After making the call, Yang Li’s expression finally eased a little. His old commander had already reached out to Major General Peng. But with the evidence against them rock-solid, Major General Peng was holding his ground and refusing to budge. Still, the old commander had told him not to worry, saying he had spoken with a certain heavyweight above Major General Peng, and that person had agreed to call Peng directly.
Yang Li had naturally heard of that heavyweight’s name. This man ranked even higher within the Military Commission than his old commander, and more importantly, he held real power right now. With him stepping in, surely nothing could go wrong. Only then did Yang Li finally feel some relief.
“Son… hang in there a little longer. Dad will get you out soon!” Thinking of his son’s pitiful state, Yang Li ground his teeth with even more hatred toward Xu Ze… Once this was all over, he would tear that brat to pieces to vent the fury in his heart.
Xu Ze, however, was taking it easy. With that old professor’s promise, he now rarely attended internal medicine lectures. Instead, he seized the chance to hide out by North Lake, basking in the sun and dozing off…
Of course, to others, he looked asleep. But in reality, Xu Ze was very much awake, carefully drawing in the dense energy particles around the lake, channeling them into the energy circulation through his Conception and Governing Vessels, and then pushing the cycle with all his might to absorb and fuse with them.
It had been quite some days since he advanced to Level Three, and he had been training diligently lately. But advancing further was proving more difficult than before. Despite all his cultivation, the energy circulation had just barely reached the twenty-ninth cycle. In other words, over this period, he had only progressed by two cycles.
Still, relatively speaking, Xu Ze was extremely satisfied. By his earlier estimates, advancing one level a year would already have been pretty good. Now, in not much time at all, he had already improved by two cycles, which left him utterly astonished.
As for Xu Ze’s confusion, Little Knife explained it clearly: the environment Xu Ze now inhabited contained energy particles at a noticeably denser concentration than in his own era, so achieving this speed wasn’t all that strange.
The faster the cultivation, the better, of course. Xu Ze naturally hoped he could advance to Level Four as soon as possible. The abilities at Level Three were decent enough, but only relative to current technology. There were still many illnesses he remained helpless against.
After spending three hours running several major cycles, he saw there was still plenty of time and entered the virtual space. Lately, besides studying intermediate medical knowledge, he had also begun deepening his combat skills training.
A while back, Little Knife had trained Xu Ze in using light weapons. Now, Xu Ze could skillfully handle most weapons and possessed considerable offensive capability.
Everything from the most basic revolver to the latest laser guns still in the experimental stage—he had mastered them all.
But his favorite remained the sniper rifle. Though he couldn’t literally kill invisibly from a thousand miles away, a few thousand meters was no problem at all.
He especially liked the anti-materiel sniper rifles. Anti-materiel rifles could barely be called light weapons anymore; their attack power could punch through special steel plates over an inch thick from a kilometer away.
Combined with the biological detection and profiling ability that came with his system, when cranked to maximum power, it was enough for him to accurately kill someone through a wall from a kilometer out.
Still, he could only satisfy this itch in the virtual space for now. In the real world, he hadn’t had the chance to get his hands on such high-end gear.
Recently, he had become quite familiar with weapons like these. In the virtual space, the anti-materiel rifle he used now was the Barrett M82A1, the one most commonly used by the military.
With this rifle, he could destroy a standard light armored vehicle from a thousand meters away, and could also eliminate a target through a wall from up to twelve hundred meters.
Once he had mastered these weapons, Little Knife began teaching him the use of close-combat weaponry. The so-called close-combat weapons were essentially common special forces tactics—using simple knives or bayonets for surprise attacks. It was basically an evolved version of practical combat fighting.
The instructor was, as always, the big guy, Bond. The routine training was, as ever, live combat. But this time, Bond was noticeably harder to deal with. Under Bond’s various cunning and treacherous tactics, Xu Ze was judged “dead” ten times in a row. It left him utterly shocked.
He had originally thought that with his physical skills, far surpassing those of an ordinary special forces soldier now, handling Bond wouldn’t be too difficult. But now he finally had to admit it: he did have ability, and Bond’s assigned strength was set roughly on par with his own, yet Bond relied on those special ops assault tactics—or sneaky attack tactics, you could call them—and took him down one after another in a very short time.
So Xu Ze very humbly followed Instructor Bond to study these areas.
And now, after practicing through standard scenarios, Xu Ze had gradually begun to develop some resistance to Bond’s attacks. What started as being “killed” every single time had improved to losing about five or six out of ten rounds.
This level of progress left Xu Ze very satisfied. In the virtual space, just five or six hours of time had brought him to this stage, making him increasingly smug.
Seeing Xu Ze’s smug look, Little Knife watched from the side, secretly shaking his head in amusement. If the foundation hadn’t been laid so well earlier, it wouldn’t have been this easy. Still, it was true that Xu Ze’s reaction speed and agility had noticeably improved recently. The body of a Level Three field medic was naturally no slouch.
With six hours of intensive training, achieving results like this was hardly impossible.
Under the intervention of a certain powerful heavyweight, some changes did eventually occur. When Xu Ze received the call from Major General Peng, he wasn’t really surprised.
After all, Elder Li hadn’t been alerted about this matter this time; it had been handled directly through Major General Peng. So it was only natural that General Peng would come under this kind of pressure.
“Xu Ze… should I report this matter to the old chief? With his backing, this thing would be absolutely no problem…” General Peng suggested to Xu Ze. The whole affair had given him quite a headache too. Two days ago, a lieutenant general from Beijing had politely called him, asking him to squash the matter, but he had refused at the time.
But today, he had received a call from a certain general above him. And this general was someone he had no choice but to respect. So General Peng immediately notified Xu Ze, suggesting he get in touch with Elder Li. Alternatively, he could have Peng report the matter directly to the General Staff Department. If it could reach a few chiefs or deputy chiefs there, it would naturally be no problem at all. Of course, doing so would definitely offend that heavyweight…
Otherwise, he would have to wrap this matter up within three days.
When Xu Ze received this news, he actually laughed, then said, “General Peng, rest assured… I will definitely resolve this matter within three days.”
Hearing Xu Ze’s firm answer, General Peng set his mind at ease. But he was a little curious. From Xu Ze’s tone, he didn’t seem to plan on troubling the old chief, nor did he want to offend that heavyweight by going straight to the General Staff Department. So what exactly did Xu Ze intend to do?
After hanging up the phone, Xu Ze couldn’t help but let out a cold, faint laugh. He hadn’t expected Yang Li to actually be able to stir up this heavyweight. He had originally thought it was impressive enough that Yang Li could rouse the lieutenant general behind him; he never imagined Yang Li could get that lieutenant general to pull strings on his behalf.
Well, if that’s the case, then let’s just take Yang Li down first. He had planned to hold off a bit, but now it looked like a quick resolution was needed. This dossier, though he couldn’t say with one hundred percent certainty that it would topple Yang Li, should be more than enough as long as Tang Guorui did his part forcefully.
Xu Ze appeared at the entrance of the Xingcheng city government building with a dossier in hand. He had contacted Tang Guorui earlier. After learning the contents of the file, and with Xu Ze insisting, Tang Guorui had agreed to act immediately upon receiving the material. So Xu Ze was personally delivering it.
Tang Guorui was in his office at the moment, a look of pleasant surprise on his face as he paced back and forth restlessly. He had just instructed his secretary to cancel all the appointments he originally had lined up, waiting for Xu Ze to arrive.
Over the past few days, driven by several deputy mayors and some people higher up, the call for Yang Li to be promoted to deputy mayor had grown louder and louder. A resolution had already been passed, and his formal appointment might be confirmed any day now after the next meeting.
Now, Xu Ze bringing this dossier was truly like sending charcoal in a snowstorm. If he could smoothly take down Yang Li, he could then push a pro-Tang official into that slot, allowing him to completely and firmly control the entire Xingcheng city…
Xu Ze, holding a kraft paper envelope, walked slowly toward the city government office building. But just as he reached the entrance, he ran right into Yang Li, who happened to be coming over with two others. Both men raised their heads, spotted each other, and couldn’t help but pause.
Yang Li looked at this brat who filled him with so much bitterness and rage. Thinking about how his son would be out and free in just a few days, and how he himself was about to be promoted to deputy mayor, he finally couldn’t hold back. “Hmph… you little punk, think you’re hot stuff just because you’ve got a military ID? Think having a backer makes you something? You’re still not worthy to stand in front of me…”
Xu Ze looked at this man, who was clearly getting a bit too full of himself, and couldn’t help but laugh. Shaking his head, he sighed, “Director Yang… about to become Deputy Mayor Yang, are we? Looking so happy? I hear your son’s about to get out too. Double blessings at your door—I guess that really is something to celebrate.”
