Rebirth of a Mercenary: The Ace Mercenary Forced to Be the Beloved of the Group

Lu Xiao completely broke down.

"Pfft, hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha—"

Lu Xiao no longer cared about his image. He clutched his stomach with one hand and slammed the other on the table, the heel of his palm hitting the table with a dull "thump," which, mixed with his laughter, sounded like some kind of strange percussion.

"Hahahaha—no—those two—hahahaha—"

He laughed so hard he could barely breathe and couldn't even form a coherent sentence.

He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself down, but every time he thought of Qian Duoduo's words, "Your expression reminds me of my grandma's water buffalo," the air he had just inhaled was pushed out again by laughter.

Li Mo sat opposite him, looking at him expressionlessly.

After Lu Xiao had been laughing for about half a minute, until his voice was hoarse, Li Mo spoke up.

"Eight hundred words."

Lu Xiao's laughter stopped abruptly.

He looked up, a smile still lingering on his face, his eyes and nose red, like a golden fox that had just rolled in the snow.

"What?"

"A self-criticism. Eight hundred words."

Lu Xiao's expression changed from blank to shocked, and from shocked to incredulous.

"No—Old Li, are you serious?"

When have I ever not been serious?

Lu Xiao opened his mouth. Indeed, Li Mo was someone who never joked with anyone.

But who is Lu Xiao? He is the vice-captain of Po Kong, a negotiation expert who can negotiate three times the commission with just his words, and a smiling tiger who can get close to the target with a smile during a mission and then extract all their secrets.

He immediately put on a wronged expression.

"team leader--"

He drew out the last syllable, with a flattering tone. He leaned forward, his hands resting on the edge of the table, his chin slightly raised, looking at Li Mo from below.

"I was wrong. I shouldn't have laughed. Really, I've deeply realized my mistake."

Li Mo didn't look at him.

"Captain, look, I'm your vice-captain, and we've worked together for six years. Six years of friendship, and you think it's worth only eight hundred words?"

Li Mo picked up his teacup, found it was empty, and put it down. He raised his eyes, his deep purple pupils calmly looking at Lu Xiao.

"Eight hundred characters. Not a single character can be missing."

Lu Xiao took a deep breath. The first attempt at acting cute had failed.

He changed to Plan No. 2.

"How about this?" He held up one finger, his expression turning serious. "I'll dictate, and you write it down. We'll work together to complete this self-criticism, and I'll treat you to dinner later."

"You treated me to dinner using my salary."

"Then I'll pay for it myself."

You still haven't paid back the three hundred you owed me last month.

Lu Xiao choked for a moment.

"You even remembered three hundred yuan?!"

"Remember that."

Lu Xiao gritted his teeth and decided to use Plan Three. He stood up from his chair, walked around the conference table, and went to Li Mo's side.

Li Mo looked at him warily.

"What are you doing?"

Lu Xiao didn't say anything.

He pounced on him.

Her hands slipped through Li Mo's waist and clasped together tightly, her face buried in Li Mo's chest.

Li Mo froze.

His hands hung in mid-air, unsure of where to put them. His chin was brushed against by Lu Xiao's blond hair, which carried the light scent of shampoo, mixed with the dry, warm smell of the morning light, and rushed into his nostrils.

It felt as if two-thirds of the air had been sucked out of the conference room.

"Lu Xiao".

Lu Xiao lifted his face off his chest, resting his chin on his sternum, and pitifully tilted his head back.

The golden eyes still held the glint of tears from her earlier laughter, her eyelashes were wet, the tip of her nose was red, and her whole face screamed, "How could you bear to do this?"

"Eight hundred words, that's too much." His voice was soft and gentle, like a cat begging for food. "Less, please."

Li Mo lowered his head.

From his angle, he could see Lu Xiao's upturned face, his golden eyes still glistening with moisture, and the red mark on the bridge of his nose that hadn't yet faded.

Then his gaze involuntarily shifted downwards by an inch.

Lu Xiao's collar was askew from his lunging movement. The top button of his military uniform had come undone at some point, leaving the collar open and revealing a section of his neck down to his collarbone. That section of his neck was very thin, the skin so thin that you could see the pale blue veins underneath.

Li Mo's gaze lingered on that section of neck for a moment.

Then the back of his neck started to feel hot.

The heat came on suddenly and intensely, spreading upwards from the end of the cervical spine, climbing along the auricle to the tip of the ear.

He stiffly looked away, his Adam's apple bobbing once.

Lu Xiao was still clinging to him, completely unaware of the change in his expression, and was still relentlessly bargaining.

"How about 500 words? I'll write 500 words carefully, without any sloppiness—"

A hand landed on his head.

Lu Xiao stopped speaking.

Li Mo placed his palm on his head, his fingertips sinking into the golden hair, and then he rubbed it somewhat awkwardly.

"This will not be repeated."

The voice was low, carrying a sense of reluctant compromise.

Lu Xiao was stunned for a moment.

Then his whole face lit up.

"I knew the captain was the best!"

He loosened his hands from behind Li Mo's waist, slid off him, and stood up straight. The buttons on his military uniform wobbled with the movement, and the collar opened even wider, but he didn't notice at all. He was only focused on putting away the two self-criticisms on the table, his movements so swift as if he were afraid Li Mo would change his mind.

"I'll keep these two copies on file. I'll inform Zhao Xiaohu and Qian Duoduo and make sure they fold their blankets properly from now on."

He walked to the door, opened it, and turned around.

Li Mo was still standing there, one hand hanging at his side, the other hand—the one that had just ruffled his hair—was awkwardly half-clenched.

"Old Li?"

"Um."

"Don't forget training this afternoon, at three o'clock."

"understood."

Lu Xiaochong smiled, his golden eyes curving into two arcs. Then the door closed, and the sound of footsteps gradually faded away down the corridor.

Li Mo was the only one left in the conference room.

He stood there for a while. The morning light shone in through the window, casting distinct shadows on the ground at his feet.

Then he slowly raised that hand and held it in front of his nose.

The touch of Lu Xiao's hair still lingered on his fingertips, soft and carrying a faint citrus scent from the shampoo. He turned his hand over, palm up, fingertips close to his nose.

Fragrant.

Li Mo's ears turned red.

The red hue spread from his earlobe to his earlobe, clearly visible in the morning light, with nowhere to hide. He lowered his hand, his fingers clenching into a fist, as if trying to hold onto the lingering scent in his palm.

The shouts of the new recruits running drills came from the parade ground outside the window, and Zhao Xiaohu's voice was mixed in among them, so loud that it could be heard even across a building.

Li Mo took a deep breath.

Then he opened the conference room door and walked out.

The corridor was empty, and his footsteps echoed one after another, the rhythm exactly the same as usual.

The thin layer of red on the base of her ears took a long time to fade completely.