The Real Daughter Just Wants to Pilot Mechas - Chapter 73

A few minutes ago, at the Jiang family’s villa, Jiang Yuan came down from his room and saw his parents and eldest brother gathered around the dining table. He changed direction and walked over.

“Why are we eating so early today?” Jiang Yuan pulled out a chair and sat down.

Jiang Zhang gave him a sideways glance. “We’re not eating. We’re waiting to hear how Yingying’s talk with Momo went. At least she didn’t bully Momo before, unlike you.”

Jiang Yuan gave a dry laugh and didn’t speak.

“She’s a noble now. If we’d known she could become one so easily, we should’ve treated her better back then. At the very least, she ought to appreciate old ties,” Jiang Xian sighed. “Starting now might still be in time.”

Jiang Yuan said, “…Expecting anything from her is less realistic than just focusing on our businesses.”

Jiang Zhang glanced at him. “The energy industry is the Jiang family’s backbone. After the restructure, making a comeback will be hard.”

As they spoke, a voice came from the light brain on Jiang Xian’s wrist. Then came Jiang Momo’s angry voice. “No wonder after the first meal, I barely got any food I liked. So it was on purpose! Take it back. I don’t want it!”

Jiang Xian’s hand paused. She silently looked up and saw the other three people at the table all staring at her.

“What are you looking at me for?” Jiang Xian immediately frowned and glared at Jiang Yuan. “It can’t be the food that made her this rebellious, can it?”

Jiang Yuan looked confused.

Why is Mom glaring at me? I’ve always been pretty nice, haven’t I?

The light brain continued playing the conversation.

Amid the back and forth, Jiang Momo’s voice rang out clearly. “What’s it got to do with me? I don’t even own any shares in the Jiang family.”

Shares!

Everyone in the Jiang family had a sudden realization.

Jiang Xian, thinking she’d found the root of the problem, said, “If we’d known she was that materialistic, we should’ve given her some shares. Then even if it were just for the dividends, she would’ve helped us.”

Jiang Yuan slammed the table and stood up. “Why should we give her shares?! Those belong to Yingying! She’s the real member of our family! Who knows what kind of sweet talk Jiang Momo whispered to that Yan guy…”

Smack! A crisp sound was heard. The room fell silent.

Jiang He lowered his hand, straightened his clothes, and didn’t look at the glaring red mark on Jiang Yuan’s face. He said in a low voice, “She’s your sister.”

He’s a grown man and still doesn’t understand that walls have ears?!

Jiang Yuan took a deep breath, puffing with anger, then turned his head away and said nothing.

The rest of the Jiang family also fell into a heavy silence.

Amid the silence, a household robot walked over to Jiang Yuan. Its screen glowed red, as if it was scanning him.

“What is it doing?” Jiang Yuan was confused.

Hearing him, the other three looked at the robot and saw the red light pulsing next to him.

“Turn it off quickly!”

“Can’t turn it off? Pull out the power!”

“It’s reporting to the police!”

They all shouted in panic.

But it was too late. Before Jiang Yuan could figure out where to pull the power from, sirens blared above the Jiang family’s villa.

Soon, the police broke in.

Housing density on Floating Island No. 76 wasn’t low and there was barely any space between villas. So when the sirens rang, many people stuck their heads out to watch.

Naturally, when the Jiang family members were led out by the police, they saw all the onlookers.

Their relationship with their neighbors had never been good. Now, seeing people taking photos made them feel like the sky was collapsing.

It’s over. Completely over. The stock price is going to crash again.

***

Of course, Jiang Momo also saw the news about the Jiang family.

Ten minutes after their arrest, related news was already published. Maybe because the name ‘Jiang family’ was trending lately, it shot straight to the top.

A real-time police update stated that Jiang (male, 51) was detained for 7 days for committing domestic violence. Jiang (female, 49) and Jiang (male, 26) were detained for 3 days for failing to prevent the domestic violence. Citizens of the Capital Star are urged to abide by the Domestic Violence Law and prevent violent incidents.

Jiang Momo looked at the Jiang family’s rising infamy on the Star Network, sighed softly, and turned off her light brain.

[You’re not going to add fuel to the fire?] Little Eight popped up.

“No need. They can’t see it from inside anyway. It’s just a waste of effort.” Jiang Momo shook her head. “By the way, do the Jiang family really not know the laws of the Capital Star?”

[Of course not. They only came to the Capital Star in recent years. And since life had been going smoothly, they’d never needed to commit violence at home before,] Little Eight explained.

Jiang Momo nodded thoughtfully.

[Don’t worry about getting caught. My control program is integrated into the robot’s own system.
Besides, robots come with built-in detection and alarm systems. They just never activated them,] Little Eight understood what Jiang Momo was thinking and spoke up.

Jiang Momo relaxed at that.

She laid back with her hands behind her head and waited for her materials to finish processing.

An hour passed quickly.

Little Eight woke her up and Jiang Momo rubbed her eyes sleepily, sitting up.

[You fell asleep,] Little Eight said, resting its chin on its little cat paws while circling around Jiang Momo.

[Are you feeling unwell?]

“No.” Jiang Momo stretched. “Maybe because I feel safe here, so I’m more relaxed.”

She would never dare to sleep outdoors on the desolate planet. She’d be eaten in minutes.

She took the elevator back up to the fifth floor.

Though she was mentally prepared, she was still shocked to see the material panels she’d placed an hour ago already covered in a thick layer of dust.

“If I’d known, I would’ve covered it with a dust cloth,” Jiang Momo said as she brushed the dust off the material panels, then checked each one to make sure they were completely scrapped, before carrying them out.

The degraded material panels looked drastically different from normal ones with the most obvious difference being their lack of shine, like ordinary scrap metal.

As she carried the material panels out, Jiang Momo quickly became the center of attention among the students. Their eyes said it all.

‘Oh my god, has our star teacher fallen so far that she’s hauling junk to sell now?’

Unfazed, she kept walking without changing expression.

Soon, a spaceship landed at the training base’s gate. Jiang Momo swiped her card and darted in as soon as the gates opened, moving like she’d done it a hundred times before.

The old soldier had just opened the gate when a blur flashed past him. Startled, he squinted, then recognized Jiang Momo, and closed the gate again.

By the time he turned around, she was already nearly out of sight. Shaking his head, he immediately reported the situation to Lu Feng.

When Jiang Momo reached the training grounds, Lu Feng was already waiting for her.

Seeing her practically flying over, he asked with a half-smile, “What’s the rush?”

“I want to fix this mecha as soon as possible.” She used her free hand to pull some tools and a bundle of metal neural fibers from her pocket, dropping them to the ground before gently setting the material panels down.

After being degraded, the materials were far more brittle than before. Dropping them carelessly could damage them. However, once they were turned into an S-grade mecha, they’d become many times stronger. Jiang Momo still didn’t quite understand why that was.

“Where’s my mecha?” she asked as she straightened up.

Lu Feng handed her the mecha storage device.

Jiang Momo took it and released the mecha.

In moments, the one-armed mecha and its detached arm appeared on the open ground.

Jiang Momo studied the mecha laid out before her, mentally running through the steps she’d take. Then she removed the damaged ring of materials from the mecha’s shoulder and put them aside. Once she was sure the materials she’d brought could be assembled with the remaining body into a complete mecha, she began disassembling the main structure.

Lu Feng watched her work.

She moved fast. Wherever her hands touched, the outer shell practically fell away on its own.

He had seen the team from Maintenance Department dismantle mechas before but they clearly lacked the strength to move them manually. They relied on machines to prop the mechas up at the right angles before taking them apart.

Jiang Momo’s approach was precise. She’d strip one vertical section from top to bottom, nudge the mecha to an open spot, and then continue with the next.

Even Lu Feng as no expert could tell that she was trying to preserve the order of the materials so reassembly would be faster later on.

Of course, that was only part of the reason.

Another major reason was that, although she had confidence in her spatial memory and visualization skills, having a physical reference like that made it much easier when installing the metal neural fibers. She’d be able to clearly see where each fiber should begin and end, and what path to take.

She dismantled it quickly. Soon, the complete skeletal frame of the mecha lay exposed, crisscrossed with complex energy pathways. Jiang Momo pulled the metal neural fibers out from the cracks and the skeletal frame immediately dimmed, the cracks widened, and it sagged to the ground.

The old soldier had never seen anything like it and instinctively took a step back.

“Is that still usable?” he asked, glancing between Lu Feng and Jiang Momo. But both of them looked completely calm. He felt a little embarrassed and shut up, staring intently at her instead.

The intense gaze didn’t bother Jiang Momo much, though she did feel a little like his eyes were drilling through her.

When she’d pulled the metal neural fibers out, she had already formed a mental image of their layout. Now she quickly reassembled the frame using the materials she brought. Then she pulled out the bundle of metal neural fibers and attached one end to the back of the energy core.

She had studied the metal neural fibers structure on the way over. It was a continuous loop with no connectors, designed to stretch and thin when subjected to mental power at a specific frequency.

Now, under Lu Feng’s watchful eye, the bundle in her hand seemed to shrink into fine threads, winding into the cracks and embedding themselves. Once the entire network was laid out, the threads held their shape in midair, forming a stable framework.

Lu Feng observed carefully. The layout matched the shape of the outer shell’s cracks perfectly.

With the metal neural fibers in place, the mecha’s skeletal frame floated slightly above the ground.

“Now comes the longest part,” Lu Feng murmured.

The old soldier tilted his head. “Major General Lu, you’re familiar with mecha repair?”

He’d served under Major General Lu for years and never heard anything like that.

“I once went to observe when I was questioning why the Maintenance Department was so slow. They told me that to fully integrate the materials and the metal neural fibers, you need to apply ultra-high-frequency mental power evenly across both sides of the cracks. Very few people in the department can do more than three panels at once.

“So when it comes to repairing S-grade mechas, this step is the most time-consuming. Replacing a full set of metal neural fibers takes about four or five months if done by one person. That’s why they work in nine-person teams to rotate shifts and cut it down to ten days or so.”

“Then doesn’t that mean your original plan’s not doable?” the old soldier asked. “Jiang Momo alone can’t match a whole team, can she?”

Lu Feng smiled. “Did you forget she overloaded an S-grade mecha with her mental power? This is Jiang Momo we’re talking about.”