"Hurry up! Faster!"
Tom West stood by the newly built mud pit on the training ground, shouting at the soldiers crawling through the mud, "Faster! Remember, you are soldiers now!"
With a Chicago typewriter slung over his back, Matthew ignored the splashing mud and propelled himself forward with his hands and legs, quickly outpacing everyone else by a significant margin. Perhaps due to his naturally good physique and subsequent training, he displayed a huge advantage in both stamina and strength after the mid-point of the training.
After crawling out of the mud pit, Matthew stood up. Immediately, a member of the medical team offered him hot water and a blanket. He took a sip of the hot water first, then used the blanket to wipe the mud from his face before draping it over himself.
The film crew only wanted them to undergo training similar to what they would experience on a battlefield to achieve better results during filming; they weren't actually trying to torture them. All the logistical support measures were well in place.
"F@#K!"
A curse rang out as Michael Fassbender also climbed out of the mud pit. Matthew extended a hand and pulled him up. Michael Fassbender looked at Tom West in the distance and cursed again, "That f***ing bastard!"
Just as Tom West looked over, Matthew tugged Michael Fassbender and whispered, "No need to go against him. It won't do us any good."
He just said it casually, but Michael Fassbender misunderstood, nodding and gritting his teeth, "Right! We can't do it openly!"
Matthew said nothing more, recalling the script. There were similar scenes in the filming; as a well-trained paratrooper unit, they naturally needed to be proficient in tactical movements. However, such training would be acceptable in summer, but it was truly agonizing in this season.
A cold wind blew, and Matthew shivered involuntarily.
This bit of pay wasn't easy to earn.
Soon, everyone had climbed out of the mud pit. Tom West walked over. Matthew thought he was about to announce the end of training and just let out a sigh of relief when the guy roared, "You are a team! You are an elite paratrooper unit, not a scattered rabble! Where is your formation? Where is your cooperation? I don't see it!"
He pointed to the mud pit, "Now, crawl back in!"
By the time training ended, it was already dark. The actors, dragging their exhausted bodies, took hot showers. Many didn't even eat dinner, heading straight back to their dorms and collapsing into bed.
Frankly, not many people wanted to eat the dinner made from military rations.
Fortunately, while Tom West rigidly applied military training, the crew hadn't forgotten that they weren't real soldiers. The next two days were the weekend, and they were given a special two-day break.
To accommodate his tired roommate, Matthew didn't insist on reading after Michael Fassbender fell asleep. He turned off the light and went straight to bed. Perhaps he was genuinely exhausted recently, as when he woke up, the sun was already high in the sky.
He pulled out his phone from under his pillow to check the time and found three missed calls, all from Britney.
Matthew quickly called back. The phone rang for a while, but no one answered. He suddenly realized it was the middle of the night in America and quickly hung up.
Britney, after a busy day, was probably sleeping soundly.
"You're awake?" Michael Fassbender pushed open the door and walked in. "I saw you were sleeping soundly, so I didn't call you." He placed several takeout containers on the table. "I brought you breakfast."
"Thanks." Matthew got up and stretched.
Michael Fassbender looked at him and said, "I thought you were an iron man."
Matthew laughed, "Even an iron man needs rest."
He went to the bathroom to wash up. After coming out, he didn't stand on ceremony with Michael Fassbender, opening the containers and eating breakfast. He asked, "It's a day off today. Do you have any plans?"
Michael Fassbender thought for a moment and said, "James and I agreed to go see Damian Lewis together. Do you want to come?"
"I don't know him." Matthew shook his head. "Why go see him?"
"To ask about their training," Michael Fassbender said directly. "To see if it's as miserable as ours."
The other main actors, including Damian Lewis, didn't train with them.
Matthew was also well aware that almost every large film crew had different tiers, and Damian Lewis and the others were much more important than character actors like them.
"You guys aren't really going to do anything, are you?" Matthew swallowed the food in his mouth.
"I specifically asked around, and the reason we're getting this treatment is all because of Tom West's insistence." Michael Fassbender was still a young man in his early twenties. "If situations like yesterday happen a few more times, I'll go crazy!"
Matthew thought for a moment and asked, "Have you come up with a plan?"
Michael Fassbender shook his head, "No."
After drinking a carton of milk, Matthew pulled out a tissue to wipe his mouth, cleared away the trash, and said, "Although I can still tolerate it, I also want to live a little more comfortably. I can give you a useful clue."
"What clue?" Michael Fassbender asked.
"You should know," Matthew said, not wanting to draw attention, "Every day after lunch, I go out to call my girlfriend."
Michael Fassbender nodded; many people knew about this.
Matthew stopped beating around the bush and said, "When I made calls, I saw Tom West and Kate Jeffrey go to the warehouse together several times."
"Oh?" Michael Fassbender raised an eyebrow. "Those two..."
"I'm going to take a look around the city." Matthew changed his clothes, put on his backpack, "I haven't been into central London yet."
Michael Fassbender seemed to be deep in thought and waved his hand dismissively, "You go ahead. If you get lost, you can call James and me."
After leaving Hatfield Airport, Matthew hailed a taxi, intending to go to London's Chinatown.
However, he didn't ask the taxi driver to go directly there. Instead, like a regular tourist, he first went to the famous Westminster Abbey, wandered around inside the cathedral, and then visited a nearby supermarket with a huge flow of customers for a while, but didn't find what he wanted to buy.
After circling a few places with particularly large crowds, Matthew then walked to Chinatown.
Although he didn't know much about the situation in the UK, he figured that what he wanted would be hard to find in ordinary malls or shops in London during this era. Chinatown was the most promising place.
London's Chinatown is located in the Soho district of Westminster, filled with Chinese restaurants, shops, and souvenir stores.
Upon arrival, Matthew took a quick look. His initial impression was that it wasn't a Chinese residential area, but rather looked very much like a tourist street.
Passing through the tall Chinese archway and entering Chinatown, the entrance featured several restaurants with huge signs. Matthew wasn't there to eat, so he continued walking and soon saw a small supermarket with a traditional Chinese character sign. He walked in.
The supermarket was small. He walked around twice but didn't find what he wanted, so he found a sales assistant to ask for information.
The sales assistant had a prominent nose and deep-set eyes, clearly British. After Matthew finished speaking, he shook his head, "Sorry, sir, I don't understand what you're saying."
Matthew was helpless and asked, "Do you have any Chinese staff here?"
"Yes!" the British clerk said. "Please wait a moment, I'll go get someone."
Soon, a young girl with black hair and yellow skin walked over. Matthew quickly switched to Chinese and said, "Hello."
The young girl also said something, but Matthew didn't understand it and scratched his head. He then realized that the girl wasn't speaking English or Mandarin; it seemed to be Cantonese or Minnanese.
"Do you speak English?" Matthew was completely clueless about those two local dialects. The girl smiled and switched to very standard British English, "Hello, sir, how can I help you?"
"I need a product from China!" Matthew gestured with his hand in the shape of a bottle. "It's a small green bottle, called..."
He thought for a moment and pronounced in English, "Feng...you...jing..."
The girl looked a bit stunned, as if she hadn't heard Matthew clearly. "Sorry, sir. What do you want?"
Matthew scratched his head a bit, gesturing with his hands and saying, "Feng...you...jing..., a cooling, pain-relieving, itch-stopping Chinese medicine specifically for mosquito bites."
"Ah, I understand." The girl figured out what Matthew wanted and said, "Please wait a moment, there should be some in the storeroom."
Matthew added, "Preferably the double-strength kind?"
"You're in luck." The girl smiled. "This summer, we specifically imported a batch of Fengyoujing from China that's three times the concentration of ordinary products, intending to sell it to forest rangers. We still have some left."
She led Matthew to the checkout counter. "Generally, customers only buy this product in the summer. Very few people buy it in winter, so we temporarily take it off the shelves in winter." She then asked, "How many bottles do you want?"
Matthew thought for a moment. He still needed to conduct experiments, so one bottle definitely wouldn't be enough. He said, "The double-strength ones, give me ten bottles."
The girl was a bit surprised why Matthew wanted so many, but she didn't ask further. She went to the storeroom, found ten small boxes of Fengyoujing, packed them together, and handed them to Matthew.
"Thank you."
Matthew paid and left the supermarket. He first found a place to eat lunch, then walked out of Chinatown. He also bought several extra-small medical syringes and fast-drying glue for sealing wounds at a small clinic. He found a quiet park with few people, opened his backpack, took out the condoms he had purchased a few days earlier, and began his experiment.
After several repeated trials, using up a few bottles of Fengyoujing and half of the syringes, and consuming most of the condoms, Matthew felt that his idea had a certain feasibility. In any case, there would be no loss if it failed, so he decided to give it a try.
If it worked, Kate Jeffrey would surely be soaring... Although this might harm the innocent Tom West, he didn't hesitate in the slightest.
Frankly, even though he could endure Tom West's rigorous training, he, like Michael Fassbender and the others, had no fondness for the existence of a 'demon instructor'.
By the time it was completely dark, Matthew returned to the Hatfield Airport dormitory with his backpack. After pushing open the door, he found Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, and Michael Cudlitz huddled together, whispering.