Chapter 354: Enemy Invasion?
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
"Li Lanfeng will definitely go to the 23rd Division. I've already spoken with him," answered Ling Lan immediately. "As for Li Shiyu, as long as Qi Long's issue isn't resolved, he doesn't have a choice."
The others could not help but spare a handful of compassionate tears for Li Shiyu at Ling Lan's words. Thus, the poor Li Shiyu had sold off his entire life to the Lingtian Battle Clan ... he had no more so-called freedom to speak of.
Hiding at one side, Qi Long secretly swiped away the cold sweat on his forehead, self-hypnotising himself inside, 'It's none of my business. All of this is Boss's idea ..." He still remembered that back when he had suffered that 'relapse', Boss had secretly injected him with a shot before it happened. There was absolutely something fishy about that shot.
"As for Chang Xinyuan, we can just ask him the next time we meet. Even if he is unwilling, there's still a few years' time for us to trick him into following us." Ling Lan stroked her chin, thinking about that mecha modification prodigy. Yup, she absolutely could not allow him to just slip away like that.
Trick? The moment Ling Lan said this, all of the other people in the villa acted similarly. They all lifted their heads to look up at the ceiling, pretending they had not heard anything. They were a proper battle clan, definitely not some human trafficking syndicate ... uh, although a few of the clan members were indeed tricked into joining, overall, those were still the minority, right ...? Everyone was justifying things to themselves, cautioning themselves that they absolutely could not be led astray by their boss.
Near the evening, Ling Lan walked out from the villa on her own. Qi Long and the others were still in their classes and had yet to return. Ling Lan had decided to go to the port to send her dad off so that he would not misunderstand things and mope again.
Ling Lan knew very well that Ling Xiao had come all this way in disguise to the military academy primarily because he was worried about her and so wanted to come see for himself how she was doing. Although Ling Lan felt that Ling Xiao's actions were unnecessary, she could not deny that she was deeply moved by it. She had profoundly experienced the bottomless love and acceptance Ling Xiao had for his daughter. Even though they had missed spending the first sixteen years of her life here together, Ling Xiao was currently investing so much more than Ling Lan in their relationship. It should be said that Ling Xiao was scoring passing marks in taking on his role as a father.
Spending these last few days together in the military academy had let Ling Lan gradually integrate her image of the Ling Xiao in the legacy space with this Ling Xiao in the real world. If Ling Lan had not been so used to having her slackface on by now, and if Ling Xiao's face had not looked so ridiculously young, perhaps Ling Lan would have already fulfilled Ling Xiao's wish by calling him 'daddy'. As for right now ...
Ling Xiao's assessment team was almost the final team to leave the First Men's Military Academy. There was quite a crowd that had come to send them off. Some were the upper-year cadets who had been enlisted into the 23rd Division, such as Huo Zhenyu and company, while there were also quite a number of lower-year cadets who admired the 23rd Division. These younger students had come over in between classes in hopes of making a stronger impression on the assessors.
While they knew that the assessors would be different every year, what if these officers happened to be the assessors again several years later ...? They were unwilling to back down even just for this miniscule bit of hope.
This was still the first time that Huo Zhenyu had seen the leader of the 23rd Division's team. During the assessment period, this leader had not appeared at any of the assessment fields. Even the inspection tasks had only been handled by him at the end of the day after all the assessments had ended. Since Huo Zhenyu had decided to go to the 23rd Division, he naturally wanted to know more about it. He wanted to know what kind of leader this major general was — perhaps he would be able to see some shadow of General Ling Xiao from the other.
Huo Zhenyu believed that a leader under General Ling Xiao must have something special about him.
The major general looked very young — even the large face mask which almost covered his entire face was unable to conceal this fact. He led his team to the special military port for the 23rd Division, but unlike the other assessment teams, he did not walk straight into the military vessel. Instead, he stood to one side, as if waiting for someone.
The other assessment team officers did not seem surprised by this. The major general had barely halted when they all spread out to stand in groups of two or three around him, where they then began chatting with one another. The mood was extremely casual and light-hearted.
Huo Zhenyu did not think much of it at first, but he soon noticed the intricacy behind the men's positions. Those officers may seem as if they were standing around randomly to chat, but that was not true. They had imperceptibly surrounded the major general, and the direction and angle of each person's position were different. It could be said that everything in the surroundings would fall into the eyes of at least one of the officers — not a single blind spot existed.
Huo Zhenyu was rendered speechless with astonishment. Who would have expected the leader of the 23rd Division to have such strong leadership skills? This scene had not occurred with any of the other assessment teams — even the leader of the teams might not be able to inspire such obedience from the proud and stubborn officers under their lead.
It could not be denied that even as Huo Zhenyu was astounded, he was secretly pleased. It was always better being able to join a united division rather than a divided army division which was prone to in-fighting.
Right at this time, Huo Zhenyu saw a very familiar figure strolling over. It was Ling Lan who had defeated him on the arena stage. Ling Lan bypassed the fence to walk straight towards the men of the 23rd Division. It looked like his target was that major general.
Huo Zhenyu was startled by this and he began to feel nervous for Ling Lan's sake. These officers of the 23rd Division may seem nice and friendly, but they were actually really hard to get along with. He had once tried to build some rapport with them but had failed miserably. The mocking gazes of those men had stopped Huo Zhenyu from seeking them out to talk again.
Huo Zhenyu thought that Ling Lan would be stopped by the surrounding officers before he could even get close to the major general, but unexpectedly, Ling Lan had just approached when the officer closest to him had smiled and given way to him. This scene made Huo Zhenyu's pupils contract. It went without saying that Ling Lan must know that major general.
As Huo Zhenyu had put his full focus on the assessment, he had not paid attention to the other things that had happened within the school. Thus, he was unaware that Ling Lan had led the New Cadet Regiment to form a welcoming committee for the assessment teams, or that Ling Lan had been singled out for admiration by the head of the 23rd Division during the welcoming ceremony ...
Huo Zhenyu's gaze dimmed slightly. Would the fact that Ling Lan knew the major general affect his future retaliation plan? However, Huo Zhenyu soon smiled, fighting spirit ablaze in his eyes. This was even better. If Ling Lan truly enlisted with the 23rd Division because of this, perhaps their revenge plot could be executed several years ahead of schedule.
"You've finally come! I thought you wouldn't even be willing to come see me off." Even though Ling Xiao's face was completely obscured by the large face mask, the humour in his eyes could not be concealed. It was clear to see that Ling Lan's arrival had pleased Ling Xiao's dragon heart greatly.
"Well, I forgot to ask you, Father, to pass on a message. Tell Mummy to not worry, I'm doing well here." Ling Lan reflexively scratched her nose, ignoring the hope in Ling Xiao's eyes, once again pretending not to see anything like an ostrich. Alright, just let her continue working at it!
Ling Xiao seemed to pick up on Ling Lan's embarrassment. He reached out a hand to tap Ling Lan lovingly on the forehead and said with a smile, "Got it. I'll pass on your message, my 'son'!" That said, Ling Xiao turned to leave and board his ship. Frankly, Ling Lan coming to send him off personally was already enough to satisfy him. As for calling him 'daddy', he was not impatient; there was still time. One day, he would let his daughter call him 'daddy' from the heart.
Ling Lan looked at Ling Xiao's stalwart back and then decisively fell into a cadet's salute, mouthing silently, "Daddy, bon voyage!" Although that cry of 'daddy' was not voiced, the love and respect she held in her heart for Ling Xiao could not be denied.
The assessment team of the 23rd Division very quickly followed their leader onto their ship, and the ship soon took off. Just like that, other than Qi Long and the other few knowing that Ling Xiao had visited the military academy, no one else had a clue that the national idol and god-class operator General Ling Xiao had even graced the First Men's Military Academy with his presence.
Only after Ling Lan saw the warship fly away from the port did she put down her hand and turn away from the port. On her way back, she saw Huo Zhenyu standing right across from her, staring at her with a serious expression.
"Senior Huo, what's up?" asked Ling Lan lightly.
"Are you going to the 23rd Division in future?" asked Huo Zhenyu.
"Yes!" answered Ling Lan resolutely.
"Good. Four years later, I will wait for you at the 23rd Division. At that time, we shall fight to clear the grudge between us." Huo Zhenyu's eyes were filled with fighting spirit as he issued his challenge.
"Sounds good to me!" Ling Lan decisively clapped her hand against the other's outstretched palm, indicating that she had accepted Huo Zhenyu's challenge.
After striking palms, the two brushed by each other, leaving for their respective destinations without a backward glance. However, they both knew that they needed to begin preparing now for the battle four years from now.
Very soon, night descended. Ling Lan and the others finished dinner and then after another round of training, they each went off to rest.
At this time, the fleet of an unidentified faction had snuck into the skies of the planet they were on and were slowly making their silent way towards the planet ... even more frighteningly, heaven knows what method they used to interrupt the satellite surveillance of this plot of sky. Not a single person nor piece of equipment discovered their presence.
A patrol ship was conducting its routine patrol and inspection around this area and found nothing unusual. It was just about to send this news down to the mainframe below when it found that it could not send out any messages.
"That's strange, why wasn't there any signal five times in a row?" The operator in charge of message transmission had tried sending a message 5 times consecutively, but the optical supercomputer always ended each attempt with a notification of failure. This surprised the operator, causing him to shout out involuntarily. Although there had been times before when the message transmission would fail due to an unstable signal, it would typically only happen just once or twice and never more than three times. For this transmission to fail 5 times in a row was absolutely an abnormal occurrence.
The comms leader in charge of this area immediately came over to investigate. Sure enough, as the operator had said, there was no indicator of any signal at all being picked up by the device. He quickly said, "Which satellite are you connected to?"
"JX-12," responded the operator instantly.
"Change to JX-07 for me," ordered the team leader.
"Yes! Sir!" The operator immediately switched to contacting the satellite JX-07 but soon found that JX-07 was equally out of contact. "Sir, we can't connect to JX-07."
"Try the other satellites!" Cold sweat began to bead up on the team leader's forehead; he had sensed that something was up.
The operator tried again and again to connect to the other major satellites in this section of space but found all his efforts futile. "Sir, it's still not working."
"Could it be that the ship's communicator is broken?" asked the team leader.
"No, the results of the device's self-check is normal 1 !" responded the operator immediately.
At these words, the team leader suddenly recalled a war of information that had taken place in the Federation 20 years ago. This kind of scenario had occurred then as well. His face changed drastically and he said, "Could this be an enemy invasion?"