However, his eldest cousin brother Li Mulan's words surfaced within his mind. He had said before that Li Yingjie was not a bad person at heart, only being steered towards the wrong tracks by some people within the Li family. If possible, his eldest cousin brother still hoped that Li Shiyu could help Li Yingjie out, pulling him back onto the right path ...
And now, this situation was proving his eldest cousin brother right. Someone who was willing to sacrifice himself for his brothers — how bad could his heart really be? Perhaps this was an opportunity. If he could improve his relationship with Li Yingjie through this matter, perhaps he would be able to accomplish what his eldest cousin brother had wished for ...
Still, just thinking about this forced buy one get two free deal, Li Shiyu felt depressed. Just as he had mentioned previously, those ultreffective medical agents were not things you could just pick up randomly. Even if he was the dux, requesting special restricted medical agents for three people was still a considerable challenge, requiring him to pull some strings ... honestly speaking, he did not really want to use up those connections at this time, because this was a safety line he had been keeping in reserve for his eldest cousin brother.
"Of course, if you can heal them completely within a short period of time, we, the New Cadet Regiment, including myself, will owe you one. You can call on this favour any time you like." Ling Lan was not purely pushing for Li Shiyu's help with threats; at the same time, she was also offering the price she was willing to pay. She did not want Li Yingjie to really lose this opportunity for enhanced treatment. "Of course, your request must be something we the New Cadet Regiment are able to fulfil."
"New Cadet Regiment?" A thought flashed through Li Shiyu's mind, but he soon sneered and said, "Do you really think you can guarantee the New Cadet Regiment will continue to exist?"
Ling Lan replied calmly, "There will be no problems for at least two years' time. You can choose for us to repay this favour within these two years. Of course, if the New Cadet Regiment no longer exists by the time you submit your request, I, Ling Lan's promise still stands. You can come find me." For the sake of the future of these followers of hers, Ling Lan felt that paying this price was worth it.
Li Shiyu fell silent, contemplating whether this deal would be worth it. Right then, Li Lanfeng spoke up, "Young Master Shiyu, I believe Young Master Mulan would also agree that you should treat Young Master Yingjie and his friends ..."
Li Lanfeng sighed softly, his gaze a little unfocused, and as if speaking to himself, but also as if reminding Li Shiyu, he said, "You should know, this has always been something Young Master Mulan admires ..."
Li Shiyu's heart throbbed, and holding back that surge of sour-ache in his heart, he said loudly, "Alright, I agree." That said, he pushed forth two more requests for transferral of treatment on his communicator. Several seconds later, the notifications for approval came through once more.
Seeing that her goal had been achieved, the tension in Ling Lan's heart eased and she breathed a silent sigh of relief. Very quickly, the staff members had used stretchers to send the three patients to the Military Medical Research Centre. Li Shiyu and Yun Xiu bade hurried goodbyes and left as well. After all, the injuries of the three were all rather severe — they needed to hurry back to the Military Medical Research Centre and carry out their new treatment plans.
While the treatment centre was bustling with activity, Ling Lan led her posse to depart, and as she left, she coincidentally passed by Li Lanfeng's side. Ling Lan swept a disinterested glance at Li Lanfeng, and then they brushed by each other and went their separate ways ...
This was Ling Lan and Li Lanfeng's first meeting. There was no conversation, no interaction between the both of them. Li Lanfeng might perhaps have retained a deep impression of Ling Lan, considering the possibility of a collaboration, but Ling Lan only felt that this man was pretty decent, helping her out by speaking in her favour at that critical moment ... that was all!
Meanwhile, on the distant planet Southcrest, where the headquarters of the 23rd Division was stationed, there were currently over a hundred different things still waiting to be done. Lacking high-ranking officers within his division, the commander of the 23rd Division, Ling Xiao, not only had to fight and haggle with the other army division commanders to appropriate talent from their forces, he also had to work hard to smooth over those messes his own daughter was making ... such as that ship takeover incident!
Speaking of that day, Ling Xiao had been in a video conference meeting with several commanders of the other divisions. The agenda of the meeting was naturally to request support from the brother divisions in the form of high-ranking officers. Of course, these few commanders were all part of the First Marshal's faction. Thus, they were willing to help support the establishment of an allied division within the same faction. However, Ling Xiao's appetite was truly too much — all the candidates he chose were among the most exceptional officers within their divisions. This made the commanders somewhat unhappy, but they could not reject outright, and thus began these wrangling and fruitless negotiations ...
In reality, this was just Ling Xiao testing the waters by throwing out an exorbitant price — he was actually waiting for the other side to bargain with him and provide a more reasonable counter-offer 1 . Only this way would he be able to know what the baselines of the other commanders were. Of course, in order to obtain more talented people, Ling Xiao had already set his mind to grind it out with them. Mind you, to swiftly establish a mature army division, large numbers of excellent military officers were absolutely indispensable to form the backbone of the division. Once the skeleton structure was built up, filling it up with flesh and blood would be a much easier task.
This was just the first step. Ling Xiao had also sent out transfer requests for some of the still surviving members of his original team in the 7th Division. Whether it would succeed would still depend on whether the current commander of the 7th Division was willing to let them go, as well as whether those old subordinates of his would be willing to relocate here to work under him again.
However, just as the meeting had been going along swimmingly, a notification had popped up on Ling Xiao's communicator. After bending his head to glance at it, the initially smiling Ling Xiao had suddenly become serious, and the muscles of his face had even seemed a little stiff, as if he had received some great shock ...
Ling Xiao suppressed his emotions, extremely apologetic as he set a new appointment to meet with the various commanders again later on, and then he hurriedly ended the teleconference.
This behaviour of Ling Xiao's made the commanders feel somewhat uneasy, all of them wondering whether Ling Xiao had encountered some difficulty — had they went overboard in their bargaining, pushing the price down too low, thus making Ling Xiao sad 2 ? After all, Ling Xiao was still a young man who had just turned 40 years old. Ahem ahem, compared to those typical commanders who were at least 60 to 70 years old, he was indeed rather young ...
They reckoned Ling Xiao must be finding it tough — the 23rd Division sounded great in name, giving the impression that it was a regular army division, fully equipped with the various troops and facilities associated with the running of a proper division, but it was actually just an empty husk right now. The division was lacking in both manpower and equipment — everything depended on Ling Xiao himself to gather resources and seek out good staff. Those of the other military factions were all watching coldly from the side-lines, just waiting for Ling Xiao to fail. If they of the same faction did not help out, who else would come forward to help Ling Xiao?
With that thought, what mental imbalance they originally still had settled down. It was actually just giving up a few more military officers after all — Ling Xiao's request was still quite reasonable — if each division transferred one or two exceptional officers from each troop type over, it actually would not affect the various army divisions much. Even though those officers were indeed quite outstanding, there were still a lot of other outstanding officers within their ranks; they would not miss one or two ...
The commanders discussed things over in private, and ultimately decided it was better to give Ling Xiao a little face. If Ling Xiao did well, they would be well off too. Thus, when Ling Xiao reopened negotiations with them once more, the commanders had become extremely generous. Basically, whatever Ling Xiao wanted, as long as it was not too unreasonable, they would agree. This made Ling Xiao exceedingly shocked and pleased. After all, every additional competent officer was a boon to the division. This meant that he would be able to train up even more excellent troops in-house, so the 23rd Division would be able to become battle-ready as swiftly as possible.
However, in reality, those commanders were all mistaken. Ling Xiao had not encountered any great trouble, nor had he become depressed over their haggling behaviour. The reason Ling Xiao's face had become so grim was because he had been petrified by the news about his daughter ...
The fact that the First Men's Military Academy had an entrance exam was known to him. After all, he too had lived through it. He had not told Ling Lan about it because he wanted to see how Ling Lan would react — you could consider this a test a father was setting for his daughter 3 .
At most, Ling Xiao had thought that Ling Lan would lead her team to observe the proceedings coldly from the side-lines. That was what he had chosen to do when he had gone through the test in the past. Ling Xiao believed that based on the capabilities of his daughter and those companions of hers, obtaining the respect of the examiner-soldiers would be no problem ... but he would never have imagined that his daughter would be so wildly audacious that she would actually band the students on the ship together to assume control of the ship. And even more unexpectedly, she had actually bloody succeeded ...
Seeing this news, Ling Xiao chose to end his conference as soon as he could, and then ran off to laugh unreservedly at the heavens!
At this moment, he could no longer maintain his trademark composed smile. He was no longer that always smiling national idol Ling Xiao, the elegant and dashing General Ling Xiao — he was only a crazed dad taking pride in his daughter ... this was his daughter! Godd*mmit, this was his daughter! Well, alright, that was all Ling Xiao could think about. He was so proud of his baby daughter — as expected of a child of his, daring to do things even he had not dared to do ...
However, after his wild bout of laughter, Ling Xiao began to frown and fret. This lass was still smart enough to know that some of the things she did had been a little overboard, and could cause the soldiers who were testing them to be punished. Thus, knowing that she had made a mess, his daughter had sent word to her old man to help settle things for her. According to Ling Lan, having held the empty title of 'father' for sixteen years, it was about time for him to do something to live up to it ...
What an unfilial daughter! Although Ling Xiao was muttering about how unfilial Ling Lan was on the surface, he was actually very pleased in his heart, because this was the first time Ling Lan had personally asked him for help to clean up her mess. Even though her tone was not that wonderful, Ling Xiao knew that this was Ling Lan taking the first step — she was actively trying to accept him as a father ...
Understanding the deeper meaning behind this news from Ling Lan, Ling Xiao was instantly filled with motivation. He immediately passed on the task of recruiting and stealing talent over to his assistant, and then eagerly went off to clean up the mess his daughter had made.
He first used his rank as general to brush aside the punishment order for the ship's captain, and then he requested a transfer order from military headquarters to bring in the spaceship and its entire crew, including the captain, into the 23rd Division. And after that, he immediately contacted the principal of the military academy to seal off all the results of the entrance exams this time, keeping it unannounced ... Ling Xiao knew very well that once it was publicized, Ling Lan's exceptional performance would draw the attention of military headquarters, including that of the various major army divisions. This was something he absolutely would not allow.
Having done all this, Ling Xiao was still somewhat uneasy. After all, far away here at planet Southcrest 4 , it was very difficult for him to be on top of the latest news from the First Academy 5 . Therefore, he decided to personally go and check up on Ling Lan — only after he ensured there was no danger to his daughter would he be able to continue working on establishing the 23rd Division without worry.
The reason why this sort of idea would occur to Ling Xiao was that not long after this, the 5th year senior cadets would be facing their first round of application assessments for enlistment into the various army divisions, and their 23rd Division would join this assessment system of the military academies for the first time. As one of the army divisions which would be accepting cadets, he, as the commander, would have to dispatch an assessment team to assess those students who applied for enlistment to the 23rd Division.
Thus, Ling Xiao decided that this time, he would lead the team personally, though of course the assessment tasks would be delegated to his subordinate officers. His main mission would be to go check on and care for that peerlessly adorable baby girl of his ...
Ling Lan? Adorable? Only a Twenty-four Filial Exemplars dad would consider a daughter with as much cool-ruthless-dominant swag as Ling Lan to be a peerlessly adorable girl ... it can only be said that when it came to Ling Lan, Ling Xiao's judgement just could not be trusted.
漫天叫价,落地还钱: Sigh, the Chinese version is so much more elegant. Just eight words, with sweet parallelism to boot. Literally 'calling a price as high as the skies, waiting for a down-to-earth price'. But the literal English version just sounds tacky here in context, and would require more elaboration anyway, so this. :3 T/C: The thought process of these commanders is just too cute here. :3 T/C: Only in this universe and in Ling Xiao's strange world view would this be any kind of reasonable test for one's own daughter. =.= 南羽星: Literal form -- 'planet South Feather'; pinyin form -- 'planet Nanyu'. 'Crest' can refer to 'a tuft of feathers on an animal's head', hence the final translated form 'Southcrest'. shortened form of the First Men's Military Academy.