Is This Talent, Monster

"One more thing to remember: never point your gun at your own people or civilians, regardless of whether the safety is on or not!" Wang Dachuan looked at Xu Mo with a serious expression.

Xu Mo nodded.

"I understand that."

"Good," Wang Dachuan continued, "Let me teach you how to aim..."

"I know that already - it's about aligning your eye, front sight, and target in a straight line. I've seen it in TV shows," Xu Mo interrupted.

Wang Dachuan was teaching too slowly, and Xu Mo felt the need to speed up the learning process.

Wang Dachuan nodded with a smile.

"That's right in theory. How about this - try aiming at the target over there and take a shot to get a feel for it."

In Wang Dachuan's view, Xu Mo was being incredibly naive.

So naive that he actually believed achieving perfect accuracy was as simple as aligning three points!

How could it be that simple?

If hitting the bullseye was just about following this simple rule, wouldn't everyone be a marksman?

Young people these days were just too impatient!

He hadn't even finished teaching, and Xu Mo was already jumping ahead.

Still, Wang Dachuan thought it might be good to let Xu Mo learn from his mistakes. It would help temper his overconfidence and make subsequent teaching easier.

Before Xu Mo fired, Wang Dachuan reminded him:

"Don't forget the ear protection. This is an enclosed space, and the gunshot will be very loud. You could damage your eardrums without proper protection."

After both Xu Mo and Wang Dachuan put on their headset-style ear protection,

Xu Mo picked up the handgun again.

He stood straight, held the gun with one hand, and began to aim.

In truth, Xu Mo could hit the bullseye without even aiming, but since he was pretending to learn, he needed to put on a show.

Watching Xu Mo's stance and grip, Wang Dachuan smiled.

Too hasty! Young people were just too hasty!

Both Xu Mo's stance and grip were wrong.

With that stance, the recoil might even knock him over!

Wang Dachuan positioned himself behind Xu Mo, ready to catch him if the recoil knocked him off balance.

Besides the problematic stance, what also amused Wang Dachuan was Xu Mo's one-handed grip. Had he watched too many action movies? He clearly wasn't taking the recoil seriously!

The next second, there was a 'bang' as Xu Mo fired.

After the shot, Wang Dachuan instinctively began speaking:

"Your stance and grip are all wrong. They're crucial elements. You can't shoot well like that. Let me see what score you got... nine rings. What did I tell you? With wrong form, you can't shoot well. See, you only got nine..."

Halfway through his sentence, Wang Dachuan froze.

He stared at Xu Mo in disbelief.

Wait, what?

Nine rings!?

Was this the kind of score a beginner should be able to achieve?

And this was with completely incorrect stance and grip!

What Wang Dachuan didn't know was that Xu Mo had deliberately scored nine rings.

He thought scoring a perfect ten right away would seem too suspicious.

So he intentionally aimed for nine instead.

Xu Mo had thought that taking so long to aim and only scoring nine rings would seem appropriately amateur. Surely that's how poorly a complete novice would perform?

But seeing Wang Dachuan's reaction,

Xu Mo suddenly realized that scoring nine rings might be a bit too incredible for a beginner...

He had overplayed his hand!

After a long pause, Wang Dachuan finally came to his senses.

This couldn't be possible, he thought.

He hadn't even taught Xu Mo all the aiming fundamentals yet.

Xu Mo's stance and grip were completely wrong - how could he possibly score nine rings?

It must have been blind luck, yes, that had to be it... There was no other explanation... Wang Dachuan thought to himself.

To test his theory, he decided to have Xu Mo take another shot.

"Take... take another shot."

Xu Mo raised the gun again, and after lengthy aiming, scored five rings.

Seeing this, Wang Dachuan breathed a sigh of relief.

Now that was more like it!

With incorrect stance and grip, scoring five rings was normal!

"You see? You can't shoot accurately with wrong stance and grip. You need to do it like this... watch carefully. This stance, then two-handed grip, like this... then aim. You already know about the three-point alignment, so I won't go over that. Also, hold your breath when aiming - it'll keep your hands steadier."

As he spoke, Wang Dachuan demonstrated the proper technique and fired a shot to show Xu Mo.

"See? With the right technique, you can hit the ten-ring with practice. Try it the way I showed you."

As Xu Mo took aim, Wang Dachuan added:

"The bullet doesn't travel in a straight line - it follows a parabolic trajectory. So you should raise the muzzle slightly when shooting, but I won't tell you exactly how much. You'll have to figure that out yourself. A handgun's effective range is within fifty meters. Beyond that, the bullet drop becomes severe and hitting targets becomes very difficult. So when you need to shoot at criminals, you'll need to judge the distance carefully."

After Wang Dachuan's instruction,

Xu Mo took another shot.

This time, he scored six rings.

"Not bad, not bad, that's improvement," Wang Dachuan nodded approvingly. "But you still haven't quite got the bullet trajectory down. The muzzle needs to be raised a bit more. Keep practicing, you'll get a feel for it. Getting a ten isn't that hard."

"Bang!" Xu Mo fired again.

Seven rings.

"Bang!"

Eight rings.

"Bang!"

Nine rings.

"Bang!"

Ten rings.

Xu Mo continued firing until he emptied the magazine.

Every single shot hit the ten-ring!

Wang Dachuan: "???"

Was this guy some kind of monster?

How could anyone learn this quickly??

This talent was simply outrageous!

He had only just taught Xu Mo the fundamentals.

How could Xu Mo find his rhythm and hit perfect tens after just a few shots?

The effective range of a handgun was very short, only fifty meters.

This was due to the bullet's trajectory.

A handgun's bullet begins dropping almost immediately after leaving the barrel, rather than traveling in a straight line.

To consistently hit the ten-ring, one needs to understand bullet drop.

Understanding this requires multiple shots.

It takes extensive target practice to develop the right feel.

Getting the occasional nine or ten-ring was normal.

But Xu Mo was hitting tens every single time?

So... he'd found the right feel that quickly?

He'd only gone through one magazine, and he already had it down? What kind of monstrous talent was this?

Just then, Han Fei, who had just finished his work, came to the shooting range to check on Xu Mo's progress.

"How's it going? Have you learned the basic firearm information and proper stance yet?"

Wang Dachuan: "..."

What an amateur question!