Different

In truth, Gao Fei had no way of knowing whether he had actually hit his target, but he felt an overwhelming confidence that he had. It was blind confidence—hubris, even. But Gao Fei had suddenly recalled that for any marksman, confidence was a virtue. Being cocky about it was fine, but losing your confidence was fatal. The more confident you were, the straighter you shot; the more cautious you were, the more likely you were to miss. Gao Fei was confident, while Sokholov had crossed into sheer blind faith. Sokholov harbored a borderline mystical trust in Gao Fei's marksmanship. If Gao Fei said he hit it, then he must have hit it. There was no need to doubt, no room to doubt, and certainly no tolerance for anyone else doubting it. "Good! A hit!" Sokholov seemed even more convinced than Gao Fei. Turning to the sniper, he declared, "If he says he hit it, he hit it!" "He doesn't even know how to correct for windage! He's using my rifle—how could he hit that? That's impossible." Sometimes, it wasn't that some bystander was desperate to step up and pick a fight. For an actual sniper watching a total novice who could barely read a scope claim to have made a shot he himself couldn't pull off, how was anyone supposed to believe it? Merely questioning it was already polite enough. The fact that the sniper hadn't blown up and cursed Gao Fei out as a brain-dead braggart was proof of considerable restraint. Sokholov had genuinely worked as a marksmanship instructor. He understood full well how vital it was for a shooter to preserve his confidence. Beyond that, he had seen Gao Fei's shooting with his own eyes, so he absolutely would not permit anyone to question Gao Fei's skill. The Russian temperament had a quality that was both a strength and a flaw: before they accepted you, they looked down on you in every way possible; but once they accepted you, they would defend you to the death. There was practically no middle ground—only two extremes. "He said he hit it! That means he hit it! Just because you can't doesn't mean he can't!" Sokholov spoke with deadly seriousness, but this sniper was not the sort to back down from intimidation either. Hearing Sokholov's utterly irrational defense, the sniper abandoned all courtesy. "Is this your first day in a war? Have you ever even touched a gun? Do you even know what a sniper rifle is?" The sniper jabbed a finger toward Gao Fei and continued without hesitation, "If he can hit a target over four hundred meters out, then I'll..." Then he'd what? The sniper hadn't thought that far ahead. Whatever he said had to sound dignified, dripping with disdain for Gao Fei while affirming absolute faith in his own professional judgment—a wager that laid everything on the line. Yet the sniper also knew there was no way to verify it. Nobody was going to sprint over to the enemy position just to check whether someone had actually dropped dead. When all was said and done, it would come down to nothing more than trash talk. "Then I'll offer up my own head as a target for him to shoot at!" The sniper threw down the heavy wager without flinching, then added with an irritated grimace, "I don't know what's wrong with you people, but you've all lost your minds." Gao Fei didn't even bother engaging in their argument. He simply kept peering at the enemy position through the scope. And then, he genuinely spotted a head popping up, followed immediately by the chattering roar of the newly emplaced heavy machine gun. The heavy machine gun opened fire, its rounds spraying roughly in their direction. There was virtually no threat, so Gao Fei ended Sokholov and the sniper's dispute with a single sentence: "Another one popped out. Watch me take out their machine gunner!" Sokholov and the sniper broke off their squabble at once, both turning toward Gao Fei in unison. Gao Fei aligned the crosshairs on the machine gunner's head and murmured, "Watch this. Spot for me with your binoculars." The sniper raised his binoculars right away, while Sokholov urged in a hurry, "Wait a second, hold on!" When binoculars weren't in use, they had to be kept out of sight to avoid drawing the eye of enemy drones as high-value targets. Right now, however, Sokholov absolutely had to see this. Sokholov raised his binoculars as well. Gao Fei pointed with one hand. "Look over there. Machine gunner." "Got him." "Wait... okay, I see him." Gao Fei hooked his right index finger back around the trigger. He had lined up a precise sight picture, but he didn't pull the trigger impulsively. Instead, he eased it back gradually, waiting for the resistance to build under his finger until the trigger hit the wall, and then increased the pressure. A sharp report rang out. Gao Fei fired. The round tore through the air, but unlike shooting at close quarters, the bullet spent roughly a second in flight before the sniper declared without the slightest hesitation, "Miss." The shooter couldn't see it, but someone beside him could easily spot the bullet trace cutting through the air. On a clear day under bright sunlight, the wake of a round was visible in midair. As for whether it hit the target, that was even simpler to determine: the target was still hale and hearty, which naturally meant a miss. Surprised as he was, Sokholov could only mutter under his breath, "A miss." Gao Fei felt that every single one of his mechanics had been flawless, yet how on earth had he missed? The sniper didn't miss the chance to twist the knife, sneering mockingly, "If you'd hit your mark earlier, that machine gunner wouldn't dare open fire now. Since he's blazing away right this second, it proves you didn't hit a damn soul back then." Sokholov refused to concede in the slightest. "If he didn't hit anything before, why the hell would that machine gunner shoot over here? He must've killed one of their men, and that's why the gunner lost his mind and started hosing our line!" "Hah, nonsense!" "Stop arguing." Gao Fei told them to quiet down, lowered the rifle, and squatted down in the trench. Taking deliberate, careful aim at a stationary target like this really didn't seem to work. Why didn't it work? If he thought back to how he had shot the pistol, he ought to find the root of the problem. When he held a pistol and tried to aim carefully before firing, his hands shook continuously, and with a very wide tremor. Gao Fei knew his own limitations: he had never undergone any formal marksmanship training. Seasoned shooters spent years drilling to drastically dampen sight wobble, releasing the shot at the most stable instant. Gao Fei possessed none of that training or muscle memory, which meant the longer and harder he tried to aim, the more violently the pistol shook. Moving targets, on the other hand, were a different matter entirely. Shooting at objects tossed into the air was all about whipping the gun up and firing in one fluid motion. That placed extreme demands on vision and reflexes, yet throughout that swinging sweep of the arm, the hands didn't tremble at all. Ordinary people struggled to even track a drone in flight with the naked eye, let alone shoot it out of the sky. Gao Fei, however, could not only track the drone clearly, but snap-shoot and drop it before his conscious mind even caught up. That meant Gao Fei's eyes were faster than his brain, and his hands were faster than his brain. Why had he landed that earlier shot with the sniper rifle? Because he had to swing the barrel rapidly, and sweeping the muzzle to fire mid-motion pushed hand-eye coordination to its absolute limits—which happened to be Gao Fei's greatest strength. For a wildly gifted, completely untrained wildcard of a shooter, standard marksmanship fundamentals simply didn't apply. If the enemy wasn't moving, what should he do? Make himself move. Moving didn't mean he had to run around; snapping the rifle up quickly would do the trick. He couldn't constrain a prodigy like himself with the mundane rules of ordinary men. He had to uncover the shooting style that truly suited him. Being a military enthusiast did offer an edge after all: he already possessed a firm grasp of underlying theory. Even if he didn't know how to adjust a scope, didn't understand ballistic tables, and had no concept of bullet trajectories intersecting the line of sight—lacking practical field experience in every way—his conclusions weren't mere idle speculation. To sum it up: he had tasted the pork, and in his mind, there was no mosaic blurring the picture. Gao Fei decided to test out his theory. That was why he had crouched down, completely breaking visual contact with his target. He wrapped the sling once around his left forearm, gripped the rifle's handguard, turned his back to the target, exhaled, held his breath, and suddenly rose, driving the rifle toward the position etched into his memory. His left eye remained open while his right aligned behind the scope to acquire the target. The rifle moved in a swift, continuous sweep onto the soft earth of the parapet. The instant the back of his left hand touched the dirt—and the rifle settled to a dead stop—his right index finger broke the final ounce of trigger resistance. The firing pin struck, and the bullet roared downrange. The machine gunner was still spraying wildly, venting his fury. The round flew for a brief moment, about one second. Gao Fei saw the machine gunner's head snap backward and vanish from view. The machine gun that had been firing was dragged backward, its muzzle pointing up toward the sky as it slid out of sight. "Hit!" Sokholov bellowed. He tore the binoculars from his eyes, leaned right up against the allied sniper, and roared, "Did he hit it?! Did he hit it?!" The sniper was utterly stunned and bewildered. Lowering his binoculars as well, he stared blankly at Gao Fei. "Did he hit it or not?! Answer me! Did he hit it?!" The sniper wiped the spit Sokholov had sprayed all over his face, then shoved Sokholov away with sheer disgust. "What the hell was that? An acrobatics routine? You can't just aim and shoot like a normal human being, you have to spin around first?! Showing off for who, exactly? Are you sick in the head?! Are you mocking me?!" A barrage of outraged questions spewed from the sniper's mouth toward Gao Fei. Looking as though he had suffered the ultimate insult, he snapped, "Give me back my rifle. I'm going home." Seeing that Gao Fei didn't react, the sniper lunged forward, grabbed the sniper rifle from Gao Fei's hands, and barked, "Let go! I'm going back to my position!" Gao Fei unlooped the sling from his left arm and released his grip. Fuming with fury, the sniper grabbed his rifle and stormed off. He didn't leave a single word behind, departing in a frantic, humiliated rush, his receding back stiff with stubborn pride. The sniper walked away without once looking back, devoid of the slightest attachment. Sokholov burst into hearty laughter, clapping Gao Fei on the shoulder. "Rex, Rex! You really are natural sniper material! Hahaha! Brilliant! Hahahaha, truly brilliant!" Gao Fei let out a breath and murmured, "That shot relied way too much on luck. Over long distances, I'm just not consistent enough." Overjoyed, Sokholov said, "Come off it! All you lack is experience, and experience can be trained. But you have talent that nobody else has—and talent can't be trained! Others couldn't achieve that even if they practiced for a lifetime. Now I'm certain: long-range shooting is no problem for you either. None at all!"