Deliberate Mark - Chapter 7

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: la la lalala KarateChopMonkey

QC: Kirio

Ye Fei remained leaning against the podium and spoke very matter-of-factly, “It’s none of my business.”

Gu Ang looked up and said lazily, “Who knows? This machine did break after a punch from me and you.”

He didn’t know what was wrong with him, he told himself not to provoke Ye Fei, but his words and actions were completely out of control. It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford to pay it back, it was the sight of that never fluctuating expression of his that made him really want to test his limits.

Curiosity kills the cat.

“You two work it out among yourselves, I’ll go bring a new machine over.” Wang Chuang patted the shoulders of the two, and looked at the class, “Everyone can take a break for a few minutes.”

Wang Chuang, on the surface, seemed unaffected, but was screaming in pain in his heart. For the first time in his teaching career, in the first class of the school year, a freshman broke the machine. What the hell was all this?

When the teacher left, the classroom went berserk.

The video of Gu Ang one-handedly breaking the machine quickly went viral on the Red Flame forum and the StarNet. On the first day, a lot of them argued that he was cheating, but there wasn’t any way to explain how it happened. Although this didn’t mean that Gu Ang had the capability to take first place, at least, this man’s fist was really hardcore. Those doubtful voices were slowly dying, replaced by surprise and flattery.

The title of a flunkie was no longer mentioned.

Everyone was still hyping about it when Gu Ang just lowered his gaze and fastened his undone cuffs, turning around to return to his seat.

“Hey.” Ye Fei called out to him.

Gu Ang turned around, “What?”

Ye Fei’s gaze didn’t waver, he just took a step back, saying, “We’ll split the reimbursement.”

“Okay.” Gu Ang raised his eyebrows, Oh, he compromised!

The Sun is rising from the west1.

Ye Fei brushed past him and said lightly, “Add me as a friend later when we’re back tonight and I’ll get the money transferred to you.”

Gu Ang stopped in his tracks. Exchanging contact information with Ye Fei? His natural instinct was to refuse the offer, wanting to say that it wasn’t much money, and to forget it. But while he was pondering, the person had already walked away.

Ears burning, he could only respond with an ‘en’, but who was that for even?

Ye Fei returned to his seat, mind wandering off elsewhere thinking of unrelated things. He had previously assumed that Gu Ang’s reason for divorce was because he liked someone else, but that was too embarrassing to even mention. The divorce happened merely ten days after getting married, it would have been extraordinarily shameful even if that happened to anyone else.

It was rare for him to open up his heart to someone and that crushed the indestructible Ye Fei. Gu Ang was his weak spot. Who would have expected the weak spot to hurt him the most and their vows to grow old together become a joke?

That blow broke him and left him in shambles.

Ye Fei didn’t want to recall his expression when he was told he wanted a divorce. That forceful face to hold back his composure and pretentious calmness. His face was cold, his heart even colder. But after last night’s incident and a cigarette’s time by the window, he seemed to have discovered something else.

This person still seemed to have a residual desire for him. After giving it another thought, could there be a hidden agenda behind the reason for the divorce? He couldn’t tell exactly what it was, everything was still so unclear.

Seeing Gu Ang walk over, Bai SiNing joyfully activated his rapidfire mode and started talking about the discussion going on in the forum, “Your punch is so handsome! Look at this forum message, many people have become your fans. This title,’I declare Gu Ang my new god, fight me if you think otherwise!’ And this, ‘Shocking news! Gu Ang one-handedly smashed the tester, Red Flame’s top smashing alpha!”

“That’s it?” Gu Ang stepped on the edge of the desk leg and said, “That’s all they got?”

Bai SiNing rubbed his chin, “Oh yeah, someone also said, Ye Fei can’t perform2.”

Gu Ang, “?”

Don’t start rumors, he performs quite well, okay?

“All he did was break the record but you broke the machine!” Bai SiNing refuted all in one breath and his eyes beamed as he continued, “So… when are you guys battling it out?”

Gu Ang snickered and wiped the corner of his mouth, “We’ll see. We’ll have a chance later.”

Wang Chuang finally came back with another machine and finished measuring the class’s strength records one by one, “The top ten students of this test, we will go to the manipulation field now to get your newly developed mecha. As for the other students, work harder and build up your current strength. For now, you’ll just be the audience.”

Red Flame Military University was indeed powerful, they could even afford to let freshmans run practical exercises using new mechas.

Money spoke louder than words.

Bai SiNing was all pumped up, “Could it be the new batch of mechas, ‘Red Fire’? I’m so excited!”

Gu Ang was deep in thought. After the first introduction of Red Fire mechas, it got upgraded and improved in many aspects like mental power and combat techniques. Later when he became an admiral, his custom-made mecha, Luminous, was the highest level Red Fire mecha.

The name ‘Luminous/Ye Guang’ was simple and straightforward, it was a combination of his and Ye Fei’s name3. At that time, his love for Ye Fei was so passionate that he wanted to declare their relationship to the whole world and he would often leave obvious traces of himself on Ye Fei as a way to show off.

Must have been because he was young and wasn’t afraid of anything.

Gu Ang’s heartstrings slightly trembled and he rubbed his earlobe. The memory of Ye Fei murmuring against his ear rushed back into his mind.

“Guang Guang, 4 you’re mine.”

Guang Guang, was Gu Ang’s name called out twice quickly.

The man also said that that would express double the love he had for him.

—

A group of excited teenagers put on their protective suits and moved in a crowd to the mecha room. They were all instantly shocked by the scene before them, as the brand new dark red mechas stood tall and proud in the middle of the manipulation field. The fully armed iron armor looked indestructible, fierce, and flamboyant.

The imposing aura that it exuded by just standing there could make one flinch back in fear.

Bai SiNing was unable to resist and ran up to touch its body, “Fuck, this texture, this finesse… too cool!”

Wang Chuang went into the cockpit to adjust the settings, came out and called the students over, “Now I’ll call names and everyone will take turns to operate it. Since it’s your first time on a mecha, the requirement for the practice is simple: you can use any attack moves as long as you manage to hit the moving target.”

The students in front got onto the mecha one after another. For freshmans, to even connect properly to the spiritual operations was already very difficult, not to mention to operate the mecha to attack. Red Fire was moving around messily due to its difficulty to drive and totally wiped off its original imposing aura.

One by one, students went up to try, and the best record so far was Wang YeZhu, who hit three moving targets.

Ye Fei glanced at Red Fire, and then across the crowd at Gu Ang, who had an eager look plastered on his face. He knew that Gu Ang had traveled back but he wasn’t sure how much of his memory remained.

Once it was Ye Fei’s turn, he used one hand to grab onto the hatch and leaped over into the cockpit easily. After entering the cockpit, he simply pressed on the console and the hatch snapped shut.

Wang Chuang repeated the rules with a lowered tone of voice, “Student Ye Fei, please follow the operation manual to familiarize yourself with Red Fire. You have a total of five minutes.”

“Let’s start directly, I have enough mental power to operate it.” The faint voice of Ye Fei’s could be heard coming from inside Red Fire.

“God Ye’s mind power is so terrifying? He can directly control Red Fire?”

“This is the latest model of the Empire’s mecha, although it’s aimed at mass production, it’s still in an experimental stage. God Ye didn’t even try it before but wants to go straight at it?”

Wang Chuang frowned, seemingly displeased, “Ye Fei, I know you come from a military family, but even if you have experience in piloting mechas, you can’t mess around like this. Red Fire is a new model and takes a big toll on the pilot’s mental power. For newbies to rely purely on mental power to pilot the mecha, it can easily backfire and cause permanent trauma to your mind.”

Wang Chuang noticed that the person’s expression didn’t even budge, so he added, “It’s better to rely on manual operations to reduce that risk. Don’t act rashly and have regrets.”

When he said that, his line of sight intentionally landed on Gu Ang.

Gu Ang, who was just watching Red Fire with his arms crossed: ???

I only broke the machine, it’s not like I won’t pay for it! What the fuck is up with these oblique accusations?

“Boom!”

A gust of wind accompanied by a sharp, piercing sound, followed by a cracking sound came from afar.

Only Gu Ang and Wang Chuang could see what really happened. The others were blinded by the idea that they must have been imagining things, that everything was just an illusion.

“Ye… God Ye shattered all ten moving targets!!!” Informer Bai SiNing suddenly pointed at the wreckage in the distance and announced the scary scene in a trembling voice.

“Fuck! My mom asked me why I was kneeling down to watch God Ye piloting a mecha.”

“What the hell just happened? I’m very sure he didn’t use any of the weapons equipped on the mecha.”

The whole class broke down, their brains melted into a puddle of question marks.

Not only was no one a match against Ye Fei, but they couldn’t even fathom what kind of secret trick this man just pulled.

The teacher asked them to do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and suddenly he was there doing calculus?

I choose to drop out of school!

“Fools. It’s called subsonic.” Gu Ang had a spicy mouth but he was in fact a little awed, “But this is only a small mecha used in schools, so I don’t think it can withstand this kind of strenuous stunt.”

Wang Chuang was a bit helpless and told Ye Fei to hurry down from the mecha.

“Student Ye Fei manipulated Red Fire to launch a subsonic attack, directly smashing the ten moving targets. Although powerful, this data simply doesn’t have universal applicability and isn’t normally manipulatable. Class, please don’t learn from him ah. For the rest of the students, please stick to manual operation.” Wang Chuang told the students, his tone half bitter.

After helplessly writing down the data, Wang Chuang looked up at the only two who hadn’t taken the mecha test yet.

Gu Ang…

Hmmmm…

It was better to find a student who was more reliable(noob).

Since the beginning of the semester, this Gu Ang had openly declared a flower war5 with Ye Fei, God knows if he might directly disintegrate the mecha…

“Bai SiNing, you’re up.”

“Yes, teacher!” Bai SiNing nodded and turned to climb into the cockpit.

“Now start familiarizing yourself with the mecha first.”

Five minutes later, Bai SiNing, who had figured out the operation, began to follow the requirements and slowly proceeded to the shooting location step by step, preparing to fire at the moving target.

Red Fire was wobbly walking toward the firing location when suddenly a blinding light flashed across the surface of the mecha, followed by a trail of black smoke from the back of its body.

The entire Red Fire emitted a buzzing roar, as if it was about to explode.

“Everybody, run!” Wang Chuang assessed the situation and immediately evacuated the students to a nearby safe area.

The scene was in chaos and everyone was scrambling away not understanding what was going on.

Ye Fei, who stood in place, was just about to get over to help, but Gu Ang had already rushed over without slight hesitation.

“There’s abnormal black smoke in the No.3 vent and No.7 vent…”

“There’s a short circuit in line No.17…”

“Seems like the coolant in duct No.7 is flowing in reverse…”

In a flash, Gu Ang arrived at the side of the fierce and flamboyant Red Fire, a plan already brewing in his mind.

As soon as he got onto the mecha, he fearlessly thrusted his fist into the twenty-seventh armor plate, completely piercing through it. He then reached into the nozzle and crushed the corresponding duct, stopping the short-circuit situation.

Next, with his right hand bypassed No.43’s titanium-chromium alloy defensive area and pulled out duct No.7 with the coolant corresponding to the cooling tank from the side of Red Fire.

Clear thinking, methodical actions.

The next step…

Bai SiNing, his lieutenant, was previously besieged to death by the Federation Corps for covering him. This time, he would definitely not allow anything to happen to him!

Gu Ang continued to move, and after removing another dozen parts, finally…

The target, Red Fire, became completely silent.

The crowd of onlookers hid to the side, each dumbfounded, looking at the parts that were dismantled, before muttering to each other one after the other.

“He fucking demolished the mecha with just his hands! Such a shame I didn’t record this.”

“I thought this thing was going to blow up, scared me to death.”

“Gu Ang is really awesome. The man is real, I’m sure.”

Gu Ang dragged Bai SiNing out from the mecha, walked past Wang Chuang and asked, “Teacher, I don’t need to pay for this one right?”

Wang Chuang facepalmed, “Today’s class ends here. To even break Red Fire… you guys are breaking this teacher’s heart. I’m going to send this for repair. Class dismissed.”

The crowd scattered, Gu Ang and Bai SiNing went to the canteen and simply grabbed something random to eat.

His body was covered in sweat and he felt sticky all over. He took a whiff of himself and thought he was disgusting so he went back to the dorms to take a shower. When he reached the door of room 404, there seemed to be a slight noise coming from the room.

Gu Ang rubbed his stomach and thought, Is Ye Fei back so early?

He suddenly thought of the man who wanted to exchange contact information with him and his heart rate quickened for no reason. He quickly punched in the code and swung the door open.

In the small living room sat a man adorned in a military uniform with a golden shoulder patch showing the highest rank. His features were imposing yet calm, and that appearance was almost as handsome as Ye Fei’s. But he had a more composed aura that spelled out years of experience.

Gu Ang put his hand on the door handle, froze and blurted out, “Dad! What are you doing here?”

Ye HongFeng’s brows raised and looked at the teenager he had never met before with a cold face, ”???”

The author has something to say:

Question marks, seems like you have many friends here. (Kirio: Lmao, yes, we are all confused thank you)

Ye HongFeng: Since when did I have another son???