Yi ShaoQing, who originally had a gleeful smile on his face became increasingly serious. He had watched Gu Ning go from being toppled to the ground by Zhuang Chen in three minutes to now withstanding Zhuang Chen’s attack for over ten minutes, whereas Gu Ning had been a person with no foundation in close combat at all an hour ago.
Zhuang Chen, on the other hand, was increasingly alarmed. From the ease of the beginning to the present, Gu Ning’s attack ability started forming a sense of oppression even though Zhuang Chen had gradually increased her strength. Although it was not enough to make her use her full strength, it was still enough to make her put away her contempt for Gu Ning.
This was entirely dependent on Gu Ning’s fearsome learning ability, as she was able to distract herself from this fierce fight to remember Zhaung Chen’s moves and soon mimicked those moves she had just learned to attack her back. It had to be said that her learning ability was very frightening. Moreover, in the process of exchanging blows, Zhuang Chen also found out that Gu Ning’s physical fitness was different from normal……
Excellent reaction speed and physical fitness coupled with a terrifying learning ability…… Zhuang Chen was secretly amazed.
Zhuang Chen knocked Gu Ning down again, this time she had put up for twenty minutes. Even though it was in a state where Zhuang Chen had controlled her strength, it was still amazing enough.
Gu Ning stood up from the ground, her eyes were shining. Although she had been knocked over again and again by Zhuang Chen, she was incomparably exhilarated both mentally and physically at this very moment.
It could be said that she relied on her strength and agility in killing the zombies previously, without any skills involved. However, that only worked on zombies that had not been evolved as she could still handle them. Yet, now that the zombies have evolved and those unresponsive zombies had become agile, the strength and agility she relies on would be greatly diminished. Meanwhile, knowing close combat techniques was a way to utilise the strength and agility she had possesses to her full advantage.
In just over an hour, Gu Ning had already felt the benefit of learning close combat skills could do for her.
Seeing that Gu Ning’s eyes were still shinning and her look of eagerness to continue, Zhuang Chen had to call a halt: “Wait wait! Aren’t you tired, Gu Ning?”
Gu Ning replied: “I’m fine.” It was more than fine, she couldn’t have been better.
Zhuang Chen shrugged helplessly: “You aren’t tired, but I am. Let’s stop the training for today, it’s only the first day so there isn’t a need to rush.”
Gu Ning felt that what she had learned from Zhuang Chen was enough for her to digest for a while.
Zhuang Chen pulled a towel to wipe the sweat from her face and glanced at Gu Ning’s clean face and exclaimed in surprise: “After practicing for so long, you didn’t even sweat a drop?! Such a pervert.”
Gu Ning smiled: “I rarely sweat.”
“Then the few of you feel free to practice in here, I’m going to take a shower.” Zhuang Chen greeted Yi ShaoQing after she had finished speaking, then the two of them left together.
In the small conference room, Zhuang Chen made her assessment of Gu Ning’s performance in the afternoon: “Gu Ning is amazing in both her reaction speed and physical fitness as well as her learning ability. From this point of view, it’s very unlikely to be someone who has never trained before.”
Yi ShaoQing flipped the information in his hand, then commented: “According to the information collected, Gu Ning used to belong to the type of people who didn’t have a high presence in the university. She didn’t participate in the school sports at all, much less to learn taekwondo or other martial arts. Gu Ning’s family background is extremely simple, her father has been a teacher in a high school for over twenty years while her mother is a housewife and their interpersonal relationship is clear. The only thing that is a little strange is that she went on a trip after graduation and was out of touch for three months. Her parents reported her missing, but the police have also found records of her registering her stay in the area with her ID card, and videos of her going in and out of the hotels.”
“So how did she know about the Five Stars Brigade?” Yin Sang asked a vital question.
Yi ShaoQing continued: “The commander of Third company said it was a friend of her. I’ve also asked someone to investigate this friend of hers, and he was a police officer named Fang Fa who had been close to Gu Ning recently that had leaked out this information. This Fang Fa had graduated from military school and served in the army. He also took part in the selection process the year before but was unsuccessful. There is nothing wrong with any of this information. We can say that Gu Ning’s identity is very clean.”
Zhuang Chen nodded and chimed in: “If she had any ulterior motives, then in order not to arouse our suspicion, she would have hidden these differences in herself. However, it’s like she doesn’t even know that she’s different from the norm. So I still think she should just be talented.”
Yi ShaoQing nodded: “I agree with what Zhuang Chen.”
Gu Ning didn’t know that there was a dispute within the Five Stars Brigade because of her, she was practicing with Zhang XiaoBai and the other two.
Zhang XiaoBai refused to get up after being knocked to the ground for the third time by Gu Ning: “Enough, no more fighting! You pervert!”
Gu Ning looked awkwardly at Zhong Xu and Chen Gen.
Zhong Xu hurriedly walked a little further away while Chen Gen silently stepped back and pretended not to see Gu Ning’s gaze at all. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t practice with Gu Ning, it was because she was just too scary.
After learning those moves from Zhuang Chen, she used them all on the three of them. All of their close combat skills were very average, and after being knocked over by Gu Ning a few times, they were afraid of falling. Gu Ning had no choice but to go and beat up the sandbag helplessly.
Dinner was ordered from the takeaway, and in order not to scare them too much, Gu Ning tried to restrain her appetite. However, when she picked up the third portion of rice, Zhuang Chen, Yi ShaoQing, and Yin Sang’s expressions still changed. Ji JiuZe just glanced at her and then continued eating his bowl of food.
Her room had already been set up while she was still at the training area. After changing into a clean set of pajamas, Gu Ning lay on her bed, still a little overwhelmed as she recalled the close combat skills she had learned during the day.
Even though she had made sure the door to her room was locked, she still went into the bathroom, locked the door before entering the space.
Gu Ning took a look at the ocean level as usual, yet there was no surprise and nothing had changed.
Gu Ning was now able to fully accept this fact as she glanced at the ocean, wondering when it would be totally dry up.
Leaving the space to the post-apocalyptic world.
It was already nine o’clock in the morning, yet the dawn slowly rose.
“The sun is rising late.” Fang Fa walked over to Gu Ning with a piece of bread in his mouth and a messy chicken nest haircut. He followed her gaze into the sky while passing the other piece of bread in his hand to Gu Ning.
Gu Ning took the bread and said: “The sun is sinking earlier in the evening too.”
Fang Fa asked with a sudden thought: “What do you think the world would be like if the sun never rise again one day?”
However, Gu Ning only replied: “I hope that this day would never come.”
Cheng Ming unintentionally passed by and froze for a moment as he stared at Fang Fa and Gu Ning’s back view in the backyard, while his expression became a little gloomy.
The children were stronger and more diligent than the adults thought about them.
Although yesterday’s training had worn out the fragile hands of several children, most of them were presented for the training today except for two of the younger girls.
The training program that Brother San had set for them was to get up every morning at seven to go running in the backyard. Whoever finished the 3,000 metres course first could go and have their breakfast.
After a half-hour break from breakfast, they started chopping down trees. The trees they were chopping were catalysed by Gu Ning’s psychic power. This was also a new way Gu Ning had found to consume less psychic energy. If she used her psychic energy to conjure something out of nothing, the amount of energy consumed would be almost several times than catalysing the already existing seeds or saplings. The amount of energy required to catalyse a few saplings were almost negligible to Gu Ning.
A tree that could only be encircled by an adult was chopped by groups of two from morning to night, and today’s training event was still tree chopping.
Their blistered palms were just wrapped in a few layers of gauze. As compared to yesterday, the enthusiasm of the children was subdued. With the pain in their hands, they were all chopping it half-heartedly.
Among them, however, were a few children who did exceptionally well.
One was Wu Sen, a young boy who had already made an impression on Gu Ning. Along with a little fatty named Zuo You who was always sticking with him had to take three breaths before he could chop the tree again but never did he ever stopped chopping. Another was the oldest of girls, He He, who was also pursing her lips and chopping hard at the tree.
Father Gu pointed out: “These three kids are amazing.” After a few days of recuperation and with Gu Ning’s healing powers, Father Gu looked a lot more energetic. He loved reading newspapers before the apocalypse happened, but now there were none for him to read. Gu Ning was afraid that he would be bored so she had him in-charge of supervising the children which he enjoyed a lot. He sighed again: “If there had been peace like the past, these three children would have been of great use in the future. They are so young and have so much perseverance.”
Gu Ning smiled faintly. If they were able to grow up safely, that would be the future that Brother San had been talking about.
It was unable to tell how many children had died in such a disaster.
Was the population now just a percent of what it was before the apocalypse happened? Gu Ning didn’t know, but as far as Jinyong was concerned, it was definitely less than one percent.
After dawn, Brother San and the others would be heading out again.
Under Gu Ning’s strong request, the other soldier was replaced and she took the spot.
Right now, she couldn’t wait to get a feel of how close combat would work in real battle combat.