950 Real man
Bubbling sound!
A bucket of bone-chilling water was poured on Zhao Liangze. Zhao Liangze, who had been confused the whole time, suddenly jumped from the floor. “Who? Who is it? Who the f***…”
He wiped the water off his face and was about to yell back. Suddenly, he saw Huo Shaoheng standing right in front of him, his hands behind his back. Huo Shaoheng’s handsome face and calm posture made it seem like he had never poured the bucket of cold water on him.
Zhao Liangze felt his legs grow weak. He almost kneeled to Huo Shaoheng.
Huo Shaoheng kicked Zhao Liangze with his thigh-high combat boots. Zhao Liangze fell and rolled back on the ground.
“Are you awake now? Why do you always become bacchanalian when you’re drunk? You know I could just kick you out when you behave like this.” Huo Shaoheng spoke in an even voice. He neither yelled, nor sounded harsh. However, it still sounded extremely scary to Zhao Liangze.
“Mr. Huo, Mr. Huo, it’s my bad, my bad!” Zhao Liangze almost wanted to kowtow to Huo Shaoheng. “I shouldn’t have acted like a bacchanalian and said those things about you like an a**hole. You can punish me for it. Please don’t kick me out. Don’t kick me out!”
Zhao Liangze cried, and his nose ran. Fear hovered over him. He realized being dumped by his girlfriend wasn’t as painful as being fired by Special Operation Forces. He could take the pain of losing his girlfriend, but the only unbearable thing in life would be being excluded by Special Operation Forces.
The seven-foot tall man kneeled on the floor and cried like a baby. Huo Shaoheng didn’t comfort him. He just stood there, looking down at him quietly. He waited for Zhao Liangze to get tired and stop screaming and crying. He took a seat next to him and put one leg over the other. He asked calmly, “Are you done crying?”
Zhao Liangze sniffled and nodded. He stared at the floor, which was wet from the ice water Huo Shaoheng had poured on him. He didn’t dare look up at Huo Shaoheng.
“You will definitely be punished. Do you know how I will punish you?”
Zhao Liangze remembered what he had said about Huo Shaoheng in the party room. He really regretted it and wished he could have cut his own tongue off.
He plucked up his courage to look at Huo Shaoheng. He put his thumb and forefinger together and moved them across his lips from one side of his closed mouth to the other to gesture he would zip his mouth and wouldn’t talk about it in the future. “Mr. Huo, don’t worry. I won’t say anything stupid in the future, or anything bad about you…”
Huo Shaoheng shook his head and stood up from the chair. “Do you think I am punishing you because you talked behind my back?” He walked to the door as he talked.
Zhao Liangze became extremely worried. He threw himself at Huo Shaogang’s lower legs and hugged onto his combat boots. He said worriedly, “Mr. Huo, don’t go. I know I made mistakes.”
Huo Shaoheng still had his hands behind his back. He didn’t turn around to look at Zhao Liangze. Instead, he looked straight ahead of him. He didn’t seem convinced. “Xiaoze, you specialized in tech, but you didn’t get many opportunities to go out in the field. You never even stayed abroad for long-term. I don’t think being in the field is good for you.”
Zhao Liangze awkwardly let loose of Huo Shaoheng. He braced himself on the floor and stood up. He murmured, “Am I that bad?”
“Yes, from the way you behaved today, if you were on the field, your enemies could have found your flaws. You would have died honorably or been killed.” Huo Shaoheng turned around to take a look at him.
“Dying honorably and being killed mean the same, Mr. Huo.” Zhao Zeliang waved his hand and said, “I am not scared of death.” Death was nothing to him. He hadn’t worried about death ever since he had started working in this profession.
“Okay. I didn’t want to say that I meant it differently.” Huo Shaoheng turned around and looked at Zhao Liangze with a cold look. “Did you want me to say you have betrayed us?”
“Absolutely not!” Zhao Liangze suddenly looked up with large eyes. “I’d rather die than betray you.”
“Xiaoze, I think you misunderstand what betrayal means. It is not only betrayal when a person cannot take the torturing and lets the information out. It is also betrayal when the information is leaked out by accident.” Huo Shaoheng sounded very cold. “When you were distracted, it could have cost many of our peers’s lives. Have you ever thought of that?”
Zhao Liangze’s face started to change, and his voice cracked. “Mr. Huo, I… I understand it now.”
“If you couldn’t control your emotions, you shouldn’t have joined this profession,” Huo Shaoheng warned him again. “Otherwise, you are putting others in danger and are causing unrecoverable damages to the country and military.”
Zhao Liangze finally accepted Huo Shaoheng’s criticism. He was scared about what he had done and its aftermath. He rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Mr. Huo, I promise you I will not do anything like that again.”
Huo Shaoheng coldly watched him for a while. He finally nodded and talked more nicely when he saw him truly feel badly for what he had done. “I know she was your first love. You have the right to feel emotional. Men are only considered real men when they experience true love and lose their loved ones.”
Huo Shaoheng patted him on his shoulder and said, “You can do it. I’m waiting for the day when you’re dumped.” He walked away after he said it.
Zhao Liangze suddenly realized he had been played by Huo Shaoheng.
He watched the back of Huo Shaoheng, grinding his teeth. He wanted to spit at him but didn’t dare do so. It almost killed him to swallow down the words on the tip of his tongue. Big Xiong and him would feel lucky if they weren’t played so much by their supervisor.
He thought Huo Shaoheng had nothing personal against him when his critics were so serious and hurtful.
He cried so much that he wanted to dig his heart out to show him that he was not betraying him. In the end, he still had to pay for the bad things he had said about Huo Shaoheng.
Zhao Liangze complained about him, but he also remembered well what Huo Shaoheng had told him. He wouldn’t dare act on emotions anymore. Even though he suspected Huo Shaoheng didn’t do it at a business level (it was rather a little personal), he did admit that Huo Shaoheng did what was the best for him in general. If he went out on the field now, any smart special agent could have gotten some information out of him.
Zhao Liangze took a deep breath before he pushed the door open and walked out.
His orderly knocked on his door just after he went back to his own room and changed his clothes.
“Sir, Mr. Huo wants you to see him in his office,” he said.
Zhao Liangze immediately patted his clothes and put on his military coat before he walked to Huo Shaoheng’s office. “Mr. Huo, what’s going on? Are you going to continue to punish me?” Zhao Liangze obediently stood in front of Huo Shaoheng’s office desk.
Huo Shaoheng pointed at the chair on the other side of the desk. “Take a seat.”
Zhao Liangze sat down, his back straight. He closely watched Huo Shaoheng.
Huo Shaoheng took out a Transfer Requirement paper from a printer and passed it to Zhao Liangze. “Our department has been wanting to build a stronghold in Africa. We hope to test the Nandou Satelite’s global coverage. They need a leader over there. I think you are very professional, brave, and smart. I am going to send you over there to lead them.”
Zhao Liangze pressed his lips together. He didn’t dare say anything back. He took the Transfer Requirement paper from Huo Shaoheng and took a quick look at it. “What? I need to leave tomorrow? Can I leave after the New Year?”
Huo Shaoheng didn’t answer him. He quietly watched Zhao Liangze as he rhythmically tapped his fingers on the desk. The tapping sound wasn’t loud, but it sounded as loud as machine gun shooting to Zhao Liangze.
Zhao Liangze took a look at Huo Shaoheng. His voice got weaker and weaker until he could only weakly say, “Okay.”
He took a deep breath, the Transfer Requirement paper in his hand. He stood at attention and gave Huo Shaoheng a standard solute. “Assistant Commissioner of Special Operation Forces, Zhao Liangze, is taking the assignment offer.”
Huo Shaoheng finally looked up a bit. He blinked and said calmly, “You do not need to wait to leave after the New Year. You should leave now. You have chased after your girlfriend for a long time. It is her turn to chase you. I think you guys can make a good couple.”
What Huo Shaoheng said to him almost made him cry again, but he could neither respond nor show his emotions.
He forced an awkward smile onto his face. “Mr. Huo, don’t worry. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. If we aren’t supposed to be together, I will let it go.”
“Great if you have thought it through.” Huo Shaoheng waved his hand to signal to him to leave.
Zhao Liangze turned around to walk out. After he walked only two steps, he turned around to Huo Shangheng again and said, “Mr. Huo, the system Nianzhi sent back from Federal Intelligence Agency of Germany was still in the process of being deciphered. Who will be taking over that project?”
He continued, saying, “I think Nianzhi would be the best person to take over that project, since she got us back the information. No one but her contributed the most to this success.”
Huo Shaoheng looked up at him and said without showing any emotion, “It’s better for you to be in charge of the project.”
“Still me? I thought I was going to Africa,” Zhao Liangze complained.
He wasn’t just being sent to Africa. He was being sent to the most southern part of Africa. He would be stationed on an island near sea of cape of Good Hope. It was between the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean. He heard the place was in such a remote area that there was nothing there. The only transportation would be his own legs, and the only way to communicate would be yelling at each other without any technology’s help. If the boat stopped along the coast, it could not be docked. The only way to entertain himself would be masturbation. How could he decipher anything in such a remote place?
Huo Shaoheng crossed his hands and rested them on the desk. He squinted his eyes and smiled. “That is why we need you to be the pioneer there. You need to set the equipment up there. Then you will have power, a station, and internet. You could totally change the way people live there, who have walking as their only means of transportation and yelling as their only means of communication. You could change the situation of docking boats there. However, the only way to entertain yourself will still highly rely in your own hands. I couldn’t help you unless your girlfriend wanted to visit you there.”
The corners of Zhao Liangze’s mouth twitched. He realized he could finally be calm. Losing his girlfriend was nothing. Being dumped was nothing. He would be an island owner if he could really set up everything on that island.
Zhao Liangze laughed and said, “Sure. I will obey the order to go to Africa. It will still be better than feeding pigs in the culinary department.”
Huo Shaoheng couldn’t hold in his laughter. He said slowly, “Don’t say I never reminded you that you still have to feed pigs over there.”
Zhao Liangze had thought he could handle anything after being played by Huo Shaoheng so many times, but his face still changed when he heard the words “feeding pigs on the island.”
“Mr. Huo, are you serious?”
“Pigs are people’s best friends. Don’t look down upon pigs. If you want any good food on the island, you have to figure it out yourself.” Huo Shaoheng gave him a long look and hooked his finger. “Come here.”
Zhao Liangze moved over with caution. “What do you have for me?”
Huo Shaoheng nodded at him to signal to him that he had gotten something for him. He whispered in Zhao Liangze’s ear, “I heard that island was the place where MH210 crashed. You will be the pioneer there building us the station, but the most important thing is to find out the truth behind the crash.”
Huo Shaoheng paused for a second before continuing. “We have to start from that island if we want to search for Gu Xiangwen.”
Zhao Liangze suddenly realized his real assignment. He looked at Huo Shaoheng like he had just woken up from a dream. He thought Huo Shaoheng had made it personal by sending him to the island. He was too naïve. Huo Shaoheng was great with turning any disadvantage into his advantage to better serve his county.
Zhao Liangze so completely respected Huo Shaoheng in that moment that any slight grudge he held toward Huo Shaoheng totally disappeared. He carefully folded his Transfer Requirement paper and said, “Mr. Huo, don’t worry. I will make them believe I am being punished by being sent to the island, which will serve our purpose.”
Making them believe that he had been sent to the island as punishment could hide their purposes for going to the island.
Huo Shaoheng leaned back in the chair and said, “Okay. Especially don’t tell your two girlfriends. They have to believe you offended me and that you were punished and sent to Africa.”
