Chapter 328: Spectre!
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
Li Lanfeng's suggestion put a shine in the eyes of everyone on the team. Han Jijyun cast a searching look at Li Lanfeng, once again feeling that invisible pressure the other gave him.
Ling Lan immediately gave her stamp of approval to Li Lanfeng's method. Qi Long and Xie Yi were the two brawniest people on the team and thus had the most soldier-like builds. The two of them quickly changed into the uniforms of the two soldiers and separated to stand on both sides of the gate. Other than Ling Lan and Li Lanfeng, the others all ducked into the tunnel again to hide with the two comatose soldiers.
Under everyone's gaze, Ling Lan and Li Lanfeng's initially black combat uniforms slowly changed to look like the uniform of the soldiers on the base, exactly like the uniforms Qi Long and Xie Yi had put on. The only difference was their epaulettes — Ling Lan's choice was a major's epaulette, while Li Lanfeng wisely chose to be a senior captain. He stood respectfully half a step behind Ling Lan.
This move made Ling Lan's team's impression of Li Lanfeng rise once more. It should be said that Li Lanfeng was consistently building on his favourability rating among Ling Lan's team members, and he was achieving his goal handily.
When everything was ready, Ling Lan instructed Little Four to open the door. After the doors opened, Ling Lan proudly strutted through the doorway, while Li Lanfeng followed behind her solemnly and respectfully.
Meanwhile, Qi Long and Xie Yi were standing straight on both sides of the door with their backs to it. They both executed an exemplary military salute at the same time, only putting their hands down again after Ling Lan and Li Lanfeng had passed by. All of it looked exceedingly normal.
The two soldiers on the other side of the door were taken aback by the sudden opening of the door and the two officers who had randomly walked through. They shared a doubtful glance because they had not received any news from above that someone would enter the secret base at this time.
However, the salutes and respectful behaviour of the two sentry guards at the door made these two soldiers afraid to judge rashly. Perhaps there had been some emergency so those above had not had time to inform them. Still, carrying out their duty as guards, one of the men yelled out, "Password!"
Li Lanfeng had already walked through the doors with Ling Lan at this time. When he heard the soldiers ask for a password, his heart skipped a beat and his steps slowed involuntarily. Only Ling Lan's pace remained steady. As if not at all affected by the other side asking for a password, she continued to walk forwards confidently, even raising her head to look at the two men before her with an extremely cold gaze.
"Hn, well done," Ling Lan finally spoke up, praising the two soldiers lightly. This made the two men frown, and as Ling Lan took one more step forward, the faces of the two men were about to change drastically when she continued to say, "The password ..."
Hearing the mention of the password, the tense expressions of the two men eased for a moment, and it was at this precise moment that Ling Lan pounced forwards like a cheetah with her entire body, instantly coming right up to the two men.
She opened her hands wide and flicked them forcefully. Two gleams of cold light flashed through the air, and then with a shake and a clench of both her arms, two almost invisible thin ropes flew out from her wrists to instantly loop around the hands of the two soldiers. With a forceful tug, the men were dragged away from their initial position.
Ling Lan's attack had seemed complicated, but it had been completed in an instant. The attack had come too suddenly — those two men did not have any time to react and were pulled right into the air. Ling Lan's hands pulled downwards, and the two men who had been about to collide with one another in the air abruptly changed directions to fall towards the ground. With a quick dash, Ling Lan was below them, and she caught the two men securely.
By this time, the two men were already long unconscious. Ling Lan quietly set them down on the floor.
Only then did Li Lanfeng reach Ling Lan's side. Seeing how much Ling Lan's speed and mobility surpassed his, Li Lanfeng felt a deep sense of frustration. Whether it be in terms of mecha controls or physical skills, he was considerably worse than the rabbit. It looked like, for him to achieve his dream of fighting by the rabbit's side, he would need to work much harder.
"Just now you had obviously already hit them with the tranquillizer needles. Why did you still pull them out of their positions?" Even though Li Lanfeng's speed was no match for Ling Lan's, his vision was excellent. He had managed to see all of Ling Lan's moves in their entirety during that instant.
Ling Lan did not reply, only motioning for Li Lanfeng to go check out the area where the two men had been standing. Li Lanfeng walked over suspiciously, but when he bent down to take a closer look, his expression changed. It turned out that the alarm activation device was right where the two men had been standing.
Though the two men had seemed to be standing firmly at their posts, in fact, they had each only been standing with one foot flat on the ground. The ankle of their other foot was in the air. In other words, their weight was only on the first half of their foot, while their ankle was held off the ground. The moment they noticed anything odd, they need only step down fully and their ankle would trigger the alarm instantly.
This kind of setup was extremely covert and not easily discovered. It could even guarantee that even if the sentry guards did not react in time and were killed, without the conscious thought to keep their ankles up, the guards' feet would certainly step down as their bodies lost balance. The alarm would still be successfully triggered.
Seeing Li Lanfeng return with a face full of belated fear, Ling Lan silently swiped the cold sweat from her forehead. Frankly, she too had not known the alarm was set up in such a way beforehand. If Little Four had not discovered it and alerted her in time right before she attacked, Ling Lan would definitely have fallen for the trap. Even if she managed to kill these two people, they still would not have been able to avoid triggering the alarm. In the end, they would have been forced to run away and return empty-handed.
Seeing that Ling Lan had successfully defeated the two guards inside, Qi Long and the others hurried over. When they saw how the alarm here was set up to be triggered, they too were struck with sympathetic fear, exclaiming that this setup was truly too insane. On the other hand, Chang Xinyuan was extremely interested in the setup. He laid right down on the ground to examine it closely, muttering to himself, as if calculating something.
They did not linger for long. Despite Chang Xinyuan's reluctant gaze, Ling Lan led her team to continue moving deeper into the base. This particular hurdle had indeed been rather challenging, but after that, things became much easier. Perhaps the senior officer of the secret base placed a lot of trust in this alarm setup of theirs, for the following few checkpoints were not as crazy and complicated. Ling Lan's team smoothly made their way to the centre of the base.
Ling Lan led her team members to this area and then stopped moving, because if they moved any further, they would enter the range of the spectres' monitoring. Little Four had long reported to Ling Lan that there were two spectres overseeing the area. The moment they entered within the spectres' range of detection, they would be ruthlessly attacked and obliterated. Moreover, at this time, Ling Lan had no idea how she could explain to her team members how she had known there were spectres here.
Only spectres could sense another spectre — as for who sensed who first, that would depend on whose spectre abilities were stronger. Furthermore, hacker abilities and spectre abilities were two diametrically opposite abilities 1 , which made it almost impossible for both to awaken in the same person at the same time. Even if there was an accident and someone managed to awaken these two abilities that could not coexist, they would still be unable to make those two kinds of abilities strong together.
Because the more powerful the abilities grew, the greater the friction between the two powers would become. The Federation had conducted an experiment once where they had made someone who had awakened both these talents to train them both up equally. In the end, the final outcome was that the bearer of the abilities was unable to withstand the build-up of friction between the two powers. His brain had been crushed under the explosive force caused by the clashing of the two powers, and he was reduced to a vegetable, never waking up ever again.
From then on, the Federation set the restriction so that even if someone awakened both these abilities, they could only choose just one to develop 2 . This information had been carefully conveyed to the students by the instructors of the scout academy around the time their innate talents began to awaken. As such, Qi Long and the others would be well aware of this fact, so she had no way of explaining why she could possess such powerful hacker abilities and spectre abilities at the same time. It could only be said that Little Four's existence was just too formidable beyond comprehension. Ling Lan could not find a reasonable explanation even if she wanted to.
Right then at that moment, Li Lanfeng, who had been rather subdued due to his shock at the extent of Ling Lan's skills, suddenly became focused and his expression turned rather grim. As if sensing something, he immediately cut off his spiritual connection to Ling Lan. Under everyone's stunned gaze and Ling Lan's quiet realisation, an extremely dangerous aura silently seeped out from his body and began to slowly spread.
Everyone felt this aura that made them uncomfortable and sensed their own spiritual power beginning to shudder violently. At the point where they felt as if their spiritual power were about to be consumed by this aura, Ling Lan's spiritual power abruptly surged up and spread out to swiftly wrap around the spiritual power of the seven others in the team.
Ling Lan's protection greatly stabilised the spiritual power of the seven people. Everyone was still unsettled by the experience; only Han Jijyun stared grimly at Li Lanfeng, as if thinking of something.
At this moment, Li Lanfeng had no mind to consider the situation of his companions. He had sensed two dangerous presences ahead, similar to his spectre powers, though they seemed slightly weaker than him since they had yet to notice his presence.
Still, Li Lanfeng's brow remained locked tight. The other side had two people, so Li Lanfeng could not be certain whether he could go up against both of them and keep everyone in the team safe. Afraid that the other side would discover his presence, he swiftly tamped down on his spectre power. With a grave expression, he turned to look at Ling Lan and said softly, "Rabbit, there are two spectres inside. They are very strong. The moment we enter their surveillance range, we will be attacked. Our lives are likely to be threatened."
Against just one, Li Lanfeng had the confidence to defeat the other with just a bit of luck. But with two, Li Lanfeng could not be too sure. After all, the spectres inside were just slightly weaker than him. If the two of them had good rapport and worked together, even if he wanted to protect everyone in Ling Lan's team, he was afraid he would miss something and expose a weakness to be caught by the enemy.
Initially, Li Lanfeng had suspected that Ling Lan too possessed very strong spectre abilities. However, as Ling Lan's hacker abilities had been showcased more and more, Li Lanfeng no longer had much hope for Ling Lan's spectre power. The things that Ling Lan and the others knew, Li Lanfeng knew as well. Although hacker power and spectre power could exist simultaneously, they could not grow strong together.
Perhaps Ling Lan had possessed both these abilities at the start, but he must have chosen to develop his hacker abilities rather than his spectre abilities. Li Lanfeng felt that this was a bit of a shame because almost all spectres were under the control of the Federation military. As the first heir of the Li family, Li Lanfeng naturally could not become a puppet of the military. Thus, when his grandfather had noticed how unique Li Lanfeng's spiritual power was, suspecting that he might be one of those rumoured spectres, his grandfather had completely sealed away all news of this. This was why Li Lanfeng had not been discovered by the military.