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

On the evening of the last day of the field training, the squad leaders met together. According to the training plan, they should have continued with the drills, but after standing in the corridor for less than five minutes, the squad leaders reached a consensus—to take a day off.

When the news reached the dormitories of each class, the cheers almost lifted the ceiling.

For the first time ever, the recruit company didn't have any training all day.

There was no training, but the cost of the long march continued to take its toll on everyone's feet.

In the evening, after the new recruits showered, they returned to their dormitories one by one in slippers. The blisters on the soles of their feet, after a day of natural drying, had either swelled up, burst, or become inflamed.

Zhao Xiaohu sat on the bed and examined the soles of his feet for a long time, counting four blisters. One of them, on the ball of his left foot, was as big as a coin, with an ominous red ring around its edge.

"Dodo, do you think this will go away on its own?"

Qian Duoduo leaned over for a look, her face showing the vicissitudes of someone who's been through it all: "Why bother removing it? It'll hurt even more tomorrow if you don't get rid of it."

"pick?"

"Take a needle, prick the blister, let the fluid out, and then apply the medicine."

Zhao Xiaohu's face turned pale instantly.

Just then, the dormitory door was pushed open.

Lu Xiao stood at the door, holding a familiar dark green cloth bag in his hand, a smile on his lips that sent chills down everyone's spine.

"Good evening, guys. How are your feet today?"

The air in the dormitory seemed to freeze for a moment.

Lu Xiao walked to the table in the middle of the dormitory and put the cloth bag on it. The bag was open, revealing its contents—not iodine swabs or bandages, but a thin silver needle, a small bottle of alcohol, and a pack of medical cotton balls.

The silver needles reflected a delicate, cold light under the fluorescent lamp.

Zhao Xiaohu's Adam's apple bobbed violently. "Squad leader, what are you doing?"

"Pick the blisters." Lu Xiao pulled out a chair and sat down, picked up a silver needle and rinsed it in an alcohol bottle, his movements as practiced as an old Chinese medicine doctor. "If you don't pick them out and they get inflamed and suppurate tomorrow, you really won't need to train anymore."

He took the silver needle out of the alcohol, dried it with a cotton ball, and held it up to the light to examine the tip.

"Who wants to go first?"

No one moved. Everyone's eyes were frantically pushing and shoving—"You go first, you go first, don't be shy, you go first."

"Then let's go by bed number," Lu Xiao said with a smile. "Zhao Xiaohu, you're in bed number one."

"Why start with me?!"

"Because you're closest to the door."

Zhao Xiaohu sat down in the chair with a tragic expression, raising his left leg. Lu Xiao pinched his ankle and brought the silver needle closer.

"Don't move, or the needle will go crooked."

The needle pierced the skin on the surface of the blister and pricked it. Zhao Xiaohu let out a howl, and all the windows in the dormitory shook.

"Alright, next one."

Zhao Xiaohu clutched his foot, his round face still trembling. The actual blow hadn't hurt that much; the pain was psychological. Money.

Duoduo was the second to sit down, a wad of gauze in her mouth, her eyes tightly closed the whole time, and a dozen or so beads of sweat rolled down her forehead. Lu Xiao's work was as efficient as ever, inserting the needle into the skin, pricking it, squeezing out the fluid, applying medicine, and putting on a band-aid—the whole process was smooth and seamless.

One by one, the new recruits sat on the chairs, then got off crying and wailing. Some called for their mothers, some for their ancestors, and some shouted, "I'll never walk again!"

Lu Xiao chuckled as he picked at the needle, teasing one after another, "Your blister is quite plump." "This spot is good, one injection and it'll shoot up to the opposite wall." "Stop howling, or the class next door will think I'm slaughtering a pig."

It's Baiye's turn.

Bai Ye got up from the bed and walked to the chair to sit down. He lifted his left foot and placed it on the edge of the chair, his movements calm, as if he were simply sitting down to tie his shoelaces. When the sole of his foot was revealed, everyone in the dormitory gasped.

Zhao Xiaohu looked down at the blister on his foot that Lu Xiao had said was "quite fat," and suddenly felt a little ashamed. Qian Duoduo whispered beside him, "How did Brother Ye manage to walk all this way?"

Lu Xiao glanced down at Bai Ye's soles, his smile fading slightly. He picked up the silver needles, rinsed them again in the alcohol, and was about to bend down—

A hand reached out from the side and snatched the silver needle from his hand.

Li Mo entered without anyone noticing. He stood beside the table, holding the silver needle he had just taken from Lu Xiao, and glanced down at Bai Ye's feet.

"Hey, Lao Li, why are you stealing my job?" Lu Xiao reached out to take back the silver needles.

Li Mo didn't give it to him. He rinsed the silver needles in alcohol again, much more carefully than Lu Xiao had done before, and even wiped the needle tips three times with cotton balls. Then he squatted down in front of Bai Ye and gently lifted Bai Ye's left foot to rest on his knee.

Lu Xiao's hand was still hanging in mid-air, and his lips twitched.

He watched Li Mo's cautious movements, then looked at the cotton ball lying idle in his hand, and finally withdrew his hand, took two steps back, and offered the chair to Li Mo.

Li Mo supported Bai Ye's foot with one hand, and held a silver needle in the other, the tip of the needle close to the edge of the largest blister. His fingers noticeably lightened their pressure when they touched Bai Ye's foot, a completely different level of technique from how Lu Xiao had treated the others' blisters.

The needle tip pierced the edge of the laceration, pried open a little skin, and gently squeezed out the remaining tissue fluid. Bai Ye's fingers curled slightly, a very small movement, but Li Mo's hand immediately stopped.

"pain?"

"...It doesn't hurt."

Li Mo glanced at him and continued. He pressed his thumb on Bai Ye's Yongquan acupoint on the sole of his foot, using the warmth of his palm to help relax the muscles in his foot.

Zhao Xiaohu sat on the bed next to him, looked at Li Mo, then at Lu Xiao, and lowered his voice: "Vice Class Leader, you've fallen out of favor."

Lu Xiao laughed through gritted teeth: "Can you shut up?"

"I'm just stating the facts objectively."

"I'll say it again, you can choose your own next blister."

Zhao Xiaohu shut up. Before he did, he gave Qian Duoduo a look, and Qian Duoduo returned the look. The two of them exchanged a complete gloating glance with their eyebrows and foreheads.

After cleaning all the blisters on Bai Ye's feet, Li Mo gently applied iodine solution with a cotton ball. Then, he squeezed the unlabeled white ointment onto his fingertip, melted it with the warmth of his fingertips, and applied it to Bai Ye's wounds. The ointment was cool and had a faint herbal scent. He rubbed his fingers in circles on Bai Ye's feet, spreading the ointment evenly, his movements so slow it was almost as if he were handling something fragile.

Lu Xiao watched from the side, let out a soft breath, and said in a low voice that only he could hear, "Brother Chen, if you don't come back soon, I really don't know if I can keep your brother alive."