Chapter 24

Qian Ye felt his stomach churning violently, and the other two young men clearly weren't faring much better. After the airship had been airborne for half an hour, the three young men could no longer hold on and vomited profusely.

By evening, the airship circled around the Yellowstone Grand Caldera and landed at the Red Scorpion headquarters base located at the northern end of Qinlu. However, the three rookies didn't have the luck to immediately witness the mysterious Red Scorpion headquarters.

They hadn't even disembarked from the airship when they received their first rookie task: cleaning. They had to clean the troop transport cabin, as well as the inside and outside of the airship, to the point where not a speck of dust remained.

Only when Qian Ye started the task did he realize that this job was no less strenuous than combat training.

The vomit inside the airship cabin was one thing, but the real challenge was the years of oil stains in the engine room and on the inner and outer walls of the airship. Although the three rookies were given specialized cleaning agents to remove the oil stains, they had to change the water in a large bucket after cleaning just a small area.

Thus, the three of them spent the night shuttling back and forth to fetch water and clean. By the end of the night, they had only managed to clean a small portion of the twenty-meter-long airship.

The various areas of the airship were strictly divided into three days' worth of work. If the task was not completed, they would not be given food or allowed to sleep.

Therefore, the three rookies spent their first three days at the Red Scorpion in hunger, fatigue, and exhaustion. By the end, they could no longer smell the heavy oil stains on their bodies. After finally cleaning the airship, the three of them returned to their dormitory and fell asleep immediately, too exhausted to bathe or eat.

During these three days, Qian Ye demonstrated consistent patience and meticulousness. He didn't miss a single corner, repeatedly wiping even the smallest oil spots clean. His cleaning and maintenance of the airship's power and transmission mechanisms were also done to perfection.

This was due to his training in firearm maintenance, where he applied the same meticulous attitude to the large airship. The results were so impressive that even the notoriously picky bald captain praised him without reservation.

The other two rookies performed well in the first half of the day but became noticeably lax later on. Seeing Qian Ye's consistent seriousness, they intentionally or unintentionally left the dirtiest and most difficult tasks to him. Although it seemed that the three of them were doing roughly the same amount of work, in reality, Qian Ye did more than the other two combined.

Qian Ye didn't mind this minor imbalance. He had learned in the Netherworld Training Camp to execute the instructor's orders without any compromise. "Without any compromise" didn't just mean the literal meaning but also the spirit behind the orders.

In the Netherworld, there was no such thing as taking shortcuts.

The other two rookies, seeing Qian Ye's attitude, were happy to let him take on more work. They were the pride of their respective families and had successfully passed the rigorous selection process to join the Red Scorpion, with bright futures ahead. Such young men could endure the pain of blood and injury, but they had never done such dirty and tiring work.

While the three rookies were buried in deep sleep, a small meeting room in the Red Scorpion headquarters was holding a meeting, with the bald captain among the five participants.

The bald captain quickly wrote scores on three forms and handed them to the others.

After the military personnel passed the forms around, they reached Wei Lishi. He glanced at them and said to the bald captain, "Although I expected this result, the scores are quite disparate, aren't they?"

"I scored them millimeter by millimeter! 'Scorpion Tail' is like my child! Any change on it doesn't escape my eyes. Those two little guys trying to play tricks in front of me? Not in a hundred years! Qian Ye is a good kid, smart and hardworking. I like him!"

Seeing the bald captain's insistence, Wei Lishi nodded and signed his name on the forms. He then said to the other three military personnel, "The test results are as follows. You decide for yourselves!"

"Qian Ye," one person said first.

Another immediately objected, "No way! Last year, you got to choose first, this year it's our turn!"

The third person said calmly, "That's not how it works. Your team used up this year's priority selection last year. Do you plan to use next year's as well?"

After a long argument, the three rookies were finally divided. In the end, the bearded man, with a pained expression, promised many personal benefits to successfully get Qian Ye.

The total score for the initial test was one hundred points, and Qian Ye alone scored sixty-five points, while the other two combined scored only thirty-five points.

The scores in the Red Scorpion had a wide range of uses, from rank promotion, resource allocation, to task selection, all of which would consume these points. The initial test scores were very high, and it would be rare to encounter such high-scoring tasks during the entire rookie stage.

Qian Ye and the others, of course, didn't know this. The two young men thought they were smart, but as the bald captain said, their little tricks couldn't fool anyone. In front of those important figures, playing mind games was tantamount to destroying their own future.

The next morning, Qian Ye was woken up by a series of rough knocks on the door.

"Get up, rookie! How long do you plan to sleep?!"

Qian Ye jumped out of bed and rushed to open the door. Standing at the door was a bearded officer, extremely tall, about two meters and thirty centimeters! Compared to the slender Qian Ye, he looked like a doll.

The bearded man sniffed hard and frowned, "Go take a shower and get rid of that smell of engine oil! You have—"

He looked at his watch and said, "You have exactly five minutes! Clean yourself from head to toe! I'll be waiting right here!" The officer shouted all of this.

"Who are you?" Qian Ye asked cautiously.

"I'm surnamed Nan, and everyone calls me Nan Badian!"

Hearing another powerful and imposing name, Qian Ye was momentarily stunned but was quickly overwhelmed by the deafening roar.

"You don't need to know my real name! From now on, you're part of my Tiger Scorpion Camp. Rookie! Go take a shower, now!"

Qian Ye immediately saluted, "Yes, sir!" and rushed into the bathroom.

Qian Ye washed himself in three minutes and rushed out, changing into a new set of military uniform in the outer room.

The uniform adopted the pure black base color of the Great Qin Empire's military, but the collar, cuffs, and other areas were decorated with red lines. There was also a scorpion pattern on the upper arm.

It was a scorpion with a black and red body, and a striking crimson stinger. This was the red scorpion, a small creature no larger than a palm, but one of the most venomous on land. A single sting from a red scorpion could kill an ordinary adult in just a few seconds.

Seeing Qian Ye come out, Nan Badian turned and walked away. His stride was half as long as an average person's, and Qian Ye had to jog to keep up.

"There's a lot to do today! First, I'll take you to get your equipment, then I'll show you to your room. Our Tiger Scorpion Camp has its own barracks, so you won't have to stay in this cursed place anymore. Then I'll take you to a few important places in the camp. You'll learn where to repair your guns, where to get some cheap good stuff, and even where to take on some side jobs, as long as they don't conflict with your combat missions. But you won't get side jobs until you're out of the rookie stage, so don't think about it now!"

By now, Qian Ye was already very accustomed to Nan Badian's speaking style and noted the key points in his mind.

Soon, Nan Badian led Qian Ye out of the temporary barracks and into the official headquarters of the Red Scorpion.

Stepping through the massive metal gate, which was thirty meters high and one and a half meters thick, Qian Ye felt as if he had been hit hard. He was speechless, awed by the vast war machine before him. Even though he had seen an aerial view of Xiangyang Military City, he was still overwhelmed by the scale of this place.

A thousand meters away, the Red Scorpion headquarters building stood at six hundred meters tall, like a sail, with a red exterior that was already rusted, revealing the metal underneath. However, this did not detract from the building's grandeur; instead, it added a sense of historical weight and depth!

Several bat-winged airships were rising from the top of the headquarters building, quickly flying in different directions.

In the distance, a giant floating ship slowly emerged from the horizon, with a gas bag hundreds of meters long!

On the right side, there was a huge airship base. Many airships were taking off and landing. There were small airboats, medium and large airships, and even two warships over a hundred meters long. On the other side of the base, seven old-style floating ships, lifted by gas bags, were parked in a row.

Next to the base, there were rows of various tracked combat vehicles, numbering in the hundreds! The number of cargo trucks was even more, too many to count.

Qian Ye had seen pictures and models of these basic military equipment in class, but seeing the real thing was a completely different experience, providing an unparalleled visual impact.

On the left side, there were various functional buildings, and Qian Ye even saw a factory capable of accommodating a giant floating ship.

The factory, which was a hundred meters tall, had an arched roof that was currently open on both sides, revealing the mast and upper part of a medium-sized floating ship. Many workers were crawling on it, like ants. Red sparks from welding were flowing down the massive metal surface like glaciers, indicating intense work in progress.

Further away, there were energy facilities spread out in a vast area.

These were buildings with a perpetual motion tower design, with over a dozen giant chimneys, like the legendary Kunlun trees connecting heaven and earth, lined up and continuously emitting slightly black smoke, forming a massive cloud covering half the sky.

Just by looking from a distance, one could imagine the immense energy flowing through the pipelines, driving the vast Red Scorpion base.

Nan Badian led Qian Ye to the parking lot, jumped into a small open-top off-road vehicle, and drove to the left side of the military equipment warehouse. Without a vehicle, it would indeed be difficult to get things done in such a huge camp.

In the hall of the military equipment warehouse, Nan Badian shouted, "This is a rookie from our Tiger Scorpion Camp! Get him a set of standard equipment and a sniper kit!"

A moment later, a large backpack and a black briefcase were thrown out of the window, with no one speaking or showing their face during the entire process.

Nan Badian caught both items with one hand and shouted, "Thanks!" He then turned to Qian Ye and said, "Let's go, I'll take you to the Tiger Scorpion Camp!"

The Tiger Scorpion Camp was located in the northeast corner of the headquarters base, next to the Blood Scorpion Camp.

Just by looking at the two camps, Qian Ye felt that the Tiger Scorpion's situation wasn't very good. The camp was half the size of the Blood Scorpion, and the vehicles parked outside were half new and half old, not comparable to the brand new vehicles of the Blood Scorpion. Moreover, the Tiger Scorpion camp was very quiet, unlike the bustling Blood Scorpion camp.

Nan Badian scratched his head, somewhat embarrassed, and said, "To put it bluntly, I do have some gaps in command compared to the Blood Scorpion. So the Blood Scorpion often goes on large-scale missions, which means our Tiger Scorpion's budget is a bit tight. Well, that's the situation."