The Real Daughter Just Wants to Pilot Mechas - Chapter 47

Jiang Momo sat in her chair, slightly tilting her head to look at E Mingjun’s face, a little worried. “Why does E Mingjun look so tense?”

Hearing her, Yan Chang immediately stopped smiling and shifted his gaze from the comments to E Mingjun’s face.

At that moment, E Mingjun sat upright at the judges’ table. His tall, solid build starkly contrasted with Peng Ji beside him. His face was blank and his green eyes fixed on the camera, the very picture of coldness.

Yan Chang was baffled. “How does he look tense?”

“It’s obvious.” Jiang Momo gestured. “Look at the curve of his lips. It’s different from usual.”

Yan Chang: “?” What curve?

“You don’t think Tutor E has social anxiety, do you?” Yan Chang asked, incredulous.

Jiang Momo suddenly realized. “Oh! So it is because of social anxiety!”

She remembered E Mingjun saying when they first met that he had social anxiety and told her to stay away.

“Well, yeah, he always says he has social anxiety but you actually believe him? Do you believe that or that I’m the king of alien beasts?” Yan Chang pointed at himself.

“You’re actually the king of alien beasts?!” Jiang Momo deliberately teased him. Seeing him bare his teeth, she patted his shoulder and explained, “It’s not because of anything he said earlier. I really saw it myself.”

“Then what emotion am I feeling right now?” Yan Chang straightened his back and looked straight ahead.

“Anxiety.” Jiang Momo pointed forward. “There’s someone out there you think is a tough opponent, in that direction.”

Yan Chang gasped. “No way, that accurate?! Then why didn’t you notice before Peng Ji stole your parts?”

“It’s a long story.” Jiang Momo scratched her head. “Can we not talk about that right now?”

Her state back then could be perfectly summed up in four words—too blinded by lust.

Embarrassing! So embarrassing!

“Alright.” Yan Chang didn’t press further and instead leaned in to whisper, introducing that troublesome opponent. “His name is Ning Ge. He was my final opponent in last year’s competition. With a day and a half left, my mecha was wrecked by him, completely unsalvageable. The guy’s a maniac, a total battle freak!”

Hearing that, Jiang Momo instantly remembered Yan Chang’s reputation at school and asked,
“So your aggressive fighting style is modeled after him?”

Yan Chang reluctantly nodded. “You could say that. This is why this time, I have to destroy him! I’ll wipe the slate clean!”

Jiang Momo watched Yan Chang inexplicably fire up and shifted her gaze back to the screen in front of them.

At that point, all three judges were already in place.

The third judge had come on while Jiang Momo and Yan Chang were chatting. She was a specially invited notary, dressed in uniform with her hair neatly tied back, looking very competent.

She sat on the other side of Peng Ji, wearing a polite smile.

Meanwhile, the host was passionately spinning a lottery drum that had somehow appeared at the judges’ table.

“And now, the much-anticipated Mecha Competition officially begins! A total of 684 contestants will battle in the order drawn by lot. First up, we’re drawing for the Arena One!”

As the host finished speaking, 19 numbered balls rolled out from the drum into a transparent chute.

“556, 535, 88… Would these nineteen contestants please head to Arena One’s waiting area? In match order, the first bout in Arena One will be Yan Chang versus Ning Ge!

“This match promises to be thrilling, two old rivals from last year reunited! What a twist of fate! Who will win this time? Let’s wait and see!

“Alright, moving on to draw contestants for Arena Two…”

As the host announced the names, the crowd at Arena One erupted in cheers so loud that even Jiang Momo, sitting in the waiting area, could hear the thunderous roar.

“You got this!” Jiang Momo smacked Yan Chang’s back to cheer him on, only to find him completely stiff.

Amid the noise, Yan Chang slowly stood up, turned to Jiang Momo, and gave her a grim smile.

“Master, I’m going to need you to fix my mecha later.”

Jiang Momo: “Where’s all that bravado from earlier? Didn’t you say you were going to blow him away?”

Yan Chang took a deep breath and marched toward Arena One like a warrior walking to his death.

Meanwhile, at the judges’ table…

E Mingjun looked toward the smugly smiling Peng Ji and said slowly, “That draw is quite the coincidence.”

Peng Ji turned his eyes to E Mingjun and smirked. “What are you implying? That it was rigged? The notary is right here, you know.”

E Mingjun remained expressionless. “I didn’t say that. I’m just making an observation.”

Bullet comments scrolled by.

[I must be crazy but I find E Mingjun’s deadpan ‘just making an observation’ oddly adorable.]

[Seriously though, this is a crazy coincidence. Yan Chang lost to Ning Ge both last year and the year before. And now they’re up first?!]

[Wasn’t it supposed to be that strong players don’t face off until the later rounds? This competition has been accused of shady dealings for years. Did they suddenly change the algorithm this year or what?]

Jiang Momo noted the judges’ expressions, leaned back, and lowered her gaze thoughtfully.

Soon, all 36 arenas had their draws completed and the first round’s mechas were ready.

Jiang Momo had already turned her attention to Arena One. On her screen, two mechas stood face to face.

“Yan Chang’s posture is off… That stance goes beyond normal defense. It could really affect the outcome,” Jiang Momo muttered to herself.

Just then, the host gave the command.

The match began.

All the mechas on the screen started to move and quickly collided, except for Yan Chang. He was fleeing.

To be precise, he tried to flee, failed, and was forced to counterattack.

Ning Ge’s movements were brutal, small in range, but lightning fast. He practically suppressed Yan Chang the entire time.

Soon, Yan Chang started fighting back.

To ensure visual clarity, the Mecha Competition prohibited weapons; only raw mecha-to-mecha clashes were allowed.

Once Yan Chang fought back, the collisions in Arena One became incredibly frequent, so fast that the audience’s screams never stopped.

At the judges’ table, Peng Ji grinned at the scene and turned to E Mingjun.

E Mingjun was quietly shutting down inside.

All the techniques he taught had clearly gone down the drain. Yan Chang was just flailing and wouldn’t last much longer.

Peng Ji asked, “So I hear you tutored quite a few students to earn some money. Was Yan Chang among them?”

“Yes,” E Mingjun replied.

“I’m not an expert but even I can see his weak spots.” Peng Ji squinted with a foxlike grin. “And I saw from the roster that his mecha technician is the newly hired star teacher from the Central Mecha Academy, right? If this keeps up, repairing the mecha will be a massive job. Do you think it’ll ruin our dear Teacher Momo’s rep?”

More bullet comments arrived.

[Teacher Momo! Someone said my Teacher Momo’s name!]

[Ahhh! She’s in the competition?! I’ve watched that academy video so many times. They never released part two and now we finally get to see her fix a mecha again! I’m so happy.]

[Petitioning for a live stream of Teacher Momo fixing a mecha!]

[Seconding that!]

[I don’t wanna hear it from this scammer’s mouth but screw it. Live stream now, please!]

[Wait, who’s Teacher Momo?]

[You haven’t seen the trending page lately? She’s been there for days! [Link] Go watch it. You’re welcome.]

“It looks like the crowd really wants it. Brother Zi, send a poll to the stream and ask if they want the live repair broadcast,” Peng Ji said to the host.

The host gave a thumbs-up. “On it.”

Soon, a pop-up appeared in the stream window.

Jiang Momo saw the pop-up on her screen but she couldn’t vote. She could only watch.

The vote for [Open Live Stream] skyrocketed, quickly hitting six digits.

E Mingjun immediately intervened, “Mecha repair technicians use mental power and being watched can affect their performance. In serious cases, it can cause mental strain. Please don’t vote for the broadcast.”

“It’s not that serious. Most people only feel mild discomfort. And Teacher Momo’s mental strength is S-rank, it’s well within the safety limit. She probably won’t even feel it,” Peng Ji said with a bright smile. “I think you forgot that I’m a mecha manufacturer too.”

“Don’t vote,” E Mingjun stressed into the camera.

Jiang Momo rested her chin on her hand, watching as the ‘No’ votes quickly caught up. “Looks like Peng Ji’s reputation isn’t worth much to the Federation’s public anymore.”

But soon, the ‘Yes’ votes overtook again, neck and neck with the ‘No’ side.

Jiang Momo had a bad feeling but her light brain was confiscated before entry, so she couldn’t check anything. She watched the vote with growing anxiety.

In the end, [Open Live Stream] won by a small margin.

The next second, a 37th screen appeared, a window of countless white dots. Jiang Momo clicked it and found rows upon rows of repair rooms.

Yan Chang and Ning Ge’s fight lasted until the 25th minute, finally ending when Yan Chang landed a punch to Ning Ge’s cockpit and knocked him to the ground.

The audience at the Arena One erupted again.

The host excitedly announced, “Contestant Yan Chang has defeated Ning Ge! Let’s congratulate him on advancing to the next round! Contestant Ning Ge will return to the drawing area and wait for the next match.”

Amid everyone’s applause, Yan Chang raised his only intact left arm and said, “I request a halftime break to repair my mecha.”

His mecha looked absolutely miserable at that moment, even more broken than Ning Ge’s defeated one, with dozens of large dents covering its uneven shell.

“Judging by sight, at least thirty material panels need replacing. Luckily, the internal components should be intact. It’s repairable,” Jiang Momo roughly assessed, then immediately stood up, and strode toward the repair room.

She was very confident in her speed. Since she could engrave complex energy pathways, she had access to a wider variety of materials under the same conditions. Plus, her mental power allowed her to directly see the pathways, making her material selection even faster.

The only variable now was how the live broadcast might affect her mental power usage.

Once she stood up, the broadcast screen completely vanished from her view. As she walked, the host’s voice continued streaming into her ears.

“Contestant Yan Chang has requested to repair his mecha. His victory spot is retained. The rest of the contestants will continue competing in order of the original draw. Once Yan Chang’s mecha is fully repaired, he will return to face the arena’s champion.

“Now, let the assistant robots transport Yan Chang’s mecha to the repair room.”

***

Just as Jiang Momo located the camera in the repair room, Yan Chang’s mecha was delivered.

[Repair technician, please remove the parts needing replacement and hand them to the assistant robot. The robot will automatically identify the material type and deliver batches to the repair room for your selection.]

The assistant robot spoke in a steady mechanical voice and before it even finished, several material panels had already piled up at her feet.

While dismantling the mecha, Jiang Momo looked up and met the gaze of a fingernail-sized floating camera lens. She waved it aside but it floated back.

[Identifying material types. Please wait.]

The assistant robot beside her swallowed one component whole, its eyes spinning. Two minutes later, 50 panels of the same type were delivered.

Jiang Momo looked up and tentatively activated her mental power.

In an instant, a loud buzzing filled her mind and a sharp pain stabbed at her forehead.

It was an overwhelming sense of being watched, as if countless tiny people with needle-like fingers were standing on her forehead, constantly jabbing at that spot. There was no way she could use her mental power like this.

“If I don’t use my mental power, it’ll be way too slow. Yan Chang trusts me. I can’t let him down,” Jiang Momo muttered to herself as her mind kicked into high gear.

Little Eight once said, that when the rules work against you, sometimes you just have to flip the table.

“I’ve got to gamble on this!”

Jiang Momo quickly grabbed the closest material panel. After glancing at it, she smoothly etched a line into its surface and then shoved the already engraved energy pathway panel in front of the camera. Outside the camera’s field of view, she raised the engraver again as if to start on another.

Sure enough, a warning blared in her head.

[Warning: Your actions are suspected of leaking classified information. Please stop immediately!]

[Warning: Over 37 million viewers are currently watching this live broadcast. Your actions involve serious security breaches. Cease immediately or face enforcement.]

[Warning: Live broadcast system will be forcibly shut down.]

The next moment, in the eyes of all viewers, the recently added repair room feed went completely black, leaving only a line of text floating on the screen.

[This module is currently under emergency repair due to technical issues. Expected to resume in 20 minutes. Please wait.]

In the blackout, the live chat kept flooding in.

[What’s going on? Technical issues? Did too many of us crash the stream?]

[This isn’t even that many! It’s just a few tens of millions, not even a tenth of a habitable planet’s population.]

[It’s fine anyway. Normally, a repair technician wouldn’t even finish selecting materials in 20 minutes.]

[Not necessarily! In the promo video, Teacher Momo engraved energy pathways really fast.]

[You do know about editing and speeding up footage, right?]

[Fixing a mecha that wrecked that badly in 20 minutes? I’ve never heard of such a thing!]

Twenty minutes later.

The repair room stream lit up again. Viewers flooded into Jiang Momo’s repair feed, only to see assistant robots lining up to transport the fully repaired mecha. Jiang Momo casually followed behind, presenting only a mysterious silhouette to the camera.

[Wait, what? It’s done already?!]

[Whoever asked me if I knew about editing earlier, do you know what real skill looks like?]

[I don’t get it, I seriously don’t. I’m a repair technician too. It’s impossible to find that many materials in such a short time, let alone engrave all those energy pathways! Unless she had some kind of superpower to see all the paths at once and get lucky every single batch. It’s totally impossible otherwise!]

[So cool. Too bad the stream crashed at the worst moment. We didn’t even get to see how she did it…]

As Jiang Momo walked, she suddenly felt eyes on her back. Turning around, she saw a camera with its light on, pointed at her.

She paused for a moment and then let the assistant robots take the mecha to the arena while she jogged back, picked up the camera, and beamed brightly into the lens.

“Monday at 8 AM, I’ll be live-streaming a Federation-wide class on mecha manufacturing. I hope everyone tunes in!”

‘The more people who watch, the higher the pay!’ Jiang Momo thought. Since she’d already gotten warned once, she couldn’t let the trip go to waste!

My blood pressure spiked every time Peng Ji appeared. He’s such a leech urghh!