Seven days of confinement is torture for anyone.
When the heavy iron door of the dormitory was pushed open again, and Qiao Lin, Li Yue, Zhao Yan, and Sun Erniu were brought back, the air in the entire dormitory seemed to freeze.
The four of them looked like eggplants that had been wilted by frost.
Her once rosy face was now sallow and bloodless, her eye sockets were deeply sunken, and her lips were dry and cracked.
Having barely eaten a single grain of rice for seven days, each of them lost a significant amount of weight. Their legs felt weak when they walked, and the arrogance and swagger they had displayed when they first arrived were gone from their eyes, replaced only by exhaustion and numbness.
Qiao Lin's face was particularly pale. She was not only physically weak, but also mentally devastated. Her venomous gaze swept over everyone in the dormitory, finally fixing on Zhang Man.
Zhang Man was wiping her black-rimmed glasses when she met Qiao Lin's almost murderous gaze. She simply pushed up her glasses calmly, her eyes behind the lenses showing no emotion whatsoever.
Zhou Zhihui immediately moved closer and stood next to Zhang Man, seemingly casually, but clearly stating her position.
Now, Zhang Man is part of Zhao Yan's clique.
Qiao Lin was so angry that she almost ground her teeth to powder, her chest heaving violently, but she couldn't utter a single word. Her experience in the solitary confinement cell had taught her that here, her father's title as deputy division commander was utterly useless.
A fierce dormitory battle ended in a lose-lose situation.
From then on, a strange balance was established in the No. 1 female soldiers' dormitory. On the surface, everything was calm, and everyone wisely avoided provoking others, but the undercurrents beneath the surface were more turbulent than ever before.
The elimination process continues relentlessly, and the days fly by in the monotonous and brutal training.
Every morning, before dawn, a piercing whistle breaks the pre-dawn silence.
Everyone must be dressed and assembled on the playground within three minutes; being even one second late means losing the right to eat breakfast.
Training is tedious and monotonous; the 10-kilometer armed cross-country run is a daily ritual, a regular appetizer.
Next came the obstacle course, which challenged the limits of human endurance: high walls, low stake nets, and a log bridge... each one draining the trainees of their last bit of strength.
The afternoon consisted of specialized training exercises, including shooting, hand-to-hand combat, reconnaissance, and counter-reconnaissance...
In the evening, when everyone was exhausted, there were still two hours of ideological and political study sessions, with repeated emphasis on discipline and obedience.
Under such a high-intensity pace, Su Tang gradually pieced together the whole picture of the training camp through casual conversations with Wang Xiaoya and the others.
Just as she thought, most of the trainees here were selected because of a particular outstanding "talent".
For example, Wang Xiaoya's stamina and sense of smell, Liu Landi's tracking ability, Chen Xiaocao's wilderness first aid, Zhao Yan's fighting skills, Sun Erniu's strength, Zhou Zhihui's memory...
But strangely, they didn't seem to know what kind of people they were going to become.
In their simple understanding, they came to serve as soldiers to protect their country.
Although the training was tough, as long as they persevered, they could earn a generous bonus and even resolve their family's class background issues. For these women from rural backgrounds, it was an opportunity worth risking their lives for.
"Su An, which unit do you think we'll be assigned to?" One evening, Wang Xiaoya asked Su Tang in a low voice while mending her socks with holes in them. "I heard that if you perform well, you can become a reconnaissance soldier. That's so cool!"
Su Tang knew exactly what was going on.
Scouts? That's probably much more complicated than that.
This so-called training camp is actually a spy training base.
Lei Kuan and his team are using the most rigorous methods to select the most tenacious, loyal, and ruthless hunters.
These innocent and carefree girls are like blank sheets of paper, being forcibly stained with the colors of iron and blood.
Su Tang finally realized one thing—she was the only one in the entire training camp who was explicitly "pre-selected" by Xiao Dongsheng.
She didn't come to be selected; she came to "gild her resume" and "seek refuge."
Xiao Dongsheng threw her here for two reasons: first, to let her systematically familiarize herself with the military training model of this era and complete the identity transformation from "Su Tang" to "Su An".
Secondly, and most importantly, it was to evade the KGB's relentless pursuit. This was the most secret and, naturally, the safest place in the heart of China.
After figuring this out, Su Tang became more at ease and steadily maintained her grades at a mid-level.
In cross-country running, she always stayed in the middle of the group, breathing steadily and at a moderate pace. In obstacle training, she always managed to get through in the most energy-efficient way, achieving mediocre results. In combat training, she never initiated attacks, always managing to barely defend herself in perilous situations through a combination of luck and agility.
Her performance was ordinary and unremarkable; she would have been easily lost in a crowd.
Unbeknownst to them, two months had passed since Su Tang entered the camp, and the number of people in the camp had been reduced from the initial two hundred to one hundred, with about eighty male soldiers and only twenty female soldiers remaining.
Surprisingly, in the No. 1 female soldiers' dormitory, a place that has been rife with conflict since day one, the ten women have persevered as if unshakable, and miraculously, not a single one of them has been eliminated.
This made their dormitory a thorn in the side of the other female soldiers, and it was privately known as the "monster dormitory".
In the past two months, everyone has been growing wildly in their own way.
Qiao Lin and Zhao Yan have both made a name for themselves in their respective fields of expertise.
Qiao Lin has top-notch theoretical knowledge and analytical skills, and always ranks among the top in written tests.
Zhao Yan's fighting skills were unmatched, making her the "boxing queen" among the female soldiers.
Sun Erniu's strength was even more terrifying, making her a living teaching material for the instructors to demonstrate their strength.
These two months are enough for a lot to happen, and the landscape of the camp is quietly changing.
As the number of training subjects increased, everyone's special talents began to emerge, and new prominent figures appeared.
Qiao Lin finally found a more important "career" than targeting Su An and Zhao Yan—rivalry and jealousy.
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