Zhao Yi smiled:
“He’s quite a diligent young man, sharp-eyed and good at his work. ”
“It seems Commander Li is quite skilled in training troops.”
Li Zhi gave a wry smile:
“Instructor Zhao, please don’t tease me.”
Zhao Yi’s expression turned serious:
“Not at all, I genuinely think Commander Li’s troop-leading ability is excellent.”
Hearing this, Li Zhi didn’t continue on that topic. He turned to look at Xu Zhongxin beside him:
“Xu Zhongxin! Didn’t you hear Instructor Zhao praising you? Come over and greet him!”
“Ah? Oh!” Xu Zhongxin was stunned for a moment, then reacted, quickly running in front of Zhao Yi and Li Zhi.
“Greetings, Sirs!”
Xu Zhongxin spoke loudly, then was about to salute Zhao Yi.
But he forgot that he was still holding a bucket and hadn’t put it down.
“Splash!”
The dirty water in the bucket was all splashed out. Zhao Yi, with his Special Forces reaction speed, took a step back, avoiding most of the dirty water, only getting a little splashed.
However, Commander Li Zhi, who was next to Zhao Yi, was much worse off. Half a bucket of dirty water was poured over him from head to toe, soaking his neat military uniform completely.
“I-I’m sorry, Commander!”
“I’ll wipe it for you right away!”
Xu Zhongxin was also flustered when he saw this, and quickly tried to wipe the water stains off Li Zhi’s body.
But he forgot one more thing, which was that in his other hand, he was holding a dirty rag used for cleaning.
As a result, several more dirty marks appeared on Li Zhi’s already wet clothes.
“Xu! Zhong! Xin!”
Li Zhi reached out, wiped his face, then spoke almost word by word, gritting his teeth.
“Com-Commander.”
Although Xu Zhongxin was slow-witted, he knew he had made a big mistake at this moment.
He stood there, looking flustered and somewhat at a loss.
Li Zhi pointed his right index finger at Xu Zhongxin, his whole body trembling slightly from anger.
Then, Li Zhi took a deep breath, forcefully suppressing the anger in his heart:
Zhao Yi was right beside him. Even if he wanted to reprimand Xu Zhongxin, he couldn’t do it in front of him.
“Go back to the camp! I’ll settle the score with you when you return!”
After ordering Xu Zhongxin to leave, Li Zhi turned to Zhao Yi:
“I’ve truly made Instructor Zhao witness a spectacle. Please excuse me for a few minutes while I change my clothes.”
“Understood, understood.”
Zhao Yi nodded.
Ten minutes later.
Zhao Yi met Li Zhi again downstairs at the Fierce Tiger Regiment’s office building. He had changed into clean clothes.
“Instructor Zhao, today truly… I don’t even know what to say.”
Li Zhi’s mood had calmed down somewhat. He spoke to Zhao Yi with a helpless and troubled smile on his face.
“It’s nothing.”
Zhao Yi said with a smile.
“I’m actually a bit interested in this soldier named Xu Zhongxin. Can Commander Li tell me a bit about him?”
“Of course.” Seeing Zhao Yi proactively bring up a topic, Li Zhi, who was momentarily at a loss for words, didn’t refuse. He chatted with Zhao Yi while touring the regiment headquarters.
“Sigh—speaking of that kid Xu Zhongxin, ever since he came here, I’ve truly had a headache.”
Li Zhi poured out his troubles to Zhao Yi:
“Instructor Zhao, you don’t know, back when the new recruits were assigned to companies, a leader came to our Fierce Tiger Regiment to give a speech. I arranged for a few tanks to be driven around the square.”
“It’s a tradition of the Armored Division, to open the eyes of those new recruits, let them see our armed equipment, and ignite their fighting spirit for training, so they train hard, and you’ll be able to drive tanks in the future too.”
“But guess what, other new recruits’ eyes lit up when they saw the tanks, saying how powerful and majestic they were.”
“But this kid, he wasn’t like that. It was as if he had a screw loose in his head. When he saw our tanks driving over, he actually shouted ‘hit the deck!’ and threw himself down!”
“Hiss—at that time, Chief of Staff Hu from the Division Headquarters was right beside me. He saw this kid shouting and yelling. Instructor Zhao, you don’t know how I felt then, I felt like hanging myself!”
Even when recounting these scenes, Li Zhi was gritting his teeth.
“And there was our Military Region’s last simulated combat exercise. Xu Zhongxin saw that guy, anyway, a soldier who shared a dorm with him, saw that the other person hadn’t eaten breakfast. During the exercise, he secretly tucked two steamed buns into his clothes, still warm, to give to him.”
“Where was that? That was an exercise!”
Li Zhi said, clapping his hands, his face filled with the exasperation of someone who wishes for better performance:
“As a result, on the first day of the exercise, Xu Zhongxin’s squad was discovered by thermal imaging.”
“There are many more such incidents, too many for me to even list, and there might even be things the guys below have hidden from me that I don’t know about.”
Li Zhi sighed deeply:
“Instructor Zhao, it’s not that I look down on this soldier, or that I’m deliberately targeting him.”
“But there’s an old saying that goes, don’t hit the diligent or the lazy, only hit those who are oblivious. This kid always makes mistakes at critical moments and causes trouble for me!”
“I really, I really can’t stand it sometimes.”
Zhao Yi, listening to Li Zhi’s words, also gave a wry smile.
According to the incidents Li Zhi described, and Xu Zhongxin’s recent performance, it was not an exaggeration to say that Xu Zhongxin was a useless soldier.
Zhao Yi was currently weighing something:
Whether or not to bring Xu Zhongxin into his Special Forces.
Xu Zhongxin, whether from Li Zhi’s account of his daily performance or from the numerical panel Zhao Yi saw with his ‘Insightful Eyes’ system ability, was not considered outstanding.
The only thing worth mentioning was his high potential value, and a talent that only a very small number of lucky individuals could obtain.
Of course, Xu Zhongxin’s talent also didn’t have any advantage compared to the few soldiers Zhao Yi had brought in before.
Zhao Yi was confident that in such a large Military Region, finding soldiers with high potential and extra talents would not be difficult for him.
This soldier, Xu Zhongxin, was someone he could recruit or not recruit.
Zhao Yi continued walking forward with Li Zhi.
He mentally rehearsed Xu Zhongxin’s trajectory in the army:
If nothing unexpected happened, Xu Zhongxin would continue his clumsy training in his military career, possibly making occasional mistakes, and being reprimanded by Li Zhi, his squad leader, platoon leader, and other superiors.
After a few muddled years like this, he would be discharged when his term was up.
According to Xu Zhongxin’s current performance and Commander Li Zhi’s opinion of him, Xu Zhongxin probably wouldn’t even qualify to become a second-class non-commissioned officer, and would be directly discharged after four years in the army.
Perhaps occasionally someone in the army would remember Xu Zhongxin, but in their impression, he would just be a soldier with poor ability, even though Zhao Yi could tell from the system panel that Xu Zhongxin actually had a small talent.
But that’s how the world is; not everyone with talent can shine on a grand stage.
A thousand-mile horse is common, but a true judge of horses is not.
Talent being buried and living an ordinary life is the ultimate fate of most peerless geniuses.
Now, Xu Zhongxin had an opportunity to change his life.
But that opportunity was not in his own hands, but in Zhao Yi’s hands.
“Heh…” Zhao Yi suddenly chuckled. Xu Zhongxin was also lucky; he happened to be establishing his first Special Forces unit, and the sooner the better.
Since Xu Zhongxin had this potential, and he had discovered him, then:
“Commander Li, that soldier named Xu Zhongxin, how about you give him to me?”