet."
Huang Ande was worried, so he personally escorted him to the public carriage station and watched him get on the bus. He only returned after watching the carriage leave the station.
Wang Qisuo got off outside the Garrison Battalion dormitory area and stumbled all the way into the dormitory. Because he was participating in rehearsals, he had a camp pass, which not only allowed him to enter and exit the barracks at any time but also exempted him from the camp's curfew.
At this moment, lights out had already been blown. The camp area was pitch black except for the duty room and street lamps. Wang Qisuo groped his way to the dormitory door and pushed it open.
He lived in the NCO dormitory, which had four bunk beds. At the moment, the beds were all empty—recently, due to the Cultural Festival, the Garrison Battalion had been dispatched in large numbers for scattered duties. Except for the Mobile Riot Squad, manpower was particularly tight, and almost everyone was out at various duty points. He was the only one living in the entire dormitory room.
Wang Qisuo returned to the dormitory and didn't light the gas lamp—lights out had already passed. Turning on the electric light would be too conspicuous. He slowly took off his clothes and climbed onto the bed. However, he didn't immediately start snoring. Despite how lively he was when drinking and urging others to drink, he actually hadn't drunk much, and his eyes were burning bright at this moment.
"So the special mission is this!" he thought to himself. combining what he heard from Huang Yang at the wine table today, he remembered the company commander mentioned a few days ago that there was a special mission recently, and the Guard Company was short-handed and needed to draft capable personnel from various companies to temporarily restrain them, asking him to recommend specific candidates.
Wang Qisuo estimated that this special mission couldn't simply be security duty for the Cultural Festival. The Guard Company didn't do those things; they were responsible for the direct protection of Senators and important naturalized cadres.
If it were just Senators going to the Cultural Festival site, the Guard Company's existing strength would be enough—escorting and protecting Senators when they went out was their routine task, and there was absolutely no need to draft troops from other companies to reinforce them. So, this special mission could only be to protect the Senators' children at the Cultural Festival.
"Junior Chiefs. Interesting." Wang Qisuo silently looked at the ceiling painted snow-white, recalling seeing Life Secretaries carrying children out a few times while on duty outside the Senator residential area, but those children were very young, the oldest being only three or four years old.
The "Junior Chiefs" Huang Yang spoke of were obviously not the small children born to these Life Secretaries. They must be the "Little Senators" who came here on the big iron ship with the Senators. He had heard soldiers in the company chatting about it; indeed, there were seven or eight such Little Senators studying at Fangcaodi.
Early the next morning, according to the duty roster, he should have gone to duty at the new administrative district in the county seat, but the company commander called him over.
"Qisuo, who does your platoon intend to recommend for the Guard Company? I'm about to submit the list."
Wang Qisuo answered without thinking, "I'll go."
"You?" The company commander hesitated, "Aren't you participating in the performance..."
"The performance is only on the first day. I can be on duty on other days." Wang Qisuo said crisply, "The platoon is already overloaded with duty, short of hands... Anyhow, it's only two days in total; I'll just substitute."
"Alright then. I'll report it up."
After Zhuo Yifan and Lian Nishang's first date, he discussed with Wanlifeng, Abbess Miejing, and the others, feeling they could utilize the opportunity of the Cultural Festival held by the bandits to attack the True Bandits. As for whether to kill or capture them alive, it would depend on the situation. Wanlifeng suggested they could devise a way to use Lian Nishang to infiltrate the gymnasium.
"Persuading her seems very difficult," Zhuo Yifan said with some regret. "This woman has fallen deep into the demonic path; without time, we simply cannot persuade her to abandon the dark and turn to the light."
"We may not need to persuade the girl," Wanlifeng said. "Just find a reason to trick her into believing us."
Sha Guangtian also said, "Even if we can't trick her, it won't be hard to subdue her and coerce her to lead the way. Since she is a 'public servant' of the Bandit, it must be convenient for her to enter and exit the surroundings."
Zhuo Yifan frowned slightly, but seeing everyone agreed, it was inconvenient to object, so he nodded. He added, "I think it's very difficult for ordinary commoners to get close to the True Bandits; only False Bandits can. We need a few people to dress up as True Bandits, so it will be easier to act when the time comes."
Wanlifeng said, "That doesn't matter. It's just shaving heads and changing clothes. A great man knows when to yield and when to stand tall. To fight the Bandit, we have no problem with it!"
Zhuo Yifan said, "For this matter, we still need Abbess Miejing's nod..."
From his observations at the gymnasium today, the True Bandits' guards were more vigilant against men but arguably quite lax towards female False Bandit students. If disciples of Hengshan disguised themselves as False Bandit female students to approach the True Bandits, the chance of success would be great.
Abbess Miejing naturally agreed and specifically recommended her favorite disciple, Zhou Zhongjun, to undertake this task.
"It's just that the attire of these True Bandit female students is somewhat offensive to decency..." Zhuo Yifan said cautiously. "But this is also for the sake of the Great Ming's rivers and mountains, for peace under heaven."
Abbess Miejing's face fluctuated between dark and light for a while before she finally said, "Let it be. It's all for the common people of the world."
"Thank you, Abbess, for understanding the greater good."
"However, this matter is grave. Zhongjun is a bit too young. I think it's better to let Wan'er handle it—she is older and more steady."
"That works too." Zhuo Yifan secretly found it funny, thinking, If you saw Zhou Zhongjun's appearance now, I wonder what you would think? Anyway, as long as she nodded. During the uprising, let her provide support; otherwise, if she saw it... well, when the chaotic battle starts, who knows how many will escape alive? Probably no one will care about things like offensiveness to decency then.
Zhuo Yifan then selected the four youngest from the Hengshan disciples in the inn and had them change into False Bandit disguises. There were quite a few local native women who changed into Australian attire without purification, so this wasn't rare. Moreover, Zhuo Yifan and the others had exchanged a large amount of circulation coupons, making it easy to buy anything.
None of them understood how to dress in Australian attire, so Zhuo Yifan specially sent someone to Nanbao to make an appointment with Zhou Zhongjun, asking her to take her senior and junior sisters to East Gate Market to shop and change clothes.
As for Wanlifeng and the others, they also prepared to shave their heads and change clothes when the time came, blending into the crowd to wait for an opportunity.
As for Zhuo Yifan himself: The Cultural Festival was close at hand. He was anxious to finalize the action plan with Seventh Master, so he sent a letter with a secret code to Sima Qiudao's mailbox, asking Sima Qiudao to contact Seventh Master immediately.
The weather today was a bit terrible, dragging Lin Ziqi's mood into a low pressure as well. On the desk lay a test paper neatly, still smelling of ink—a math pop quiz, boring as always.
The desk was as big as a small office desk, made according to ergonomic principles, with suitable height and a tilted top. It was also equipped with a desktop bookshelf, a small locker, and a small drawer for stationery.
These "Holy Ship" brand desks and chairs, specially supplied by the wood processing factory for the Learning Institute, were not only made of exquisite materials—fine hardwood, either redwood or rosewood?—but the workmanship was also incredibly exquisite. It was said that just the pig blood lacquer with fine linen cloth was applied seven or eight times, shiny enough to reflect a person's shadow, and hard enough that even carving with a pencil knife wouldn't leave a mark. Lin Ziqi wasn't that bored; her best friend, Zhang Yunmi, told her this. She wasn't surprised at all: she was used to it.
The classrooms of the Learning Institute revealed an indescribable luxury everywhere, a luxury difficult to describe in words. For example, these ridiculously large hardwood desks, the teak flooring underfoot; for another example, every desk had a lamp, ceiling fans on the roof, a screen hanging above the blackboard, and a projector suspended at the back of the classroom... Nowadays, even the offices of the Executive Committee and the Senate couldn't be equipped so completely.
The weather was bad. Pale light fell from the skylights on the roof into the light well in the center of the classroom, casting soft light onto the dozen or so desks around. The classroom was ingeniously designed to ensure sufficient light without making the people inside feel glared or unable to see the writing on the blackboard clearly.
Lin Ziqi's pencil wrote the answers on the paper stroke by stroke casually. The pencils brought from another spacetime had been used up even with extenders attached. Now she was using special products from Taibai Stationery Factory. The quality was honestly not flattering; it could only be said to be barely usable.
The test was hard, hard to a perverted degree. Although Lin Ziqi was only seventeen, she was learning advanced mathematics from university science and engineering textbooks. However, for Lin Ziqi, who had almost daily one-on-one tutoring for five years, it was not beyond her ability. There were plenty of science and engineering male otaku in the Senate; advanced math was just a daily meal for them.
(End of this chapter)