By remaining silent, Yun Jiuqing rejected any form of mockery from the Boss, then focused her mind and entered the Space.
However, the moment she saw the driving practice course inside the Space, her pupils couldn’t help but contract in shock. “Who is he? Why is he in my Space?”
Even from several zhang away, she recognized him—standing beside the car was clearly that unlucky instructor who had been killed along with her and Bai Feng when they crashed.
Apparently, he was also a veteran who had retired and returned home after surviving countless battles.
He had made it through mountains of knives and seas of fire, only to be unlucky enough to run into the two harbingers of doom that were her and Bai Feng, losing his life just to teach driving. That instructor was probably pretty frustrated about it too.
Now, looking at the instructor’s familiar figure, Yun Jiuqing felt a wave of guilt written all over her, and her feet seemed glued to the ground, unwilling to move forward.
“Go on, didn’t you say you weren’t scared? Why are you chickening out now?”
The Boss crouched not far away, licking its paw with a smug look, thoroughly enjoying Yun Jiuqing’s cowardly state.
Yun Jiuqing was someone who could bend when necessary. “Can’t we just switch instructors? Or even have no instructor at all—it’s not like someone’s going to pop out of nowhere for me to run over. Our equipment is so advanced, do we really need an instructor?”
Although Yun Jiuqing’s work involved licking blood off a knife’s edge, and she had killed people and seen blood before.
But in her brief fifteen years of life in her previous life, everyone she killed was either scum of society or extremely brutal bandits and armed militants—she had never killed an innocent person.
And that instructor was the only innocent person she had wronged in both her past and present lives.
Even now, she still thought the instructor shouldn’t have run his mouth and told Bai Feng to drive over, and the one who caused the accident was Bai Feng, but she knew that in that situation, she might not have done any better than Bai Feng.
Besides, she and Bai Feng had always been inseparable, and that included getting into trouble together.
Which was why she didn’t want to see this instructor at all right now.
“Haven’t you always wondered why you transmigrated? This is the answer.”
Seeing her resistant expression, the Boss stopped gloating, and its chubby big orange face actually took on the steady demeanor of a commander.
“Huofenghuang is a team that cannot be defeated; it needs members who are indestructible.
But you’ve seen the cost of training in reality—equipment and financial losses are backed by the nation, so we fear nothing.
But human resources are non-renewable, and the cost of training one member is too high; the organization can’t afford it.
That’s why this special Space system was developed specifically to test and train you all in a targeted manner.
This instructor is a psychological hurdle for you and Bai Feng. It’s not just you who has to overcome it—Bai Feng does too. Unless you give up on Huofenghuang and give up on returning, you can’t avoid this.”
The Boss was an intelligent avatar of the command system generated by the Strategic Space System based on Yun Jiuqing’s personal traits, and every one of its programs was designed to optimize Yun Jiuqing’s individual abilities.
But when Yun Jiuqing heard the Boss’s serious words, her heart leaped with joy. “You mean, once I complete these trainings, I can go back?”
In the Celestial Dynasty, she had family who loved her, friends who understood her, and comrades she could trust with her back. If she could, she didn’t want to transmigrate to this unkind world at all.
The reason she was actively coping was simply that she felt transmigration wasn’t that simple, and she wanted to make her life a little better before she could return or die again.
If she could go back after finishing the training, she would definitely pour all her energy into facing this special training.
But when she actually asked with full hope, the Boss’s answer became evasive again. “Just think of it as being able to go back. Isn’t Huofenghuang’s motto to do your absolute best?”
This ambiguous answer was clearly not what Yun Jiuqing wanted to hear.
But one thing the Boss said wasn’t wrong—Huofenghuang’s motto was to do the present task to the absolute best.
Yun Jiuqing really disliked having to deal with that instructor and really didn’t want to recall the previous accident, but since she said she would practice, she would do her best.
After mentally preparing herself, she gritted her teeth and walked toward the instructor. “Code name Qing Feng, reporting to the instructor. Please give your orders.”
The instructor had been facing away from her, seemingly wiping the car, but upon hearing her voice, he leisurely turned around. “Orders? What orders? Get in the car.”
It was the exact same exchange as her first time practicing driving, and Yun Jiuqing’s heart grew even more tense.
“Yes, Instructor.”
As she answered, her hand had already pulled open the car door, and she skillfully adjusted the seat and buckled her seatbelt, trying hard to avoid the instructor’s gaze. “Instructor, what do we learn first?”
“First, let’s get a feel for the car. Go on, drive a few laps around this field.”
The instructor sat in the passenger seat with his thermos as thick as an adult’s arm, took a leisurely sip, and only then, as if just remembering, asked, “Do you know which one is the brake, which is the gas, and which is the clutch?”
Yun Jiuqing instinctively wanted to say, “Of course I know!”
However, the moment she opened her mouth, all her knowledge about driving vanished from her mind.
It felt as if she had lived two lifetimes without ever having come into contact with a car.
She blurted out in shock, “Coach, didn’t you say cars only have joys and sorrows, not separations?”
The next instant, the coach rolled his eyes hard at her. “You think you can use automatic transmission skills for special driving?”
Yun Jiuqing silently shut her mouth and flashed a sheepish grin at the coach, trying to appease him.
The latter was speechless. “From left to right: brake, clutch, accelerator. You won’t need the accelerator for Subject Two…”
Before he could even finish the word “accelerator,” the training car let out a sound like an old lady in her eighties passing gas.
Startled, Yun Jiuqing quickly lifted her foot, and the training car sputtered twice before stalling.
The coach’s face darkened like the bottom of a pot. “Come on, come on, step on it again. You special forces are so impressive, go ahead, stomp your foot into the gas tank…”
The familiar sarcastic tone rang in her ears, and the coach’s face, black as if smeared with soot, overlapped with a figure from her memory. Yun Jiuqing suddenly realized she didn’t actually hate practicing driving or facing the coach as much as she thought.
However, “…Hill start with precise stop, vehicle side distance greater than 30 centimeters, deduct 10 points!
Parallel parking, turn signal not activated, deduct 10 points.
Reverse parking, wheel touched the line, exam over, result: FAIL!”
The pleasant electronic mechanical voice played the nightmare-inducing results over and over again, and Yun Jiuqing realized she had indeed been too quick to relax.
By the time she had completed her required practice hours, even the Boss was shocked to see her. “Damn, it’s just practicing driving, no need to go that far, is there?”
Yun Jiuqing’s current state was like Tang Sanzang drained of his yang energy by a demoness, listlessly standing there, as if a single poke from a pinky would send her to the afterlife on the spot.
“I want the Yinxing Yingguangji, as much as possible. Don’t talk to me about points. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll dismantle this crappy Space of yours!”
Having been tormented by the coach and that damn broken car for nearly half an hour, Yun Jiuqing’s resentment now ran deeper than the ghosts of the Ghost Festival. If she didn’t get what she wanted, she would genuinely lose her mind.
The Boss, knowing his master’s terrible temper and wanting to avoid being formatted, grumbled but still brought out what Yun Jiuqing wanted.
And so, just as the hour of Mao approached, the skies over Chu Jing were filled with the words Xuan Lie and the others had spoken to the soldiers of Nangu Ying during the day.
Also released in Xie Ciyuan’s name were tea-flavored remarks like, “As long as the Great Chu is prosperous and its people at peace, and the rivers and mountains remain stable, this king has a clear conscience.”
All of Chu Jing was in an uproar, and those who agreed, including the crowd lodging at Nangu Ying, were equally stirred.