Chapter 15: Sorry, I Lost Control!
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: mjn0898
In the VIP room, Ling Lan was having her horizons expanded. She would never have imagined that in this world 10000 years later, one would no longer have to look for items in a store personally, but could just sit comfortably in a VIP room and select categories of items to look at from an ultra-wide screen in the room. These items would be presented to you in 3D imaging, along with a detailed introduction. If a customer was particularly interested in an item, they could click on it to get even more information.
Lan Luofeng perused the items with her full attention. She was basically only looking at items for Ling Lan, and very quickly, item after item had been delivered to the VIP room to await Lan Luofeng's final decision.
"Infant Musical Bed: This item is elliptical in shape. There are two freely-interchangeable modes — half-sealed transparency mode and fully-sealed transparency mode. While the infant is sleeping on the bed, it can automatically select the appropriate music based on the infant's brain waves to encourage sleep. Besides that, this bed comes equipped with its own internet network and can download the latest music in the Federation on its own, saving parents the trouble."
Its own internet network? Automatic downloading and updating? The idle Ling Lan had just been about to fall asleep when these words poured into her ears, waking her up immediately. It should be known that she had been pestered half to death by Little Four recently. Every day he would whine and plead with her to find a chance for him to go online. In his words, "The one who has control over information shall triumph ..."
Of course, Little Four was just saying it for the sake of saying it — Ling Lan and Little Four had no real enemies on the surface after all. The reason for Little Four's urgency was that he needed to understand more about this world so he could better serve his host, lest he make any serious mistakes out of ignorance.
Take the incident of the gene stimulating agent for example. It was precisely because Little Four had no clue about the absorption rate of infants in this world that the results had been so shocking, almost causing immense trouble for Ling Lan. If a mysterious benefactor hadn't stepped in to seal the information, Ling Lan might have already been snatched away by the military to become a war machine.
Of course, the mentally adult Ling Lan would not have been so easily brainwashed and could have chosen to run away and hide. However, that would spell the end of her freedom, unless there came a day when she was strong enough to break free from the shackles of the country.
Whenever Little Four and Ling Lan thought back on the incident, they would break out in a cold sweat. Even now they dared not drop their guard. A large part of the reason why Ling Lan took over two months to master the first stance was that she hadn't dared to put full effort into her training. She was constantly worried there were spies around, so she didn't want to do anything else out of the ordinary to arouse their suspicion.
Today, such great news just happened to fall into her lap. A way for her to access the internet, and in such a subtle manner too. It was an infant bed after all — who would suspect an infant sleeping on the bed to be secretly accessing the internet?
Hehe, brother, you must be crazy, please seek treatment immediately.
Everyone would look at you as if you were an idiot, a fool, a madman ... and then throw down that line and walk away.
Ling Lan was overjoyed — this bed was just made for her. Only she could use this infant bed to its full capacity, and not let its functions collect dust.
Ling Lan clambered up decisively and started babbling excitedly while pointing at the infant bed. She was telling her mother that this bed was hers.
Lan Luofeng was on the same wavelength as Ling Lan this time. With some surprise, she said, "Does Ling Lan want this bed? Could it be that Ling Lan likes music? Alright, since Ling Lan likes it, mummy will buy it."
Okay, Lan Luofeng was obviously a doting mother — anything her child wanted, she would get. Fortunately, Ling Lan was a mentally mature person on the inside, or else she would certainly be spoiled rotten under Lan Luofeng's unreserved affection.
Ling Lan got what she wanted, so her mood was great. She went to look for Little Four to gloat.
"Little Four, Little Four ..." Little Four seemed to be in a strange mood, for he didn't respond at all to Ling Lan's calls, but was drawing circles on the ground with a sad look on his face.
Ling Lan was exasperated and immediately greeted his head with a fist. "You rascal, what are you doing?"
Unexpectedly, Little Four remained sullenly silent. Under normal circumstances, Little Four would have jumped up by now and would be loudly complaining about Ling Lan's domestic abuse.
Ling Lan was miffed and at a bit of a loss. She proceeded to pinch and pull at Little Four's face with all her might, hoping that Little Four would return to his senses.
This time, there was finally some effect. Listlessly, Little Four smacked her hand away, and asked with a long face, "What's up?"
Ling Lan asked concernedly, "Did something happen?"
Little Four expelled a heavy breath and said, "I have been played by this world."
The words had barely left Little Four's mouth when the furious Ling Lan gave him a solid kick in the ass, sending him flying. "Dammit, are you kidding me?!"
This kick chased away Little Four's strange mood and replaced it with anger. He threw himself at Ling Lan, grabbing hold of her thigh and yelling, "You promised you wouldn't use violence! You're still hitting me, I want to complain! Complain!"
"Complain my foot! I still need to ask you why you tricked me! Looking like you were gonna die, letting me worry?!" For some reason, Ling Lan just couldn't control the anger burning within her. She knew very well that Little Four might have just been playing a prank — this was something she would have easily brushed off with a laugh in the past, why couldn't she do that now?
Ling Lan didn't know that this was an explosion caused by the build-up of negative emotions in her heart. Although Ling Lan had consoled herself all this time after the gene stimulating agent incident that everything was fine, Ling Lan had actually been unable to truly be at ease. She had been frightened that her secret would be exposed to the military, that she would become an experiment and end up torn between life and death. These sorts of negative emotions had been hiding deep in Ling Lan's heart all this time — if she didn't have a chance to release them, they would have had a negative impact on Ling Lan someday in the future.
It should be said that Ling Lan was very lucky. Ling Lan's mood had brightened considerably due to this outing, a vast difference from her usual calm and forced tolerance. The torments of her previous illness may have given Ling Lan unbelievably strong tolerance and resilience, but that was also where the problem arose. Tolerance was a double-edged sword — being overly tolerant was harmful to both body and mind.
Of course, just this sudden upswing to happiness would not have been enough to set off Ling Lan. However, Ling Lan had become extremely excited by the internet-equipped infant bed, and when she had sought Little Four out to share this news with him, his hopeless demeanour had pushed Ling Lan from the heights of happiness to the lows of anxiety. This sudden and dramatic shift in strongly opposing emotions caused Ling Lan's perfect tolerance to crack.
As a result, the deeply hidden negative emotions exploded ... leading to Ling Lan's uncharacteristic kick and subsequent rampage.
The two of them wrestled in the mind-space until they both ran out of energy and flopped to the ground.
Ling Lan lay there, panting heavily. She hadn't expected to fight with a little kid, but her heart now felt amazingly light, as if her soul had been cleansed.
Ling Lan chuckled, saying, "Little Four, I'm sorry. I lost control."