Chapter 208: Ling Lan's Plan!
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
By now, the commotion at the cafeteria entrance had drawn many of the students' attention as they gathered around the scene. Of course, there were quite a few with angry expressions, but they still did not move recklessly. The crew members around were observing them closely — the moment the students made any strange movements, the crew would probably surge forward to show them their place.
Ling Lan glanced coldly at this scene, and suddenly turned to look at Xie Yi and said, "Xie Yi, go invite Wu Jiong and Li Yingjie over!"
Xie Yi's gaze brightened. "Yes!" Since Ling Lan was giving him this order, it meant that he must have acknowledged the role he had set for himself. Even though Luo Lang had said that Boss Lan already recognised him, before he received a clear response from Ling Lan, Xie Yi had still felt somewhat unsettled, afraid that Luo Lang had only been consoling him.
Xie Yi was very good at diplomacy — very soon, Wu Jiong and Li Yingjie had both arrived at the cafeteria with their teams in tow.
"Boss Lan, I heard you were looking for us?" Wu Jiong's expression was surprised. Ling Lan very rarely looked for him, and whenever he did, it always meant something big was about to happen, just like with the grand armed melee back then.
In contrast, with an awkward expression, Li Yingjie called out in a low voice, "Boss Lan!" The pride in his bones made him reluctant to address Ling Lan this way, but ever since Wu Jiong had changed the way he addressed Ling Lan to 'Boss Lan', Li Yingjie had drawn weird looks from everyone in Class-A and Class-B when he had once called Ling Lan by name directly. Even the members of his own team had stared at him strangely. This gave him no choice but to bend his proud neck and lower his head, acknowledging Ling Lan as the boss of their year through clenched teeth.
Ling Lan actually did not mind how others addressed her — whether they called her Boss Lan or called her name directly, it was all fine. They were both just forms of address. She signalled for them to look towards the centre of the conflict, and asked quietly, "What do you both think?"
"Eh? Him? Boss Lan, that's a student from our academy, called Peng Jiayen. He used to be in a merit class, but managed to achieve an upset in his final year to enter Class-B, and then successfully qualified for the First Men's Military Academy. He's talented." Wu Jiong was very familiar with all the outstanding students in the academy, swiftly listing out the other's background without any trouble.
Wu Jiong had just finished telling them about the student's background when the conflict escalated once more. Several crew members of the ship had lost their patience. They took action — two of the crew members stepped forward in unison, attempting to grab the student and force him to his knees to apologise.
Students from the Central Scout Academy were not as weak as they had imagined — sensing the threat, the student twisted his body, evading the two men's pincer attack. However, just as he finished dodging, two more crew members suddenly attacked, leaving no room for the student to evade anymore. He was instantly caught and brought under their control.
This series of attacks happened in the blink of an eye. The other students on the scene did not have any time to react and that student had already been subdued by the crew. Not just that, the other side had even used pure force to push the student to his knees ...
This scene caused rage to emerge on all the students faces; even the expressions of Wu Jiong and Li Yingjie, and the others with them who had just arrived could not help but change. The other side was really going too far in their bullying.
Ever since they had gone through the grand armed melee, as the Central Scout Academy students had fought valiantly together to cooperatively defeat the 10th grade, they had developed a good comradeship with one another. This was unlike the other years before them whose students were mostly indifferent towards one another with clear divisions between the classes. Now, seeing one of their schoolmates who had fought alongside them being shamed this way, all the Central Scout Academy students found themselves growing angry on his behalf!
Several students even reached out to help, but were forced back by the crew ...
Still, the palpable agitation of the surrounding students made the crew members cautious in their continued bullying of that student. At this moment, a leading crew member said with a mocking huff, "This matter has nothing to do with all of you. It's our personal business! Those who tried to take action earlier, I forgive you all for your emotional loss of control. But if you all dare to try and help again now, don't blame us for not staying polite!"
That said, the crew members who had been initially been watching the show from a distance all drew in to close ranks. The crewmen had already been stronger than the students by a clear margin, and now their numbers had grown — this made many of the students begin to waver ...
However, as Ling Lan, Wu Jiong, and company were at their backs, and since they had not indicated that they were going to let this slide, the students did not retreat and disperse, merely holding their ground without taking further action. The two sides were abruptly submerged in silence in an unofficial face-off. The atmosphere became tense in an instant.
"Boss Lan, we cannot just tolerate this offence!" Although Wu Jiong did not want to escalate things, he also did not want to be this cowardly.
By the side, Li Yingjie nodded in agreement, full of support for Wu Jiong's words. They were all prideful elites — this baseless humiliation could not be borne.
Right then, a faint smile pulled on the corner of Ling Lan's lips. Her initially cold and forbidding face was not warmed much by this trace of a smile. Instead, the surrounding people who were familiar with Ling Lan only felt a deeper chill pervade their hearts. They could clearly feel the temperature emanating from Ling Lan drop by another few degrees.
Ling Lan tugged lightly at her sleeves and said calmly, "Three years ago, you all accompanied me in orchestrating a grand armed melee. Now, would you all still have the guts to make a big play with me?" That said, the corners of her eyes lifted slightly as she peered at them through slitted eyes and waited for their response.
Ling Lan's question caused a shudder to run through Wu Jiong's and Li Yingjie's hearts. Wu Jiong calmed himself for a moment before asking warily, "What are you planning?"
Ling Lan threw a glance at Qi Long, and Qi Long and the other four members of her team spread out to surround the three of them. Ling Lan also did not forget to instruct Little Four to scramble the surveillance equipment in this area, manufacturing a false image to fool the monitors.
After receiving the all clear from Little Four, in a voice only loud enough for the three of them to hear, Ling Lan said, "Take complete control of the ship!"
Wu Jiong jerked his head up to stare dumbly at Ling Lan; even Li Yingjie was so shocked by Ling Lan's words that he could only gape at her.
"What? You don't dare?" Ling Lan's gaze swept over to stare at them, a trace of mockery in the corners of her eyes.
Wu Jiong was after all a child from a military family. He quickly regained his composure and asked softly, "You have confidence? That captain does not seem easy to handle." There may be many crew members, but the number of students was also nothing to scoff at. With Ling Lan's reputation and their status and capabilities, it was entirely possible to unite the Central Scout Academy students to form a resistance.
The only worrisome point was that captain. The other was most definitely a Qi-Jin stage expert, if not a Domain-stage one. If Ling Lan was not injured, they might have been able to succeed by attacking altogether.
"Also, the ship must have a protective mecha squad. Once the mecha make a move, we won't have any chances of winning." By now, Li Yingjie had also regained his calm, and brought up the issue of the ship's combat resources.
"Mecha? We just need to lock down the mecha hold and it'll be fine. Unless they want to destroy the ship to perish together, the mecha will just be accessories ..." It's not like they were implacable enemies, determined to kill each other; the other side would definitely never mobilise their mecha squad.
Ling Lan's words enlightened Wu Jiong and Li Yingjie. They were the new students of the First Men's Military Academy, the warriors who would protect the nation in the future — the people on this ship would never dare to truly harm them, so they really did not have anything to fear.
Of course, this did not exclude the possibility that this ship had been sent by the enemy. But if that was the case, things would not end well for them even if they did not fight back. Thus, they might as well take the risk and perhaps win a chance of survival.
Wu Jiong's heart began to pound. If they truly managed to take control of the entire ship, this would definitely be an unprecedented miracle, for he believed that the previous cadets would never have dared to attempt this ... his palms began to sweat, and his face turned somewhat red from his excitement.
Similarly, Li Yingjie also figured it out. He shared a look filled with irrepressible excitement with Wu Jiong, and then they both turned as one to nod solemnly at Ling Lan. They would take this wild gamble together with Ling Lan.
Seeing the both of them agree, Ling Lan let out an internal sigh of relief. Although she had confidence in herself, without the support of Wu Jiong and Li Yingjie, this grand and ambitious endeavour would undoubtedly be much more difficult.
Ling Lan immediately let Little Four create a tactical map with the crew members' positions plotted on it and sent a copy each to Wu Jiong and Li Yingjie. After that, she swiftly outlined her plan.
Wu Jiong and Li Yingjie nodded repetitively as they listened, their eyes shining brighter and brighter. What they had initially thought would be a campaign with very small chances of success changed into a real possibility under Ling Lan's clever planning.
It looked like what Ling Lan had said about taking control of the ship was not a brash and foolhardy attempt, but an idea formed through careful consideration. Otherwise, he would not have this detailed tactical map ready at hand. It looked like while they had been stewing in their forced tolerance, Ling Lan had already been making preparations for her next move.
Although they did not know how Ling Lan had obtained this tactical map with all the positioning of the crew, they believed that this map was real. They had taken a quick glance at several spots as noted on the map, and had found that those crew members had pretty much been standing right where the map said they would be ...
Wu Jiong's admiration towards Ling Lan rose once again, a strange bitterness rising in his mouth at the same time — he could once again feel the huge gap between Ling Lan and himself. Whether it was in terms of strategy or in terms of mental state, he was weaker than Ling Lan by too much. He too had been equally unhappy with the captain's attitude during his welcome speech and the myriad taunts of the crew, but he had only chosen to tolerate all the way, only thinking to safely get through these 2 days and 1 night.
Even when he saw a schoolmate being bullied and shamed for no reason, although he was indignant, he had still only been thinking of how to help that student get through that particular trial and let the matter die down ... yes, in his mind, even as he thought of ways to help his own schoolmate, he was also keeping in mind that he should do his best not to offend the other party, because this was their territory ...
But Ling Lan was different. The fact that his preparations were so thorough meant that Ling Lan had been thinking of taking control of the entire ship from the start. He had never even entertained the idea of just tolerating the crew's abuse in silence. Perhaps Ling Lan's way of thinking was extremely radical, but godd*mn was it exciting! It made his heart race — this was what a man should do ... he truly could not match up to Ling Lan!
Wu Jiong and Li Yingjie led their respective teams away from the scene to carry out their tasks. As the two left, their expressions were extremely interesting. In contrast to Wu Jiong's bitter resignation, Li Yingjie's expression was undoubtedly much more complex. All kinds of envy-jealousy-hate flashed across it, only to end in a helpless sigh as he left downcast ...
Finding that the person he wanted to overcome was so unassailably strong on all fronts, no matter how proud or unyielding Li Yingjie was, he could only let go of his competitive spirit. He knew now that he could no longer rival Ling Lan in this life, because he had already lost the courage to fight against Ling Lan. Just thinking of a head on battle with the other made his heart feel unimaginably weak and feeble.