Very quickly, a month had gone by, and it was time for the Federation to officially announce the inheritance.
During this month, Ling Lan did not do anything besides eat or sleep. Of course, Ling Lan's 'sleep' was actually a training trance.
That said, Ling Lan was much smarter about it now. She assigned Little Four the task of waking her up whenever it was time to eat — she had no intention of misjudging her training time again. She did not want to be dragged to the hospital for a check-up after all, and risk exposing her secret and the existence of Little Four only to become a lab rat.
Who is Little Four, you ask? Who else could it be but that little fellow who claimed to be a mecha learning device?
Two weeks ago, under its guidance, Ling Lan had managed to pull together a mental network after around ten days of experimentation. Using it, she had explored her mindscape and managed to find the main body of the learning device deep within it. She had then successfully unlocked the virtual learning space of the device. In the future, it would be much more convenient for her to meet the learning device — she would just have to will it, and her consciousness would be brought into the virtual learning space.
Ling Lan still remembered how she had almost spewed blood when she first saw Little Four's virtual body.
In truth, Little Four's appearance was very charming. It looked like a little boy of only three to four years old, with a bright and innocent smile on his face. In the words of modern-day slang, extremely ' moe 1 '. Ling Lan couldn't help but find it adorable.
The only problem was ... the little fellow had been too excited, and had flounced up to her completely naked, butt jiggling.
And so tragedy befell poor Little Four — he had been immediately scooped up and spanked soundly, until his white and bouncy little behind had been imprinted with the shape of Ling Lan's palms.
Dammit, why did he have to show her his dick? Although his dick was so small that it could almost be ignored ... but it was still a dick, wasn't it? How could he do that to a pure and innocent maiden like her?
Of course, although the spanking relieved Ling Lan's embarrassed anger, the little boy became angry in turn. In protest, he hid away in the depths of her mind and refused to come out again.
At first, Ling Lan did not take it to heart, but when the situation showed no signs of improving after two days, Ling Lan gave in.
She needed the little fellow to help wake her up after all. Resigned, Ling Lan patiently cajoled the little fellow out and promised to never resort to this sort of domestic violence ever again. Only then did the little boy return to his bouncy happy self.
The two started talking a bit more, and when Ling Lan asked how she should address him, the boy's response annoyed Ling Lan once again.
This little rascal actually wanted her to call him 'Master Four'? He didn't even have any body hair yet and he wanted this older sister to call him 'Master'?
Even though Ling Lan had promised to never again use domestic violence, she still had other tricks up her sleeve. Under the full force of her logical-illogical-rational-irrational arguments, the little fellow agreed without question to be called 'Little Four'.
Victory! Ling Lan was uncharacteristically proud of herself for this.
However, when she found out later why Little Four had first wanted her to call him Master Four, she found herself speechless.
Little Four explained that it had found that the title 'Master' was extremely popular in books, TV, and the internet back on Earth, and since his designation had so many fours, what else could he be called but 'Master Four'?
Ling Lan felt that she had been mistaken. She should never have tried to probe the motivations of a machine — doing so was an insult to her intelligence.
Once Ling Lan had managed to establish a connection with Little Four, she could freely access the virtual learning environment. Besides that, within this month, she had also picked up from the conversations between her mother and the chamberlain Ling Qin that her father of this world had died on the battlefield, which is why she had to inherit her father's military benefits by posing as a man.
Ling Lan couldn't help but sigh — it seemed that sexism existed everywhere. Gender equality had been a struggle back on Earth, and now, ten thousand years in the future, when humanity had already expanded beyond the solar system, gender oppression was still thriving.
The current Ling Lan had no clue what the military benefits were referring to. Although she could get the eager Little Four to look it up for her, she ultimately decided to take things one step at a time. There was still much she didn't know about this era, and it was probably wiser to take her time growing up to slowly understand the world around her instead of taking a shortcut.
Ling Lan was a very patient and tolerant person. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to live over twenty years suffering the inhuman pain of her body breaking down. This tolerance of hers was definitely far above the average person.
Initially, she had been worried about the two-year time limit that Little Four had mentioned — however, after some research, Little Four found that the Qi exercises she had been doing were an extremely effective way to increase physical fitness. According to Little Four's estimations, even if she did nothing else but practice those exercises for just ten hours every day, she would still be able to easily resolve the danger she would have faced in two years time.
And so, now that she knew her life was not on a timer, Ling Lan did not intend to hurry through life. She was still very young and did not want to stand out as a genius. Taking things a step at a time would be the safest and surest way to live. Ling Lan understood very well, after all, that the tree that grows above the tree-line gets toppled by the wind 2 .
Living freely was the most important thing!
********
Soon, it was time for the Federation to hand over the inheritance documents. On that day, Ling Lan could clearly sense the sorrow and distress emanating from her mother. Once the document was handed over, her father Ling Xiao's death would officially be announced to the public, and her mother would no longer be able to avoid the reality of his death.
Early that morning, Ling Lan sensed a disturbance in the typically peaceful household. However, since she was in the bedroom, she could not tell what was happening.
However, she was soon picked up by a servant and brought downstairs. As they moved down the stairway, Ling Lan could see the glorious lights hanging from the ceiling, their edges brushing the sides of several tall columns.
Yep, assessment complete. This was a grand and luxurious hall. Her family was indeed of the upper echelon.
Before Ling Lan could observe her fill, she had already been transferred into her mother's arms. Lan Luofeng's sombre mood improved considerably as she observed Ling Lan and her curious and roving eyes. Fortunately, Ling Xiao had left her this beautiful baby, giving her the strength to oppose those greedy wretches.
She grasped at her daughter's little hand, and calmly announced, "This is Ling Xiao's son Ling Lan! Only he shall inherit all that belongs to Ling Xiao."
At that moment, an old but strident voice spoke up, "We need to ensure that Major General Ling Xiao's sacrifice is not in vain. We are not denying Young Master Ling Lan's right to inherit, but only wish that the Ling family would choose the most outstanding child to inherit Major General Ling Xiao's premium military benefits, so that Major General Ling Xiao's unfinished duties can be taken up by the most suitable candidate."
Lan Luofeng turned a sharp gaze towards the old speaker. About seventy years old, he still stood proud and tall. He was the grand elder of the Ling branch family — Ling Suren, and even Ling Xiao had had to address him respectfully while he was still alive. He was also the one appointed by the branch family to protest Ling Lan's inheritance of Ling Xiao's possessions.
Ling Lan could feel Lan Luofeng's chest trembling as she tried to suppress her anger at Ling Suren's words.
Honestly, she had never met such a shameless person. Look at the way he spun words to justify taking away a child's right to inherit from his birth father — if his words were to be believed, what was the point of military men risking their lives to protect their country? When they died, did it mean that it was open season on their unprotected families?
Ling Lan pulled at her mother's fingers and gurgled.
Darn it. If only she were bigger, she would certainly spit upon that person's body to shame him for his shamelessness.
'Moe' is a Japanese slang loanword that refers to feelings of strong affection mainly towards characters in anime, manga, and video games. Moe, however, has also gained usage to refer to feelings of affection towards any subject. (Directly taken from Wikipedia.) The usage here is referring to the utter adorableness of Little Four, which is capable of drawing out strong feelings of affection and fan-squeeing. The meaning of this is similar to the Japanese saying 'the nail that sticks out gets hammered down'— outstanding people become the common enemy. Since there is no real English equivalent I could find besides this Japanese borrowing, I decided to keep it as close to the literal Mandarin saying as possible since I think the meaning still comes across pretty clear.