Chapter 270: Setting a Trap?
Translator: ryuxenji, DRZ Editor: mjn0898, H2dH2mr
Concerning this order by General Ling Xiao, the high-ranking military officers already in place were extremely puzzled. As the commander, the highest ranking leader within the division, personally leading a team to oversee an exceedingly minor assessment was definitely beneath him.
Although the First Men's Military Academy was a place to revere in the eyes of the students from the other military academies, for the various army divisions, no matter how talented the students of the First Men's Military Academy were, they still would not draw too much of the divisions' attention ... the several assessments conducted every year were just a routine job to the divisions, not given any special emphasis ...
Of course, if an unmatched prodigy were to appear, the various divisions would most certainly change their lackadaisical attitude, sending out their highly capable men to lead their teams to try and snatch the student from the other divisions. If this had been the case, General Ling Xiao's decision to personally lead a team would still have some degree of reason to it. But this year, there had been no news of any exceptionally outstanding character within the First Men's Military Academy. As such, this trip of General Ling Xiao was truly not worth it in the soldiers' eyes. The general might as well remain in the base camp and continue negotiating with the other commanders for talent — he would probably gain more for his time that way.
However, these men were all people who had been transferred over from various other divisions; they were not close confidants of General Ling Xiao. And so, though they might have objections towards this unexpected decision of General Ling Xiao, not many dared to say anything. And even those who wanted to object found themselves unable to say anything when faced with that warm and kindly smiling face of General Ling Xiao ... cough, cough, cough, saying no to that smiling face really required courage and determination.
In the end, there was naturally no one who actually raised any objections; Ling Xiao extremely easily became the leader of the assessment team. This made Ling Xiao rejoice secretly — it looked like having no close confidants within the division actually had its good points ...
Of course, Ling Xiao was still rational. He knew that using his commander's status to participate in the assessment was extremely inappropriate. Thus, he concealed his name and changed his surname, and rummaged up his past major general uniform for the trip. This made the officers of the 23rd Division let out a great sigh of relief — although it was still rather ostentatious for a major general to lead an assessment team, at least it was not too illogical. This would not humiliate the 23rd Division too much.
When Lan Luofeng found out about Ling Xiao's decision, she was both happy and sad. Happy that Ling Xiao could go to the First Men's Military Academy to visit their daughter Ling Lan personally and see how she was doing, but privately sad that her daughter could not regain her true female identity, instead needing to stay at the First Men's Military Academy and impersonate a man, hanging out with all those men for at least another four years ...
Having her emotions stirred up by all this, Ling Xiao was once again struck by tragedy. That night, he was once again chased out of the bedroom, forced to stay in his study for the entire night ... Of course, Ling Xiao put it nicely by claiming he had work to do, but everyone here knows exactly what was going on.
In the end, when the time came for Ling Xiao to go, Lan Luofeng decisively made Ling Xiao bring along several boxes worth of stuff, instructing Ling Xiao to make sure to hand them over to Ling Lan no matter what. As for how he could do that, that was not a problem Lan Luofeng had to worry about.
Ling Xiao was incapable of denying Lan Luofeng's requests, so amidst bitter chuckles, he brought all of the boxes onto the military ship ... thus, there was now one more thing Ling Xiao had to worry about, and that was how he could deliver so many things to Ling Lan without drawing any attention!
Right then, Ling Lan had no clue that her old man was actually abusing his authority to hide his identity and come to the military academy to conduct assessments. At the moment, Ling Lan's wrath had been incited by a sudden incident ...
Due to Li Shiyu's intervention, Luo Lang, who originally would have needed at least one month to recover, was already spiritedly running about just after ten days.
Still, Ling Lan was worried, so she conducted a thorough examination of Luo Lang's body 1 , and discovered that he was indeed fully recovered without any remnant problems. Even more shocking to Ling Lan was the fact that Luo Lang's physical constitution was actually much improved from its original baseline. This made Ling Lan curious about Li Shiyu, wondering how he had managed to repair Luo Lang's body so well ...
Perhaps, Li Shiyu was someone she could collaborate with! Ling Lan was extremely pleased with Li Shiyu's treatment methods. In order to ensure the lives and safety of her team, tying down a skilful military doctor was necessary 2 . Ling Lan decisively stretched her greedy hands out towards Li Shiyu ...
At this moment, Li Shiyu, who was at the treatment centre researching Li Yingjie's and Qi Long's physical data, suddenly sneezed violently. This made the instructor beside him very worried — was his beloved disciple being tired out too much lately, causing his immune system to be weakened?
His instructor's concern made Li Shiyu somewhat uncertain himself, so he quickly ran a full-body exam on himself. The results showed that all his body levels were above average standards, indicating that he was very healthy. This made Li Shiyu extremely puzzled — why had he sneezed all of a sudden? As the dux of the military medical research specialization, he took every signal from his body very seriously ...
However, since the exam said he was fine, being extremely busy, he very quickly cast this strange sneeze to back of his mind, once again immersing himself into the new treatment plans he had developed. He looked towards the two within the healing pods, mentally cackling in his heart. He would definitely let these two fellows have a good taste of the power of the gene agent S-modification!
At this time, he could not help but regret that Luo Lang had recovered too quickly. He had not expected Luo Lang to react differently to the gene agent S-modification. This surprised him immensely — it was unfortunate that Luo Lang's wounds were not that serious, so one tube of the gene agent S-modification had healed him for the most part, giving Li Shiyu no chance to use a second tube on him, thus causing him to lose one experimental subject.
Li Shiyu was on one side feeling sorry, while Luo Lang, on the other, was seeing the great benefits of that one tube of gene agent S-modification. Those training tasks which Luo Lang had been barely enduring before could actually now be completed without him breaking a sweat. This let the various instructors in charge of physical conditioning set aside their worries. They had been afraid that Luo Lang would not be able to keep up after missing ten days of classes, affecting his final results in the end. Unexpectedly, after going through the arena fight, not only had Luo Lang's physical skills realm stabilised, his body constitution seemed to be much better than before. The instructors were thrilled by this ...
Qi Long still had not recovered enough to return, Han Jijyun and Lin Zhong-qing were in different specializations, while Boss Ling Lan had already received an exemption for the physical condition assessments and so did not attend physical training courses. Thus, over these past few days, Luo Lang was basically going to class and leaving class with Xie Yi.
On this day, Xie Yi and Luo Lang were just about to return together to the dormitories when Luo Lang was abruptly called out by a student on some matter. Initially, Luo Lang had wanted to ask Xie Yi to wait, but then, he suddenly received a notification from the treatment centre, telling him to hurry to the Military Medical Research Centre for a follow-up examination.
Luo Lang found it a little strange — back when he had recovered, Li Shiyu had said with a constipated expression that 'you can leave now, don't come here anymore!'. Why then would Li Shiyu call him back now for a follow-up?
Luo Lang wondered about this for a moment, but still decided to go once. Regardless of whether there was a follow-up, he would be able to find out what was going on by going there. Thus, he said goodbye to Xie Yi and left on his own.
Luo Lang came to the closest hover car stop near him and boarded a car. The military academy was just like a city of its own — relying on one's two legs to get to the centre would take one to two hours, so Luo Lang naturally chose the convenience of public transportation.
The hover car brought him all the way to the gates of the Military Medical Research Centre. He had just disembarked when a blue-uniformed senior rushed forward to greet him, asking, "Luo Lang, right?"
Luo Lang nodded and said, "Yes, that's me!"
"Dux Li asked me to take you straight to the examination centre. Please come with me." The senior indicated for Luo Lang to follow him.
Luo Lang did not think much of it, following the blue-uniformed senior for a distance, where they then saw a hover car parked not too far from them. The senior explained, "The examination centre is rather far. To save time, we'll take a hover car there."
During the final stages of his treatment, Luo Lang had also been to the examination centre before. Thus, he knew that it was indeed quite a distance away, and so got into the car without any objection. The two of them split up to sit in the front and back row, with the senior seated in front. After the senior keyed in their destination into the hover car's A.I., the hover car swiftly raced off.
However, very soon, Luo Lang noticed something strange. The scenery passing outside the window was extremely unfamiliar, not at all like the route he had taken to the examination centre previously. Luo Lang's heart clenched and he asked, "This road doesn't seem to be going to the examination centre."
"Before going to the examination centre, I need to go to the dormitories first to collect an examination study report," said the blue-uniformed senior, turning his head back to smile apologetically, "This report has to be submitted to the examination centre today. I had originally planned to send it along with you, but I unexpectedly forgot to bring it with me when I left earlier. I'm sorry for making you accompany me for this extra trip, but don't worry, your scheduled examination time is half an hour later. My living quarters isn't far. We'll be able to rush back in time."
Hearing this, Luo Lang replied, "So that's how it is. I understand."
Though he said that, Luo Lang had already sensed something fishy about the situation. He began thinking back on the notification he had received earlier and this person who had come out to greet him. It was all actually quite puzzling — if he truly needed to have a follow-up examination, why would it be a staff member from the treatment centre who contacted him? Mind you, in order to track their recovery, Li Shiyu had taken down the contact numbers of all three of them, so Li Shiyu could have just sent the message to him personally ...
Moreover, if he was supposed to go to the examination centre from the start, why didn't they ask him to go there directly? Why had they asked him to come to the Military Medical Research Centre first? The more Luo Lang thought about it, the more suspicious things seemed, so he said, "Why don't we do this, Senior? You go to your dorm to retrieve your report, while I'll head to the examination centre first. Maybe Dux Li has some instructions, so it would be better for me to get there earlier. There should be another hover car stop in front. You can just let me down there."
The senior turned his head and said with a smile, "It's fine. Dux Li is not at the examination centre. This is just a routine examination. Once the report is out, it just needs to be sent to him."
With that, Luo Lang could already confirm that the other was definitely not sent by Li Shiyu. This was likely a ploy by some person or faction against him. He sifted carefully through his memories of this period of time since entering the academy — he had always trailed Qi Long, desperately working towards completing his physical training. He had no memory of offending anyone, so this scheme should not be directed at him personally ... could it be that there was some other faction who wanted to target their New Cadet Regiment, thus wanting to take him as a hostage to threaten Boss Lan?
How could Luo Lang allow himself to be taken just like this? With that thought, he suddenly pointed towards the front, his complexion paling dramatically as he shouted, "Senior, what's that?"
The blue-uniformed senior quickly turned his head around to look, but saw nothing there. In his bewilderment, he suddenly felt a pain at the back of his head, his sight grew dark, and he fell over unconscious ...