Chapter 45: Who Wants to Kill Ling Lan?
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
On the official first day of school, Ling Lan refused Lan Luofeng's attempts to send her to school, only allowing Chamberlain Ling Qin alone to go with her and register.
It couldn't be helped — Ling Lan's eyelid had been twitching ever since she woke up early in the morning, and although she tried to convince herself not to be superstitious … just in case, for safety reasons, Ling Lan was determined to leave her defenceless mother at home.
Of course, once Ling Lan was seated in the hover car, she began discussing the causes of this physiological response with Little Four, trying to dispel her worry. However, the two of them were like half-empty cans rattling baselessly, neither being able to state anything for certain, and so the discussion could only devolve into confusion.
Looking at the dizzy spirals of confusion that used to be Little Four's eyes, the chagrined Ling Lan decisively ended their fruitless discussion. She summarily concluded that the phenomenon was an unsolvable mystery, which somehow earned her the gullible Little Four's awestruck gaze.
Even as Ling Lan basked in that gaze, she turned away so that Little Four was out of her sight. Hells, it was never her intention to dazzle an underage child with lies.
Just as Ling Lan was trying to dispel the guilt she felt at her deceit, her gaze narrowed and she lifted her head to look out the car window. At the same time, Chamberlain Ling Qin beside her had also sensed the danger, and with a grim expression, he said, "Ling-Zero-Seven, switch into full-body emergency defense mode, and send out a distress signal."
"Yes, orders acknowledged by Ling-Zero-Seven." As the master's designated vehicle, Ling-Zero-Seven was no ordinary hover car.
As Ling-Zero-Seven's voice faded, Ling Lan saw that the transparent areas of the inner car were abruptly covered by another equally transparent defensive layer. Meanwhile, she and Chamberlain Ling Qin had been securely buckled into their seats by safety belts which had sprung out from the seats. Then, Ling-Zero-Seven's speed kicked up a notch and it flew forward rapidly.
Still, despite Ling-Zero-Seven's new accelerated speed, they still did not manage to dodge the opponent's attack.
A cold glint flashed through Ling Lan's eyes and she gripped the handlebar beside her with both hands.
"Crash!" A huge energy wave flipped the hover car and sent it spinning. Ling-Zero-Seven struggled with all its might to regain control of its unstable body.
"Warning, warning! Body integrity at 71.28%, energy consumption at 22% — we can only withstand the same attack two more times!" reported Ling-Zero-Seven as it finally regained control of its body.
"Ling-Zero-Seven, abandon pre-set route. Implement irregular driving; throw them off as much as you can." Ling Qin's eyes shone with ruthlessness — he would never let these people off for daring to try and harm the hope of the Ling family.
"Yes!" Ling-Zero-Seven diverted from its usual movement style — not only did it increase its speed to 2.2 horsepower, it also began moving in random directions every so often, evading the enemies' long distance attacks again and again.
Inside the car, Ling Qin calmly tugged open a buckle in front of his seat and a large box appeared before Ling Lan. In it was a protective vest, as well as an assortment of weapons.
Already educated in this respect, Ling Lan knew that the weapons in the box included a type-II particle-beam submachine gun, a portable cold fusion gun, two flash grenades, two tear gas grenades, a smoke grenade, and of course, two ultra-lithium alloy short swords for melee combat. In the words of her previous world, the two short swords were so sharp that they could slice through iron as if it were soil, and could split a strand of hair if the wind blew it across their edges.
All these weapons were controlled items by the military, forbidden for civilian use. However, where there's a will, there's a way — people would always find a way to get what they want; moreover, the Ling family was established via military means to begin with, and had countless ties with the military. As such, obtaining these weapons was really not that difficult for them.
Ling Lan saw that there was a similar buckle in front of her, so she pulled on it and an identical box appeared before her.
Ling Qin briefly explained to Ling Lan how they were able to access these weapons so easily, "As long as the emergency defense mode has been activated, these weapon boxes will be unlocked. Under normal circumstances, even if you tried to pry the compartments open, you would never be able to get to the weapons."
Ling Qin instructed Ling Lan to follow his lead and put on the protective vest. Who knew how long the hover car could continue to resist and stay afloat — it was necessary to take all possible precautions and defensive measures as early as possible.
Ling Lan nodded her understanding and quickly put on the vest, and then strapped the two short swords securely to the sides of her legs. After some thought, she also picked up the portable cold fusion gun. Although it wasn't as powerful as the type-II particle-beam submachine gun, it was smaller and lighter, which made it much more suitable for a six year old child like her. Lastly, she took out the two flash grenades and tucked them into the side pockets of her protective vest, leaving the other grenades behind.
The usefulness of a weapon was not decided by its firepower, but by its suitability — Ling Lan had learned this principle well from both her Ling family tutors and the learning space. Seeing her choices, Ling Qin nodded approvingly — Ling Lan had selected only those weapons which suited her. Although the other two grenades were very good for harassing the enemy, since they didn't have the proper protective gear, the grenades wouldn't be of much use to them.
********
Several miles away, 413's squad, which had chosen to guard Ling Lan from a distance to avoid being spotted by them, were shocked and dismayed by the unexpected attack.
"F*ck. Brothers, charge if you don't want to die!" Piloting his own mecha, 413 rushed swiftly towards the scene. Inside the mecha, his entire face was white — if any harm befell Ling Lan, he would certainly be flayed alive by his demon commander.
All this time, 413's squad had been having a pretty easygoing time of it. Ling Lan wasn't an active and rambunctious child who liked to run about — this made their job very easy, only needing to patrol around the perimeters of the Ling household every so often.
The six of them pushed their mechas to the max, the sirens on their mechas wailing as they rushed in Ling Lan's direction. As they got closer and closer to the scene …
"Watch out! Scatter!" 413, who was in the lead, felt his hairs stand up, and he rolled to one side with a loud bellow.
Six figures scattered apart as a powerful beam of cold light shot through their original path.
"Number 2, unharmed!"
"Number 3 mecha, right foot frozen."
"Number 4, everything's normal."
"Number 5, lost control of left hand."
"Number 6, no damage."
The five members of the squad immediately reported their status to 413. Only Number 3 and Number 5 had received damage in that last attack.
"Number 4, Number 6 — protect Number 3, Number 5. Number 2, with me against the enemy," ordered 413.
"Yes, Sir!"
Just then, a team of mecha troopers flew in from various angles to convene in front of 413. Their neat standardised mecha, equipped to the teeth with weaponry, betrayed the savage nature of the enemy, causing 413's face to become as dark as a thundercloud.
413 turned on his communication button. "What unit are you from? What is your intention?" This type of standardised mecha and its full set of arms were only available within military channels. The military would never allow this sort of weaponry to fall into civilian hands — meaning that, these people had to have come from the military. And to be able to send out a squad of mecha troopers without alerting anyone, it had to be someone from the upper levels of the military.
So, who in the upper ranks of the military wanted Ling Lan dead? Could it really be the mole concealed within the military?
Still, just for the sake of one small promising seedling … was all this firepower really necessary? Were they not afraid of exposing themselves?
At this point, 413 was still unaware that Ling Lan was Ling Xiao's child. If he knew, then perhaps he would understand why someone would put so much effort into killing Ling Lan.