Chapter 399 - 199: 18-Year-Old Major, He is the Chief
Chapter 399: Chapter 199: 18-Year-Old Major, He is the Chief
He didn’t dare to think about it, yet he couldn’t help but hope.
Soon, the award ceremony officially began.
The host’s passionate and stirring voice rang out once more.
"Next, let’s give our warmest round of applause and invite the outstanding cadets of this training camp to the stage!"
"Fifteenth place, Zhao Yi!"
"Fourteenth place, Sun Qian!"
One by one, young faces in crisp military uniforms walked onto the high platform, their faces brimming with excitement and pride.
When the host announced the eleventh-place winner, Zou Jianfeng, who had been sitting next to Lin Tao, suddenly pumped his arm in excitement.
"Eleventh place, Zou Hao!"
"Haha! See that? That’s my son!"
Zou Jianfeng pointed at a high-spirited young man on the screen, his face flushed red. His voice was loud enough for everyone in the conference room to hear.
He smugly shared his parenting philosophy with those around him.
"That kid, I never held back on him growing up! Body Tempering Liquid, Blood Nourishing Elixirs—if you can buy it on the market, I got him the best!"
"The path of martial arts is built on a mountain of resources! Without money, how can you expect to compete?"
A chorus of compliments rose from the people around him.
"Mr. Zou, you really know how to raise a child!"
"Like father, like son!"
Zou Jianfeng waved his hand in a show of modesty. "Ah, it’s mainly because the kid worked hard himself. It has nothing to do with me, haha!"
But from the look on his face, everyone could see he was enjoying it immensely.
Soon, only the last three spots on the stage remained.
After the host announced Zhang Daoxuan for third place and Dongfang Zhen for second, Zou Jianfeng turned to Lin Tao with a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes.
"Hey, Lin," he began, "they’re almost done. Which one is your son? I don’t think I’ve seen him."
His voice was filled with undisguised mockery.
"He couldn’t have... been eliminated in the first round, could he?"
"Then again," he said, slapping his thigh as if in sudden realization, "raising a Martial Artist is incredibly expensive. I suppose your family’s financial situation isn’t great, so you couldn’t afford it, huh?"
Lin Tao’s face instantly turned beet red.
He looked at the young, proud faces on the television, and an indescribable guilt washed over him.
’That’s right...’
’All these years, what have I given Xiaoye besides my meager allowance?’
He hadn’t been able to give his son a wealthy home. He hadn’t been able to pave the path of martial arts for his son like Zou Jianfeng had.
Honestly, those words truly stung Lin Tao’s heart.
He truly felt he had let Lin Ye down.
Seeing Lin Tao’s silence, Zou Jianfeng pushed his luck even further, continuing in a passive-aggressive tone:
"That just goes to show you, some people just get lucky—dumb luck. They scrape together a few merits on the battlefield, and now they get these privileges they don’t deserve at all!"
"The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. How could a rat’s offspring ever become a dragon?"
"Hahahaha!"
The group of people behind him also erupted into harsh, mocking laughter.
That sentence was like a sharp spike, viciously stabbing into Lin Tao’s heart!
He could accept Zou Jianfeng insulting him, but he would never tolerate anyone insulting his son!
Lin Tao shot up from his chair, his body trembling violently with extreme rage. His fists were clenched, and his eyes were bloodshot.
However, just as he was about to erupt—
SLAP!!!
An incredibly crisp, loud slap suddenly echoed through the noisy conference room!
Zou Jianfeng flew sideways as if he’d been hit by a speeding truck, soaring two or three meters before hitting the wall with a THUD and sliding limply to the floor.
A large amount of blood gushed from his mouth and nose, mixed with a few teeth that had been knocked out. He looked utterly wretched.
The entire conference room fell deathly silent.
Everyone was stunned by the sudden turn of events.
An old but powerful voice rang out in the pin-drop silence.
"Compared to his son, your son isn’t even worthy of being called a maggot."
Horrified, everyone turned toward the sound of the voice.
They saw an elderly man with graying hair, dressed in a field officer’s uniform. Though old, he was hale and hearty, and he had entered at some unknown point.
That slap had clearly come from him.
"Mr. Gao!"
Lin Tao and Li Weiguo were both astonished when they saw who it was.
Zou Jianfeng struggled to get up from the floor, one side of his face already swollen high. He clutched his mouth, frantic and furious, his mind completely clouded by rage.
He craned his neck, glaring at the old man, apparently ready to drop all pretenses.
"You... What gives you the right to hit me?!"
Mr. Gao didn’t even glance at him, instead casting his cold gaze on Li Weiguo.
"Li Weiguo."
"Sir!" Li Weiguo snapped to attention.
"Publicly defying and insulting a superior officer. According to military law, what is the penalty?"
Li Weiguo’s voice was firm and resonant. "Reporting to the commander! At minimum, dismissal and investigation. At worst, a court-martial!"
Hearing this, Zou Jianfeng wasn’t scared at all. Instead, he sneered.
"A superior? Which superior did I insult? Lin Tao is my subordinate, and I outrank him. Who did I defy?"
Just as he was shouting...
On the television, the host’s voice reached a crescendo, filled with an irrepressible excitement and passion that resounded throughout the auditorium!
"And now, let us give our most thunderous applause as we reveal the ultimate honor of this year’s Qiming General Star Training Camp!"
"The top graduate of Ninghai City’s Qiming General Star Training Camp is—"
"Lin Ye!"
"By special approval of the Theater Command Headquarters, he is awarded the title of Qiming General Star!"
"And concurrently, he is commissioned with the rank of Major!"
BOOM!
When the voice on the television shouted out those two words, "Lin Ye"—
Lin Tao felt his entire brain explode, his mind going completely blank.
It was as if time itself had stretched to infinity in that moment.
All the noisy chatter in the conference room, Zou Jianfeng’s blustering accusations...
Everything faded away in an instant, receding into nothingness.
In his world, only the familiar yet strange figure on the television screen remained.
It was Xiaoye.
But it wasn’t the still-somewhat-immature son from his memories.
The young man on the screen wore a crisp, black dress uniform, the golden aiguillette on his shoulder glittering under the lights.
He walked onto the stage, each step steady and powerful, finally coming to a stop at the very center of the high platform.
He stood tall with his chest out and chin slightly tucked. The thousands of spotlights on the auditorium’s ceiling seemed to fall into his dark eyes, transforming into a brilliant river of stars.
Top graduate of the training camp!
The exclusive title of Qiming General Star!
The rank of Major!
These three honors became the heaviest of hammers, striking Lin Tao’s heart again and again.
’My son... is number one in the entire province!’
At that moment, Lin Tao’s lips began to tremble uncontrollably. His eyes instantly reddened as a searing current rushed from his chest to the top of his head.
He wanted to laugh, to shout and tell everyone that the chosen one standing on the highest podium, the focus of everyone’s attention, was his child!
But he opened his mouth and couldn’t make a sound. Only hot tears streamed uncontrollably down his cheeks.
And in that moment, as the conference room fell into a dead silence, a cold voice shattered the frozen air.
"Mr. Zou, you’re a lieutenant in the logistics department. How is publicly insulting a specially commissioned major not considered insulting a superior officer?"
Li Weiguo spoke slowly, enunciating every word with extreme weight, his voice full of unconcealed killing intent.
Zou Jianfeng trembled and snapped back to his senses. The color instantly drained from his face, leaving it deathly pale.
’Major...?’
’Lin Tao’s son... is the top graduate, and he was directly commissioned as a Major?!’
This fact ricocheted wildly in his mind, making him dizzy and almost unable to stand.
In Gao Jianjun’s weathered eyes, only an icy chill remained.
He had originally wanted Lin Tao to personally repay the humiliation he had just suffered, twofold.
But now, it seemed Lin Tao was so completely consumed by the tremendous surprise Lin Ye had given him that he couldn’t be bothered to even glance at the mad dog on the floor.
However, that didn’t mean the matter was over.
For someone like Zou Jianfeng to dare provoke a decorated war hero—one he, Gao Jianjun, had personally invited—in front of so many people was a slap in his own face.
Gao Jianjun’s gaze shifted to Li Weiguo, giving him a single, calm look.
Li Weiguo understood instantly.
Only then did Gao Jianjun’s gaze return to the utterly dumbfounded Zou Jianfeng. He then uttered a single, cold word from his lips.
"Scram."
In the next instant, Li Weiguo moved.
He grabbed Zou Jianfeng by the collar and dragged him out of the conference room like a dead dog, completely ignoring his futile struggles and muffled pleas for mercy.
The few logistics personnel who had been jeering along with Zou Jianfeng just moments ago were now ashen-faced. Not daring to even breathe loudly, they scurried out with weak limbs.
The entire conference room was instantly quiet.
The icy look on Gao Jianjun’s face also vanished in an instant, replaced by a warm, genuine smile.
He walked over to Lin Tao and gently patted his shoulder.
"Comrade Lin Tao, I received the news some time ago. However, the results of the training camp are a military secret, and confidentiality rules prevented me from sharing the good news with you beforehand."
"So, this was the only way—to have you come see the live broadcast for yourself today. I hope you don’t blame me."
Lin Tao quickly wiped the tears from his face, so excited he was nearly incoherent.
"Not at all, not at all... Mr. Gao, I’m the one who should be thanking you!"
Seeing him like this, Gao Jianjun was also filled with emotion.
He let out a long sigh, his tone filled with admiration.
"Comrade Lin Tao, it is a blessing for our military to have a hero like you who is not afraid of death. I never expected you to have achieved something so astounding in raising your child as well!"
"Incredible! The top graduate in the province, a recipient of the Qiming General Star title! This child’s future will surely surpass my own!"
Seeing that Lin Tao was still in a bit of a daze, Gao Jianjun smiled and continued to explain.
"You might not know this, but most cadets who graduate from the Qiming General Star Training Camp are commissioned as second lieutenants."
"Even the top-performing graduates and runners-up from previous years, at best, only received the rank of captain."
"Your son, Lin Ye, is the first cadet in all the years that our Ninghai Province has held the Qiming General Star Training Camp to skip three ranks upon graduation and be directly commissioned as a major!"
On behalf of his son, who was still receiving his award on screen, Lin Tao gave Gao Jianjun a deep bow, his voice choked with emotion.
"Thank you to the organization for nurturing him!"
Gao Jianjun quickly helped him up and waved his hand.
"This wasn’t something that I or the Ninghai Province Military District could decide. This was a special consideration jointly approved by the Theater Command Headquarters, and perhaps even higher-ups. There’s a reason for it."
He paused, then dropped a real bombshell.
"Perhaps you, his father, don’t know this yet... So far this year, in all of Great Xia, a total of four young people have awakened an SS-rank Martial Arts Spirituality."
"Lin Ye is one of them."
"Right now, he is already one of that small handful of geniuses standing at the very top of the pyramid, looking at the entire country!"
Lin Tao was completely stunned.
He felt like he was dreaming.
None of it felt real.
Six months ago, his child was just another unremarkable new Martial Artist among the countless many in Dongjiang City.
But now...
He had reached a height that left even the leaders of his own military unit in awe!