Chapter 15: A Loss Is a Loss
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Lost?
K—the undefeated champion who had conquered the entire world—had lost?!
The moment the referee announced the result, Star Network and the DOL Battle Network exploded.
K had actually lost!
“Who was that? Who is she?”
Questions like that flooded every corner of the networks.
Inside the VIP lounge, Old Second Feng burst into wild laughter, hopping up and down like a madman.
“Hahaha! I’ve done it! I’ve done it!”
“I pulled it off!”
“I’m the Federation’s number-one mecha engineer!”
“Jimo Shuang! I’m not crazy!”
“Hahaha! I’ve done it!”
Lilith watched Old Second Feng bouncing around, her brows drawing together slightly as she edged away from him in distaste.
The man in the suit sighed and stepped forward, trying to restrain him.
“All right, all right, Feng. Take a breather.”
“No! I’m going to rub this victory in Jimo Shuang’s face!” Feng said, shaking off the suited man’s hand before storming out of the VIP lounge.
Lilith raised a brow. “He knows the Federation Chairman?”
Jimo Shuang was the name of the Federation Chairman.
The suited man shrugged. “No idea. Apart from the mayor, no one knows where he came from.”
Lilith was not interested. She took a small sip of her cocktail and gazed at Lian Fei on the arena floor, her eyes filled with excitement.
As expected, Lian Fei was no ordinary person!
Inside K’s private box—
Doris stared wide-eyed, pressed against the glass as she watched K lying motionless on the arena floor in disbelief.
“Ling lost?” she stammered, turning around.
Mu Qijun pushed up the glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. Without a word, he turned away and continued mixing drinks.
A trace of awkwardness touched Song Shuyu’s face. She raised a brow, stretched lazily, and tilted her head back to stare at the lights on the ceiling.
Zeller, meanwhile, stood with his mouth hanging open, dumbstruck as he stared at the arena.
After a long while, Zeller let out a pained roar.
“Ah! Ling!”
The other three occupants of the room looked at the howling Zeller with undisguised disdain.
“Hey, stop wailing like a banshee.” Song Shuyu covered her ears and glared at him.
“Ling! My King! How could he possibly lose?!”
Seeing the tears welling in Zeller’s eyes, Doris opened her photobrain and snapped a picture while wearing an expression of disgust.
“Great! I’m sending this ugly picture to Ling!” Doris said with a mischievous grin.
Zeller suddenly realized what she was doing and scrambled forward on hands and knees to stop her.
But Doris had already sent it.
Zeller: “Aaaaaah! My! Image! Doris! I challenge you to a duel!”
Doris grinned. “Heehee! That’s what you get for wailing like a banshee!”
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…
Unlike the chaos outside the arena, K calmly and efficiently recalled his mecha after the referee announced the result.
He would not have been able to keep it deployed even if he had wanted to. Its power core had already been destroyed.
A mecha without power was nothing more than a pile of scrap metal.
“Tch. I was careless.”
K sat on the ground, one hand supporting the back of his neck as he rotated his head. The bones in his neck cracked with the movement.
After recalling her mecha, Lian Fei carefully examined the mecha pendant in her hand. Several cracks had appeared across its surface.
What surprised her was that the cracks seemed to be repairing themselves.
Strange.
Could this mecha really repair itself automatically?
“Hey, what’s your name on DOL?” K called out loudly.
Lian Fei looked up at him.
“Why do you want my DOL username?”
K looked at her as if she were an idiot. “I already told you. Since you defeated me, you’ll take first place on the battle rankings, whether in the black market or on DOL.”
“Ah…” Lian Fei tilted her head. “There’s no need. I only won by chance.”
K operated his mecha manually, and one of the drawbacks of manual operation was that, if the battle lasted too long, the pilot was highly likely to suffer finger cramps, causing the mecha’s movements to momentarily seize up.
If K had not been operating his mecha manually—or rather, if his hand had not cramped for that brief instant—Lian Fei felt certain she would have lost in the end.
During their recent exchange, Lian Fei had noticed that K’s mecha carried an astonishing number of thermal weapons.
The more thermal weapons a mecha possessed, the more energy its power core had to contain—far more than that of an ordinary mecha.
Thermal weapons required energy to activate.
Toward the end, K could have diverted power from his weapons to sustain the prolonged battle.
If not for that tiny opening, which had given Lian Fei the chance to destroy his power core in one decisive strike, she would have been the one to lose had the battle continued.
K furrowed his brows slightly and looked at Lian Fei with disdain.
“You don’t actually think I’m going to let you keep first place forever, do you?”
“Huh?” Lian Fei asked, confused.
K gave a derisive laugh.
“I’m only lending it to you for now. Next time, I’ll take it all back.”
Lian Fei: …
K rose to his feet and continued in a thoroughly unconcerned tone, “Regardless of how you won, you still won. Besides, fighting you showed me my own weaknesses and revealed what parts of my mecha still need improvement… You won’t win next time.”
Lian Fei: …
All right.
So that was how it was.
“So, what’s your DOL username?”
Lian Fei scratched at her mask and muttered something quickly under her breath.
“What?” K looked puzzled. “Speak louder!”
Lian Fei raised her voice slightly, but she still spoke too quickly for him to make out the words.
K began to lose patience. “Slow down! Speak clearly! Why are you rushing? Are you hurrying home for dinner?”
Lian Fei sighed and, deciding she had nothing left to lose, said, “Money Comes from All Directions!”
K: …
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Lian Fei: …
She wanted the ground to swallow her whole.
The two of them fell into a silent standoff.
The referee walked over. “You two, the next arena match is about to begin. Please leave the stage. If you still have matters to discuss, you may move to our designated competitors’ lounge.”
Lian Fei turned around and walked off the stage without looking back.
Even without turning around, she could feel the man behind her staring at her the entire time.
It was unnerving.
After thinking it over, she decided that perhaps she should explain herself after all.
Weren’t most misunderstandings caused by the people involved refusing to speak up?
Thus, when she reached the exit passage, Lian Fei turned around and said, “I wasn’t mocking you, and I wasn’t looking down on you arrogantly. I genuinely didn’t know how powerful you were.”
K crossed his arms over his chest.
One of his brows was raised high while the other was lowered, and he regarded Lian Fei with a scrutinizing gaze.
His stare made her skin crawl. She was just about to continue defending herself when K spoke.
“You’re not even six feet tall.”
Lian Fei: ?
“When it comes to being a person, you should at least be honest. If you’re a certain height, then say you’re that height. Don’t make up imaginary figures.”
Lian Fei: ??
K waved a hand. “All right, I understand. I’ll log on to DOL later and ask the administrators to give you first place.”
Lian Fei: ???
Wait!
What did he mean by that?!
What did he mean, she should be honest about her height?!
Lian Fei watched K walk away, torn between anger and amusement. She reached out and slapped him hard on the shoulder.
“What do you mean, people should be honest? I like making myself this tall! I like being this tall! What’s it to you—wait! What’s wrong with you?!”
Before she could finish, K suddenly toppled backward and collapsed straight into her arms.
Lian Fei stared at K’s tightly shut eyes. A scorching heat radiated from his body into her skin.
This was bad. Had he been injured somewhere?
“Is anyone there? Help! Someone’s fainted!”
Lian Fei was fairly strong. She scooped K up in her arms and hurried out of the passage.
The black market’s service was excellent. The moment Lian Fei emerged from the passage, medical personnel came running over with a robot.
After conducting a preliminary examination, the medical staff exchanged glances and immediately transferred K onto the medical bed formed from the robot.
Seeing their solemn expressions, Lian Fei’s heart rose into her throat.
It was not as though she and K were friends, but he had collapsed right in front of her.
Besides, perhaps she really had injured him.
She could only hope the medical bills would not be too expensive. She did not have that much money to pay for them.
Uneasy, Lian Fei followed after them.
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