LWDC Chapter 105

Chapter 105: Friendly Fire

Chapter 105: Friendly Fire

Chapter 105: Friendly Fire

The next day, while on a clearing mission outside the base, Zheng Liwen, who was there doing “free labor,” noticed that Ning Fei had changed his lighter.

He asked, puzzled, “Why did you change it? Do you have different ones for inside and outside the base?”

Hearing this, Ning Fei, who had been gazing out the car window, lost in thought, turned his head, and the movement of flipping open the lighter in his hand stopped.

“This one?” he asked, holding up the lighter and waving it, his answer slightly off-topic. “Ha, this one’s windproof.”

Zheng Liwen carefully examined the lighter for two seconds, confirming that it was significantly more expensive than the one from yesterday. But he didn’t mention it, only joking, “What, you don’t like the way I light your cigarettes?”

“You do a good job, but I don’t dare trouble you again,” Ning Fei replied in a similarly joking tone. “Once or twice is fine, but if I always ask you to light them, it’s a little too ambiguous, brother.”

Upon hearing this, Zheng Liwen sized Ning Fei up for a moment before suddenly saying, “You’re really quite interesting.”

“Hold it right there, don’t analyze me,” Ning Fei stuffed the lighter into his pocket. “Instead of thinking about my lighter, you should think about how to cooperate later.”

Seeing his action, Zheng Liwen asked, puzzled, “Why did you put it away? Not smoking?”

“Smoking in the car with everyone in it? I’m not that rude,” Ning Fei made up an excuse. “I was thinking about something, so I was just fiddling with something in my hand. Did the clicking bother you?”

“Not really,” Zheng Liwen said. “But you look so serious that it’s a little scary, making me suspect that this might not just be a B-level mission.”

Ning Fei glanced at him, “Oh, did you think I was dragging you here to die with our team?”

“…” For the first time, Zheng Liwen thought Ning Fei was difficult to talk to.

No wonder Yu Zhou told him before they came that he shouldn’t argue with Ning Fei, or he would suffer. Although they hadn’t started arguing yet, Zheng Liwen already sensed that if he did argue with Ning Fei, he would be rendered speechless by his retorts.

“Hey, Captain Zheng, don’t worry, the mission will definitely be fine!”

While Zheng Liwen was silent, the other members sitting in the front row spoke up with a chuckle, “If there’s anything fishy about the mission, our Captain Ning will nag us endlessly, reminding us over and over again. He’ll dig up all our past mistakes and possible oversights, and scold us relentlessly. That machine-gun-like speed of speech can make a person feel utterly ashamed! But we’re used to it, Captain Ning only keeps reminding us because he cares about us, hahaha!”

“Cares my ass, how disgusting,” Ning Fei grumbled, but there was finally a hint of a smile in his tone. Zheng Liwen observed his expression and realized that Ning Fei didn’t want to continue the conversation, so he didn’t bring up any more topics and turned his head to look out the window on the other side.

The car became quiet again.

Ning Fei’s thoughts involuntarily returned to his previous musings.

–Duan Yunhong will definitely come to interrogate me, most likely in the next two days.

–How exactly can I deceive this guy…

*

Ning Fei and Zheng Liwen’s “fire and wind combination” didn’t achieve “work without pain,” but instead, “the more they worked, the more tired they got,” ultimately ending in failure.

Zheng Liwen didn’t have many thoughts about it and even felt that Ning Fei ended the experiment too early. Ning Fei glared at him, annoyed, “Of course, you’re not tired, you can just create small fires anywhere, but I’m the one controlling the wind, okay? There are so many trees here, if I lose focus even for a moment, it’ll be ‘set the mountain on fire, spend life in jail’. I shouldn’t have listened to your suggestion, wasting my energy, time, and abilities with you.”

As soon as his “machine-gun” complaining started, Zheng Liwen noticed that the members of his team all silently moved away, seemingly afraid of being scolded by him. Zheng Liwen could only reply, “…I was just told by someone else.”

“‘Told by someone else’? Leaving aside whether that person has any actual experience, even if you and I succeed in trying it out, I can’t always partner with you, you’ll still have to find another wind-type, right? Forget it, let’s not bother anymore…” Ning Fei didn’t finish speaking when he heard the temporary pairing of the military and police teams broadcast over the walkie-talkie, requesting the ability users to provide support on the flanks.

Ning Fei immediately straightened his expression and replied, “Roger that,” then led his team over. Zheng Liwen secretly breathed a sigh of relief and naturally followed.

This team, which usually looked relaxed and lazy, and joked around, was quite serious when doing missions, especially when facing dangers that could appear at any time. Everyone did what Ning Fei said. Unless there was an emergency, even if the team members had doubts about the instructions, they would execute them first and then voice their questions later. And Zheng Liwen, who had joined them, had no intention of seizing command at this time, and just followed orders. After no longer struggling with the so-called “fire and wind combination,” the efficiency of the two third-level ability users was indeed improved. The result of “1+1” finally changed from less than 2 to greater than 2.

Zheng Liwen even found that Ning Fei’s combat skills were no less than those of professional soldiers and police.

He could even identify guns by their sound, and immediately warned the cooperating military and police teams over the walkie-talkie, “Hey! Don’t fire shotguns in this direction! Have you forgotten that there’s a team of ability users on the flank?!”

The other side responded, “A mutated wolf has broken away from the pack and is heading towards the flank!”

Ning Fei, “Tsk, got it! We’ll take care of it, don’t fire shotguns over here!”

After a brief communication, Ning Fei decisively led his team to find the escaped mutated wolf. He held the gun in one hand, used the agility brought by the wind to run in the front, and controlled the wind to flow and probe through the bushes. Once he suspected something was wrong, his wind blades would immediately slice over. It didn’t necessarily need to inflict a fatal wound on the enemy, as long as it could make it wail, or just make a bigger noise, it would be enough for the team members to identify the direction and focus their fire.

The team dealt with several mutated creatures on the periphery in this way, and also “picked up” a young military police officer who had been separated from his team. However, this young man, who was on his first mission, not only panicked and got separated from his teammates but almost caused a disaster in Ning Fei’s team.

When a mutated creature suddenly jumped down from the canopy of a tree and swooped down on Ning Fei, who was in the leading position, the young man’s brain went blank and he fired the gun in his hand.

Bang!

The bullet flew straight towards Ning Fei. Fortunately, Ning Fei was already moving quickly, and the bullet barely grazed his right arm. Even so, the bullet still cut off a small piece of Ning Fei’s flesh and caused a burn. The slit in his sleeve was immediately stained red with blood.

“Damn it! If you can’t shoot, don’t shoot!” Zheng Liwen grabbed the young man and threw him behind, while the other team members immediately pushed forward the battle line and cooperated with Ning Fei to deal with the attacking mutated creature. Ning Fei’s actions were still nimble as if he hadn’t been injured. Only after the battle ended did everyone see that his blood had stained his cuff, and blood was dripping from his fingertips.

“Captain Ning!” Seeing this situation, the team members couldn’t help but curse, “Damn it, you didn’t shed blood fighting any demons or monsters before, but today you actually capsized in the gutter!”

“Damn, I just happened to bring this!” Another person took out a palm-sized small spray bottle from his pocket and pointed it directly at Ning Fei. “It’s said that this stops bleeding quickly, use it quickly!”

Ning Fei glanced at it and found that it was exactly the new medicine that the research institute had recruited ability users to test a while ago. He frowned and refused, “No need, it’s just a small wound, just bandage it up…”

Before he could finish speaking, the team members swarmed him and tore off his jacket, spraying the entire wound on his arm with a “psst–” sound.

Ning Fei: “…”

Ning Fei: “Okay, I only slightly injured myself with such a long cut, but you sprayed such a long stream, and when you submit the usage report later, the research institute will directly blacklist you. You sprayed so much for such a small injury, why don’t you spray half a bottle when you get a hangnail and bleed?”

The team members didn’t care about these things and replied with a few smiling remarks such as “It’s already sprayed” and “Just use it, so what?” and dispersed, not wanting to be scolded. Later, when they collectively returned to the car, Ning Fei was still grabbed and bandaged up by them. The handiwork was as ugly as it could be, and Ning Fei was too lazy to scold them.

The B-level mission ended without any real danger. Ning Fei was the only ability user injured by friendly fire. The young man was thrown back to the military police team, shaking like a sieve. A full set of warnings, criticisms, and punishments would probably be inevitable.

*

The team collectively returned to base.

The ability user team had to return to the Ability User Center to sign in and give a brief report on the mission. Ning Fei felt that he was fine–or rather, the new medicine really had some effect–so he decided to sign in first and then go to the infirmary. His team members couldn’t persuade him, so two of them followed him down, ready to step in when his injured right hand couldn’t write. Zheng Liwen also followed, for some unknown reason, but Ning Fei didn’t care about him and let him do as he pleased.

As a result, the team members waiting to help discovered that Ning Fei could not only still write but could write very well.

“Damn it, Captain Ning, you can write with your left hand too!” The team members were shocked. “Your left hand writes better than my right hand! Aren’t you right-handed?”

Ning Fei: “Even a grade schooler writes better than your chicken scratch.”

The staff, on the other hand, only noticed Ning Fei’s other hand because of this and asked how the injury came about. After learning that it was friendly fire, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief. In any case, as long as there was no risk of infection, it would be fine.

When the staff walked away again to attend to other people, Zheng Liwen approached Ning Fei and said in a low voice, “There’s a problem with Huichuan’s model.”

Ning Fei “huh?”

“Merging two teams to fight like this, if one side is irresponsible, the other side will be extremely unlucky,” Zheng Liwen frowned slightly. “You’ve trained your people well, but the other side throws out a rookie who can’t even hold a gun steadily, and you can’t not pick them up. They made a mistake, and it falls on other people. Logically, they should all learn a lesson from top to bottom. And what does the regulation say about how they should compensate you? It’s not just based on their conscience, right?”

“Come on, Captain Zheng, I’m just a small team leader, and this isn’t your territory either, why are you doing team building with me?” Ning Fei wasn’t unaware of what Zheng Liwen was saying, but he wasn’t here to fix the workplace and was too lazy to care so much. He poked the approaching Zheng Liwen with the end of the pen, “Get further away, you’re blocking my light…”

“Hey? Isn’t that the director of the Ability User Center?”

While aimlessly looking around, the other team member noticed the door leading to the inside of the center and couldn’t help but discuss, “Wow, that group of people looks like leaders, are they doing some kind of inspection?”

Hearing this, Ning Fei followed their gaze and was stunned.

Among the small group of five people, one was indeed the master of the Ability User Center, and the tallest one… was Duan Yunhong.

Duan Yunhong had even noticed Ning Fei at some point. The moment Ning Fei looked over, he directly met his eyes.

Zheng Liwen also turned to look, and with this turn, the part that was originally blocked by Ning Fei was fully exposed. Duan Yunhong immediately noticed that Ning Fei’s left hand was holding a pen, and his right hand was not raised at all. Taking a closer look, the right arm of Ning Fei’s camouflage jacket was a very unnatural dark color. Duan Yunhong’s brow furrowed slightly.

He dropped a “excuse me” and, without waiting for others to respond, strode towards Ning Fei. Ning Fei didn’t want to attract so much attention, but turning around and running away now would be even stranger, so he just stood there, waiting for Duan Yunhong to stop in front of him.

Duan Yunhong stood in front of Ning Fei, first glanced at his hand, then scanned his whole body, and finally fixed his gaze on Ning Fei’s face: “What happened?”

“Friendly fire,” Ning Fei replied succinctly. “It’s not serious, your new medicine is quite effective.”

Duan Yunhong asked again, “Didn’t go to the hospital for treatment?”

Ning Fei raised the pen in his left hand: “Going after filling this out.”

“What, no one else on your team can read?” Duan Yunhong said, and suddenly reached out and took the pen from his hand. He seemingly casually glanced at Zheng Liwen beside him, then handed the pen to Ning Fei’s team member and looked at Ning Fei again: “Come with me for treatment.”

Ning Fei didn’t want to be controlled by him like this, but if he didn’t go, Duan Yunhong might reach out and grab him. Ning Fei didn’t want to start a fight in public.

“Alright, alright,” Ning Fei had no choice but to follow him. The two of them didn’t walk out a few steps when Zheng Liwen called out from behind: “Ning Fei!”

Ning Fei stopped and turned his head to look at him, and Duan Yunhong also tilted his head back to look.

However, Ning Fei only made a simple gesture, indicating that he was fine and didn’t need to follow, and then turned back to continue following Duan Yunhong. Duan Yunhong subtly adjusted his position, so that Ning Fei’s injured side was between them, and the two of them walked out of the Ability User Center side by side.

It wasn’t until their figures disappeared at the entrance that the team members suddenly came back to their senses. Especially the one who had been given the pen, looking at the pen in his hand, had an expression of “I suddenly understand.”

“Damn it… their relationship must be extraordinary!”