The phone on the table vibrated twice, and Qu Qingyu picked it up to take a look.
“Zou Ran and the others are asking me out to hang out. Do you want to go?” Qu Qingyu looked toward Zhu Xing.
“Sure. But you are the host of the banquet, are you leaving this early? It is not even eight o’clock yet.”
“It is only using my name anyway.”
Banquets among wealthy families are nothing more than tools used to maintain business relations.
The two of them ran into Qu Wenyu and Zhu Yao in the banquet hall.
“Big Brother, I am going out to hang out with some friends for a bit.”
Both of them spoke in unison.
The two older brothers remained silent.
Qu Wenyu glanced at the two of them and nodded, while Zhu Yao looked at Qu Qingyu with an unfriendly expression.
“Go home early, Xingxing.”
Zhu Xing nodded, looking somewhat baffled as he watched Zhu Yao.
After the two of them had walked some distance away,
“Brother Yao, let us go, let us talk about the development of Herwan.” Qu Qingyu was in a pretty good mood.
“You should still call me President Zhu. We are not that familiar with each other, President Qu.”
“It is fine. We will be familiar with each other very soon.”
They remained silent.
The two of them quickly arrived at their agreed-upon destination, a shooting club where the sound of gunshots echoed through the air from time to time.
They went to the locker room to change their clothes, as suits were far too eye-catching.
“There are stationary targets, moving targets, and clay pigeons. Which one are we shooting?” Zou Ran picked up a gun from the side and asked.
Qu Qingyu looked at Zhu Xing, waiting for his decision.
“I will just shoot the stationary targets. I do not know how to play this.” Zhu Xing looked eager to try.
“You do not know how? That is great! You can have Qu Qingyu teach you,” Ding Wei’s booming voice came from the doorway. Who knows what he meant by being so excited.
However, at the thought of Qu Qingyu teaching him, recalling the last time they played pool, Zhu Xing felt a slight shiver and blurted out, “I do not want him to teach me. He is too hot.”
The other three fell silent. Uh, was this hot the kind of hot they had in mind? So things had already progressed this quickly between them.
Qu Qingyu could not help letting out a low chuckle.
Ding Wei gave Qu Qingyu a knowing look. Not bad, buddy.
Zhu Xing picked up the gun and disengaged the safety lock.
He aimed and fired a few rounds, accompanied by a cold, emotionless electronic voice, “Zero rings, zero rings.” Five consecutive times, zero rings meant a complete miss, which indicated that Zhu Xing had not even come close to the target.
Zhu Xing felt a bit awkward and wanted to say something, stealing a glance at Qu Qingyu while waiting for his sharp tongue.
Yet Qu Qingyu remained silent. Ding Wei wanted to laugh, but a single glance from Qu Qingyu stopped him.
“If you do not want me to teach you, then are you here to play, or are you here to burn money? At four hundred per bullet, you just blew through two thousand in less than five seconds, what a thrifty Second Young Master Zhu.” Qu Qingyu said with a hint of helplessness.
Zhu Xing handed the gun to Qu Qingyu. “Then you teach me.”
Qu Qingyu took the gun, a flash of amusement in his eyes. “Not afraid that I will burn you up?”
“All right, hurry up already!” Zhu Xing felt too embarrassed to discuss the whole burning issue any further.
Enveloped in Qu Qingyu’s embrace once again, Zhu Xing was already prepared.
“Keep your eyes on the target, watch your posture.” Qu Qingyu’s hand gripped Zhu Xing’s hand, covering a palm as white and smooth as jade with his own. His palm was burning hot, causing the fingertips of the smaller hand beneath to flush with a faint reddish tint under the intense heat.
Zhu Xing focused his mind entirely on the target ahead, and only heard the sound of a gunshot ringing out.
“10.2 rings.” Hearing the announced score, Zhu Xing’s voice carried an undisguised wave of excitement.
“Did you hear that, Qu Qingyu? 10.2 rings, that is amazing!”
Qu Qingyu looked at the person in his arms, secretly rubbing his chin against the top of Zhu Xing’s head as he said in a tender, lingering tone, “I heard it.”
“Again, again!” Zhu Xing caught the excitement and completely forgot about Qu Qingyu holding him, only wanting to hear that score in the tens again and again.
Zhu Xing only felt that Qu Qingyu seemed to be holding him even tighter, enveloping his entire person within his scent.
“Tell me, does teaching someone how to shoot require holding them like this?” Ding Wei asked with a puzzled look on his face.
“Why don’t you try having Ah Yu teach you and see if he holds you,” Zou Ran remarked out of nowhere.
Ding Wei imagined that scene and shuddered, while Chen Chen and Wang Yuanshan burst into loud laughter.
After continuously hearing the score over a dozen times, Qu Qingyu lowered his gun.
“What is wrong?” Zhu Xing turned his head with a bewildered expression.
“You are not wearing ear protectors. Won’t your ears hurt if you keep shooting?” Qu Qingyu reached out and gently touched Zhu Xing’s rounded earlobe.
The scorching heat vanished as quickly as it touched him.
“Then hand them over, I will just put them on.” Zhu Xing spoke with urgent enthusiasm, as he was having far too much fun.
Hitting those tens in a row made him feel like he had become an expert marksman.
The shooting range’s ear protectors had fantastic noise-cancellation effects, but once he put them on, he would no longer be able to hear Qu Qingyu talking to him.
Qu Qingyu held Zhu Xing to adjust his posture. Since they had already gone over the essentials earlier, even without hearing Qu Qingyu’s words, Zhu Xing already knew by heart what steps to take. Several shots later, the scores remained in the tens.
After playing like this for over an hour, Zhu Xing finally put down his gun.
“Yo, had your fill of fun?” Ding Wei looked at the two of them walking over.
“Mm, it was fun.” Zhu Xing watched the others playing with the moving targets.
The shooting method was identical to the stationary targets, but the targets moved irregularly, raising the difficulty significantly.
Zhu Xing had self-awareness regarding his own skill level; without Qu Qingyu, he could not even hit stationary targets properly. Besides, after playing for over an hour, he felt a bit tired and no longer wanted to participate in this part.
“It has been a long time since we competed, Qingyu, why don’t you join in?” Wang Yuanshan suggested.
Zhu Xing also looked at Qu Qingyu with expectant eyes.
Qu Qingyu swallowed back the refusal he had on the tip of his tongue.
Chen Chen’s skill with moving targets was also subpar, barely better than Zhu Xing’s, so he opted out of the competition.
In the end, it was Ding Wei, Wang Yuanshan, Zou Ran, and Qu Qingyu competing against each other.
The two spectators stepped back from the shooting area. Seeing how completely focused Zhu Xing looked, Qu Qingyu could not help but take things a bit more seriously.
Zhu Xing thought that Qu Qingyu’s ready-to-go posture looked striking and handsome.
His brows were slightly lowered as he inspected the competition firearm in his hand, a Beretta 92FS.
Once the match began, Zou Ran fired first and hit his mark, with Qu Qingyu following closely behind. All four hit their targets on the first shot.
However, the speed of the moving targets would increase progressively. Each Beretta 92FS magazine held a capacity of only fifteen rounds, out of a total of one hundred moving targets for the four participants, with twenty targets popping up per round that would drop once hit. Therefore, reload speed was also crucial; if one reloaded too slowly, they might only have those fifteen chances left and would need to hit every single one.
Gunshots rang out continuously. Soon, Zou Ran and Qu Qingyu finished firing their first magazines simultaneously, both beginning to reload at the same time, with Ding Wei and Wang Yuanshan following closely behind.
Qu Qingyu moved extremely fast, skillfully pressing the magazine release button. The empty magazine ejected instantly, and the new one clicked precisely into place, the entire process taking less than a second.
Zou Ran’s speed was also very fast, leaving almost no difference between the two of them as the second round quickly began.
After reloading, Ding Wei’s hand experienced some fatigue; he fired five consecutive shots, but only three hit. Wang Yuanshan hit four. Zou Ran and Qu Qingyu hit every single one.
Sixty targets had already been cleared in the first round, leaving only forty for the second round.
Zhu Xing watched Qu Qingyu and Zou Ran, thinking that first place would definitely go to one of them.
Soon came the second rapid-fire sequence, at which point only twenty targets remained, with ten bullets left for each shooter.
Qu Qingyu took the lead by firing five consecutive shots and hitting every one, then immediately followed up by discharging the final five bullets in his magazine. Ding Wei was slightly slower; after he managed to fire two rounds, there were no targets left on the field.
The final results showed that Zou Ran hit all twenty-six rounds, Wang Yuanshan hit twenty-four out of twenty-five, and Ding Wei hit twenty out of twenty-two.
Meanwhile, Qu Qingyu hit all thirty rounds without a single miss! Zhu Xing watched with his entire body buzzing with excitement. The posture of drawing and firing so rapidly was simply too cool.
Even though Ding Wei came in last, he was still very happy. “Hahaha, I hit twenty out of twenty-two, that hit rate is seriously high.”
Zhu Xing looked at Qu Qingyu with sparkling eyes. “You are way too handsome!”
Qu Qingyu accepted the compliment comfortably, returning the gun to the staff member and reaching out to rub the top of Zhu Xing’s head.
“I know.”
Knowing that Qu Qingyu was quite confident in himself, Zhu Xing did not expect him to act shy about it at all.
Once everyone grew tired of playing, Ding Wei suggested going out for late-night snacks. After filling their stomachs, it was already past 12 o’clock at night when they finally parted ways to head home.