The Host Has Fallen for the Second Female Lead Again - Chapter 46

The men under Xu Shu had indeed wanted to open fire just now, but as subordinates, they were used to following orders.

“Heh, Miss Lin is truly impressive. Now I understand how you managed to get the better of the Zhao family before,” Xu Shu said with a laugh. “If Miss Lin is willing to join us, I’d be more than happy to welcome you. In any case, your spaceship doesn’t have enough fuel to fly back.”

Ji Mingxiao narrowed her eyes, said nothing, and flew directly out of the spaceship, landing on the ground. She could clearly feel the tension in the other men rise. She looked around.

A vast stretch of yellow sand.

It was clearly not a suitable place for much of anything.

“Fuel is scarce on our planet. If Miss Lin wants to go back, I’m afraid these twenty-something mechas will have to stay here.”

The people behind Ji Mingxiao heard them agree to let them leave and were already a little swayed.

For a family that could afford a custom mecha, one mecha wasn’t a huge loss, but they only had one life.

And they hadn’t yet been in a real battle with their mechas, so they didn’t have a deep bond with them yet.

“You’re probably full of crap,” Ji Mingxiao was so annoyed she started to laugh.

She had always disliked using such crude language, probably because she’d spent so much time in the military academy that it had rubbed off on her.

But the biggest reason was that Xu Shu’s words were just so ridiculous.

“Our mechas are also made of rare materials. Do you even have rare materials on this planet? One of our bullets is probably more expensive than your fuel,” Ji Mingxiao aimed her cannon at Xu Shu again. She had figured it out: this man had only brought four mechas with him.

He probably only had four mechas in total.

Otherwise, who would be crazy enough to use four mechas to face twenty-something.

“You must be very poor. I reckon your mechas are models from the Alliance twenty years ago,” Ji Mingxiao curled her lip. “If you don’t have any reinforcements, we are, by all accounts, the ones with the upper hand.”

“Who are you trying to bluff? The empty fort strategy?”

Xu Shu: …

Yes, they were indeed very poor.

If Ji Mingxiao hadn’t come out, everything would have gone smoothly.

They would have sold the mechas, sold the spaceship, killed Shao Yu, and taken over his territory, and then they would have money.

Ji Mingxiao was a little speechless.

What kind of ridiculous plot was this?

Since there was such a large disparity in strength between the two sides, Ji Mingxiao had no intention of fighting. In the end, they could only sit down and negotiate.

The sixty people had already spontaneously formed Ji Mingxiao’s team.

They couldn’t explain why they trusted her so much, even though she was just a young girl.

“I’m sorry, we really can’t contact your school, and we really don’t have any fuel. A merchant ship comes here every two months, and that’s the only time we can buy things,” Xu Shu said. “The next ship is still a month and a half away.”

“As for why we were trying to steal your mechas, we were actually intercepting them. According to our intel, you weren’t supposed to come here. We were supposed to deal with the people who were originally on this spaceship.”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” Ji Mingxiao said, a little speechless. Given their conditions, they still dared to steal from others.

“Gotta risk it for the biscuit. I had no choice,” Xu Shu said calmly, clearly having done this sort of thing many times before.

Ji Mingxiao narrowed her eyes. “Indeed. In that case, I’ll trouble you to have our fuel ready in a month and a half.”

“Why?”

“Who told you to bring us here? It’s a risk for a reward, right? Either you get us the fuel, or we’ll blow this place up,” Ji Mingxiao crossed her right leg over her left, her fingers lightly tapping the table.

The threat couldn’t have been more obvious.

“Are all you people from the Lin family bandits?”

“This is banditry? We’re having a very civil discussion. I’m being so gentle,” Ji Mingxiao said, blinking her innocent eyes at them.

Shao Yu: …

Xu Shu: …

Ji Mingxiao and her group requested an area to rest and took turns on watch.

“Are we really going to be stuck here for a month and a half?” Wen Xuan asked Ji Mingxiao.

Ji Mingxiao tapped the table lightly. “We should still go and check out the nearby planets.”

At Ji Mingxiao’s strong insistence, they all connected to the planet’s network.

But the planet was indeed dilapidated. The entire planet had just over a million people, and 60% of it was covered in desert. Although it belonged to the Alliance, the Alliance clearly had no intention of managing it. It was a lawless zone where local leaders and their gangs constantly fought.

Someone like Xu Shu, who owned four vintage mechas, was considered a wealthy leader.

They were just too poor.

And the environment here wasn’t suitable for growing food crops. Most people relied on the merchant ships to buy two months’ worth of food.

Ji Mingxiao and her team took all the food reserves from their spaceship, but it was only enough for sixty-something people to eat for about ten days.

She checked the data on the nearby planets and found they were all gathering spots for space pirates.

“Let’s just forget it. These space pirates are all pretty rich. We might not make it back if we go,” Ji Mingxiao sighed.

For a planet to be able to exist peacefully while surrounded by space pirates, it must be poor to a certain degree.

“Let’s just take it one step at a time,” Ji Mingxiao tapped the table. It was a shame she had so few points left, otherwise, she could have used her “golden finger” to contact Xi Ruan.

The temperature difference between day and night was huge here. Ji Mingxiao was so cold she couldn’t stand it and finally crawled back into her mecha.

She touched her comm device and found the photos she had secretly taken of Xi Ruan.

He had been drinking tea at the time and had pounced on her when he saw her taking pictures.

That’s how she ended up with countless unflattering photos of him.

Ji Mingxiao couldn’t help but laugh as she flipped through them.

She yawned and closed her eyes.

Since the system had said an extra mission would be triggered here, it clearly wouldn’t let them have a peaceful month and a half and go back smoothly.

As long as the space pirates didn’t show up, everything would be fine. If they did, it would be troublesome.

She still didn’t want to see people die.

“Honey, you can actually just treat the battlefield like a VR game. It’s all fake anyway.”

“The blood is warm,” Ji Mingxiao said, looking at her fingers and rubbing them.

As Shao Yu had said, she did have a nightmare that night.

She dreamed she was standing in a crowd, a knife in her hand, and warm blood splattered all over her face.

When she woke up in a fright, the sun had already risen outside.

There was a commotion around them. She looked out through her mecha’s vision and saw a crowd of people gathered around. Judging by their clothes, they were residents of this area.

She randomly zoomed in on a few people’s faces. They showed curiosity, but also greed.

Ji Mingxiao frowned and raised the gun in her hand.

The people who had been thinking of coming closer to touch the mecha immediately backed away.

Ji Mingxiao jumped out of her mecha.

“What’s wrong with these people?”

“They’ve been gathering here since early this morning. One of the braver ones even tried to take apart our mecha,” one person said with a dark expression.

Ji Mingxiao was a little speechless. “Do people here all like to ‘risk it for the biscuit’?”

“We wanted to make an example of them, but they’re just ordinary people, so it was hard to act.”

Ji Mingxiao looked at the people by the entrance again and walked over to them. “We’re only staying here for a month and a half. If we can live in peace, that’s best. We fundamentally won’t kill civilians, but if you push us, who knows what we might do.”

“Everyone here has been pushed to the edge. Flesh and blood can’t stop mechas. I ask you all to consider your own lives. Yesterday, I almost slit Shao Yu’s throat. Today, I can ‘accidentally’ slit someone else’s. I hope you’ll all have some self-respect.”

Ji Mingxiao’s lips curved slightly, and her eyes held a coldness that made her look very intimidating.

System A: Another day to applaud Actress Ji.

The people slowly dispersed.

They knew who Shao Yu was—not someone to be messed with.

After the people left, Ji Mingxiao went back inside the building. Just standing outside for a little while had made her feel like crying from the heat.

The mecha was so much more comfortable; it could be hot or cool as she pleased.

“We have twenty-three mechas in total. Twelve will go out, in teams of two, to see what’s going on here. The rest will stay here,” Ji Mingxiao said, pulling out her comm device. “If we can, we should at least draw a map of the surrounding area.”

“Yes.”

Ji Mingxiao was paired with a senior student named Xie Qiong.

Xie Qiong was nearly 1.8 meters tall and her expression was perpetually tense. She wasn’t a talkative person.

Ji Mingxiao sat in her mecha, looking down. Everything was yellow; the sand was yellow, and the houses were yellow, too.

Some people looked up at the sky, pointing at them with looks of terror.

“Junior, what’s that over there?” Xie Qiong suddenly stopped. “Northwest, fifteen kilometers away.”

Ji Mingxiao looked at the simulated image on her mecha’s display panel and frowned.

“Mechas.”

There were a lot of mechas. Given the poverty of this place, it seemed impossible.

“Should we get closer?”

“Tell the others,” Ji Mingxiao activated her anti-reconnaissance system. “I wonder if they’ve spotted us.”

Although it was a risk, she had a feeling that this was the start of a side mission.

She had the protagonist’s halo; nothing bad would happen to her.

The two of them slowly moved closer, but stopped at about seven or eight kilometers.

There was no cover here, and any further and they would likely be discovered.

After all, their mechas didn’t have an invisibility function yet.

But from here, they could see the situation clearly.

The other party still wasn’t moving. Their mechas’ level was likely lower than theirs.

“One hundred mechas. They’re not from the Alliance, they’re from the country of Aiyi.”

“Aiyi also participated in the recent war. A hundred mechas aren’t a lot, but it doesn’t make sense for them to be just sitting here,” Ji Mingxiao frowned, feeling that something was wrong.

She also wondered why the side quest hadn’t popped up yet.

Ji Mingxiao took one more step forward.

This time, the side quest appeared.

[Side Quest One: Find out the purpose of Aiyi’s presence here]

Ji Mingxiao: …

She sighed, but before she could finish, Xie Qiong yelled.

“Run!”

Ji Mingxiao’s body reacted faster than her brain. Hearing the word, she immediately slid back, avoiding the cannon shell that was fired at her location.

Instinct made her fire two shots in return.

And because of that, her backward slide accelerated.

In the end, those people didn’t catch up. To be precise, they couldn’t.

Ji Mingxiao, purely on instinct, had hit five of their mechas. It all felt like a dream.

She and Xie Qiong were the last pair to return. Both of their faces were pale.

If Xie Qiong hadn’t yelled…

Ji Mingxiao took a deep breath. She didn’t dare to think about it. Even if she wouldn’t have died, she was still scared.

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