Chapter 140: Little Girl (2/2)
Thup. A dead silence came next.
Crack.
Clink!
Crack Crack.
Crack! A few seconds later, the sound came last.
It felt like a thunder in her ears as in great terror she discovered her cabin shaking. The armor right in front of her was cracking, the lines spread like a spider web. The last sound of cracking was the sound made when the piece of armor fell.
Clink, clank. Klank, klink, shush! The pieces of armor rained before her. The fresh air surging in teased her suffocated mind. She felt pleasant and her nerves were serene. Yikes! Through the gap she could see the golden man staring at her expressionlessly. The eyes of solely black-and-white were freaking her out for some reason. Goosebumps occupied every inch of her skin.
Ye Chong planned to use his poorly-named dagger at first. But Dagger for No.2 was a bit too much for cracking the armor. A slight cut on the pilot inside could have been fatal and definitely he did not intend to do that. He wanted not her body, but her head for the information he desired. ”Oh well.” He went ahead with his fists instead. He did smash an alloy door open before but that blow wounded his fist. Thanks to the Guardian, its capability magnified his strength, so smashing the armor of Viridae open felt like a smashing plastic. His hands were covered by the Guardian, so there were no injuries as well.
Of course, it was not exactly due to the capability of the Guardian. It was also because of the materials used to build Viridae. Viridae was purely a mech for training purposes, one could imagine its material would be as brittle as plastic among the other great materials for Dawn mechs. Such a normal material, no doubt Ye Chong could break it even with his own fist. But if it was a Dawn mech, it would be a dream to even crack the armor with bare hands.
She crawled out of the mech with initiative. Seeing how the foe had behaved, it would be better for her to compromise and act along, just to guarantee her survivability… What if it enrages the foe? Any form of disobedience would be assumed as provocation for sure. And anyone could imagine what could possibly happen if the foe assumed you being disobedient. She would not want to lose her life over such foolish act.
The monochromatic sight of the Guardian was pretty bad at deciphering human’s facial features. In Ye Chong’s eyes, the girl looked like a three-dimensional avatar formed in white lines and shades of grids. It was strange, at least the lines were clear enough to roughly define the appearance of the girl.
The girl was as little as she sounded, about 13 to 14 years old. A shaggy short hair, a hollow face. She was in fact little thinner than average girls. She looked exhausted yet her eyes were lustrous. Well those were never Ye Chong’s concern. ”Mhm, good physique.” He carried on looking, the muscles were of well-proportions and could be explosive at times. Obviously he could tell how the girl had undergone systematic training. Judging by the age and the rate of puberty of the girl - high score for the training course! And he was well-aware that this girl knew an important training course, yes, that technique unknown to Ye Chong where he got it from Mr. Yin. Mentalist would only teach to another mentalist. The training methodology was one to one, only the emphasis could be different. But they are commonly known to be time-consuming.
Under such a constraint of time yet she was able to achieve such a physique, impressive!
If Shang was here, he would probably begin to recite poetries about the beauty of the girl as he launched another round of commentary of the beauty. Too bad it was still a puzzling issue to Ye Chong to compute.
He stood before the little girl. ”Wh-” He realized how the WH-question could be actually technical to initiate a meaningful conversation. Suddenly he did not know how he should begin.
”Mu… Mu!” muttered Ye Chong in his mind, the Orbits calling Mu, the Orbits calling Mu, ”Why don’t you do the inquiry instead?”
”I am no expert in this,” Mu rejected the offer right away. ”If you are indeed in need of assistance, I could call Shang for this, since he is considered more of the expert in this!”
”Shang?” He thought back the passionate lectures of tortures he received these few days from Shang, ”Ne-Nevermind.” He shook his head violently, ”I’ll do it myself.”
Hmmm…
Settled down, Ye Chong pondered of which WH-question to start with.
The little girl was in shock at first, but she calmed herself over the time as she saw the miniature mech man stayed already silent for a long time. The heck he wants? Mumbled the girl.
”Your name?” The words broke the awkward silence.
She was alarmed and then she reacted calmly, part of the outcome of her training came flawlessly, ”Zhu Ling.”
”Zhu Lin?”
”Ling. With the ‘g’ at the end.”
”Oh I see!” Ye Chong did not have any concept on surnames, since name was merely a code for someone to address yourself at convenience.
”Position at the Sanctuary?” he asked.
”Sanctuary?” I knew it! She got the purpose of this man right away. She had pinpointed the part of her sought by this person. That means I still have something to bargain with. As long as I get this right, then my situation would be dramatically improved!
Various plans ran through her head, her lips did not stop moving though, ”I am the member of the elite group in the Sanctuary!” She understood the current situation disallowed her to act hesitated. Gaining trust from the person would be her top priority.
”Elite group?” Ye Chong had no idea what group that was.
”Well, elite group is an informal way to address for the insiders.” Judging by Ye Chong’s expression, she concluded that he knew nothing about the Sanctuary as she began explaining with patience, ”The formal and official name of the group is known as the Sanctuary Executive Training group, which in simpler terms mean the group for the trainees who have yet completed their training as well as their assessment. They are under the Executives.”
”Executives?” Another term first came to Ye Chong’s ears.
”Mentalist Executives!”
”What are ‘Mentalist Executives’?”
”Mentalist Executives are the internal bureaucracy formed by the advanced mentalist-pilots, mostly for fulfilling special mission or tasks with high difficulties.” Pride was heard in her words as she said it with grace.
”I see! So they are all the expert pilots of the mentalist as you said?”
”Yes.”
”And they are the ones with psychic ability?”
”Psychic ability?” The girl was confused, ”The proper way to call it should be the ‘extrasensory’ of the body. It is a kind of application of mentality. And the mentalists are better experts in this compared to mentalist-pilot. It’s just that the mentalist-pilots have in-depth understanding of combats. So they are aware of how to utilize such ability at maximum.”
”Mhm, application is more of the key,” Ye Chong utterly agreed to this statement. ”So you are a mentalist… or a mentalist pilot?”
”Me? I… I have not passed the assessment so I can’t be a mentalist-pilot just yet,” her words sounded flat.
”So how many mentalist-pilots are there in the Sanctuary? How about the mentalists alone?” This would be the key question of the entire conversation. At least it would provide Ye Chong something to picture about the Sanctuary’s forces.
”Abou-” She wanted to reply but Mu’s voice hurried by Ye Chong’s mind, ”Ye, a mech is approaching here! And it's coming fast!”
Translator's Thoughts
Jstoryz Jstoryz
The raw, untranslated name for ”Viridae” was ”青蚨雀” (Green-Cicada-bird) 蚨 (Fu3) was a kind of cicada-like insect that lives on trees, while 青蚨 was a kind of copper currency used back in ancient China days, where they believed coating the blood on the bug would bring the money back as they spent. 青 means green (but apparently 青蚨 was not really green, a word-play from author it seems combining two animals as usual). Thus the green was kept as (Latin: Viridi) combining with -dae (common scientific ending for cicadas) forming Viridae.