The moment An Junlie saw her, an unprecedented sense of fulfillment washed over him, which he tentatively labeled as happiness. In his mind, he mused that it wouldn't matter that she was a woman; she could live with him in the Angel Realm later on.

He pictured a sunny, pleasant afternoon: her in her spacious workshop, tinkering with mechs, while he sat opposite her, meticulously maintaining his cherished firearms… Hearing Ziye’s disbelieving voice, “You really cooked?” he snapped back from his reverie and nodded with pleasure. Ziye bolted past him and headed for the food.

An Junlie turned to watch her retreating back, feeling a flicker of annoyance for the first time that he was too good at cooking: Ziye’s eyes were only on the food, not on him… The three of them devoured the five dishes and one soup with gusto. At first, An Junlie thought he had cooked too much, but he quickly realized these two gourmands could eat like hurricanes, leaving not a single crumb.

After the meal, Ziye’s favorable impression of An Junlie soared. She pulled him toward the workshop.

“Come, come, help me out. This mech has a flaw; it needs repairs.” An Junlie looked at the Monarch-type, his gaze sharpening with professional scrutiny.

“Your recent work?” Ziye nodded while pulling on her work suit. She certainly wouldn't tell him that she had used his body data for the design.

Especially since she had discovered the flaw after over two months of use. Luckily, the Monarch-type hadn't gone into mass production yet.

Due to the special nature of mechs, corporations usually subjected them to a three-month trial period before mass production and market release, ensuring everything was perfect. Black Beard had everything prepared for production when a failure occurred during the trial run, forcing her to rush back immediately for repairs.

An Junlie looked up at the wall. On the left side, a continuous display of virtual screens stood in standby mode.

From a distance, the wall seemed to shimmer subtly, refined and understated. With a light tap, over thirty massive screens lit up simultaneously, displaying black data against a light gray background, covering the entire wall.

Ziye pulled on her gloves and explained, “This is the data for the mech's self-diagnostic startup: energy system, target acquisition, target locking system… from left to right. So far, no issues have been detected.

However, during the trial runs, the fuselage frequently exhibits unusual tremors. The data is here,” she said, activating a virtual screen near her, which was also filled with mech data.

“The first time the tremor occurred, the test pilot was nearly terrified, thinking the mech was about to explode.” Generally, mechs should operate relatively smoothly during normal function; tremors should not occur. Tremors place immense strain on a pilot’s mental and physical capacity and can easily lead to inaccuracies in the target locking system during combat.

No matter how powerful a mech's firepower, it's useless if it cannot lock onto targets precisely. Little Sprout’s diagnostic results indicated a problem with the sensor array.

But the sensor array was designed to resist external interference; it shouldn't cause tremors. Furthermore, after Ziye disassembled and tested it, she couldn't find anything wrong with the array.

For a moment, she was stumped, so she decided to dismantle the core components to find the root of the issue. Little Sprout, annoyed that she didn't trust its findings, shot over with a swoosh into An Junlie’s arms, seeking comfort.

An Junlie affectionately pinched Little Sprout’s cheek and asked Ziye, “Did you test-drive it yourself?” Ziye nodded. “I took it for a 30-minute solo flight; I didn’t notice any issues.” An Junlie pondered.

“I’ll test it for you.” Ziye immediately broke into a wide smile. “I’ll come too.” The villa was short-staffed.

Although Black Beard knew how to pilot a mech, his skills were nowhere near those required for testing a commissioned unit. And she couldn't spend all day repeating the same maneuver inside a mech like a dedicated test pilot.

As expected, this task really needed An Junlie to handle it. If Alex Bent knew their esteemed Commander was moonlighting as a mech test pilot for someone else, he’d probably choke on his rations.

Three prototypes of the Monarch-type had been manufactured. One, the J01, remained untested and served as a baseline reference.

The J02 had already been dismantled. The third, J03, also showed issues during testing and was currently intact in storage.

Ziye installed various detection systems into J03 and let An Junlie take it for a spin. Before heading out, she tried to call Little Sprout back, but the little sprout turned its head away, ignoring her, settling comfortably onto his shoulder before entering the cockpit.

The mech smoothly slid onto the docking ramp. Ziye followed outside the villa in her shuttle.

She set the shuttle to automatic tracking mode following J03, then activated her optical computer and brought up the virtual screens to monitor the data transmitted by the J03 detection system. Fuselage normal, armor normal, thrusters normal, engineering equipment normal… Suddenly, the shuttle emitted an alarm.

She looked up at the control interface and gasped in shock. In the next second, a missile shot straight toward her shuttle!

Ziye jumped, immediately executing a warp jump to evade the missile impact. Cold sweat broke out on her brow.

She warped back to her original position and activated the voice system, angrily demanding, “Alien, why did you shoot at me?” An Junlie offered a look of sincere apology. “It was an inert shell.

I wanted to test the target acquisition and firing sequence.” Ziye was unyielding. “You could have at least warned me!” Her shuttle’s hull was incredibly fragile; even being hit by an inert shell causing a strong tremor would be terrifying enough.

If she had taken out her own mech, hmph, she definitely would have retaliated with fire! An Junlie chuckled.

“I trust your abilities.” Flattered by his subtle compliment, Ziye felt too sheepish to press the issue further and changed the subject. “So, did you find the problem during your test?” An Junlie shook his head.

“Not yet. Try locking onto me.” The shuttle couldn't fire, but it had a target-locking system.

She activated the program and locked onto his mech. A moment later, Little Sprout’s slightly excited voice came through the mech’s speakers.

“Found the cause! It really is the sensor array!” Ziye paused slightly.

“Tell me!” Little Sprout quickly transmitted the data to her optical computer. “The electronic countermeasure device and the sensor array are interfering with each other, causing engine instability.

The fuselage will definitely vibrate. Here, try locking on again.” Upon hearing this, Ziye immediately initiated the lock.

As soon as she locked on, An Junlie’s active sensor array began working. During the ten seconds of locking and counter-locking, the fuselage experienced nearly five seconds of severe vibration before returning to normal.

Ziye watched, then let out a long breath. Knowing the problem was solvable made things much clearer.

Ziye decisively abandoned An Junlie and Little Sprout and rushed back to the villa. She removed the electronic countermeasure device from the J02 and reinstalled all other components.

Shortly after An Junlie returned, Ziye grabbed him again. “Alien, help me test it again.” An Junlie then piloted the J02 out of the villa once more… After seven or eight rounds of calibration and several minor repairs over the course of the evening, they finally achieved the optimal state.

Once the mech was successfully stowed into a spatial button, Ziye collapsed onto the floor, sighing. Finally, it was done.

Little Sprout bounced energetically on her body, tapping her from head to toe. “Didn't I tell you?

You didn't believe me!” Ziye caught it and rested it behind her head. “Stop messing around, let me rest for a bit.” The words had barely left her lips when the light above her was suddenly blocked.

She looked up and saw An Junlie standing beside her without her noticing. From that angle, An Junlie appeared exceptionally tall.

His long military boots emphasized the length of his legs, and he stood before her like a towering peak. She felt a sense of pressure and started to rise, but suddenly, her body lightened, lifting uncontrollably.

She cried out in alarm, reaching out instinctively to grab something to steady herself. In that desperate grasp, her hand accidentally brushed against An Junlie’s chest.

She snapped back to reality, feeling a jolt of shock. She had been lifted into a bridal carry by An Junlie.

What was happening? Had she woken up in the wrong reality?

An Junlie looked perfectly natural and calm. “The ground is cold for sleeping.

I’m carrying you back to bed.” Ziye urgently tried to get down. “No need, I can walk myself.” An Junlie didn't relent.

His arms were incredibly strong; he held her steadily without any visible effort, leaving her no chance to struggle. “It’s fine, you’re not heavy.” All of Ziye’s potential rebuttals were choked back into her throat.

Her mouth opened and closed repeatedly, but she couldn't form a single counterargument. His statement was too devastating.

She briefly considered asking, “Are you only carrying me because I’m not heavy?” After a moment of internal debate, she decided against asking, instead hiding her face behind Little Sprout. An Junlie had intended to carry her to the bedroom, but then reconsidered, setting her down gently on the living room sofa.

He reminded her, “You’re sweating. You should probably shower before resting.” Ziye turned her face away and shouted loudly, “Got it, Mom!” She didn't actually mean to call him 'Mom,' but she felt his behavior was very motherly.

An Junlie’s eye twitched helplessly. “Rest well.” He turned and walked away.

Ziye lay on the sofa for a while before slowly getting up. Physically, she didn't feel exhausted, but her mind was weary.

She had spent the better part of the day submerged in data, and now the sight of any data made her feel nauseous. Mech fabrication, modification, and repair—in the end, most of the time was spent processing data.

Every piece of metal, every component, every piece of equipment possessed a specific set of data, as did the fuselage itself. Fabrication was the optimized combination of all these elements to create a complete mech.

Modification was done to compensate for deficiencies in the mech's existing data profile. Repair involved correcting data gaps or conflicts.

Therefore, every repair required a comparison between the initial baseline data, the trial run data, and the post-repair data. If all this data were displayed simultaneously, the walls of the entire workshop wouldn't be large enough!

Now, all this data was crammed into Ziye’s mind. She suspected that if she fell asleep right now, she would dream of nothing but data points.

She stared blankly for a moment, then dragged herself to take a shower, hoping to wash away everything stored in her brain. During the time she spent studying mech repair under Master Tangshan, she had also learned how to forget.

Before sleeping, she would purge all the data from the day, forgetting every pleasant or unpleasant event that had occurred, emptying her mind before drifting off. Only this way could she guarantee a good night’s sleep and enough energy for the next day.

After showering, she suddenly felt a little hungry… -RS