Yun Xunlan often considered himself a lucky person.
Such luck spanned his two lifetimes—wherever he was, there were always many people who loved him.
So much so that he repeatedly struggled to complete the daily tasks issued by the system, constantly at risk of sudden death.
Yet even so, Yun Xunlan never felt that such “love” was a burden or trouble for him. He felt lucky to be loved and was grateful that these people would choose him and be willing to love him.
At 8:50, ten minutes before officially starting the 3S mecha test drive, Yun Xunlan finally received concern from Yun Xunguang—
【Yun Xunguang: If you feel unwell, you must stop.】
But Yun Xunlan couldn’t promise her “okay,” only replying: 【I’ll be careful.】
Yun Xunguang seemed dissatisfied with his reply. The “typing” indicator flashed for a long time before she finally said: 【I should want to see your shining light more than anyone else.】
—But now I only hope to see your failure.
The tacit understanding brought by blood relations allowed Yun Xunlan to smoothly understand Yun Xunguang’s unspoken words. He had thanked so many people, but when it came to Yun Xunguang, Yun Xunlan apologized instead: 【Imperial Sister, I’m sorry.】
【Yun Xunguang: You’ve done nothing wrong. It’s sister who’s sorry to you.】
Yun Xunlan stared blankly at this “I’m sorry,” his right fingertips curling slightly as they began to tremble uncontrollably.
The system’s voice suddenly rang out in the sealed mecha cockpit: “She’s worried you’ll die.”
Yun Xunlan came back to his senses, and his right hand stopped trembling.
“With you here,” he put on the mecha oxygen mask and asked the system back, “how could I die?”
The system chuckled softly: “Yes, who among the world’s heroes can match you?”
Yun Xunlan also smiled. Seeing that it was nine o’clock, he slowly closed his eyes.
In the live broadcast cameras of the press corps, people saw the black mecha named “Jian Xing Chen” (Seeing Stars Sink) suddenly light up its core source like a newborn star, leap down from the starship into the dense insect swarm of the combat zone, and instantly spread devastating red flames in all directions with itself as the center.
The heat wave was unstoppable. Wherever it passed, all living things collapsed and vanished, yet he stood like dawn dispelling the night, upright in the center of fire and light.
“3S mechas are really so strong…”
Fu Yanxi had to raise his flight altitude to avoid being affected by the 3S mecha’s pulse flame shockwave, while reminding Gui Yan: “Gui Yan, stay farther away! Don’t get roasted along with those basic worker insects by the Third Prince right from the start.”
“Oh, I know. I’m flying right above your head. If anyone gets roasted, it’ll be you first.” Gui Yan wasn’t in the mood to chat much with Fu Yanxi, only gazing obsessively at the 3S mecha Jian Xing Chen piloted by Yun Xunlan: “The Third Prince’s wife is so beautiful… Thinking that she’ll be hurt by Lu You and the others later makes my heart ache!”
“Who wouldn’t feel heartbroken? This is the shared dream lover of my brother and me.” Song Tingxiao agreed. “How can my brother bear to do it?”
Fu Yanxi immediately sneered sarcastically: “Yeah, why did they send your brother? They should have sent Yu Chen. The Third Prince’s wife Jian Xing Chen is our Yu Chen’s ‘ba-by’s’ love rival~”
He deliberately emphasized the pronunciation of the two characters “baby.”
“The ‘Chen’ in Jian Xing Chen is taken from my name. Are you illiterate?” Yu Chen didn’t want to listen to Fu Yanxi’s barking and immediately chose to hit his sore spot. “Am I sick to attack myself?”
This indeed hit Fu Yanxi’s sore spot, making him so angry that his mecha swayed during flight and nearly crashed into Gui Yan.
Gui Yan was startled by Fu Yanxi and heartbroken by Yu Chen’s words. He let out a wailing cry: “Stop talking, stop talking! I really can’t accept this! How can Yu Chen be the Third Prince’s ‘baby’? It’s too scary. Don’t say such things that are detrimental to unity anymore!”
Song Tingxiao also sniffled and said: “Now I’m starting to envy my brother again, because he’ll get to fight Jian Xing Chen later, which rounds up to fighting Yu Chen.”
“How about we pretend we never heard this? Yu Chen isn’t the Third Prince’s baby at all, and he can’t be. That way everyone will feel better,” Ji Bai suggested. “Who’s in favor? Who’s against?”
Yu Chen: “?”
Yu Chen: “I object.”
“What did you say? We can’t hear you. You’re not on our chat public frequency,” Fu Yanxi made the final decision. “Good, since no one objects, it’s happily decided.”
Yu Chen: “???”
Yu Chen: “Stop deceiving yourselves, okay? Either shut up or talk about serious matters.”
The gossip prince Song Tingxiao smoothly changed the topic: “Hey, do you think His Highness can kill the king insects later?”
“You asked the wrong question.” Fu Yanxi was Yun Xunlan’s most loyal supporter. “You should ask how many king insects His Highness can kill.”
Mecha test drives generally start with the lowest-level soldiers in the Severir insectoid army—worker insects—then continuously advance forward, challenging higher-level and more powerful advanced insectoids, finally facing the king insects.
Mechas below SS level cannot face king insects due to their limited endurance and equipped weapon firepower.
However, even with SS mechas, if the mecha pilot’s skills are too poor, facing king insects is just delivering food; if the mecha pilot’s skills are good enough, he might be able to confront king insects for a while, but completely killing king insects is very difficult.
To improve the probability of killing king insects, one ultimately needs to bring out 3S mechas with higher lethality and extremely powerful attack performance.
Song Tingxiao asked: “But His Highness still has to defend against Lu You and their ‘assassination’ at the same time, right?”
—Yun Xunlan arranged for Lu You and the others to launch their assassination when he was fighting the king insects.
If he could withstand bombardment from three SS-level mecha pilots while killing king insects, then not only the netizens watching the live stream, but even these military warriors, would no longer have any doubt about Yun Xunlan’s strength.
Because Yun Xunlan wasn’t facing a single king insect—he was facing a king insect swarm, the hellish situation that humans might face after landing on the insectoid home planet, as simulated by quantum computers.
This was also why Yu Chen insisted on escort flying beside Yun Xunlan.
Mechanical insectoids not controlled by the main control system were dangerous enough, let alone king insect swarms.
In the entire galaxy, except for those few top-level alphas who could perfectly resonate with 3S mechas, the standard for judging the strength of other mecha pilots who could drive 3S mechas under this attack mode was: how many minutes they could survive.
The current best record was created by Duke Manyuin Hurst of the Corona Empire, who was devoured by the swarm after killing seven king insects.
Yun Xunlan wasn’t a military academy graduate, hadn’t received any formal combat training, and had only recently come of age. He was so young that even if he could only kill one king insect, his name would be recorded in history, becoming an unforgettable genius in mecha piloting books.
People would speculate that he would become even stronger in the future, would hopefully go to the border battlefield, drive the Severir insectoids out of the galaxy, and lead all humanity into a brilliant dawn without war.
Then, even if Yun Xunlan couldn’t pass the regular “War Psychology” test papers, he could apply for special test papers to prove he could go to the front lines, or join special combat teams to fight for his country and people.
Otherwise, if he continued to stay on the Imperial Star and continue his peaceful and comfortable life, the people would become dissatisfied with him and feel that his continued stay on the Imperial Star was a waste of resources.
“His Highness and the 3S mecha are also at maximum resonance.” At this moment, Fu Yanxi still didn’t know that Yun Xunlan was Mad Guest, but he was full of confidence in the young man. “The Third Prince would make such arrangements, obviously he must be able to…”
Fu Yanxi’s words were interrupted by a golden high-energy sniper beam that hit Yun Xunlan’s mecha maintenance hatch.
He was stunned for half a second, about to ask Lu You, Lottie, and Song Tingyan what was going on—Yun Xunlan hadn’t even entered the battle phase with the king insect swarm, so why did they open fire?
But Lottie shouted first: “We didn’t fire!”
Even Lu You rarely cursed: “There are real fucking assassins—!”
The sniper beams attacking Yun Xunlan shot out simultaneously from the southwest and southeast directions, totaling ten beams, each precise and fast, filled with killing intent. However, the first nine were all feints, not aimed at the mecha’s core source and cockpit, only to trick Yun Xunlan into defending and firing interference bullets.
Their real target was the mecha maintenance hatch hit by the tenth sniper beam that broke through Jian Xing Chen’s defense layer.
“This is a military sniper beam array.” Yu Chen quickly lowered his flight altitude, blocking the southwest direction to prevent a second attack. “They’re not ordinary assassins.”
Such seasoned and skilled sniping techniques, well-trained coordination… definitely not something the interstellar pirates driving hyena mechas at Yuhai on the Imperial Star could accomplish, not to mention that this intensity of sniper beams could only be fired by mechas of 2S level and above.
Yun Xunlan’s manuscript bounty on the black market was only 3 billion, while an SS-level mecha cost 500 million. Would a team capable of deploying ten SS-level mechas simultaneously care about Yun Xunlan’s mere 3 billion?
Jian Wenxi was also on this planet. Killing him or kidnapping him to extort Jian Chexiao would obviously earn much more. Yet these assassins only targeted Yun Xunlan, and stopped after hitting Yun Xunlan’s mecha maintenance hatch, clearly having their own plan.
But their plan…
Were they stealing Lu You and the others’ mission?
Everyone was puzzled.
Song Tingyan reported to Yun Xunlan: “Your Highness, we’re heading to the sniper beam launch point.”
Since the task Yun Xunlan assigned them was completed by these assassins, Lu You, Lottie, and Song Tingyan directly mixed into the guard army’s ground mecha team, heading straight for the sniper beam launch point to capture the assassins.
But Yun Xunlan stopped them: “No one goes.”
He even called off the guard army.
“They’re not ten SS-level mechas, but nine SS-level mechas.”
As Yun Xunlan spoke, he suddenly turned to face the southeast—the launch position of the tenth sniper beam that hit him—raised his gun for an instant shot, and continued: “Plus one SSS-level mecha.”
The moment Jian Xing Chen’s sniper beam left the barrel, a medium-sized Leviathan insectoid also burst from the ground, opening its mouth full of sharp teeth and pouncing toward Yun Xunlan.
**
