The Real Daughter Just Wants to Pilot Mechas - Chapter 60

“Are you being threatened? Don’t be scared, we’re not bad people.” A clear, sweet voice rang from the doorway.

The man inside instinctively lowered his arms to look.

In the corner of the doorway stood two girls side by side, one with flamboyant wine-red straight hair and bright peach-colored eyes, while the other with short black hair and an innocent look. Aside from her obviously toned muscles, the girl’s round eyes gave off zero aggression.

Seeing the five of them standing properly at the gate, Wu Chun finally relaxed.

“Can we come in?” Wu Yue asked again.

That sweet voice sent tingles down half of Jiang Momo’s body. She turned to look at Wu Yue. The sunlight was bathing her figure and highlighting the fine hairs on her face like a ripe, juicy peach.

Wu Chun glanced back and forth between Wu Yue and Jiang Momo, before finally nodding hesitantly.

The next second, Wu Yue’s smile faded and her voice turned normal. “A big guy like you being so wishy-washy, making people wait half a day.”

She then strode in, arm in arm with Jiang Momo, and grabbed some chairs stacked in the courtyard corner, handing one to each of them.

“Weren’t we supposed to meet tomorrow? Why are you running today? Someone threaten you?” Jiang Momo walked straight up to Wu Chun and squatted in front of him.

Wu Chun now had a perfect view of the defined muscles on Jiang Momo’s arms, so intimidating that it made him catch his breath.

He’d always had a heightened sense of danger since he was young. He’d recently decided to sell some intel at a high price but when unfamiliar faces appeared near his home, his first thought was to run. It wasn’t paranoia since those people’s stares were fierce.

“They really were fierce! Like… like interstellar pirates!” Wu Chun looked at the group now casually brewing tea in the courtyard, afraid they wouldn’t believe him. He pressed both hands to the table. “I really wasn’t trying to break the deal on purpose. They were just too scary! If I leak the info, something’s bound to happen!”

Wu Yue, holding the teapot, immediately threatened, “If you don’t talk now, I can make something happen right away.”

Wu Chun was instantly speechless.

Ling Yelin jumped in smoothly, “No need to worry too much. If you’re really scared, once our deal is done, we can send you to your destination on a private ship. Isn’t taking public transport dangerous for you right now anyway?”

Jiang Momo looked around, suddenly enlightened, and added, “Didn’t we give you a deposit? If you break the deal on your own, that’s double compensation.”

Wu Chun was cornered.

He had planned to take the money and run. The mysterious client’s deposit alone was enough to let him live the rest of his life on a third-tier planet. If it weren’t for that money, he would’ve taken that secret to his grave.

Jiang Momo brought over a stool and placed it at his feet.

Wu Chun slumped into it.

“You said before that you know how to find the interstellar pirate hunter?” E Mingjun had kept his hands clasped since leaving the ship. He was clearly nervous and his palms started to sweat.

“Yes!” Wu Chun nodded fiercely and began pouring everything out. “Two years ago I tried to be an interstellar trader but I got caught by interstellar pirates twice. The first time, I was scared out of my mind and just started yelling for help.”

“They didn’t gag you? That’s unprofessional,” Wu Yue commented sharply.

Wu Chun shook his head. “I thought so too but no, they didn’t forget. I yelled for like half an hour when suddenly the lights all went out. Not dimmed. It was completely gone, like all visible light vanished. I couldn’t see anything. Then I heard fighting.”

“Was it the interstellar pirate hunter?” Jiang Momo asked.

“Yes.” Wu Chun nodded hard. “When the lights came back, all the ship’s doors were open. We had landed on a nearby habitable planet and there was no sign of the interstellar pirates. A mechanical voice told us to run out of the ship and then the ship flew off by itself.”

“That’s not much different from what we’ve heard before.” Yan Chang asked, “So what happened after?”

“The second time I got caught, I was still scared, but they didn’t lock me up with the others. They put me in a room with what I think was a speaker system and had me yell again.” Wu Chun gulped, his eyes flicking around as he recalled.

“I heard someone ask, ‘Will doing this really make that person show up? It’s too risky just for the title of the Top Interstellar Pirate Group.’

“Then another guy replied, ‘So what? That person never kills interstellar pirates anyway, he’ll just knock us out. And we didn’t bring any valuables. Even if he comes and we fail to catch him, we lose nothing. It’s time we stop being afraid of him. This room has candles, so even if power cuts, we won’t be in total darkness. This is our chance.’ When the interstellar pirate hunter came, they gave me the candle. He blew it out quickly but I saw him.”

Wu Chun gestured above his head. “He was about 1.8 meters tall, dark-skinned, with shoulder-length black hair, and covered most of his face. He was not bulky but more slender and he wore a black eye patch over his right eye. It was probably injured before.”

His gaze drifted to Jiang Momo who was staring blankly into space. “His figure looked a bit like hers!”

Pointing at Jiang Momo in surprise, he said, “The more I look, the more she looks like that person!”

“The interstellar pirate hunter is a man, right?” Yan Chang tilted his head to look at Jiang Momo’s face too.

Wu Chun nodded repeatedly. “I’ve heard him speak. It’s a male voice.” |6|

Jiang Momo scratched at her nail, glancing left and right. Her expression was the same as always, completely normal.

“The interstellar pirate hunter is amazing. I even drew his portrait after I got back and worshipped it every day. Someone that selfless is rare in the whole Federation, even the interstellar pirates respect his character,” Wu Chun said, full of admiration.

E Mingjun said quietly, “The interstellar pirates respect his character? Isn’t it his job to hunt their loot?”

Wu Chun frowned. “That’s what they think, yeah. But the truth isn’t quite like that. After I survived the first time, I asked around and heard that rumor too. But the second time with the candle, I saw with my own eyes that after the interstellar pirate hunter left empty-handed, those people rescued by him started hauling things off the interstellar pirate’s ship.”

“So after being saved, they still did bad things and framed him?” Yan Chang asked.

Wu Chun nodded. “You could say that.”

Yan Chang continued, “Then why didn’t you speak up since you know the truth?”

Wu Chun: “…”

He rubbed his nose. Of course it was because he stole quite a bit himself.

“I don’t have much influence. Even if I said something, no one would believe me. Besides, I suspect that some information was deliberately leaked and some people intentionally got caught. They were extremely familiar when searching the interstellar pirate’s warehouse.”

Later, he thought about trying again, to take advantage of the conflict between the interstellar pirates and the interstellar pirate hunter, profiting like a fisherman when the snipe and clam fight. But he was too much of a coward to actually try.

Wu Yue and Ling Yelin sat on the sidelines enjoying the show, until they noticed that both E Mingjun and Jiang Momo were looking increasingly grim.

E Mingjun’s entire worldview was about to collapse.

He had hated the interstellar pirate hunter for so many years, for as long as he had been searching for him. And now someone suddenly tells him the hunter was actually a good person? That everything in the past had been a misunderstanding? That he was just ignorant of the truth?

Jiang Momo felt like she was going to split apart.

She was now 100% certain that the so-called ‘interstellar pirate hunter’ was actually her. It felt like someone had slapped her across the face. Everything she had believed to be good and all her earnest rescue efforts in the first half of her life had been repaid with betrayal.

So what about all those injuries she got while saving them? Were they fine just because she had a strong self-healing ability?

[Momo, are you okay?] Little Eight poked its cat-like head out from the screen, anxiously waving its little paws.

Jiang Momo didn’t respond.

Her brain had completely shut down.

Wu Chun summarized, “So, if you want to meet the interstellar pirate hunter, just pilot a ship and send a distress signal somewhere between 366th and 388th star fields in the Border Star System.”

Yan Chang turned to E Mingjun, eyes glowing with excitement. “Let’s try it!”

“No need,” E Mingjun said expressionlessly, standing up and walking out.

Jiang Momo got up and followed him.

Yan Chang glanced around, sensing the strange tension between the two, and then looked at Ling Yelin. Ultimately, with a look of disdain, he decided to stay seated.

***

“I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me. I just need a moment alone,” E Mingjun said as he heard footsteps behind him.

No response.

“Really, I—” He stopped, ready to persuade Jiang Momo to leave him be, but then he felt her crash heavily into his back.

Realizing something was wrong, E Mingjun immediately turned around and grabbed her shoulders, pushing her back slightly to examine her face.

Jiang Momo blinked, snapping back to herself. She looked around. “Why is it just the two of us? Weren’t we heading back? Why didn’t the others follow?”

Seeing her expression, E Mingjun temporarily put aside his own turmoil, reaching out to feel her forehead and then quickly withdrawing his hand. “Are you okay?” he asked with concern.

Jiang Momo nodded. “I’m fine.”

It was just the shock in that one moment that hit her too hard.

If she’d spent all that time scavenging junk on other planets instead of rescuing people, her materials stockpile would’ve at least doubled by now!

[Momo, think about why you started saving people in the first place. As long as you could save even one life, it wasn’t in vain.] Little Eight saw she had calmed down and quickly took the opportunity to offer comfort.

As an artificial intelligence, it was built to protect humans. It had raised her to protect others as well. But just now, seeing Jiang Momo’s expression, it felt oddly guilty. It was a thought that went against its programming, yet it couldn’t suppress it. It even hoped she would reject its words.

But Jiang Momo didn’t refute them. She nodded, though it was unclear whether she truly accepted the message. Her expression had returned to normal.

She looked up at E Mingjun’s gloomy face and asked curiously, “Why do you look so upset? Aren’t you happy to learn the truth about the interstellar pirate hunter?”

E Mingjun nodded. “Yeah, I’m not happy.”

The force that had been driving him forward all that time was gone. He felt powerless. Seeing Jiang Momo’s wide, clear eyes, he hesitated for a moment and then started to open up.

“I grew up in the Chaos Star System. My adoptive father took in three kids. I was the youngest. He and my two older brothers were part of a mercenary group. One day, they accepted a job guarding treasure for an interstellar pirate group. Later, the treasure was ‘stolen’ by the interstellar pirate hunter. The interstellar pirate group blamed them for failing to protect it…”

E Mingjun’s voice trembled and he trailed off.

Jiang Momo understood now. She finally knew why E Mingjun had been looking for the interstellar pirate hunter and she felt relieved that he had heard Wu Chun’s explanation earlier. The relief helped ease the heavy weight she’d felt upon hearing the truth.

She exhaled and typed a question to Little Eight. [Is E Mingjun close to discovering who I am?]

[Yes. Very close,] Little Eight replied while propping up its head.

Jiang Momo patted E Mingjun’s slightly trembling shoulder. She had so much to say but in the end, it all became one sigh. “That interstellar pirate group…”

“I already dealt with them,” E Mingjun said, glancing at her and adding quickly, “with legal methods.”