Peng Yingqirui widened his eyes, repeatedly waving his hands.
"No way! I can't pull myself up! I can't eat, so you guys can have my meat! And I don't smoke! Just try your best!"
He was determined to tank completely.
Fang Huai felt a bit helpless towards this lover of lying flat and could only say, "If you practice properly and can pull yourself up once, I can help fold your blanket when you're really tired one day."
The little guy thought it over and immediately gave a thumbs up: "OK!"
He was smart; he knew that even if he couldn't pull himself up and there were no consequences, he would still have to train–as the squad leader had said, there was no escaping that.
Although everyone seemed to be shirking responsibility, a sense of collective consciousness was seemingly forming. They began to understand that their every action could bring honor or disgrace to their squad.
Before gathering downstairs, they had already started to exchange information with each other, and small cliques were forming.
Zhao Bing and the equally silent rural soldier Hu Deli, Jiang Peng, and the little guy Peng Yingqirui, who got his nickname thanks to a casual call from Hao Chengbin, Yue Tao and his fellow Fujian local Chen Zhongqiang; Fang Huai took the initiative to communicate with the more solitary Lu Zexian, Liu Yue, and Sun Lianhai.
Fang Huai, the future deputy squad leader, decided: To start the work of uniting comrades with himself.
...
The training field.
The whole company was brought in front of the horizontal and parallel bars, and Company Leader Wang Jian gave the orders.
"30-centimeter intervals on the left and right, 75-centimeter intervals in front and back, look right!"
The formation instantly spread out, with squad leaders loudly reminding them on the side.
"75 centimeters! Why so close? You wanna smell the fart of the person in front of you? Look right! Tuck your hips! Start with small steps! Don't stomp so hard! Keep your posture, no slouching or hunchbacks!"
"Third row, fifth from the left! Why are you craning your head to look forward? Just align yourself with the person beside you!"
"Still looking! Look at your grandma's leg!"
"Look forward!"
After two formations, the team finally looked decent.
But Squad Eight Leader Pan Zhaohui, with his hands behind his back and speaking in Guizhou Mandarin, seemed dissatisfied: "Wang Lian, with the way they look, what pull-ups can they do on the bars? They might as well do push-ups all afternoon!"
Squad One Leader Sun Yi also expressed disdain: "Right! Waste of training time. Just run instead. What's with the three kilometers? After they leave the squad, where will they run three kilometers? Go straight for five kilometers!"
The new recruits below were incessantly swallowing saliva, their legs soft with fear.
Only a day ago, they were all youths of society, five kilometers, a whole afternoon of push-ups?
Someone will die!
These squad leaders wouldn't be planning to sacrifice a few on the first day of new training, would they?
Wang Jian finally opened his mouth with a smile, "Today, the Regiment Department hasn't arranged any unified physical training, and there are still two companies training in formation on the track. How to run?
Let's do it this way, let's warm up for a bit first, then teach them to swing on the bars, take turns pulling two groups; those who can't do even one pull-up can just do push-ups here, the rest can take a break."
"Fine, if none of them can pull themselves up later, I'll take them away. This afternoon, I'll make the arrangements!" Squad Four Leader's face revealed a trace of a twisted yet excited smile.
The new recruits had already begun to discuss in low voices.
"Damn...it's over, I can't pull up..."
"Don't be scared, you can swing! Our squad leader said, many can swing two!"
"If we can't do the horizontal bar, can we just do one on the parallel bars?"
Fang Huai felt that the thought work he had done just now was probably in vain. The old soldiers scared the new recruits so much that the horizontal and parallel bar area, which the new recruits had feared the most after leaving the squad, had now become the place they most wanted to stay.
With that kind of smile on Squad Four Leader's face, you'd still have to pull yourself up even if your pants were torn!
(Update scheduled for 12 midnight, waiting for the new recruits to finish their promotions and get on the shelves, then the barrage of updates will begin)