Vow of Silver Dawn Chapter 46

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Chapter 46: Exposed
By 国王陛下, Translated by 74translations
Notes at the end.

	Lü Nan's voice was hoarse and laboured, and her appearance was accompanied by the smell of blood and fire.

	This astonished Shawn: He hadn't thought the Vice Captain would arrive so quickly!

	Nor had he expected her to do so in such a state!

	Though the Vice Captain stood tall as ever, and walked as confident as ever, her face was smeared with dirt, her protective armour was damaged and pockmarked, and her torso and arms were burnt.

	Uncle Xu immediately leapt off his seat in front of the fountain and rushed over to promptly give her a stern talking to, "You really don't care about life, do you?"

	Despite all the injuries, Lü Nan wasn't about to let it show, even in front of the medic, "Those who cling to life the hardest seldom live the longest."

	"I was referring to the lives of others! Do you have any idea how much work I'll have to put in to fix you up? Do you aim to work me to death!?" Uncle Xu scolded.

	Lü Nan just raised an eyebrow in response, "So does that mean you can help?"

	"Oh shut it, under my care, it'd be hard to die even if you wanted to," Uncle Xu said while nonchalantly dragging two expensive-looking tarps behind Lü Nan, and tried to pull her down onto it.

	"Idiot, stop being obstinate, no-one here cares."

	"I find it easier to stand," Lü Nan replied.

	"That'd be a symptom of an irreparably damaged cerebellum, I propose we excise it and use it to feed livestock," Uncle Xu continued to berate her, while opening his medical kit and preparing to treat Lü Nan.

	Shawn watched from the sides, and though he wanted to help, he realized there was nothing he could actually do.

	None of the techniques Uncle Xu was employing were covered by his training.

	Aside from the standard fair of bacta sprays and the like, he was also making use of a number of different herbal medicines Shawn was not familiar with, and those combined with more typical medicines seemed to have a nearly instantaneous effect on Lü Nan's wounds.

	"Don't look so interested, and don't think about learning that stuff," An Ping said from beside Shawn, "It's best that the squad only have one person who's well versed with this deadly stuff."

	Shawn didn't understand, first aid knowledge was a matter of life and death, wouldn't it be better to have as many people with the knowledge as possible?

	"Uncle Xu's playing with fire," An Ping explained, "If the composition of these herbal medicines is off by even a tiny bit, this life-saving remedy could just as easily be a most lethal poison. So to be able to dispense just what he needs on such a short notice he needs to be extremely familiar with both his patient and their condition. Given that he's most practiced in treating Lü Nan, none of this would be nearly as effective if his patient was someone else."

	Uncle Xu laughed darkly, "If you guys would consent to being tested on, then I could guarantee efficacy for more than just the Vice Captain."

	"That's the other thing, aside from Lü Nan, there's not a lot of people that could take one of Uncle Xu's "clinical trials." Given that these medicines are only a step away from being poison, the side effects tend to be quite nasty. Don't be fooled by Lü Nan's steely expression, right now her pain would have broken any normal person."

	Shawn looked over at Lü Nan, and while her face remained as stony as ever, it was clear that she was putting immense effort into keeping it that way. Beads of sweat, and a small amount of blood, seemed to be pooling from her forehead.

	Nevertheless, the pain wasn't enough to stop Lü Nan from offering one of her usual jabs, "You'll stay a herbivore forever if you're scared of a little pain. And you're a slimy one at that, Captain."

	"A slimy herbivore has a better life expectancy than a carnivore," An Ping responded.

	"If you can't enjoy it, what's the point of a long life?"

	Uncle Xu interrupted her, "If you're enjoying it, then why are all your muscles all so tensed up? Relax a bit for me will you? I can't get the needle in otherwise."

	Lü Nan relaxed her arm and was immediately struck with pain.

	Instinctively, she groaned.

	"You hear that!?" Uncle Xu said, delighted, "Did you hear the noise the Vice Captain just made? You all heard it! I believe in accordance with our earlier wager, I'm now owed ten thousand creditsa!"

	An Ping seemed to be slowly turning red. With Lü Nan, both embarrassed and furious, and only getting more so, and Uncle Xu, unreasonably overjoyed, before him, An Ping put a hand to his forehead, "Is it that you two are trying to get us all killed?"

	Uncle Xu was the first to answer, "Dead or not, I still won!"

	Seeing that events were unfolding poorly, Shawn knew he had to perform that most basic of Jedi duties, and attempt to keep the peace.

	Interrupting, Shawn asked, "Oh right, Vice Captain, how did you get here so fast?"

	It wasn't the most natural of topic shifts, but it got the job done.

	Truthfully though, Shawn did genuinely want an answer as even now it still seemed impossible.

	That Lü Nan could endure such heavy fire power and then provide sniper support was in and of itself incredible, but adding that to breaking through all that and getting here so quickly was patently absurd.

	"Oh, it wasn't anything special. Once I saw you had the big guns destroy themselves, I knew that we'd accomplished our goals. I commandeered one of the airspeeders that had come for me, and after they'd been given new orders no-one tried to stop me, so naturally, I got here quite quickly."

	Lü Nan spoke casually, as if this was all routine.

	The daring and quick thinking required was all quite impressive.

	"That said, you're not bad yourself, kid," Uncle Xu said, "To think you could cause so much trouble with a captured cannon. Thanks to you taking out that entire second floor, we were able to get our hands on Ning Tao pretty quick."

	Shawn didn't find it all that encouraging, "You told me to do that!"

	"I say whatever I want, who woulda thought you'd actually accomplish anything."

	So much for the Hongxing's famed resourcefulness.

	While Uncle Xu patched up Lü Nan, he expressed a certain annoyance, "Truth be told, given your qualifications, we probably should've swapped roles."

	To that, Shawn could only smile bitterly.

	This whole raid on Dui-4399 was probably one of the hardest things he had ever done.

	At every step, people waved blasters at his face... Shawn still didn't have an explanation for that. Were his disguises just that bad?

	Although he hadn't much time to prepare, and wasn't able to nail down every detail, were the personnel of the Qiankun Security Bureau possessed with such discerning eyes?

	Seeing Shawn's puzzled face, Uncle Xu amusedly asked him, "Hey, still confused?"

	Shawn sighed, "I'm open to suggestions."

	Whatever the case, that Uncle Xu could dress up as a medic, and simply stroll around as though he owned the place had left quite an impression on Shawn.

	In sharp contrast to himself, he hadn't come to any harm!

	Uncle Xu wasn't forthcoming, and just shook his head.

	"You fail because you have an obvious tell. People don't need to look at the way you dress or talk, but they'll suss you out with a single glance, so it doesn't matter how good a disguise you've got." An Ping said.

	"What tell?" Shawn asked.

	"Captain, best keep quiet about it. He's still young, he's got time," Uncle Xu said, quietly.

	Lü Nan laughed, "Jealous, are we?"

	"You jest, I am a renowned doctor who can earn a living, what could I be jealous of?"

	Shawn listened with increasing confusion, and so fixed his gaze upon An Ping, waiting for him to continue.

	The answer, as it were, turned out to be quite a shock to Shawn.

	"You're too good-looking."

	There was a deathly silence that settled over them.

	Think about it," An Ping said, "everywhere you go, the security has always got this nasty quality to them, wouldn't you agree?"

	Shawn nodded stupidly, though he could scarcely remember any faces in particular, let alone recall if he discerned any of them to be particularly "nasty."

	An Ping continued, "As I said to you before, Ning Tao brought with him his most trusted men, and to be one of those, aside from everything we already discussed, another key element would be to be the kind of person who scares children."

	Shawn inhaled deeply, and forced himself to accept this as the truth.

	His Master was right. Truth was stranger than fiction.

In the middle of speaking, An Ping grabbed Ning Tao's face with his mechanical arm, "Take a look, it really turns your stomach doesn't it? I've already talked about what a nasty bunch those Security Bureau types are, and this one's even more so. He doesn't want anyone better-looking than himself at his side, but the bar he's set is so low that the only people he has here are all quite grotesque. Or did you not notice?"

Shawn wanted to ask his own question, that being how was it that his squadmates found the time to focus on the faces of their opponents given all the tense fighting?

"So you come along with your youthful delicate features and it's like the difference between night and day, it'd be rather hard to go unnoticed."

	"Captain, he's one of us, there's really no need for that kind of talk is there?" Uncle Xu protested.

	"Ha! You are jealous!" Lü Nan cackled.

	"I mean look, me and Uncle, our missions went off without a hitch," An Ping continued.

	"Captain, I'm one of us, there's really no need for that kind of talk!" Uncle Xu continued to protest.

	An Ping laughed and released Ning Tao, "At any rate, the mission's gone well and it's all thanks to everybody's hard work. Now that the stage is set... Chief Ning?

	At hearing his own name, Ning Tao seemed to tremble, "What do you want?"

	"Get in touch with the Qinglong, and tell them to bring the Xuanming back."

	Ning Tao simply looked back blankly, "Xuanming?"

	An Ping laughed, "It wouldn't be wise to play dumb at this point, and we aren't afraid to... wait, you really don't know?"

	An Ping could see that Ning Tao was being completely genuine, and had not an inkling in regards to the Xuanming, and to his squad he turned as well, equally bewildered.

Translation Notes
a Qiankun Credits, of course. I don't like to translate the whole thing because it'd be a bit weird if I were to, say, never just say "dollar" but specify "Canadian Dollars" in every context.

肖恩 - xiāo'ēn - Shawn, Jedi Apprentice
莫斯提马 - mòsītímǎ - Mastema, Jedi Master
李钰 - lǐ yù - Li Yu, Commander of the Silver Knights
白 - bái - Bai, Li Yu’s droid
安平 - ānpíng - An Ping, Captain of the Hongxing Squad
吕楠 - lǚnán - Lü Nan, Hongxing Squad Sniper
许伯 - xǔbó - Uncle Xu, Hongxing Squad Medic
庄原瑛 - zhuāngyuányīng - Zhuang Yuanying, Hongxing Squad Engineer
宁涛 - níngtāo - Ning Tao, ex-Qiankun Corp Military big shot

https://74translations.wordpress.com/

Thanks for reading!