IRCDM Chapter 88

Chapter 88: Stance – Your Stance is Crucial

Liang Huan’s smile didn’t fade, “What? Am I wrong?”

He sat there relaxed, leaning back, the air of oppression still strong even covered in blood. Li Yao looked down at him, reached out to grab his chin, and roughly wiped away the blood on his face, “Wrong my ass, open your mouth.”

Liang Huan refused and instead grabbed his wrist, “I can control mental power disorder.”

“People who can really control it wouldn’t be covered in blood.” Li Yao leaned down, staring into his eyes, “Have you seen the instructional video of me controlling thirty mechas at the same time?”

He leaned in close, so close that Liang Huan could smell the faint scent of gunpowder and blood on him. If he put a little force on the hand he rested on Li Yao’s waist, he could pull the man into his arms for a passionate kiss. But Liang Huan’s patience was always good. He looked at Li Yao’s eyes, which were suppressing anger, and smiled.

“I’ve never ended up covered in blood.” Li Yao pinched his neck and pushed him away, his tone uncharacteristically cold, “You knew all along that Lu Lian would bring people to hunt you down.”

The sentence wasn’t a question, but a firm statement.

Originally, their plan was just to find the mole in the Eastern Third District and recover the fifty billion, the extra three hundred billion worth of supplies was a gamble. In fact, even Li Yao himself hadn’t planned on getting into a mecha. This Liang Huan seemed reliable, but he was dragging him into all sorts of dealings that walked the edge of life and death.

“It’s normal for the Minister of Mecha to hear some news from the military.” Liang Huan was a little regretful that he didn’t get a kiss and squeezed Li Yao’s palm, somewhat dissatisfied.

“And deliberately made me attack Lu Lian, confront the Special Heteromorph Combat Division, so you could take away these dozen mechas and completely clarify my stance to the military?” Li Yao sat across from him with his arms crossed, finally breaking free from the excitement of piloting a mecha and belatedly realizing Liang Huan’s trick.

Liang Huan said helplessly, “You think too much of me.”

“The mole, the heteromorph supplies, the military mechas, and my stance are all in your hands now.” Li Yao kicked his knee playfully, “Minister Lin, do you think that if you make yourself bloody, I won’t be angry because you look so miserable?”

Exposed so bluntly, Liang Huan remained unfazed, “Even so, I’m just taking advantage of the situation, what’s wrong with that?”

Li Yao looked up at him.

Liang Huan smiled, “I’m doing it for your own good—”

Li Yao quickly stuffed the medicine into his mouth, tightly covering his mouth, “Swallow it for me!”

A trace of anger appeared in Liang Huan’s eyes, and he reached out to pull his hand away. Li Yao dodged while skillfully pressing his thumb on his Adam’s apple. Liang Huan was forced to swallow a large handful of medicine, his face faintly green, “Li Yao.”

Li Yao patted his face, “I’m doing it for your own good too, be good.”

Liang Huan, “…”

Li Yao sat beside him with his legs crossed, naturally putting his arm around his shoulder, and said lazily, “Actually, you didn’t need to do this. As far as the military is concerned, I was an expendable pawn when Project Dawn failed. They want the black box of Project Dawn, but just to find an excuse to shut up the public. Now the military is fragmented, and wanting to find the mistakes of the past and restart Project Dawn is just an excuse. The black box is just an objective point of conflict. Even without it, they can still fight vigorously—but I really didn’t expect anyone to seriously consider the black box and formulate some Project Dawn II.”

Liang Huan remained noncommittal, opening his palm. Li Yao glanced at it and placed his hand on top, interlocking fingers with him.

“I activated the signal receiver in my body and re-linked the new coordinates of this planet to the main track, just because I didn’t want those one hundred thousand people to die in vain. But the objective reality is that for at least twenty years, human bases won’t be able to organize large-scale projects like Project Dawn again.” Li Yao scratched his palm lightly, “So my stance isn’t that important to the military. At most, they’d let me go back as a mascot to boost morale.”

Liang Huan gripped his hand, “It may not be important to the military, but to me and the Eastern Third District, your stance is crucial.”

Li Yao raised an eyebrow, “Oh?”

“Within ten years, I will definitely restart Project Dawn and lead humanity to a new star.” Liang Huan looked into his eyes, “The role you can play is far more than a mascot. Even if you and I didn’t have this relationship, in my heart, you have always been the Dawn Star of humanity.”

Li Yao’s brain went blank for a moment. At least in the few seconds he looked at him, he couldn’t even find the right emotion to respond with, like the rusted mecha that was thrown into the junkyard waiting to be scrapped.

Liang Huan patted his shoulder, appearing gentle, “Fear is born of love, I took this tactic because you ran away too many times before.”

“I ran away before because…” Li Yao was blinded by the gentle smile on his face. Before he could finish speaking, he was pulled into his arms. Liang Huan rested his forehead on his shoulder.

Liang Huan linked his mental power with him, his whole body relaxing, “I’ll be more careful next time, don’t be angry.”

Li Yao frowned, raised his hand and rubbed his back, “You’re confusing the issue. Clarifying my stance and you arbitrarily using mental power to bring back more than a dozen mechas are two different things, you—”

“Li Yao, my head hurts a lot.” Liang Huan buried his head in his neck, taking the opportunity to press his whole body into the seat.

Li Yao was forced to be his human cushion, cursing as he massaged his temples, “Serves you right, I hope it hurts you to death. Only a madman would do something so uncertain.”

Liang Huan raised his hand to grab the back of his neck, blocking his noisy mouth. The move proved to be very effective. Li Yao never had any pretenses, responding to him with only a hint of violent ferocity. As they kissed, they rolled from the seat to the floor, pressing against the car door, neither willing to give way.

In the end, Li Yao was still concerned about his mental power and turned his head to avoid him, “Alright, let’s talk about it when we get back.”

Liang Huan lowered his head and kissed his neck with a smile, unwilling to leave for a long time.

Li Yao struggled for a moment, only to be forcibly held in place by the manipulation of his mental power. He tugged at Liang Huan’s hair, “Are you having another episode?”

“Yeah, mental power disorder is too frequent.” Liang Huan held him in his arms, gently grinding his soft, hot flesh between his teeth, “It’ll be better in a while.”

Li Yao let him hold him, “If you ever dare to act so recklessly again, I’ll tear you and the mecha into pieces.”

Liang Huan had already fallen asleep on him.

“…” Li Yao took a deep breath and pulled the treatment device over to clamp it on the back of Liang Huan’s neck.

The fully loaded exploration convoy headed east, rushing towards the human base.

Behind them, in the Western Heteromorph Jungle, Lu Lian covered the last special forces member’s retreat. The mecha he was piloting finally couldn’t hold out and was completely corroded and destroyed by the saliva of the special heteromorph.

A hand grabbed his arm, pulling him out of the crushed and deformed cockpit.

Lu Lian glanced at the other person, tearing off the ragged glove on his hand, “What are you doing back here?”

‘You Zhao Chen’ smiled vividly, “You worked so hard to create an opportunity for us to escape, we couldn’t let you die, our conscience wouldn’t allow it.”

Lu Lian snorted softly, “Heteromorphs have a conscience?”

The ‘Jiang Chuxia’ next to him said coldly, “The boss ordered us to come and save you. You Zhao Chen and I have already been exposed. We’ll go back to the military with you next.”

Lu Lian frowned.

“This is the boss’s order.” ‘You Zhao Chen’ put his arm around his shoulder like a good brother, “Lu Lian, we’re back to being comrades-in-arms now.”

Lu Lian pushed his arm away, gave him a cold look, and walked forward without turning his head.

‘You Zhao Chen’ shrugged indifferently and followed behind him with a grin, “Jiang Chuxia, let’s go!”

‘Jiang Chuxia’ glanced at the pile of scrap metal that had been corroded to just the skeleton, stepping on the mountain of heteromorph corpses and followed.

—

Eastern Third District Mercenary Base.

“After being disassembled, the fourteen military mechas have been transported back to the mercenary base through the east and west gates respectively. In addition, the heteromorph materials collected by the outer zone exploration team are estimated to be worth about 45 billion Condensed Coins.” Deng Meng excitedly tallied the list of materials, “Ms. Ling said… Brother Liang?”

Liang Huan looked at Li Yao, who was directing everyone to assemble the mechas on the training field, “What about the bar laboratory?”

“We’ve been watching it, but the night before the exploration team returned to the base, there was a sudden explosion at the bar, and the entire building was destroyed.” Deng Meng was a little ashamed, “Sorry, Brother Liang, I didn’t keep a close enough eye on it.”

“Accidental explosion?” Liang Huan asked.

“That’s how the security bureau defined it. The scene was tightly protected, and our people couldn’t get close.” Deng Meng said, “But there’s one strange thing, all the researchers doing the on-site survey are from the Dawn Group.”

Liang Huan withdrew his gaze.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you to learn about mechas. Who else would dismantle more than a dozen S-Class mechas for you to practice with?” Li Yao sat on Black Emperor’s shoulder, yelling at the mercenaries assembling the mechas, his voice loud, “Pay attention to the angles and details! Didn’t any of you eat! Hurry up! Jinbao is stronger than you!”

Jinbao, who was wiping Black Emperor’s heel, looked up and sighed with sorrow, “Master Li Yao, I want to calculate when I can finish cleaning the mecha.”

“It’s okay, I’ll have First and Second come and help you.” Li Yao was very gentle with the little robot. He jumped off the mecha, accidentally stepping two big black footprints on Jinbao’s clean heel. While Jinbao wasn’t looking, he quickly left and pretended to direct the material transport team, “Be gentle, this stuff is expensive!”

Su Murong and Yang Li Duan’s eyes lit up when they saw the heteromorph brain cores. Su Murong pointed to the largest transparent brain core and said, “This one, we want this one!”

Li Yao followed the direction she pointed, cleared his throat, “This one is not going to work.”

“Why?” Su Murong was puzzled, “This is the biggest and best special-grade brain core in this batch, the most valuable for research, we must have this one!”

Yang Li Duan nodded, “Yes, this one is good.”

“This is mine, personal belongings.” Li Yao stood in front of them domineeringly, directing the transport team, “Move it to the administrative court for me.”

“Hey, don’t move it yet, Li Yao, we’ll buy it from the institute.” Su Murong looked at the giant brain core covetously, “The administrative court has no place to store something so big, how much do you want?”

“Not selling.” Li Yao waved his hand.

Su Murong chased after him relentlessly. Li Yao refused to let go, and it took her half a day of surrounding and intercepting him before she managed to break free, successfully taking his heteromorph brain core back to the administrative court.

Liang Huan had just finished dealing with business and came downstairs when he saw him directing people to find a way to stuff the brain core into the administrative court building’s elevator, and couldn’t help but laugh, “This thing isn’t easy to store, I didn’t consider it carefully, I’ll get you a portable one next time.”

Li Yao said seriously, “What portable? This thing is all about research value.”

Liang Huan understood, “I see.”

Li Yao reached out and knocked on the jelly-like brain core, arrogantly saying, “Be careful when you sleep at night, or I’ll put you in there and sell you to Su Murong together.”

Liang Huan said, “Wouldn’t that further confirm my heteromorph identity?”

Li Yao reached out and pinched his face, “Come on, let me see if you really are one—”

As the two were fooling around, Deng Meng’s communication suddenly came in, “Brother Liang, Lawyer Jiang is here, saying that the five hundred billion has come to light.”

Li Yao let go of his hand, “He came in person?”

Deng Meng obviously didn’t expect it was Li Yao who answered Liang Huan’s communication, but he quickly reacted, “Brother Li, Lawyer Jiang came himself, he’s in the reception room.”

“Let him wait.” Liang Huan turned off the communication and looked at Li Yao.

“What are you looking at me for?” Li Yao patted his arm, “Let’s go take a look together.”

“…Okay.”