I Am A Killer

by A Sick Frog

  “Then let’s hurry go eat some steamboat!” Yin Xu Dong followed after her. After a few steps, he turned around and shouted at the He Yi that was still frozen in the corner. “What’cha stoning for? Level-number-one, hurry catch up!”

  He Yi looked at the few guys laying on the ground and looked at the Qin Ke Xuan and Yin Xu Dong that were waiting for him, before he followed after them, walking briskly.

  After reaching the steamboat shop and Yin Xu Dong sat down, he began busying himself with putting veggie and meat into the pot. After a few hasty rinses of the veggie, he picked it up and placed it in the bowl in front of Qin Ke Xuan. When the meat was almost cooked, he fished it out and placed it in Qin Ke Xuan’s bowl as well. Only when Qin Ke Xuan’s bowl was piled full with veggie and meat did he begin cooking the stuff he wanted to eat.

  “Number-one, how did you get yourself involved with those people?” As the ex-number one school bully, Yin Xu Dong recognised the few of them. Even though they were not from Class 15, they were considered students with poor grades in the normal stream. They didn’t have the best behaviour either, so how did level-number-one get mixed up with them?

  “I, I… aye, I was actually classmates with them in junior high. Ever since junior high, he would blackmail me. If I didn’t give them my money, they’d beat me up…” He Yi spoked lowly of his unfortunate encounter.

  “Are you stupid! They wanted to hit you, and you actually let them?!” Yin Xu Dong chewed the meat he’d stuffed into his mouth before placing a few pieces of meat from his bowl into Qin Ke Xuan’s. “This tastes good!” Since he’d pledged to be a sis-con, he’d be a good sis-con all the way!

  “They were a lot of them, I was no match.” He Yi was very guilty. Honestly, even if it had only been one of them, he would not be able to match up. He wasn’t really good at anything else other than studying.

  Qin Ke Xuan ate the little mountain pile meat and veggie in her bowl as she listened to him quietly. Upon hearing that, she couldn’t help but cut in. “If you can’t fight them then be ruthless. The more ruthless one will win.” Unless the other party dared to put their lives on the line, who else would be able to win you?

  “Exactly! Xuan Xuan’s right! All those that bully the weak are only paper tigers. As long as you become fiercer and more ruthless, they wouldn’t dare bully you anymore.”

  Following which, Yin Xu Dong’s unceasing flow of words on the art of being fierce and ruthless spilt out as he imparted his knowledge to him.

  “I’m going.” Qin Ke Xuan placed her chopsticks down and said to the two of them. From today onward, she was going to spend her winter holiday at the base.

  “So fast? You’re full?” Yin Xu Dong was suddenly regretting bringing number-one, he was even more regretful about chatting so much with number-one just now. It was an entire winter holiday-long period he won’t be able to see Xuan Xuan! “Are you coming back for Chinese New Year?”

  “Not sure.” The notice she received was that she had to attend the training at the base before the new semester started.

  He Yi was confused. “Where are you going?” Why did it sound like she was going somewhere really far away? Was she going travelling?

  “A lot of places.” She wasn’t lying. She would have to travel everywhere should she be assigned a mission from MI6.

  “Oh.”

  “Number-one, you eat first, I’ll be back after I send Xuan Xuan.” Standing up, Yin Xu Dong followed Qin Ke Xuan out the steamboat place.

  “The weather’s really cold now, be mindful of keeping yourself warm. If you’re sick, report it to your person-in-charge quickly, don’t force it…” Yin Xu Dong nagged on at Qin Ke Xuan, following her for a distant even after sending her out the entrance.

  “You don’t need to send me.”

  “Xuan Xuan…”

  “Enh?”

  “Can… can I… you know… hug you?” Yin Xu Dong looked worriedly at Qin Ke Xuan’s face for any shift in her expression. He was afraid she’d be angry. “You know, we won’t be seeing each other for an entire winter break…”

  “You can.”

  “Enh?”

  “I said, you can hug me.” In the cold weather, Qin Ke Xuans words that puffed a murky white mist covering half her face made her seem all the more unreal.

  Yin Xu Dong did not expect that Qin Ke Xuan would actually agree to his request. Stretching out his hands, he gently pulled Qin Ke Xuan into his embrace. His chin resting lightly on her head, he said softly: “I’ll miss you.”

  “Enh.” Qin Ke Xuan pushed him away. “I’m going. Study hard, it’s pretty hard for you to become a military doctor with your current grades.”

  “Oh.” Yin Xu Dong sobbed internally. It was absolutely not comforting to hear such words when he was being all reluctant to part with her! “You definitely need to request for a leave from your officer or something and find a way to come back once!”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Hurry go then, it’s getting dark. The base’s very far too.” Yin Xu Dong started worrying about the dangers she might meet with in the dark and started urging Qin Ke Xuan to hurry leave.

  When Qin Ke Xuan reached the base, she received the notice to bring her gear and go over to where the Tercel Battalion was stationed at. And so, she carried her large backpack and boarded the vehicle that drove towards the SF Battalion base.

  When she reached the Tercel Battalion base, she jumped off the vehicle, alighting. There were two SF soldiers standing before her. One of them wearing a serious expression gave Qin Ke Xuan a military salute. Following which, he revealed a row of pearly whites. “Welcome to hell!”

  Chapter 45 - Have You Not Seen A Woman Before?

  * * *

  Qin Ke Xuan straightened and returned a military salute.

  The two tough guys, young and inexperienced to begin with, at seeing a fellow female comrade joining them were beyond excited. When they finally saw her face, they were immediately blinded by her fair skin.

  Perhaps it was because they hadn’t seen females for too long, coupled with the fact that Qin Ke Xuan had a cool elegance to her to begin with, a shade of red gradually climbed onto the two glisteningly tanned faces as they shouted loudly: “We will be showing you the way!”

  “I can hear you even if you’re softer.” Qin Ke Xuan frowned. With both parties standing very near, their loud shout had her ears ringing.

  The two of them rubbed their noses, embarrassed. After staying for a long time in SF, everyone had essentially become rough and rugged, and shouted at the top of their lungs for the tiniest of reasons. If they were too soft, their officer might just very well go: “X km cross country running, everyone’s included.”

  “I have inconvenienced you two for showing the way.” Qin Ke Xuan tugged on the shoulder strap of her bag as she said to them.

  “The Lieutenant Colonel and Hé Company Commander are currently in the field, we’ll bring you over.” The slightly taller SF soldier said. “Do you need us to help you hold your bag?” He just saw the Qin Ke Xuan, who was only until his shoulders, carrying such a large bag. Hence, he asked out of concern.

  “No need. I’m an SF soldier as well.” Qin Ke Xuan reminded him. She was here to train, not to tour the place and play like a lady miss.

  “Hehe, you don’t look like those burly female soldiers at all.” This SF soldier was comparably more vibrant and outgoing. Excitedly, he started chatting with Qin Ke Xuan. “When I first received the order to pick up a female soldier, I’d thought she’d definitely be a valiant sista. Who knew she’d be a xiao mei mei (I actually wanted to say loli)! You look like those female soldiers from the Arts Troupe.”

  “Arts Troupe?”

  The taller one thought Qin Ke Xuan was unhappy to be thought as a part of the Arts Troupe, hence, he immediately explained: “Those female soldiers only know how to dance and sing, how can they compare up to you! Female soldiers ought to be brave and mighty, singing and dancing are too sissy!”

  At his
words, his companions by his side shot him looks of disdain. This chap’s been longing for the Arts Troupe people to come over to perform even in his dreams, but he’s actually scoffing at the Arts Troupe in front of a beauty now? When they caught the opportunity to tease him about this afterwards, his reply was: Are you guys idiots! The Arts Troupe come once in a blue moon, and they’re gone before we can even properly see them! But Qin Ke Xuan was different, she’s our comrade. She’s training with us every day, and as we train and train, maybe we can even train out some feelings, be it kinship or relationship. The chances to develop some feelings are a lot higher with her than with those arrogant Arts Troupe female soldiers!

  Qin Ke Xuan followed them to the training arena. Wu Lieutenant Colonel and Hé Company Commander, along with two other company commanders, were standing on the podium looking at the SF soldier training in the training arena. At seeing the two SF soldiers bringing Qin Ke Xuan over, they started chatting.

  “That is the new lass that’s joining our Tercel Battalion. She’s quite a decent one.”

  “Wu Lieutenant Colonel, I heard that lass’ still in high school year one. Isn’t that a little…”

  “That doesn’t matter. There are exceptions to everything. You need to know that the prime time of women is very short. It’s good the lass’ coming in early.”

  Since their superior had said it, as his subordinates, it was inappropriate for them to say more otherwise.

  “Reporting!”

  Wu Lieutenant Colonel had the two soldiers that had brought her over to return to continue their training, before gesturing at Qin Ke Xuan to come over.

  “Xiao Qin, haven’t seen you for a few months, looks like you’ve grown taller. How tall are you now? Have you reached the requirement yet?” Wu Lieutenant Colonel who’d always liked to don a poker face broke into a rare and warm smile.

  “Reporting, I’m 162 cm tall now. I’ve already hit the requirement.” Qin Ke Xuan straightened and replied. She was originally 158 cm. However, after learning in biology that taking more calcium helped with growing taller, she’d been drinking milk and eating calcium-rich food every day for the past few months, then she finally shot up 4 cm. Even though she did not reach her desired height, she still managed, barely though, to make it past the requirement for female soldiers to join the military.

  “Relax relax. These three are our Tercel Battalion’s Company Commander. You know Hé Company Commander yes, these two are Chen Company Commander and Yang Company Commander respectively.” Wu Lieutenant Colonel introduced the three company commanders to Qin Ke Xuan smilingly.

  “Greetings, Company Commanders.” Before she came, Yin Xu Dong had especially reminded her to greet when meeting people, else these senior soldiers may bully her. What she wasn’t in the know was that male soldiers never dared to provoke female soldiers—they were ancestor-levelled bosses; who wouldn’t nod their heads and bow when they saw them?

  “Alright then, Xiao Qin, come over to my company.” Chen Company Commander immediately began his snatching.

  “Oi oi, lao* Chen, you sure are impatient. Didn’t we agree to let the girl decide on her own? You’re violating the rules like this y’know that?” Yang Company Commander was the first to raise his objection.

  * 老 = lao; old; tells of familiarity between two parties when used as prefix (usually between older people that have known each other for very long)

  In the end, the dispute concluded with Qin Ke Xuan entering Hé Company Commander’s Recruits Platoon Number Four. There were a total of twelve SF soldier that were newly selected in this platoon.

  Before Qin Ke Chan went with Hé Company Commander to her new platoon, Wu Lieutenant Colonel had a private word with Qin Ke Xuan.

  “Our country actually also has a female SF. We only have these two SFs, one of which located in the north, the other in the south. However, MI6 is located in City B, and there will be missions assigned at random, that’s why we had you to report here instead. It’ll be a little hard on you to train with the guys, but don’t worry, we’ll have the standards lowered for you in accordance.”

  “There’s no need to lower the standards.” Qin Ke Xuan did not believe their training would be hard for her.

  “Hehe, not bad, that’s some perseverance and confidence you got going on! One more thing, you can’t bring up about the MI6 to anyone.” This was really what Wu Lieutenant Colonel had wanted to tell her. She was still young after all, who knew if she might accidentally let it slip when chatting with her SF comrades.

  “Rest assured. Even if you’re the one asking, I wouldn’t reveal any MI6 information.” She was clear that Wu Lieutenant Colonel knew about the existence of MI6, however, he didn’t know anything else beyond that.

  Wu Lieutenant Colonel paused, before laughing loudly and patted Qin Ke Xuan’s shoulders. “Good good good! That’s the right way to do it!”

  After she left the room, Qin Ke Xuan followed Hé Company Commander to the training arena for the new soldiers.

  Hé Company Commander shouted: “Xiao Xie! Come down for a bit!”

  A Lieutenant that was howling at the lined up soldiers standing on one leg immediately ran over at hearing Hé Company Commander’s shout. “Hé Company Commander, you called me?”

  “Enh. This is Qin Ke Xuan. She’s new. I’ll hand her over to you.”

  Xiao Xie sized this short little new soldier in curiosity, asking in uncertainty: “Female soldier?”

  “The only lanner* in Tercel, a precious lanner at that, mind you!”

  * 雌鹰 = female eagle; lanner

  “A’ight!” This was a rare chance, how could he allow it slip him by? He’s gonna do it even if it’ll be a little tiring to bring a female soldier! It was only afterwards did he realise… he really picked up a friggin’ treasure! And he’d been so ecstatic he’d woken up from his dreams laughing several times.

  “I don’t need to explain too much on how things are run here yes?”

  “Yes!”

  Hé Company Commander said to Qin Ke Xuan: “He is your Lieutenant from now on. Look for him if you need anything.”

  “Qin Ke Xuan, remove your bag and join the troops.” Xiao Xie Lieutenant commanded.

  Qin Ke Xuan threw her bag on the ground and ran towards the troops, joining them at the end. The twelve other recruits on her left turned to peek at her, oi oi it’s a female soldier!

  “What’re y’all looking at? Never seen a female before!” Xiao Xie Lieutenant shouted.

  “Reporting!” A recruit shouted.

  “Speak.”

  “I haven’t seen a woman in almost two years!”

  “Me too.”

  “A year for me.”

  “…”

  As the new soldiers started discussing away excitedly, Xiao Xie Lieutenant’s poor expression darkened even more. Donning a stormy look, he bellowed: “All soldiers, turn left, and 10km cross country run!”

  The recruits shut up, and went to cross-country run. When Qin Ke Xuan ran past Xiao Xie Lieutenant, Xiao Xie Lieutenant stopped her. “You don’t need to run.”

  “Everyone will bear the fault of even one in the military, no?” Qin Ke Xuan said blandly.

  “…go then.”

  Every recruit was running in front of Qin Ke Xuan. They’d lose all their face if they lost to a girl. Qin Ke Xuan paid it no mind as she ran after them leisurely. After 10km, everyone in the platoon was panting. Only Qin Ke Xuan was standing there, unperturbed, completely not in disarray.

  This girl’s got some skills huh! Xiao Xie Lieutenant thought mentally.

  “Reporting.” Qin Ke Xuan shouted.

  “Speak.”

  “I’d like to to tidy up my appearance.” Even though males and females training together was a very normal thing in the killer organisation Qin Ke Xuan had been in previously, she still felt a little ill at ease about the soldier’s gazes at her.

  “Allowed.” As expected, females were troublesome—they wanted to check if their hair was still i
n place even during training. Speaking of which, wasn’t Qin Ke Xuan’s hair a little too long! He couldn’t help but frown, should he tell her to keep her hair shorter? “Xiao Qin, can you keep your hair shorter? It’ll be very hard to tidy your hair with our difficult training.”

  “Enh.” Qin Ke Xuan took off her helmet and placed it on the ground, and took out the oil paint she’d snagged from Chi Qu Qi the other time. She opened it and smeared some on her face. She was too conspicuous being so pale in the bunch of them.

  After that, she took out a dagger, bunched her hair, and very crisply and without hesitance, chopped her hair off in front of everyone.

  Everyone exchanged looks. Didn’t girls treasure their hair a lot?

  Xiao Xie Lieutenant frowned, before saying: “I’m not forcing you to cut it…” Her actions very literally told of her dissatisfaction to his words.

  Qin Ke Xuan shot him a strange look, replying earnestly: “I know, I just wanted to cut my hair. Long hair was indeed troublesome.” There were a lot of girls in this world that had short hair. Just take the girls from her school for example, pretty much all of them had short hair. After constantly seeing it, she too was influenced, and so, she didn’t find it weird when girls had short hair.

  She ran her hands through her short hair, before picking up her helmet on the ground in satisfaction and wore it back one. That way, her pale face and long hair would no longer be visible. Instead of being so eye-catching even after being submerged in the platoon of guys, she would appear like a little boy at max this way.

  Chapter 47 - Sword Dance

  * * *

  “How can you not have sung before? We need to sing the military song every day at the base.” Someone pointed out in suspicion.

  Qin Ke Xuan tong xue shrugged. “Fine, all I can sing is Strength In Unity.” After being thoroughly ear-washed by their howlings and wailings of this song every day, she, too, managed to pick it up.

  “…”

  “Sing another song. Everyne in the military’s already sick of this one.”