The Assassin's Enemy Lover

Why couldn’t he hold his tongue at a critical moment and ended up speaking his mind? Not wanting either of them to capture the true meaning of his words he explained, “Weren’t we going to do hand to hand combat with our mechs today... and if there are the three of us that would be incredibly difficult.”

Li Ran who thought he had been despised heaved a sigh of relief. He honestly thought that Zi Han didn’t want him around and was starting to wonder how and when he had offended this ancestor. It turns out Zi Han was only worried about their training schedule.

Unlike Li Ran, Yi Chen didn’t buy it. He could sense Zi Han’s resistance towards his best friend but he couldn’t recall the two of them ever butting heads. Since Zi Han was a little unhappy with Li Ran’s presence he decided to send him away and make plans later to make up for it. As the saying goes, “The wife comes first and the rest come second.” Yi Chen intended on abiding by this rule.

But before he could get rid of the third wheel tugging along Li Ran suggested, “How about we load the new simulation the Marshal approved for training recruits? It hasn’t been released yet but I bet it would be more interesting than what’s already available.”

Zi Han who had been sulking just now raised his head his interest piqued. “What kind of simulation is it? And why now?” he asked wondering what sort of exciting war scenarios they had added in there.

Seeing Zi Han’s eyes light up because of Li Ran Yi Chen couldn’t help but feel slight discomfort in his chest. He felt even more stifled when they continued talking to each other while he was slowly becoming the light bulb.

“It’s a training simulation based on the recent attacks. The beasts that appeared when a portal opened in Capital Star were high ranking monsters and it took twice the effort to defend the city while the portal was still open. So they designed a simulation of an even worse scenario with different levels of difficulty,” he explained as he subconsciously took a step forward.

“If it hasn’t been released yet then why do you have it?” asked Zi Han with a quizzical expression.

.....

Li Ran licked his canine tooth while trying to judge if Zi Han could be trusted or not. He figured that if Yi Chen trusts him then why shouldn’t he? He moved a little closer and said, “I hacked my mother’s light brain and downloaded it. She is the lead on the project.”

Out of all the things Li Ran said Zi Han grasped onto one word and that word was ‘hacked’. With a slight tilt of his head, he stared at Li Ran with a look of interest on his face. A roguish smile crept up his face as he leaned in closer before asking, “Do you take on requests?”

Li Ran was about to answer that it depends on the job when Yi Chen cut in separating the two. “Hacking is a crime with a hard labor sentence of ten years on mining planets,” he said his expression that of someone concerned for his friend but the friend was looking at him with a ‘what the fuck’ expression on his face.

Who was it who always asked him to decrypt that and break into that without pay by the way? Just the other day he committed treason by hacking into the Marshal’s top secret military vault and extracting highly confidential documents and it was done at Yi Chen’s request. Now he was acting all righteous.

Li Ran thought it but he would never say it out loud. He just smiled stiffly and walked over to the nearest simulator. With a few taps and swipes on the floating screen, he hacked the system before uploading a foreign file with the of the military rotating on the screen.

Zi Han stared at what he was doing with slight admiration in his eyes. He suddenly felt that it was a little too idiotic that he got upset earlier. This person was well deserving to be called Yi Chen’s best friend. He had a special skill set qualifying him to stand side by side with the future Marshal.

Noticing that unmistakable look of admiration in Zi Han’s eyes Yi Chen suddenly felt a sour feeling stuck in his throat. He grabbed Zi Han by the elbow and led him into the simulator. “Suit up,” said Yi Chen but Zi Han still brought the topic of discussion back to Li Ran.

“Your friend is amazing,” whispered Zi Han but Yi Chen didn’t respond. Instead, he let go of Zi Han’s arm and stepped through the automatic sliding glass door. Seeming a little flustered he summoned his mech. A thirty meter height mech appeared in this infinite white space giving off an overbearing aura just like its owner taking charge of the cockpit.

Zi Han followed suit and summoned his mech which was shorter than YI Chen’s by a few meters. While activating simulation mode he asked, “Are you taking poin-,” while Yi Chen simultaneously asked,

“Who between us is more amazing?”

Zi Han, “....”

He wasn’t sure why Yi Chen would ask this question. Surely one can’t compare oranges and apples, right? Those two aren’t the same hence couldn’t be compared. “What do you mean by who is more amazing? You two aren’t the same,” he said with a playful smile plastered on his face.

Yi Chen who wasn’t joking around said, “Just answer the question. Me or him.... who is better?”

“Why do you care so much about that?” asked Zi Han finding this rather amusing but unlike him, Yi Chen couldn’t take a joke.