Chapter 438: Reunion III
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"You are Zhang Yu?" Ye Chong studied the man in front of him.
Zhang Yu was also giving Ye Chong the same look of assesment. He was a little perturbed. He was asked to the bridge alone, and this special treatment unsettled him. However, he believed that he had managed to maintain a calm impression. He nodded and said, "I am."
"Alright. From now on, you will be under our protection," Ye Chong stated plainly.
Zhang Yu stared in shock at the young man. The first thought that came to him was, had he encountered the legendary organization called the cartel?
Torres rushed to Terry City, just in time to see a starship making its landing. Around this starship were no less than a thousand of those weird flying vessels as its escorts.
Looking above from the ground, the fleet felt immense and powerful.
What an incredible show of power! Torres turned solemn. From the looks of it, the new arrival must be someone extraordinary. However, the starship did not seem to fit the story. Logically speaking, any person of status would have flown in a large high class starship, and not an average long distance starship like this one. This civilian starship would not have been enough to satisfy anyone of status, be it in terms of safety or comfort.
The scene was odd indeed. It was like seeing a large group of bodyguards in tuxedos carefully escorting a poorly dressed beggar.
As expected, the starship landed in the base of the Papatte Mech Squad. Torres no longer hesitated. He ordered his subordinates to drive him to the base.
Sang Pu, Sang Tie and Sang Ling all looked at Ye Chong, filled with emotions.
"Sir …" "Sir!" "... Sir …" The three of them spoke up simultaneously.
Ye Chong looked at them, and felt a surge of emotions from within. Sang Pu was beginning to have the bearings of a leader. He stood there before him with a grace that befitted a man of power. Sang Ling had grown even more beautiful. Sang Tie looked just the same as before, but with a more mature composure.
"I'm back," Ye Chong said softly.
"Sir is back!" "Sir is back!" The base was filled with roaring cheers of joy. This man had taught them how to build Collision mechs, survive the Beast Stampede, and leave Archipelago. Everyone of the Sang Tribe loved him from the bottom of their hearts.
When he began to introduce the others in his company, there was a bit of an issue. Most of them were fine, but Ye Chong had no idea how to introduce Rui Bing.
"She is …" Ye Chong tilted his head, unable to continue the sentence. A friend? He rejected the notion immediately.
"Welcome, Ma'am!" The sympathetic Sang Ling stepped up to give him a hand. The rest of the Sang Tribe realized the situation then. So it was Ye Chong's wife. No wonder he was embarrassed. They had all learned under Ye Chong, and since they called Ye Chong "Sir", it was only natural to call his wife "Ma'am".
Even with Rui Bing's steady character, she blushed deeply at the greeting.
Everyone's attention was focused on Rui Bing. They were all curious about the wife of their young teacher. Their intense gazes were directed instantly to Rui Bing, leaving Ye Chong completely ignored.
Sang Pu noticed Rui Bing's dilemma. He stole a glance at Ye Chong, smiled, and came forward to help Ye Chong and Rui Bing out of their awkwardness. He raised his voice to the crowd, "What're you all standing here? Get to your jobs now. Sir is finally back, and he'll need his rest. Go on now, go on." It seemed that Sang Pu had won the confidence of the people. They all left with reluctance.
Sang Ling smiled at Rui Bing and said, "Young Ma'am, let's go."
News of the young teacher bringing back a lady as beautiful as a Goddess spread like wildfire throughout the entire base.
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Before them, the area around Yi Ju was shown on a holographic screen, suspended in midair. A bright red dot glowed on the projection.
"This is one of the areas that is spatially unstable, and the closest one to us. It's not clear yet if these areas of spatial instability were the first signs before those creatures appeared." Ye Chong explained the situation briefly.
Everyone who heard Ye Chong describe the war at the Gateway entrance were horrified. They had heard of the Three Aristocratic Families. Their mech fleets were recognized as the strongest in the entire He Yue Galaxy. They even had the Three Aces leading the assault. Even so, the war had cost a staggering number of casualties. At the end of the war, only less than 20 percent of the combat force survived.
It was not hard to imagine the devastating aftermath.
Sang Pu and the rest looked grim, but none of them showed fear. Before meeting Ye Chong, they had all lived very dangerous lives, and were far more mentally resilient than the people in the He Yue Galaxy. Besides, no matter how strong this unknown lifeform was, it was only an animal, and the Sang Tribe had more than enough experience dealing with strange and unknown animals in Archipelago.
"That's a very dangerous area!" Sang Pu smiled bitterly, pointing at the holographic screen as he said, "Look, if those unknown lifeforms really appear here as Sir said, then our communications with the Tribe back home will be affected. If the creatures move towards the Calamitous Asteroid Belt, then our communications with the Tribe will be severed entirely!"
On the holographic screen, the red dot expanded rapidly, soon becoming a red zone. The red zone was like a red colored barrier, blocking the route between Archipelago and Yi Ju.
"War it is!" Sang Tie declared roughly. He looked at Ye Chong with fervent eyes. For someone as battle hungry as him, the recent peace was getting dull.
"War it is!" Sang Ling nodded in agreement. No matter what, they could not afford to have their communications with the rest of the Tribe severed. She looked at Ye Chong inquiringly.
Sang Pu said calmly, "I agree with them. War it is!" He looked to Ye Chong.
The three of them looked to Ye Chong.
"War it is!" Ye Chong said with determination.
Tores did not see Ye Chong, but was greeted by Old Chief Guo. Old Chief Guo himself was unclear of the situation, about how to explain things to Torres, so he chose to delay the man. Torres was getting anxious, but there was nothing he could do.
If the base looked busy in the short moment before Ye Chong's arrival, it was now positively crazy with activity.
Ye Chong called for Zhang Yu. The man's main duty was to establish contact with Mu and Shang's side. Yi Ju was technologically backward. The virtual world infrastructure here was almost nonexistent. Sang Pu and the others knew nothing about technology, and so never thought of working on it.
Nevertheless, Zhang Yu was knowledgeable enough in the basics to build a signal emitter that could be connected to the virtual world from scratch, using bits of odds and ends. The equipment was still quite primitive, but since Mu and Shang would only arrive in about two weeks, it would not be an issue.
Ever since he knew of Ye Chong's relationship with Dragon-Tiger Match, Zhang Yu agreed to cooperate without delay. Besides, once he found that his job was to establish contact with Dragon-Tiger Match, he felt even more excited.
Sang Tie was sent to Archipelago. Since Yi Ju's combat force was not enough, his task was to bring back at least another 10 thousand men and resources for the war.
Old Jalopy was quick to dive into the work of improving the Collision mechs. He was a true expert in mechanics. His extreme working hours were shocking. On the third day, with his eyes red and bleary, Old Jalopy presented his first schematics with improvements. Everyone was impressed by his dedication.
Only people like Ye Chong and Rui Bing, who had seen the war up close, would understand why Old Jalopy would work so desperately.
In the end, Old Jalopy's experience in mechanics was worth far more than Ye Chong's amateur knowledge. His modifications were simple but efficient. After some computations by the photon processor, the maneuverability of the Collision mech was improved by 17 percent, and the energy efficiency increased by 9 percent. The statistics were trustworthy, having been provided by Mu himself. Even Ye Chong was impressed by the modifications. More importantly, the modifications to Collision mechs were not too extensive, and could be done in a relatively short time.
Ye Chong waited no longer. He gave the order to modify all the Collision mechs.
Monitoring work on the spatially unstable area never ceased. The entire monitoring equipment setup was obtained from a school laboratory by Torres. Ye Chong began to like the man because of his assistance.
In fact, Torres had guessed the gist of the situation when he knew of the monitoring equipment, so he cooperated without delay. With Yi Ju's highest official cooperating, Ye Chong and his group could work more efficiently.
For example, the passengers onboard Victoria were left for Torres to handle. They were swiftly dispatched to the appropriate facilities on the planet.
War is money consuming.
Ye Chong could finally appreciate this expression. In just a few days, Sang Pu and the rest had used up a good part of their savings after so long. All the resources and equipment they used had to be bought. More importantly, all the many different kinds of high quality long range weapons were so expensive that Ye Chong balked at the price tags. The war was also going to happen in wide, open space, unlike the tightly confined battlefield at the Gateway entrance before.
Yi Ju was economically lacking, with nothing to spare. Torres could not offer much help in this regard.
Ye Chong watched as their savings depleted rapidly. It was a vexing problem, and he would have to figure out a way to overcome it.