The Real Daughter Just Wants to Pilot Mechas - Chapter 107

On Floating Island No. 76, on the roof of the villa next to the Jiang family, Yan Chang sat cross-legged at the edge and craned his neck to peek inside.

Yan Yunkui stood behind him with arms crossed, his white lab coat fluttering in the wind, wearing a helpless expression.

“I don’t get your hobby. It’s a holiday and you’re here spying on someone’s private life?”

Yan Chang turned and, seeing him still standing, hurriedly tugged his coat to pull him down. “Sit down quickly. If someone sees you standing like that, we’re busted.”

“This is our own rooftop. I could dance here and no one could say anything,” Yan Yunkui retorted, but followed him and crouched down. “You could’ve just hacked their surveillance instead of going through all this trouble to buy a house.”

“Isn’t hacking surveillance illegal?” Yan Chang replied without looking back.

“You care about that?” Yan Yunkui was surprised.

“I can’t leave Momo with anything they can use against her.”

Yan Chang leaned out so far he was almost falling off the roof and Yan Yunkui had to pull him back.

“Alright, she just went in and she won’t be coming out anytime soon,” Yan Yunkui said, sitting down and propping up his chin with one hand. “They say even upright officials can’t judge family affairs. You should stay out of it.”

Yan Chang whipped around. “What are you saying? What kind of talk is that? Jiang Momo needs me right now!”

Yan Yunkui didn’t have time to calm the agitated Yan Chang. He had just seen a military ship flash by like a beam of light and disappear. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

“What is it?” Yan Chang turned to look too but only saw Jiang Zhang standing in the yard looking around anxiously.

“Nothing.” Yan Yunkui wasn’t sure if he had imagined it. “I think I just saw Jiang Momo get taken away by a military ship.”

“Huh?” Yan Chang froze and then looked toward the Jiang family’s villa. All he saw was Jiang Momo’s unfortunate eldest brother, Jiang Zhang, in the courtyard. He turned and asked Yan Yunkui, “Did the Federation military have an event today?”

***

At exactly noon on the day of the Alien Beast War Victory Memorial, a new topic with an official tag suddenly shot to the top of the StarNet hot search.

[Alien Beast War Victory Memorial Day Surprise Drill Live Broadcast]

At the same time, all light brains with signal, whether in sleep mode or not, were forcibly switched to the live stream channel.

E Mingjun was currently verifying his identity at the Capital Star’s docking port, accompanied by his idiot subordinate, the vice-captain.

“Uh, Mingjun, that thing… the light brain you gave me… is it infected with a virus? It just popped open a live stream on its own,” the vice-captain whispered from behind E Mingjun, tugging on his sleeve.

The staff member nearby smiled. “That’s the official media announcement display.”

“Oh.” The vice-captain didn’t ask further but stared at the two static frames on the livestream, falling into thought.

The left stream showed a desolate, war-torn frontline battlefield, while the right showed a rundown residential district. The only similarity was the savage alien beasts and the military mechas.

The vice-captain pondered and then tapped into the right one, where there were fewer mechas. Immediately, a massive light screen appeared, showing a large topographic map dotted with red and black points. A pair of hands moved across it, zooming in and out with gestures, revealing the battlefield in fine detail.

The war had clearly been underway for some time. One of the hands tapped a black point and the camera zoomed in. An enormous alien beast roared onto the screen, its throat visible through the projection.

Startled, the vice-captain clenched his fists and instinctively tried to throw a punch, only to be stopped by E Mingjun’s quick reflexes.

“Let’s go,” E Mingjun said, retrieving the documents he had prepared from the staff and dragging the vice-captain along.

The vice-captain stumbled to follow along, his eyes still glued to the screen.

On the display, the alien beast rotated 360 degrees under the hand’s gestures and then was tagged. The map zoomed out and shifted to another area. The full map shrank into a corner. In under ten seconds, under the vice-captain’s stare, red dots representing military mecha swarmed the marked location and focused fire. The alien beast was instantly taken out and one black point disappeared.

The vice-captain squinted. “Damn. Captain, the army isn’t as bad as you said.”

“You’re watching the Border Star System’s battlefield? Their strength is average.” E Mingjun glanced at the translucent screen and switched to another page to summon a shared aircraft.

“No, no, no, this is the Central Star System’s battlefield! This commander is something else!” the vice-captain raised his voice slightly. “You have to see this!”

E Mingjun looked mildly intrigued and switched to the livestream.

A massive map exploded into view, seemingly right in his face, along with a pair of callused, slender, and dexterous hands. They circled an area with concentrated red dots and then drew a slanted line downward, instantly redirecting the headless-chicken-like advancing mechas to a weak point in the defense line. The army’s efficiency surged.

E Mingjun raised an eyebrow and gave a soft laugh, scanning the surroundings of the screen. “There’s more than one viewpoint here.”

“What do you mean?” the vice-captain mimicked E Mingjun’s gaze and was stunned by the real-time viewer count in the upper right corner. “So many people are watching this stream at the same time? That’s two-thirds of the Federation’s entire population! This many people are in one Central Star System stream?!”

“It’s not just this one. This is the stream of this viewpoint. Other viewpoints with fewer viewers have been pushed into the corner and are barely visible,” E Mingjun replied.

After a pause, the vice-captain focused on the edge of the screen, found a dark stream, and entered a mecha pilot’s livestream.

In that room, the commander’s control over the team and their operation were more directly felt. But the view was too limited and didn’t compel long-term attention.

After watching briefly, the vice-captain returned to the command stream.

“Watching her command feels so effortless, it makes me think I could do it too.” He looked at E Mingjun. “Captain, was this how you used to command us?”

E Mingjun tilted his head. “They’re different systems, so it’s not comparable.”

“Captain, you’re just being modest. If you were commanding this battle, it’d be even better.” The vice-captain praised him but his eyes stayed glued to the commander’s hands, not moving away.

He could see that the commander was using personnel, terrain, and the alien beasts’ weaknesses to their fullest. Naturally, E Mingjun saw it too.

He gave a soft chuckle. If he were in charge, he might not do better than Jiang Momo.

Just then, the shared aircraft E Mingjun summoned arrived. He grabbed the vice-captain by the collar, shoved him inside, and headed to their destination.

The vice-captain was completely absorbed in the live stream. He slapped his thigh and laughed. “Hey! Someone from the military just leaked on the comments that they originally prepared nearly two hundred alien beasts to last all day but they’ve almost been wiped out in under an hour. They’re urgently transferring more from the Border Star System. Hahaha.”

E Mingjun lowered his head, took a deep breath, and moved the vice-captain’s hand off his thigh. “Slap your own thigh when you’re excited.”

“Sorry, sorry,” the vice-captain immediately sobered and apologized.

***

Jiang Momo had been commanding smoothly. Since Lu Feng promised her identity wouldn’t be exposed, she went all-in for a massive operation. But just when it seemed the alien beasts would be wiped out, another huge wave landed inexplicably and the black dots on the map skyrocketed again.

Jiang Momo’s vision darkened. She quickly pulled up the live stream page that had popped up earlier from her light brain, one that she dismissed instantly.

Once she chose the battlefield, it naturally switched to her own command view, and then she realized something was off.

She hesitantly reached toward the command panel. In the semi-transparent livestream screen, her hands appeared simultaneously.

“Lu Feng! Didn’t we agree it’d only show the command interface?” Jiang Momo gritted her teeth.

If the public learned an unofficial staff member was leading the command, it would cause a massive uproar in the Federation.

Luckily, the stream only recorded visuals, not sound. Otherwise, her voice could be cross-referenced with old videos she’d posted on the Star Network. It wouldn’t take half a day before everyone in the Federation knew she was juggling multiple jobs.

Cursing Lu Feng internally for a long while, Jiang Momo finally remembered why she opened the livestream: to check the comments.

[What’s going on? Why isn’t anything moving? Without the commander, these mecha suddenly seem so dumb.]

[Wow, they’re almost done wiping out this many alien beasts so quickly? This is way more fun than my own battle simulator!]

[The Federation went all out this time. The number of new alien beasts is more than double the last wave.]

Case solved.

Jiang Momo stared at the comments, took a deep breath, and pressed down hard on the knuckles of her left hand with her right. Cracking sounds echoed.

“Bring it on, let’s crank up the intensity.”

Jiang Momo reached out her hands and, based on her memory of each soldier’s combat habits and traits, re-assigned their positions.

At first, the soldiers were confused by the new orders. But since the new commander had proven oddly reliable, they followed the instructions without hesitation and immediately faced the toughest physical trial of their careers.

It was as if someone had perfectly calculated their capabilities. Every command was clear and concise, and landed right at the upper limit of what they could do. Sometimes a soldier would be ordered to take on three alien beasts at once but their most efficient fighting habits made it just barely achievable.

As more alien beasts poured in, the commander’s precision in squeezing out every drop of their strength was breathtaking. Even the soldiers themselves hadn’t known they were capable of so much.

Lu Feng rolled across the ground as instructed, dodging an attack, and fired eight shots in a row, each one hitting a different alien beast from a different direction, effectively slowing their advance. He shocked even himself.

What stunned him most was that he wasn’t the only one pulling off those maneuvers.

It meant Jiang Momo was simultaneously commanding 182 mecha units!

The livestream viewers were practically losing their minds. The barrage of comments lagged even the most advanced streaming systems, causing several seconds of system-wide freeze.

Jiang Momo didn’t even notice the livestream. She had unleashed all her mental power threads, analyzing and commanding over a hundred mecha units. She had no attention to spare, not even for Little Eight’s frantic voice in her ear.

[Momo, calm down! Based on earlier data, this level of mental power strain is too much for your body! You have to stop!] Little Eight yelled and then suddenly fell silent.

It finally detected that Jiang Momo’s vital signs were unexpectedly stable.