Page 383

"Don’t believe me? Just try! If she crushes you, don’t say I didn’t warn you—it’ll be quite embarrassing." Sun Ru spoke indifferently. He was the instructor for this selection competition and had thoroughly investigated each participant.

Gu Xiaoxi and Yun Xiao were not to be provoked, as long as they kept a low profile and stayed out of trouble, he believed their physical strength was the strongest among everyone. He could turn a blind eye and not trouble them.

As for the others, they would all be tormented one by one. He wanted them to experience the hardship that special forces personnel must endure.

Lei He was not this wicked, "Let me think about it, from which angle should I start to torture this Ms. Gu. To pass our hands isn’t going to be easy, and becoming a special forces soldier isn’t that simple either."

The autumn sea was somewhat chilly, and by nightfall, everyone was completely exhausted and severely hungry. Over a hundred people were in the sea, desperately swimming towards the island across from them.

Despite the closeness of the distance, they felt as if the island had no end, no matter how much they swam, they couldn’t see the shoreline.

Yun Xiao and Gu Xiaoxi were together.

Both lifted their heads to look at the island opposite them, feeling that this island was very familiar.

"Isn’t this the place where you once saved me?" Yun Xiao said with a smile.

"I didn’t expect that after a whole round, we’d actually come to this place." Gu Xiaoxi reached up to wipe the water from her face, then looking at Yun Xiao, asked, "How do you feel today?"

Yun Xiao smiled faintly, "Not bad!"

Having been through far greater storms before, why would they care about a little training? It’s as simple as playing house.

In contrast to the ease of these two, the rest of the female soldiers were each panting heavily; if not for their willpower, they probably would have collapsed by now.

Suddenly, someone screamed, shouting "Help!"

Clearly, because of physical overexertion, they simply couldn’t reach the other shore.

Gu Xiaoxi and Yun Xiao quickly swam over, helped the female soldier up, and sighed at her pale face, "Can you still hold on?"

"I can!" The female soldier gritted her teeth. No matter what, she didn’t want to give up.

At that moment, the instructor driving the boat had already stopped it in front of them, looking at them coldly, "Who told you to stop?"

Gu Xiaoxi and Yun Xiao immediately continued swimming while supporting the female soldier.

The female soldier was clearly so exhausted she was dizzy, not even feeling anything when being supported by someone else.

Gu Xiaoxi tried her best to lead her, regardless, she had to bring her ashore. As for whether she should give up later, that was for her to decide.

Inspired by Gu Xiaoxi and Yun Xiao, Song Jingyi and Qin Chu barely made it to the shore. It was evident they had given everything they had, desperately wanting to stay.

Compared to the sorry state of the female soldiers, the male soldiers weren’t faring much better.

Already, three had withdrawn from the competition, unable to bear the hunger and fatigue, they chose to quit.

After reaching the shore, the instructors parked the boat at the edge and, with guns in hand, mercilessly herded them all into the forest.

A ten-day wilderness survival exercise had thus begun.

Standing in the dense and humid Shun Forest, Gu Xiaoxi wiped the sweat from her face, placed the female soldier she had saved on a rock, and looked at her with concern, "Are you alright?"

The female soldier glanced at everyone, then quickly thanked Gu Xiaoxi!

"If it weren’t for you, I might have died just now. But, I think, I might have to drop out. This is just the start, and there will be more brutal training to come. I can’t keep up."

She gave up in tears. One can have dreams, but the harsh reality left her feeling helpless!

Gu Xiaoxi sighed as she watched the female soldier leave.

She had grown accustomed to this kind of surrender and didn’t feel much about it. On her journey, she couldn’t expect everyone to be as hardworking, strong, and brave as she was!

All she could do was extend a hand to help them when they were in their greatest difficulty.

"You all rest here for a while, Yun Xiao and I will go see if there’s anything to eat.

" Gu Xiaoxi had been accompanied by Xiao Xiao along the way, and the two military dogs were already close to starving. If they hadn’t gone through special training to become exceptionally obedient, they might have rushed into the bushes to find food by now.

Shao Changfeng and Zhao Zilong also came over, looking at the beaten and battered group of female soldiers and said to Gu Xiaoxi, "Let’s go together!"

Gu Xiaoxi said nothing more; everyone entered the dense forest together.

"Gu Xiaoxi, what have you been through in the past few months to be so indifferent to this kind of competition?" Zhao Zilong asked. If it weren’t for the fact that his Inner Strength had ascended a level, he might not have even made it through the first day.

It was too cruel. From noon until now, they had endured relentless physical exhaustion. Specifically, the armed swim had nearly killed them. Even though they had visited this island before, its desolation, with no food available, also left them feeling quite helpless.

Gu Xiaoxi reached out to pat Shao Changfeng’s shoulder and comforted him, "You just need to get used to it! There’s nothing to it, even if this training weren’t in place, there would be other training. Have you forgotten that saying? In the military, the most comfortable day was yesterday."

"That’s true!" Zhao Zilong sighed and glared at Gu Xiaoxi, complaining indignantly, "Everyone is nearly dead from exhaustion, and only you two are at ease. It makes people jealous!"

Yun Xiao merely smiled without speaking. As long as they worked hard, one day, they would reach that level too. Because she and Xiao Xi had been through it before.

Physical strength has to be stimulated through training; she wasn’t capable before either, it was all through daily training with Xiao Xiao under Gu Xiaoxi’s guidance. If physical strength was lacking, it simply meant not enough training.

She indeed possessed a special ability, but her own condition was just as bad as an ordinary person, and she could be easily defeated. Gao Si was a prime example.

Although his special ability was strong, his personal skills were poor. In Gu Xiaoxi’s hands, he could barely last a single move.

In the end, Yun Xiao was the same as these ordinary people. Physical strength needed to be built, and willpower had to be tempered. If she relied solely on her special ability, she was still weak!

Gu Xiaoxi belonged to that category of freaks, especially as her Spiritual Power could cycle infinitely to maintain her physical strength. Even if she didn’t eat or drink for more than ten days, she definitely wouldn’t die from hunger.

From the beginning, her physical strength was incredibly powerful, unafraid of hardship or fatigue, and her willpower was even more remarkable.

Therefore, to surpass them, without even more brutal training, it was impossible to reach their level.

Gu Xiaoxi led Shao Changfeng and the others on a search, found some wild fruits and a few snakes in the forest. When they returned to the rest of the group’s resting place, the scene was in disarray, with even traces of a doused campfire.

"What happened here?" Shao Changfeng asked, puzzled by the messy ground.

Gu Xiaoxi and Yun Xiao didn’t know what had transpired either.

Just then, Zhong Ming and Yi Chentian emerged from the underbrush, saying with grave expressions, "Someone started a fire here a while ago and got caught by the instructor."

"Caught?" Gu Xiaoxi frowned in confusion.

"Yes, six female soldiers were all caught. Now they’re tied up on the instructor’s boat, held as prisoners. The instructor is interrogating them," Tang Yisheng also came out of the dark, speaking seriously.

Gu Xiaoxi furrowed her brows; that meant Song Jingyi and Qin Chu were also caught.

"They just said it was wilderness survival, they didn’t say they’d capture people. Isn’t this messing around?" Zhong Ming said angrily. These instructors were getting more and more annoying.

"They make the rules, anything can happen. Everyone be alert, and definitely don’t start any fires. I have some food here, you can have a bite if you’re hungry."

As she spoke, Gu Xiaoxi threw the dead snakes and wild fruits onto the ground.

Using the dim light from his flashlight, Zhong Ming stared at the dead snakes on the ground, then widened his eyes at Gu Xiaoxi, feeling his scalp go numb in an instant.

This woman, how could she casually give them dead snakes to eat!

Damn!

What they didn’t expect was for Yun Xiao to calmly take out a dagger, skillfully slice open the snake’s skin, disembowel it, and dig out a piece of bloody snake meat, then looked at everyone and asked, "Who wants some?"

The cold night wind blew, sending chills down everyone’s spines...

Gu Xiaoxi coughed and said with a smile, "You eat it yourself! If they want some, they’ll have to do it themselves."

"What about you?" Yun Xiao passed the snake meat to Gu Xiaoxi.

Gu Xiaoxi shook her head, saying, "I don’t need it right now."

Her indifferent expression clearly showed that she had grown accustomed to these things.

Tang Yisheng’s mouth twitched at the sight, which was completely different from the first time he saw Gu Xiaoxi.

Back then, she stood on the podium, looking down on everyone, training them into submission. And now, even standing quietly among the crowd, unremarkable, she gave off a feeling as profound as the ocean. It was a depth that felt beyond reach, unreadable.

Seeing no one moved, Yun Xiao tossed the snake meat from her knife into her mouth.

She wasn’t Gu Xiaoxi, who could sustain her physical strength with Spiritual Energy. She needed meat, food to replenish her physical strength; otherwise, her special ability couldn’t perform at its strongest when her body was extremely weak.

Whenever and wherever, as long as it was food that could replenish her physical strength, she could eat it. In the face of life, all those so-called fears were trivial.

Yi Chentian watched as Yun Xiao calmly finished off a plump piece of snake meat and then threw the bone to a military dog nearby, shivering involuntarily.

Although he was very hungry too, he absolutely couldn’t stomach such a chilling thing.

It wasn’t just him; Tang Yisheng couldn’t accept it either.

Looking at Yun Xiao, everyone’s gaze was filled with both admiration and wariness. This woman was just as freakish as Gu Xiaoxi.