Compared to someone as timid and unmotivated as Shen Sixing, who was content merely to muddle through, Wen Ya had always possessed a fiercely competitive streak.
The next event was shooting.
Shen Sixing could actually take part in this one.
But Wen Ya had already lost all faith in him.
The shooting range had been set up on the eastern side of the playground. The area near the wall had been cleared out, and the school had specially arranged a row of inflatable targets marked with bull's-eyes and numbered rings. Beside them lay several lightweight plastic dart guns and soft-tipped arrows.
Not many parents and children had signed up for this event. Most people had already collapsed onto the bleachers after the tug-of-war and relay races.
When Wen Ya accepted the dart gun, she first lowered her head and examined its construction. Then she calmly walked up to the firing line.
She raised the dart gun in her hand.
Her other hand instinctively came up to support the bottom of the gun.
That instinctive posture and movement…
Made Shen Sixing, who had been slacking off nearby, narrow his eyes without realizing it.
The stock was braced against the web of her thumb, her wrist held level, her elbow slightly tucked inward, and the muzzle slowly raised along a straight line toward the target.
That was not the way one handled a toy dart gun. It was the standard stance for firing an actual weapon.
Wen Ya was completely unaware that she was being watched. She was still chatting with Shen Yi.
“This sight is misaligned. Your school’s equipment is terrible. Is this how you justify charging us parents so much tuition?”
Shen Yi had rarely seen her mother use a gun. In her memory, Mom was much better with cold weapons.
Knives, daggers, even the fruit knife she used to peel apples—she handled them all with remarkable ease.
“Mom, you can shoot too?”
Wen Ya adjusted the angle slightly. “A little. I’m not particularly good with guns, but all my colleagues know how to use them. After seeing them so often, you pick it up through sheer familiarity.”
There was a saying:
The world never had any assassins to begin with.
It was only after people killed enough that they became assassins.
At a school sports-day game, most people were there for fun. For the elementary school children, simply hitting the target at all was already considered impressive.
Shen Yi had only just received her gun when Wen Ya fired.
The shot landed precisely in the very center of the bull’s-eye.
A father nearby who had just scored a six let out a startled “Wow.”
“That accurate?”
One shot, one hit.
The parents and students standing around with nothing better to do gathered over to watch.
Wen Ya loaded another dart, took less than a second to aim, and pulled the trigger.
Another ten-ring shot, landing less than half a centimeter from the first.
A mother beside them whispered to her husband, “Is she a shooting instructor?”
“She’s incredible…”
When the shooting event ended, Wen Ya was the undisputed champion. After receiving the gleaming little gold medal, she immediately hung it around Shen Yi’s neck.
Shen Yi proudly straightened her back and hugged Wen Ya tightly.
“Mom, you’re amazing!”
A useless dad and an awesome mom!
Afterward, Shen Sixing naturally wandered over to Wen Ya’s side. Crouching down, he casually said with a smile, “Miss, your aim looks pretty good.”
Wen Ya had been prepared for that. She replied, “I used to shoot birds with a slingshot back home.”
The explanation made Shen Sixing rub his knuckles against the tip of his nose and raise his eyebrows slightly. For the moment, he pressed his suspicions down.
“The next event is javelin!” the physical-education teacher announced over the loudspeaker. “Groups one through three, report to the javelin area!”
The javelin event was for children. They used lightweight plastic javelins about fifty centimeters long, brightly colored, with blunt tips. Held in the hand, they looked like oversized toy pens.
The elementary school students lined up behind the throwing line, each one raising a javelin and tossing it forward. The distances ranged from five or six meters to ten.
The PE teacher measured each throw with a tape measure and recorded the results in a notebook.
Shen Yi stood in the middle of the line.
When her turn came, she stepped forward, gripped the javelin around its middle, and tossed it casually.
Nineteen meters.
For an elementary school student, that was already an astonishing distance.
But Wen Ya, watching from the side, was not particularly satisfied.
She crouched down and beckoned Shen Yi over. “Come here, sweetheart. I’ll show you how to put power into your wrist.”
Shen Yi obediently walked over.
Wen Ya picked up another javelin and demonstrated the grip. “You need to hold it a little farther back. Pinch the balance point between your index finger and thumb, and let the other three fingers curl around it lightly.”
“Look.”
Wen Ya flicked her wrist forward in slow motion. The force traveled from her wrist to her fingertips, like the tip of a whip snapping outward. The movement was exceptionally natural.
“The power comes from here, not your shoulder.”
Watching her mother patiently teach her brought the future rushing back to Shen Yi.
Mom had taught her to use a dagger in exactly the same way.
A slight twist of the wrist, the blade pointed forward, the force delivered from the wrist.
Mom often said that cold weapons were better than guns. Guns made noise. Knives didn’t.
“Mom, show me once,” Shen Yi said, spacing out for two seconds before looking up at her. For some reason, she suddenly missed the mother she knew in the future. In a small voice, she added, “I’ve never learned this.”
Wen Ya gently brushed her fingertip across Shen Yi’s cheek.
She laughed. “All right, all right. Honestly, what am I going to do with you?”
She bent down, picked up another plastic javelin, and walked behind the throwing line.
She adjusted her footing slightly, shifting her center of gravity onto her back foot.
Then she flicked her wrist.
The javelin shot from Wen Ya’s hand at an almost level angle. It streaked across the entire playground, passing twenty meters, thirty meters, and then more than thirty meters, before finally plunging into the grass at the very edge of the field, near the base of the wall.
The instant it struck the ground, the tail of the javelin bent in an eerie arc, as if it were about to snap.
The entire javelin area fell silent for two seconds.
Even the PE teacher, who had been writing something down, looked up at the javelin that had nearly reached the foot of the wall. His mouth hung half open.
“…Thirty-seven meters.” After walking over to pull out the tape measure, the PE teacher announced the distance.
The two exchanged a look that clearly said, Is she even human?
For Wen Ya, thirty-seven meters was merely the limit imposed by the size of the playground, not the limit of her strength.
She had deliberately kept the throw within the boundaries of the field to avoid sending the javelin any farther and making people mistake her for some kind of monster.
Several parents who had witnessed the entire thing began whispering among themselves.
“How did she throw it that far? It nearly flew out of the playground.”
“She was incredibly accurate at shooting too. She’s like some professional secret agent.”
“You’ve got quite an imagination. Is the guy standing beside her and watching everything her husband?”
“Who knows? They both look so young, probably no older than twenty.”
“That man just stands around watching. He really knows how to enjoy life.”
Wen Ya dusted the dirt from her hands and turned back to smile at Shen Yi.
“See that, sweetheart? You have to use your wrist. Practice more, and you’ll be able to throw that far too.”
Shen Yi clasped her hands together in front of her, her eyes shining as she looked at her mother. She nodded hard, then imitated her father’s tone and said,
“I’ll do my best too!”
…
Shen Sixing watched the entire scene unfold, his expression unchanged. The fingers resting on his arm tapped twice before he even realized it.
That javelin looked like it could easily kill someone...
If Wen Ya misjudged the distance by even a little, or sent it flying farther than intended and happened to hit some child running around, this parent-child sports day would turn from a school event into a bloody tragedy.
Not far away, a tall figure and a small one stood together on the grass.
Wen Ya was patiently and gently explaining to Shen Yi how to put more power into the throw, her fingers holding the javelin as she demonstrated the proper angle.
The breeze stirred her long hair softly. Bathed in the sun’s warm glow, the scene looked like a tender silhouette from a painting.
For some reason, Shen Sixing thought—
She was so gentle.
Even when she hit someone in the future, it probably wouldn’t hurt.
