Chapter 386: Li Lanfeng's Illness?
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
Li Lanfeng, who was sitting beside Ling Lan, looked at that magnificent giant mecha in the night sky in dazed shock, unable to react for a long moment. Reflexively, he clutched Ling Lan's arm and stammered, "Ling ... Ling ... G-General Ling Xiao!"
Seeing her father appear like a deity before her at this most critical moment to rescue everyone, Ling Lan was similarly overwhelmed with gratitude and excitement. At the same time, she was also extremely proud. See, see, this was her father! In every child's heart, their father should be the greatest. Despite having lived two lives, Ling Lan was no exception to this young daughter mentality.
However, when Li Lanfeng clutched her arm, all of Ling Lan's excitement and proud happiness fled. She frowned slightly, glancing at the large hand on her arm. Say, she really did not like others touching her body ...
Ling Lan's cold gaze swept harshly over Li Lanfeng, rife with warning, hoping that Li Lanfeng would move away his disturbing hand.
Li Lanfeng may have been too overwhelmed with emotion; typically extremely observant, he was now unbelievably dense and slow. He did not notice the great distaste in Ling Lan's eyes and continued to grip Ling Lan's arm as he gushed, "That's General Ling Xiao! He's one of our Federation's twelve god-class operators, and also the publicly acknowledged strongest god-class operator in the world. He's the mecha operator I idolise the most ... who could have guessed that General Ling Xiao would actually show up here to save us? I must be dreaming ... Rabbit, Rabbit, I'm too excited ..."
Li Lanfeng could only repeat how excited he was non-stop to the rabbit; this moronic behaviour left Ling Lan speechless. She once again peered at that large hand on her arm and then looked at the dreamy expression on Li Lanfeng's face and his obviously fanatic behaviour ... alright, in view of how much the other adored her father, she would tolerate this!
While Ling Lan was bitterly enduring Li Lanfeng's endless fanboy chatter about General Ling Xiao's greatness, on the outside, Ling Lan's team and the Leiting group were all watching that majestic mecha hovering in the air with emotional faces. Some of them were so moved that they made mistakes in their control, causing their mecha to lose balance and stumble and fall.
However, all this were just trivial things. Everyone knew that the arrival of the god-class operator General Ling Xiao meant that they were all safe now. Well, with the exception of that grandstanding imperial mecha who had been trying to toy with them.
The imperial operator was currently staring in panic at Ling Xiao's mecha; he knew he was in danger now. An imperial mecha was indeed much stronger than an ace mecha, able to bully and kill an ace mecha without too much trouble, but this only applied to ace mecha. Against a god-class mecha, his fate was exactly like if an ace mecha was up against him — there was no room at all for resistance.
When he saw Ling Xiao's mecha once again raise the beam gun in his hands emotionlessly, his expression changed drastically and he immediately activated his external speakers to shout, "Immortal Bird Ling Xiao, please do not take action. As long as you let me go, I will immediately retreat from this battle."
"Let you go? When you were fighting against these cadets, did you ever think of letting them go?" replied Ling Xiao icily. Even though Ling Xiao's reply sounded even and impassive, Ling Lan could still hear the deep rage embedded within it. That mild-mannered and kind father of hers who did not seem to understand the meaning of anger could actually lose his temper like this?
Ling Lan was very intelligent — she quickly figured out why Ling Xiao had become so angry. It was all because of her! Everyone had their own personal buttons which should never be pressed, and one of Ling Xiao's buttons was her, Ling Lan.
What a fearsome daughter-con! Even as Ling Lan sighed at the realization, a warm current flowed gently through her heart. The corners of her lips suddenly quirked upwards, cracking her typically frozen and emotionless face, and this curve was spreading wider and wider ...
Li Lanfeng's full attention had been on Ling Xiao, but when he felt the cold aura by his side suddenly turn warm, he turned around in confusion. Thus, he happened to see that once in a blue moon warm smile of Ling Lan's, and the sight was like an arrow to his heart.
"Thump! Thump! Thump!" Li Lanfeng's heart pounded heavily within his ribcage. He reflexively pressed a hand to his chest — could it be that his illness was acting up again? Ever since he had listened to the rabbit seven years ago and begun working hard on his basics, his body had been gradually getting better. The intense pain where he felt as if his heart was about to burst had also slowly lessened until it no longer acted up at all from four years ago. But today, why did he once again have that same sort of feeling?
Could it be that this was an underlying problem that would flare up when his stamina was depleted? After thinking it over long and hard, Li Lanfeng could only come up with this possibility. He hurriedly closed his eyes, no longer daring to look, repeatedly telling himself that he needed to be calm and not get too worked up. Li Lanfeng still remembered that every time his illness flared up, he would always rely on self-abuse to distract himself from the pain coming from deep within him. However, he did not want the rabbit to see this side of him. Although he knew that the rabbit would not look down on him for it, he still did not want to appear weak before the rabbit ...
Very soon, his heart stopped its wild and fierce beating, slowly calming back down. Only when his emotions had settled completely did Li Lanfeng open his eyes. His forehead was already coated in sweat — just that brief occurrence had been enough to scare Li Lanfeng greatly.
By now, Ling Lan had returned to her usual demeanour. When a change had come over Li Lanfeng, Ling Lan had immediately sensed it. She had instantly turned to retrieve a restorative agent, but when she saw that Li Lanfeng seemed to have it under control, she decided to wait and observe a little longer; no matter how good a medicinal agent was, ingesting too much of it would result in a certain degree of drug tolerance. Ling Lan did not wish for her companions to overuse medicinal agents and meet a tragic end because they were unable to achieve adequate recovery during critical moments later on.
When she saw that Li Lanfeng's condition was slowly recovering, Ling Lan relaxed. However, she was once again reminded of Li Lanfeng's fragile physical constitution. She made up her mind that, once the battle on planet Newline was over, the first thing she needed to do was to improve Li Lanfeng's physique. She could not allow her team to have a member with a frail and sickly body.
While Li Lanfeng had almost gotten himself into trouble on their end, on the outside the imperial mecha had been rendered speechless by Ling Xiao's question. Ling Xiao had never considered letting this executioner who had almost harmed his daughter go, and so was not planning to hear any explanations the other could provide. He had barely finished stated his question when he pulled the trigger in his hands without any hesitation. A powerful beam of pale blue light was fired from the muzzle of the beam gun, shooting straight for the imperial operator.
The imperial operator was startled and quickly operated his mecha to evade. At the same time, he turned on his communicator to try and contact his companion, wanting to call the other over to help. However, when his mecha's computer provided feedback that the other party was unreachable, the imperial operator knew that he was in deep trouble.
Ling Xiao was not at all surprised that this attack of his was successfully evaded by the enemy. He had not intended for this shot to kill the enemy to begin with; instead, he had been trying to get the opponent to move further away from his darling daughter's mecha.
Although there were two ace trainee mecha below, knowing his daughter well, Ling Xiao naturally knew that his daughter was most definitely piloting that close combat mecha. And that mecha just so happened to be within the attack range of that imperial mecha. Even as confident as he was, in this kind of scenario, Ling Xiao's first decision was to first save his daughter from any danger — killing the enemy could wait 1 .
At this thought, Ling Xiao could not help but shake his head in silence. If he could help it, he would have wanted his precious daughter to choose a safer long-range attack mecha. With the addition of their Divine Command Sect's spiritual power control, that mecha could definitely become a horrifying mobile attack bastion. Its formidable firepower would guarantee that other mecha would not be able to get close to it, ensuring its survival ability on the battlefield. Although this choice was off the track of becoming a god-class operator, Ling Xiao had never intended for Ling Lan to become a god-class operator anyway. This was not only because Ling Lan was a girl — physical constitution pretty much made it impossible for a girl to become a god-class operator — but more because Ling Xiao knew very well just how much pain and suffering was involved in ascending to god-class status. He could not bear for his daughter to experience it.
This shot of Ling Xiao's had indeed achieved his objective. The imperial operator had no clue that the Federation's strongest god-class operator would value an ace mecha below them so highly — if he had known of Ling Lan's identity, he would definitely have risked great injury to obtain Ling Lan as a hostage no matter what.
However, other than Ling Lan's original team members who already knew of Ling Lan's and Ling Xiao's relationship, most outsiders did not know anything about this. This once again let Ling Lan sail through a crisis safely.
The imperial operator's retreat put more distance between him and Ling Lan, and Ling Xiao's mecha once again disappeared, only to immediately appear before Ling Lan's mecha. 's large body completely obscured Ling Lan's mecha behind it, and only at this moment did Ling Xiao's heart finally settle.
"You can still move, right?" asked Ling Xiao all of a sudden.
"Of course, even another fight would be fine, as long as no such monster like an imperial mecha appears," Ling Lan knew that this question was directed at her, so she instantly replied.
Ling Lan's answer obviously did not hold much awe or deference, which caused Li Lanfeng in the same mecha to be stunned once more. He stared blankly at Ling Lan, wondering how Ling Lan could use this type of attitude in responding to General Ling Xiao.
"Monster? To use this term on an imperial mecha, you think too highly of him." It was unexpected for the generally mild-mannered Ling Xiao to spout this kind of sharp and mocking words. "Let me show you how, before a god-class mecha, all other mecha are ants."
His words had barely faded when Ling Xiao suddenly disappeared from before Ling Lan and he reappeared almost instantaneously beside the imperial mecha. This was the god-class mecha's Divine Wind system in action, truly achieving theoretical instant teleportation.
The god-class mecha was a multi-faceted mecha. In other words, it was a legendary mecha whose long-range ability and close-range ability were equally optimized. Compared to the other god-class mecha which were geared more towards close combat, was more balanced on all fronts. This was also why was renowned to be the strongest god-class mecha.
Thus, Ling Xiao not only had great long-range attack capabilities, he was equally formidable in close-range combat. There was a gleam of cold light, and one of the imperial mecha's arms was sliced right off. It fell to the ground heavily, creating a shallow ditch with its impact.
"Hmm? Your evasion technique is not bad." Ling Xiao was rather surprised. He had originally intended for this sword to directly pierce the other's cockpit. He was well aware that it was completely impossible for a normal imperial mecha to escape his attack with his speed. Unexpectedly, the opponent's evasive manoeuvres had exceeded the theoretical limits of imperial mecha.