Chapter 244 An excellent harvest of gratitude tokens
The platoon commander was stunned. “What place is that?”
Ren Xiaosu lowered his voice and said to him, “The FOB. It’s at most four kilometers away from us. Not only can you eat your fill while in this uniform, but you can also take some food back with you as well.”
When the platoon commander heard Ren Xiaosu telling him that he could eat at the forward operating base, he hesitated for a moment. What if someone at the FOB discovered their true identity?
But when he looked at Ren Xiaosu’s group again, he thought, ‘Isn’t this a successful example right in front of me?’ If Ren Xiaosu’s group already had their fill, anyone else wearing the Divine Arms uniform would also be able to do the same.
The platoon commander said sincerely, “Thank you, my brother!”
“Gratitude received from Wang Dingguo, +1!
“Quest complete. Awarded Basic Skill Duplication Scroll.”
When Ren Xiaosu received this gratitude token on top of the notification from the palace for the quest’s completion, an idea suddenly came to him!
Just as that platoon commander was about to take his men to get food, they were stopped by Ren Xiaosu.
Ren Xiaosu said in seriousness, “Aren’t the rest of you going to thank me?”
The platoon commander was stunned at first, but he hurriedly got his men to thank Ren Xiaosu. The private soldiers were starving badly. As the information provided by Ren Xiaosu really helped with their survival issues, most of their gratitude was expressed sincerely.
It was so sincere that it could not get any more sincere than this!
All of a sudden, Ren Xiaosu received a total of 18 gratitude tokens!
As a matter of fact, he had more than 400 gratitude tokens as of this moment. If he could make the others in the camp thank him as well, this new weapon might just be unlocked in the blink of an eye!
Ren Xiaosu turned around and looked at Li Qingzheng. “You guys head back to the tent first and rest. There’s something I need to do.”
Li Qingzheng wondered, “Platoon Commander, what are you gonna do?”
Ren Xiaosu said righteously, “Although we’ve had our fill, many people in our Iron Second Battalion are still hungry. We can’t be this selfish. We have to let them know about this!”
Li Qingzheng was a little ashamed when he heard that from Ren Xiaosu. He suddenly felt that he couldn’t compare to Ren Xiaosu as he wasn’t as noble as him!
Li Qingzheng took the initiative and said, “Then let’s split up so that we can inform everyone a little quicker.”
Ren Xiaosu’s expression immediately changed. “No, y’all’ve been working hard all day, so you should get some rest quickly! Hurry up and go to sleep. Don’t tire yourselves out further!”
The soldiers in the platoon were almost moved to tears. They didn’t realize in the past that Ren Xiaosu actually cared this much about them. Li Qingzheng thought the reason he had been relegated to the role of platoon sergeant was because he wasn’t as enlightened as Ren Xiaosu was.
After Ren Xiaosu compelled Li Qingzheng and the others to quickly go and rest, he started going around to each tent to inform the other platoons. The tents issued by the Supply Division were all large tents and were big enough for a platoon to sleep in.
Ren Xiaosu went around patiently to inform the rest of the private troops. Everyone was still quite doubtful at the beginning, but when Ren Xiaosu showed them the buns in his arms, they were convinced!
The platoons informed by Ren Xiaosu felt that he was such a good person...Although, they did find it a little strange that he insisted they thank him.
As Ren Xiaosu counted his gratitude tokens, he saw they had increased to over 900 in just an hour. This harvest of gratitude tokens was much greater than he had ever received in the
past!
Sure enough, in times of hunger, people’s feelings for food would become especially sincere...
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Ren Xiaosu lifted the next tent’s flap and asked, “Are you all hungry? I know a place—”
The five nanosoldiers in the tent quietly looked to Ren Xiaosu. Then Ren Xiaosu calmly replied with a smile, “Haha, sorry for the disturbance.”
He had been too careless!
Every tent at this campsite looked identical to Ren Xiaosu, so how could he could tell who was in them?
Immediately, the nanosoldiers rushed out of the tent and shouted, “Stop right there! What was the meaning of that?!”
But as they had finished speaking, they discovered that many of the tent flaps on the outside were open with no one inside them.
The nanosoldiers quickly went around the camp to check before gasping at the discovery that they had not even noticed that the camp was already half empty!
Just then, the private soldiers who had finished eating their fill returned from the FOB in groups, and some of them were even picking their teeth with toothpicks. Not only that, it was clear at a glance that they were carrying a lot of things in their arms.
But the returning private soldiers were all petrified when they saw the nanosoldiers walking up to them. A nanosoldier from the Divine Arms Battalion asked coldly, “Where have you all been?”
One of them answered while trembling, “We went to the FOB to eat.”
The nanosoldier was stunned by his answer. “Was it as simple as just eating?”
Gradually, more and more people returned after eating at the FOB. In the end, all of them were punished to stand at attention in the camp.
The nanosoldiers paced around these people and sneered, “Do you know what the crime is if you leave the barracks without permission?”
He then slapped some of the private soldiers’ buns they were carrying in their arms onto the ground, and stomped on them. “You, you,
you!”
The nanosoldier pointed at three of the private soldiers. “Eat the buns on the ground!”
The private soldiers who were singled out were afraid to backtalk. They immediately picked up the flattened buns and stuffed them into their mouths.
The nanosoldier looked at them. “Who said you all could go to the FOB to eat?”
As soon as he finished saying that, he was shocked to find that almost everyone’s gaze had landed on Ren Xiaosu. Not only that, someone even pointed out Ren Xiaosu.
So did this mean that all the soldiers at the camp who went to the FOB to eat were all told to do so by Ren Xiaosu?
This should be easy to handle then. By punishing Ren Xiaosu alone, that would help avoid a mutiny.
Actually, the officers of the Divine Arms Battalion felt helpless. If only one or two people had broken the law, they would be severely punished for it. But too many had committed the crime. What if they punished too many people and that resulted in a mutiny breaking out at the camp? Hence, the best thing to do would be to punish only one person as a warning to the others.
But one of the officers of the Divine Arms Battalion could not figure out something. He looked at Ren Xiaosu and wondered, “Why did you tell the others they could eat at the FOB?”
Ren Xiaosu gave it a bit of thought. “Because the braised chicken cuts at the FOB are delicious.”
The officers of the Divine Arms Battalion was speechless.
While Ren Xiaosu spoke, the expression of one of the Divine Arms officers changed. He decided he would use Ren Xiaosu as a warning to the others tonight!
But at this moment, Ren Xiaosu whispered to one of the Divine Arms nanosoldiers, “Can we step aside to have a word?”
Puzzled, the nanosoldier went with Ren Xiaosu a ways away where Ren Xiaosu flashed his Office of Special Investigations’ military ID without hesitation. “I suspect that there’s a spy from the Qing Consortium within our ranks, so y’all will have to cooperate with me to identify him. However, I have no clue who it might be. No one else can know about this other than the two of us.”
The nanosoldier stayed silent.
Ren Xiaosu thought that since Hu Shuo and Li Shentan were plotting something major, they would definitely be more than OK to help him resolve a small matter like this. If that were the case, he might as well just pass the buck since he could do it.
Tonight’s turn of events upset the nanosoldier. He felt that he had to give it more careful thought.
A captain of the Office of Special Investigations telling everyone to go to the FOB to eat in order to flush out the Qing Consortium’s spy?
That didn’t make any fucking sense!
The Office of Special Investigations was a military unit that even the Divine Arms Battalion was afraid of. After all, not even the Divine Arms Battalion was confident enough to proclaim that no spy could infiltrate their ranks.
Meanwhile, espionage was one of the most serious crimes that could happen in wartime.