Love Began with the First Meeting

Maggie's statement and brief introduction to her research took over half an hour to deliver. While she was speaking, Addison didn't interrupt her. He only uttered the odd "hmm" once in a while to indicate that he was listening to her carefully. Seeing no emotion on his calmly composed face, Maggie felt a bit nervous. Without thinking she drank some of the orange juice to relieve her dry mouth. It seemed that, despite her preconceptions, she didn't view the person in front of her as a child at all. Instead, he had become more like an examiner in her eyes.

"Aunt Maggie, your analysis is quite precise, and you've even taken almost all of the problems involved in the change in ballistic curvature into consideration," Addison commented seriously after she finished speaking. His words sounded objective, neither flattering her nor belittling her. "But have you considered that maybe your strategy is still too conservative and that you might encounter a bottleneck which you could not overcome without a breakthrough?" He regarded her with the wisdom of a soul well beyond his tender years. Hearing Addison's question, Maggie pursed her lips to conceal her astonishment. Although she felt a little embarrassed to be negatively reviewed by a child, she had to admit that he went straight to the heart of the matter. What he had identified with his question was exactly her weak spot. Perhaps she would have received an unexpected result in her research if she hadn't been so hesitant in the end. Therefore, she decided to face up to her own short comings despite the embarrassment she felt.

While nodding in answer of Addison's question, Maggie tightened the grip of her hand on the glass of juice. In a slightly sulky tone, she agreed, "Maybe it is because I'm getting older that I've considered too many factors. I have thought that maybe I would have made a breakthrough if I had faced the same problem a few years ago. However, things are different now. It seems that I always try to be steady in spite of myself."

"That's quite normal," Addison said with a smile. "We all tend to become increasingly steady as time goes by and due to the influence of our environment." Then he paused briefly. After taking a look at the wall clock to check the time, he asked, "Aunt Maggie, would you like to accompany me to the shooting range?"

Maggie raised her eyebrows in surprise. She first looked at Addison and then nodded to him.

At the same time, Wyatt politely knocked at the door before pushing it open and entering the office. With a slight bow to Addison, he said respectfully, "Young Master, everything is ready."

"Hmm," Addison acknowledged, standing up. He turned to look at Maggie, his eyes containing a hint of excitement and encouragement. Then the two of them left the office together.

In the corridor of the building, they came across quite a few office employees of the National Congress. As soon as they saw Addison, they all gave way to him and bowed slightly in respect until he had passed them.

Maggie felt like she was accompanying a king to make an inspection tour. With this awkward feeling, she walked into the elevator with him. She could not help but sigh silently in her heart. Finally, she understood why every member of the Long Family had such a domineering aura. Living in such an environment, they had to always keep their countenance and treat everything with indifference. As time went on, the domineering aura this formed would become their natural way of being. Their imposing presence was not a show of pretence. Instead, it was part of their heart and soul as a result of every detail of their life experience.

Together with Addison, Maggie went to a shooting range located behind the National Congress. The shooting range didn't comprise a very large area. According to her brief visual inspection, the longest distance was about one kilometre. Electronic targets were placed ahead, and protective screening was all around.

After looking around, Maggie's eyes fell on the guns at the shooting range. Arranged in a high gloss cabinet there were Barrett M107, M99, ZWP, AS50 with running firing of five bullets... It seemed that the range provided every type of gun that Maggie could have expected to find. However, she frowned slightly in confusion. Even if the shooting range could provide an effective distance of one kilometre, these guns would not be used to full capacity.

"There is monitoring instrument here and all the guns have been refitted," Addison explained with a smile when he saw the confusion on Maggie's face. "Though it seems that the effective distance is not enough, in fact it exceeds the requirement. The effective distance is at least three kilometres on this range."

Maggie was slightly shocked to hear this. Then she walked to the shooting position. She had selected a sniper rifle which she carried to the firing position where she aimed through the electronic sight. Just as Addison had said, it indicated that the firing range was exceeded.

"Wyatt has excellent marksmanship. If everybody were listed by the precision of their shooting," Addison said with a smile, while looking at Wyatt, who showed no emotion on his face, "I believe that he would be among the top one hundred snipers in the world." After saying that, he picked up a Barrett M107. "This one has an effective firing range of about two kilometres." The smile at the corners of his mouth deepened as he passed the Barrett M107 to Wyatt.

Still somewhat doubtful, Maggie looked at Addison and then turned her eyes to observe Wyatt. He had arrived at the shooting position. Addison concentrated on the screen at the side and told Wyatt some data that was displayed at random on the screen, including wind speed, direction and humidity. When a bang sounded, Maggie's sight fell on the point of fall of the bullet through a high-powered telescope. The bullet had hit the contact point between the eyebrows of a dummy three kilometres away.

Maggie could not be more astonished. Wyatt did indeed have excellent marksmanship, but the members of Falcon Commando were not inferior to him. If the factor of marksmanship was not considered, the only explanation would be that the effective firing range of Barrett M107 had been changed.

Maggie was absent-minded on her way back as her mind spun through numbers and equations involved in the changes she had witnessed. Addison invited her to dinner, but she politely refused. She no longer had any appetite. She could not understand how it was possible to shoot so precisely after the effective firing range was changed. She kept thinking about this question and was not in the mood to do anything else.

"What's wrong?" Edgar asked later that evening when he put a cup of water in front of her.

Pulling a long face, Maggie looked at him. In a sulky voice, she mumbled, "How could it be? Why can't I do something that a twelve-year-old boy is able to do?" She felt really frustrated. Addison had told her there was something that would occur to her if she stopped over thinking. It was not until he told her his principle of changing the effective firing range of the Barrett M107 that she understood what he meant.

Edgar fixed his eyes on Maggie. While holding her in his arms, he said soothingly, "You're not the first person who put forward the argument. As early as twenty or thirty years ago, Aunt Shirley had talked about that, but she didn't conduct further studies on it." Hearing this, Maggie turned her eyes to look at him in curiosity. Therefore, he explained to her what had happened from beginning to end with great patience.

Shirley, Brian's mother, had once thought of the same idea when she idly played with guns. Shirley liked firearms, and she had had a special experience in her childhood. Therefore, it was not strange for her to think about that. However, because of Richie, she hadn't studied further on that topic. Later when Addison attended training as a candidate for the ruler of Dragon Island, he had come into contact with guns every day. Naturally, he had become interested in them and also had the same notions about increasing their range. When Shirley heard about this, she had given her grandson the documents she had collected so many years before.

Then Addison had gone to the Eagle Special Brigade for exchange training. He hadn't stopped his research on the change in ballistic curvature, but his research hadn't succeeded during that period of time. He too had encountered a bottleneck, just like Maggie did for the time being.

This was why Edgar had shown great interest in the topic when Maggie put forward the research in the beginning.

"Addison's research didn't succeed until two months ago," Edgar said with a smile. "And that was another reason why I brought you to Dragon Island this time." While saying this, his eyes shone with cunning light.

"Hmm, we shall have to endure humiliation in order to steal his technology!"☐☐☐☐☐☐☐