Luo Lang smiled, abnormally beautiful, causing many of those lingering in the equipment store to be instantly stunned at the sight. He nodded and said, “Satisfied, Boss.” There was nothing more satisfying than being able to personally handle a person who had been eyeing him and his sister with lustful intent.
“That’s good.” Only then did Ling Lan turn her head to say to Zhao Jun, who had long beaten the other members of Jiang Shaoyu’s team unconscious, “Let’s go.”
Zhao Jun shook out his arms, his face regretful as he said, “That really wasn’t much of a fight. Next time, Luo Lang, let’s trade?”
“Next time?” Luo Lang’s face darkened instantly. D*mmit, did this fellow still want him to be accosted and hit on again?
Seeing Luo Lang’s stormy expression, Zhao Jun knew he had said the wrong thing. He quickly added, “What I’m saying is, next time we fight against injustice, let me fight with the stronger ones first.” That said, Zhao Jun once again emphasized his words to express his pure and unsullied heart, “That’s fighting against injustice, you hear!”
Luo Lang huffed coolly — although he was not too happy with Zhao Jun’s explanation, he still decided to let it go. Zhao Jun surreptitiously wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, rejoicing over his luck in overcoming this hurdle. This punk Luo Lang was great in every way … but he was just too sensitive when it came to this point. As long as something touched on this hot button even just a little, he would go berserk.
Ling Lan was just about to lead Zhao Jun and Luo Lang away from the equipment store when a few more people walked through the door. In the lead was Li Lanfeng, and there were two beautiful girls trailing behind him.
Luo Chao quietly peeked out from behind Li Lanfeng and when she saw Ling Lan, her face instantly flushed bright red. This left Ling Lan rather speechless — it had already been so many years … when would this little lass Luo Chao learn not to blush?
Luo Chao did not know about Ling Lan’s dismay — as soon as she had set eyes on Ling Lan, her heart had begun pounding and her face had begun to burn. In order to let her heart feel a little better, Luo Chao did not dare to look at Ling Lan anymore. She could only turn her gaze away, and when she saw Jiang Shaoyu half-lying immobile on the ground, she asked her brother in confusion, “Big Brother, who’s that? What has happened?”
Luo Lang immediately blocked Luo Chao’s view and said with an expression of disgust, “Just some scum. Don’t bother about him. Let’s go.”
Luo Chao’s soft and sweet voice made the pensive Jiang Shaoyu raise his head sharply. He saw Luo Chao, with that face which was identical to Luo Lang’s, and his heart was instantly overcome with chagrin. Even though those two had identical faces, their temperaments were distinctly different and were extremely easy to tell apart. Why had he been so blinded with lust and desire that he had not been able to see the difference? Why had he been so sure that the person he saw was Luo Chao and had made a move so hastily? If he had only been a little calmer, perhaps he would not have ended up in such a sorry state.
Luo Lang was about to drag his sister away with him, but he had only taken two steps when he suddenly recalled that he still had something to tell his boss. He quickly called out to Ling Lan to stop her, “Boss, wait.”
Ling Lan turned her head to look calmly at Luo Lang and waited for him to explain.
Luo Lang dashed over to Firmament’s side and beckoned Ling Lan over with a wave, wanting her to come over and take a look.
The moment Ling Lan walked over, she was instantly stunned. She had not expected that there would be a sword in the real world with the exact same form as Regretless which Chang Xinyuan had forged in Mecha World. All that was unclear was whether this sword only resembled Regretless in form, or whether it was similar even in terms of creation materials and composition.
Luo Lang was very swift — seeing that his boss was indeed interested in Firmament, he quickly called over a shop assistant hiding at a corner and asked him to open the protective cover so his boss could examine the item.
From the earlier battle, the shop assistant already knew that this youth who was as pretty as a flower was a Qi-Jin master. How would he dare to hesitate? He quickly ran over and opened the protective covering.
Ling Lan reached out her hand to touch Firmament, and she could the softness and flexibility of its body. Next, she also looked at the information booklet beside it and learned that this Firmament actually had characteristics extremely similar to those of Regretless in Mecha World. She was overjoyed at this discovery — it should be known that she was already used to using Regretless; if she could obtain a cold weapon like Regretless in the real world, even if she encountered an elite ace, Ling Lan would have the confidence to fight it out.
As for the steep price of Firmament, Ling Lan was not at all concerned. She might perhaps lack other things, but credits was certainly not one of those things. Who asked her to have the incredible cheat code Little Four to help her manage her finances? Over these past ten years or so, that account which Little Four had specially set up for her now contained an astronomical amount of wealth. Furthermore, her parents would transfer a humongous amount of credits to her every year. Just those credits given by her parents alone would be enough for her to purchase this Firmament.
Ling Lan paid without any fuss and then she asked the equipment store to deliver Firmament to the mecha storehouse specially set aside for the First Men’s Military Academy. The staff member there in charge of maintenance and commissioning would help her to install Firmament onto her mecha; she did not have to worry any further about this.
Only after settling all of this did Ling Lan lead Luo Lang and the others away from the equipment store. After they left, Jiang Shaoyu could finally breathe a sigh of relief as he slowly climbed up from the ground. He did not show any expression of rage or hatred, merely calmly waking up those members of his who were unconscious and then leading them awkwardly away from the equipment store.
Jiang Shaoyu did not forget that that Domain master was still inside the equipment store staring coldly at him. He was afraid that if he revealed any bit of resentment, the other would be angered and destroy him completely.
After leaving the equipment store far behind him, Jiang Shaoyu finally could no longer feel any eyes on him. Only then did he truly relax. He turned his head to glance back at the equipment store and a trace of killing intent flashed across his eyes. This grudge would definitely be avenged. In that final battle royale … if anyone was accidentally killed in the chaos, no one could be blamed.
********
The middle-aged man waited for everyone to leave before departing from the equipment store as well. Beside him, his friend saw him looking contemplatively in the direction Jiang Shaoyu had left in and he could not help but ask curiously, “You … are interested in those people?”
“They’re all Qi-Jin stage students. How can I not be interested? Who knows how many surprises they will be able to give me in the physical skills competition this time,” answered the middle-aged man seriously. If that person participated, perhaps the entire Federation would be shaken.
“Haha, I had forgotten that you’re the physical skills referee for this year’s tournament. So, how is it? Are you now interested to take in a disciple?” asked his friend with a laugh.
“Take in a disciple? I’m afraid I’m not qualified …” muttered the middle-aged man to himself. His voice had been too soft for his friend to hear clearly and so that friend asked, “Elder Brother Qian, what did you say?”
“Nothing. Perhaps you should watch this Mecha Grand Tournament well. You might be greatly surprised,” said the middle-aged man to his friend seriously. Right then, the middle-aged man did not know that this Mecha Grand Tournament would indeed shock and surprise everyone, but just not in the way he was imagining …
********
In the depths of the night, Ling Lan was diligently browsing through the files that Little Four had found for her on all the participants from the various military academies. After a long while, she tapped on one of the virtual images and said, “Perhaps, this will be a good thing. It’s about time they learned how to stand on their own.”
Meanwhile, the spaceport, which had already been closed for a day, suddenly received a military signal code requesting entrance to the spaceport. The staff immediately checked the code and found that the encrypted code contained a permit to enter the port. Without any further delay, the staff immediately opened the passageway to allow the military vessel to fly into the spaceport.
On his screen, the staff member responsible for monitoring the docking of the military vessel could clearly see a totem of a phoenix wreathed in flames emblazoned on the head of the ship. And beside the totem, two Arabic numerals were printed boldly —— 23. He instantly leapt to his feet in excitement, almost sending his chair crashing to the ground, startling the people around him in the process.
Before those people could ask him what was going on, he had already begun shouting loudly, “General Ling Xiao … it’s General Ling Xiao’s vessel!”
His cry sent everyone in the control room into a tizzy; quite a few people even fell off their seats. They quickly cut all their video feeds to the military vessel, and when they saw that totem that was so familiar it could not be more familiar, as well as that number ’23’ which represented the number of the army division, they all could not help but scream uncontrollably 1 .
The ruckus in the control room also startled the supervisor of the spaceport. When he learned that General Ling Xiao’s vessel had already landed inside the spaceport, this supervisor was similarly so overwhelmed by emotion that he did not know what to do, almost slapping himself to convince himself that this was not a dream. Fortunately, he managed to retain his last bit of rationality and immediately led his deputy to rush towards the spaceport navigation area, intending on personally welcoming General Ling Xiao.
In order to ensure the safety of all the honoured guests of the Mecha Grand Tournament, the Department of National Security had not given planet Qiming the detailed name list of all the attending guests; instead, they had only provided them with a special safe passage passcode signal source to verify if a guest was legitimate. The staff on planet Qiming were not able to guess who the guests were from these coded signals and so they could only wait patiently until the guests arrived to be enlightened.
In fact, on this day, the planet Qiming spaceport had already received quite a number of distinguished guests. Of the twenty-three standing army divisions of the Federation, although many commanders had not come to attend, the divisions had at least sent their vice commanders or one of the subcommanders in their division. There had also been several extremely famous imperial operators who had arrived, and even the vice president of the Federation had long arrived three days ago. It could be said that these staff members were already used to the shock of it all and were not as excitable as before.
But all of this was completely useless when it came to Ling Xiao. Ling Xiao was not only the only division commander in attendance thus far, with the highest status, he was also the national idol Ling Xiao, the immortal battle god. He could be said to be the spiritual support of the entire Huaxia Federation, which was why the staff of the spaceport had completely lost control due to Ling Xiao’s arrival.
The supervisor of the spaceport rushed at soonest notice to the navigation area and waited for General Ling Xiao to disembark from the military vessel. The first to come out were six senior colonels. Their eyes were shining with an intense light — even though they had reined in their force of presence, the people waiting below to welcome them could still feel an invisible pressure pressing down on them. After they came down, they spread out to cover six directions, subtly blocking off all the people waiting in the navigation area.
The supervisor knew that these six people were certain to be General Ling Xiao’s personal guards — since they had already come out, this meant that General Ling Xiao would soon appear. At this thought, the supervisor’s heart began to pound.
However, the next person to come out from the ship slightly disappointed the supervisor because it was a major general. He stood at the door of the ship, looked down to survey the situation for a bit and found everything normal, before turning back into the ship.
Soon, another figure appeared at the ship’s door. The supervisor fixed his gaze on the person and saw that it was General Ling Xiao this time. General Ling Xiao was dressed in a sharp-pressed general’s uniform, and there was a warm and gentle smile on his handsome face, welcoming to others like a spring breeze. The supervisor’s pounding heart instantly calmed down considerably at the sight of this smile.
Everyone was waiting for General Ling Xiao to come down from the ship when General Ling Xiao suddenly turned around and reached out his left hand at the same time to hold onto another person’s right hand. A slender and graceful figure slowly appeared at the door — she had a noble and elegant air, her beautiful face adorned with a soft smile as she stared with deep affection at the man standing beside her. The two of them looked extremely young, as if time had not left much of a mark on them. The handsome man and the lovely woman were like a jade couple 2 .
Everyone knew that this had to be General Ling Xiao’s wife, Lan Luofeng. The true love between General Ling Xiao and his wife was something every girl in the Federation dreamed of.