“Why should I have told you? Would his being a G.o.d-cla.s.s operatoraffect your life in any way?” Lan Luofeng cast a confused glance at LingLan. “Not to mention he has already left us, and even if he were by ourside, whether or not he is a G.o.d-cla.s.s operator, what does that have todo with us?”
Ling Lan thought about it and felt that what Lan Luofeng said wascorrect. Knowing if Ling Xiao was a G.o.d-cla.s.s operator or not reallydidn’t have much impact on her life at all.
Lan Luofeng picked up a mouthful of Ling Lan’s favourite side-dishwith her chopsticks and placed it in Ling Lan’s bowl, and continued tosay, “Also, Ling Xiao is just Ling Xiao. He’s a normal person, and alsomy husband, your daddy. Whether he’s a G.o.d-cla.s.s operator or not, he’sstill my husband and your daddy. These two ident.i.ties will neverchange.”
Lan Luofeng’s words caused Ling Lan’s body to jerk in realisation,and the restlessness she had felt after finding out that Ling Xiao was aG.o.d-cla.s.s operator abruptly disappeared.
“Also, Baby Lan, don’t let your daddy’s status influence your choicesin the future. You must remember — you are you. You just coincidentallyhave a father named Ling Xiao, that’s all.” Lan Luofeng was somewhatworried, afraid that her daughter would choose to do things she didn’tlike just because of Ling Xiao, like try to become a mecha operator orsomething. “I hope that you’ll choose what you like to do in the future,and not choose out of some obligation or whatever other reason …”
Lan Luofeng’s words caused Ling Lan to look at her mum with new eyes;she felt as if she was getting to know a new side of Lan Luofeng.
Ling Lan reckoned that among all the females that her dad hadencountered, her mum was the only one who didn’t treat her dad assomeone overwhelmingly strong or an idol or perhaps even as a long-termfood provider. She had very simply and purely seen him as a regularperson to live an average life with. And so, her dad had chosen her mum …yup, decisively making a move even before her mum had become an adult.
“Thanks, Mum!” said Ling Lan sincerely. She finished off all of theside-dishes that Lan Luofeng had given her and then lifted her head fromher bowl to ask, “Mum, say, do you think Dad could still be alive?”
Lan Luofeng’s lips bloomed with a radiant smile, and she noddeddecisively and said, “Yes, I think your daddy wouldn’t die so easily.He’s a G.o.d-cla.s.s operator!” Her tone concealed none of her admirationand pride for Ling Xiao.
Ling Lan smiled too then. Since her own mum wished for this, then shewould also hold onto this hope as well. Besides, it was just like hermum said — a G.o.d-cla.s.s operator wouldn’t just die that easily …
Ling Lan finished eating and then went with her mum to the fieldoutside to walk off the meal. After that, she returned to a trainingroom to practise several sets of physical skills. In particular, LingLan ran through the scout academy’s foundational physical skills set atleast 10 times, because Ling Xiao had mentioned that this set ofphysical skills was not as simple as it seemed. It may even be a greathelp when operating mecha and advancing in the future.
At the end, she took a shower and lay down to sleep. Entering thelearning s.p.a.ce as usual, she saw Little Four sitting on the ground.There were countless papers piled high beside him, and he was flippingthrough several more sheets of paper in his hands.
Ling Lan asked curiously, “Little Four, what are you doing?”
Perhaps Little Four had been too engrossed in what he was doing; hewas so frightened by Ling Lan’s voice that he flung his arms out — thepapers in his hands were thrown into the air, and one of them landed onhis head.
Little Four quickly pulled down that piece of paper. Seeing Ling Langrinning at him, as if amused by his panicked performance, Little Foursaid grumpily, “Boss, why did you have to sneak up on me? You almostscared me to death!”
“Scared you to death? Why? Were you doing something bad?” teased Ling Lan.
Unexpectedly, Little Four’s face paled. He quickly reached out andgathered the papers in front of him, pulling them close. Ling Lan lookedat him suspiciously and said, “Don’t tell me you really were doingsomething bad?”
Little Four choked out a nervous laugh. “No way! I was just gatheringsome information, things about Dad and also stuff about mecha.”
When Little Four mentioned mecha, he was mumbling somewhatunintelligibly, but Ling Lan’s attention had been fully captured by‘things about Dad’. She cautioned Little Four, “Gathering theinformation may be important, but make sure you stay concealed. Don’tlet anyone discover you.”
Little Four smiled and said, “Relax, Boss!”
“Still …” Ling Lan pointed at the pile of paper in front of LittleFour, “Is this necessary?” Frankly, Little Four could just absorb theinformation directly into his system procedures — he really didn’t haveto materialize the information onto these sheets and sheets of whitepaper.
“Boss, don’t you feel that words on paper is cla.s.sy?” asked LittleFour, expression dreamy. “Reading from paper, doesn’t it make me seemvery intelligent?”
This troublemaking brat — so he’s just trying to show off! Ling Lansaid huffily, “In that case, you can continue being intelligent. I’mgoing into the learning s.p.a.ce to learn now.”
Ling Lan’s unimpressed att.i.tude made Little Four feel that there wasnow a generation gap between him and Boss. Thus, he sulkily waved LingLan away, indicating for her to not disturb his work.
Ling Lan could only shake her head silently at Little Four’sheartlessness. She sighed to herself, mourning the fact that littlebrats nowadays were just too spoilt and pampered. She was just about topush open the doors to the physical skills learning area when from thecorner of her eye, she noticed a large door to the side. A word hadfinally appeared on it: Mecha!
Could it be that because she had encountered mecha, the learning s.p.a.ce had also activated a mecha course?
Ling Lan’s heart heated up and she decisively turned away from thephysical skills doorway. Tentatively, she prodded the door labelled‘mecha’ and felt it move slightly. It wasn’t like before when the doorwas fused to the wall, completely immovable.
Ling Lan gave the door a hard shove and the door swung open with abang. She walked inside and saw an endless s.p.a.ce. In the near distance, arugged soldier with a full beard was guffawing boisterously as hewatched her approach.
“Haha, Ling Lan, you’re finally here!” The soldier’s energeticgreeting made Ling Lan glance at him cautiously. Could he be a newinstructor?
The personalities of the instructors Ling Lan had met so far were alldifferent … Number One was cold and cool to the extreme, and meantevery word he said. Number Five liked to laugh, but was sly andmanipulative to the extreme, and was unbelievably perverse, capable ofchilling others to the bone. Number Nine was very strict and looked verycold and aloof, but was actually a woman with a soft heart — Ling Lanhad received much care from her since the very beginning.
As such, Ling Lan wasn’t afraid of stern-faced teachers, but wasfearful of those with smiling faces and pa.s.sionate appearances; she hadbeen traumatized by Number Five’s torments … So, seeing the other’senthusiasm and wide smile, she was instantly on her guard. If by anychance this was another instructor like Number Five, she woulddefinitely be toyed with most terribly.
“Don’t think so much. I’m not Number Five. I have no interest intorturing people. Right, I’m your mecha instructor, Number Three. Infact, when you turned 6 years old, I had already wanted to activate themecha course. But, due to your real-life situation back then, BigBrother Number One refused my request. I had thought that I’d have towait for another 5 to 6 years before it came up again. Unexpectedly, youactivated it yourself after just one year, hahahahahaha … that’sgreat!” Number Three laughed up at the sky, as if immensely pleased withLing Lan’s choice. Looks like he had really become impatient withwaiting.
The laughter finally stopped, but before Ling Lan could ask anyquestions, Number Three snapped his fingers. A rabbit mecha dropped fromthe sky, landing directly in front of Ling Lan. Ling Lan could onlystare blankly at its familiar appearance. “Why is it this mecha?”
Number Three replied helplessly, “Can’t help it, our mecha’s controlsare somewhat different from those in your world, so we had to let thes.p.a.ce a.s.sistant gather all the mecha models and controls of this world.So far, the s.p.a.ce a.s.sistant has only sent in the data for this onemecha. Of course, this is also because you selected this mecha …”
Ling Lan finally understood why Little Four had had that dodgy lookin the hall of the learning s.p.a.ce. It turned out that he had secretlysent the stats of the rabbit mecha into the learning s.p.a.ce, making itthe initiate mecha for her mecha training. Dammit. He knew that shedidn’t really like the rabbit mecha — couldn’t he have changed things alittle and brought in some other models?
Of course, Ling Lan was most upset at her own luck. If she hadmanaged to draw a more formidable mecha to begin with, then she wouldn’thave to take Number Three’s mocking gaze.
Regardless of how gloomy Ling Lan felt, she still had to listen toInstructor Number Three’s commands. She got into the c.o.c.kpit of therabbit mecha. As expected, the control b.u.t.tons were the same, no changeswhatsoever.
Ling Lan activated the mecha, and the mecha quickly booted upsuccessfully. She then opened the mecha’s screen to display thesituation outside, but found that the initially vacant and open s.p.a.cehad now become an extremely narrow tunnel. By Ling Lan’s estimation, thetunnel was just 1.5 times the width of the mecha itself. Tosuccessfully make her way through the tunnel, it would require very finecontrol of the mecha’s movement. Additionally, there were also someirregular obstacles within the tunnel — on the floor, and on the wallson both sides — which were probably designed to test a mecha operator’sability to handle the controls to adjust to circ.u.mstances.
“Firstly, you’ll need to go through obstacle course training. Can yousee the numbers on the bottom of the screen?” Number Three’s voice rangout beside Ling Lan’s ear.
Ling Lan looked at the screen as Instructor Number Three said, andsure enough, on the lower part of the screen, the numbers 03.00.00 wereflas.h.i.+ng at her, reminding Ling Lan of their existence.
“This is a countdown timer for 3 minutes. You’ll need to completethis obstacle course within 3 minutes to pa.s.s. And your deadline tocomplete this mission is just one week.” Number Three’s tone was tingedwith obvious schadenfreude.
F*ck! Teaching her nothing and giving her a mission right off thebat? Instructor Number Three, you’re a mecha instructor, not a missiondistributor — isn’t what you’re doing too shameless? Before Ling Lancould give voice to her complaints, the flas.h.i.+ng numbers on the lowerhalf of the screen began to count down rapidly.
Ling Lan’s eyelid twitched. Abruptly, she found that with the speed of her mecha’s jumps, 3 minutes weren’t long at all.
At this moment, Number Three’s gleeful voice rang out once more, “Ohright, every time you fail an attempt, the system will dole outpunishment. You hang in there now!”
Hearing this, Ling Lan frantically operated her mecha. Her fingersflew, actually blowing past the speed limits she had managed to achievebefore this … the system’s punishment was not pleasant at all — shereally didn’t want to experience it ever again.
However, dreams are beautiful but reality is cruel. Ling Lan slammedinto a wall for the nth time, and after repeatedly embodying the rabbitin the tale ‘waiting for a rabbit by a tree stump ‘ 1 , the timer finally hit zero. Overall, she had onlymanaged to jump forward a few metres. Oh, tragic rabbit … Ling Lan hadyet to finish bemoaning the poor rabbit when a wave of numbing painswept over her body …