The Real Daughter Just Wants to Pilot Mechas - Chapter 156

[Not really, there’s surveillance everywhere,] Little Eight’s voice stuttered and lagged.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jiang Momo immediately noticed something was off and asked.

[Floating Island 1 uses an independent network, different from the StarNet. I’m trying to hack in and gain access,] Little Eight explained.

Jiang Momo understood. To put it simply, Little Eight was currently in an unstable network state.

“There’s no major issue, right?” Jiang Momo asked.

[No, it just takes more time,] Little Eight answered honestly.

Feeling reassured, Jiang Momo turned back to the tablet, carefully picking through the books that interested her.

“Most of them are on the humanities… some novels, essays, poetry…” Jiang Momo mumbled as she searched.

To be honest, she wasn’t sure what she actually wanted to read. Suddenly, she flipped to a page and her eyes lit up.

“These names look so familiar!”

Weren’t these the same books left behind in Little Eight’s warship?

“There’s even a book on manual-control mecha piloting!”

She flipped to the next page, thrilled.

“Manual-control mecha have long been obsolete. They’re useless now,” Yan Chang said, rubbing his face as he sat up.

“Did I wake you?” Jiang Momo quickly turned to look at him, a hint of guilt in her eyes. She hadn’t spoken that loudly, had she?

Yan Chang shook his head. “I wasn’t asleep.”

Alright then.

Jiang Momo deleted the memory of the snoring she just heard from her mind and turned back. “Some of the books in this library are actually quite old.”

After all, even the common mecha manufacturing guides from the Alien Beast War era a century ago that Little Eight had taught her had already evolved from completely manual to manual + sensor operation.

Yan Chang bit his nail and looked away, hesitating for a long time.

“I’m not insisting. If it’s hard to explain, forget it,” Jiang Momo said cheerfully as she pulled the manual-control mecha guide from the shelf and waved at Yan Chang.

“It’s not that I can’t explain. It’s just that the information I know isn’t very reliable.” Yan Chang thought for a while and spoke carefully, “There’s a rumor that after the Alien Beast War, the second president reviewed history and decided to stop the public from taking detours. He wanted to wipe out all mecha manufacturing methods that weren’t effective against the alien beasts. But the public kept secretly making them, so in the end they directly changed the written language.”

“But changing the written language wouldn’t have such an immediate effect, would it?” Jiang Momo frowned as suspicion flashed in her mind. “A president can only serve up to ten years. What if the next one had different ideas?”

Yan Chang looked around and lowered his voice. “Back then, light brains weren’t as advanced as now. People needed to have port devices implanted in their brains from birth to form a loop with their wrist devices to see projections. There’s a legend that the President reached a unanimous agreement with the judiciary and Congress, centralized power, and used the light brain ports to damage the reading and writing areas of people’s brains, then started teaching the new script to the next generation.”

A chill suddenly ran down Jiang Momo’s spine.

“So when people were recently saying the President’s interference with the judiciary was a step backward in history…”

Yan Chang shook his head. “That part of history was probably buried long ago.”

Jiang Momo felt something didn’t add up. “So the legendary mecha manufacturing method was lost because they were useless?”

She recalled the passage from Ye Fei’s Diary about the side effects of legendary mechas.

“According to common accounts, yes. But clearly, that’s not the full story,” Yan Chang said, pinching his chin. “Maybe it was just a failed monopoly? Maybe they wanted to monopolize the tech but slipped up and lost it all?”

“That’s not impossible.” Jiang Momo thought it over and felt the explanation was plausible. She nodded and started flipping through the book in her hands.

***

Jiang Momo stayed in the Yan family’s ancestral residence’s library for two days, going through almost all the books that interested her. But she still didn’t find anything as enlightening as Ye Fei’s Diary. From the historical records she read, it seemed like the current alien beast invasion was a repeat of history.

“During the early alien beast battles, the alien beasts also randomly appeared in the central federal zones like this,” Jiang Momo said, closing the book and looking up at Yan Chang who was carrying breakfast.

Yan Chang placed the tray next to her and sat cross-legged on the floor beside her. “Really? Maybe spatial-type alien beasts teleported them over?”

“Spatial-type alien beasts?” Jiang Momo blinked. “I asked Lu Feng and he said there’s no such thing.”

She recalled and added, “At least, he said he’s never seen one.”

Yan Chang scratched his face, a bit unsure. “The spatial devices in this old house were all installed a hundred years ago. The elders in my family always said they were modeled after the alien beasts.”

Jiang Momo turned her head and asked Little Eight, “When did the Federation start promoting spatial technology widely?”

A Siamese cat poked its head out.

[Strictly speaking, there was never a large-scale promotion. The concept of spatial devices only become popular in recent years. I just connected to the local network and found out that the batch of spatial devices entered the public market because the upper ranks got newer ones and discarded the old ones,] Little Eight replied.

[So, the real gap between classes is a knowledge gap. Lu Feng is a general from the civilian class, it’s normal for him not to know certain secrets. Even the current president might not know.]

Jiang Momo looked conflicted. “Why would they keep this kind of information so tightly sealed?”

[If the alien beasts are wiped out, the Federation basically has no enemies in the universe. The military’s power would drop drastically and some people would lose their ability to profit. Of course, that’s just a theory. I’m a combat support system, my base logic naturally leans toward suspecting malice. You don’t have to take it all as truth.]

Jiang Momo tilted her head toward Yan Chang. “I’ve actually been thinking about joining the military. The benefits are pretty good.”

Yan Chang glanced at her spacing out and suddenly asking him a question. He answered, clicking his tongue, “That’s only true in recent years. These days, the military has advanced weapons and doesn’t need as many people. Back when the alien beasts were scarce, the number of positions was barely one-fifth of now. If you join and they get wiped out, they’ll definitely cut back. You wouldn’t be fired but your benefits would drop to the minimum.”

Jiang Momo looked down, propped her chin on her hands, and said to Little Eight, “Honestly, I think I can believe everything you just said.”

E/N: Damaging the chips implanted in the brains is wild!
And prolonging the war for profit is not shocking at all. It has always been going around the world, even at this very moment.