Chapter 69: True · Father's Love Is Like a Mountain
Char missed Mineva very much.
He had been under house arrest since he was betrayed by Haman and had been living a life with no worry of food but can't access the Internet for some time now. During this time, Haman would visit him once a week, telling him what was happening recently, but that was all.
And he hasn't seen Mineva since then. According to Haman, she was going to raise Mineva as an heir. She will study and live in another place, but this was completely contrary to his own ideas. He just wants his daughter to stay away from politics and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, he can't even protect himself now. When he finds a chance, he must save his daughter at all costs.
The maids had just taken away the dishes after dinner, and the period between now and bedtime was difficult to endure. Just as he was thinking of what to do to pass the time, the door was opened again and a blond man appeared in the doorway. The man was wearing the white ZAFT uniform, the collar was altered to cover all the skin in the neck area, his face was covered with a full overlay mask, and his hands were gloved.
"Creuset, are you coming to laugh at me?" Char sneered and sat down in his seat with no intention of standing up.
"Your Excellency, what are you talking about? You were my idol." Creuset walked in as if nothing had happened and surveyed the room's décor, "Speaker Karn is also considered benevolent, it's called house arrest, but it's actually more luxurious than my private residence."
"Alright, no need to pretend to be polite." Char interrupted Creuset impatiently, "What do you want from me? Just say it. Don't tell me Haman sent you, that would be an insult to my intelligence."
"Then I'll just put it straight." Creuset pulled a chair and sat down across from Char, "I am interested in Mr. Aznable's purpose of breaking the ecology of the Earth, and I am willing to help you. I can help you get out of prison and regain your dreams."
"Oh, would you have me believe a shameless villain's words?" Char was expressionless, "If that's all you have to say, then you can go back, and I'll tell Haman everything that happens here truthfully."
"You don't have to believe me, and you don't have to care what purpose I have. I'm useful to you, and that's enough. I have always heard that Char Aznable is a man of great skill and unscrupulousness." Creuset's expression was invisible, but his voice was full of confidence, "As a good faith, we can go first to save Miss Mineva. If you don't trust me, you should still have beloved people in PLANT who can be entrusted to send her to a safe place, such as to Lingus whom you trust the most."
"… With just the two of us?"
"I have my own people in ZAFT, and there are some fanatics left by former Speaker Zala, and Your Excellency, you are also not alone, right?" Creuset hid his smug smile behind his mask, "Just like how I got into this room, we'll use the same method to get into Miss Mineva's room and take her away before dawn, all before Speaker Karn finds out."
Char hesitated for a moment, and then his worry for his daughter gradually comes out on top. Most importantly, he had the confidence that he would not be used by Creuset again.
"First, let me see your sincerity."
Ten minutes later, Char, who was disguised as a soldier, got into Creuset's car and hid in the trunk. Creuset had obviously done everything beforehand. After the two got out of the danger zone, they rushed to another satellite in a pre-arranged military ship, and finally arrived at the outskirts of a mansion at midnight.
"Wait, there's a NewType, we might have been spotted." Char alertly called out to Creuset, "This feeling, Amuro? No. Is it Lingus? No, it can't be. Could it be Haman?"
"…it's Glemy Toto."
Creuset parked the car and led Char over the wall of the courtyard through a dead end of the camera. Both of them are excellent pilots, and this is naturally not a problem for them. The back door of the mansion was not locked, and there was no maid still wandering around in the middle of the night, so the two arrived at Mineva's room without being found by anyone. Peeping through the gap in the door, the light was still on, and Char could clearly sense that Glemy Toto was inside, but Creuset opened the door very casually.
"You're finally here." Glemy looked at Creuset and then at Char, "It's too late, I'm going to bed."
With Char's shocked gaze, Glemy just left the room without a word and disappeared into the darkness at the end of the hallway. Only one thought ran through Char's mind: so Haman's men are all like him?
But a second later, he forgot about Haman and walked quickly into the inner bedroom, where Mineva was lying asleep on the bed, and her lovely sleeping face looked like an angel. Unfortunately, there was no time to enjoy it, he had to send Mineva away before Haman found it, and he painfully woke up the little girl.
At this moment, he was very glad that he protected Mineva very well before. The existence of the little girl is only an urban legend for the vast majority of people, and only a few people have seen her real face.
"Uncle Char?" Mineva shouted in a daze, stretching out her fleshy little hands to rub her eyes.
"Mineva, I know you're the smartest girl I've ever known." He listened to the "uncle" she called him and his heart twitched inwardly, "We don't have much time left, let me explain …"
…
The next day at noon, the staff of the immigration office of the lunar capital cosmic port found a little girl wandering outside the entry office alone. The enthusiastic staff repeatedly asked the little girl if she was lost with her parents, but the little girl just kept shaking her head and not talking, and there were no clues in the surveillance. Finally, with the help of another female staff, they found a photo of a young man in the little girl's pocket with a line scribbled on the back: Please take care of my little girl.
"This man looks so familiar." The male staff looked at the photo and pondered, "I'm sure I've seen it somewhere."
"Are you stupid? This is Dr. Lingus!" The female staff called up excitedly, "The one who was on TV, our Minister of Science and Technology. Remember?"
"Oh, yes, yes, yes!" The male staff suddenly realized, then lowered his voice and said, "Should we go to contact the reporter about this news?"
"He just took a beautiful female secretary, and then his daughter has come to the door. Are you trying to set a fire to find the reporter? He is the Minister of Science and Technology! It's not something we can deal with." The female staff hit him hard on the head, "Just throw this trouble to our boss."
Mineva looked at the two people in front of her expressionlessly and vaguely understood that they were helping her to find someone. She needed to find this Uncle Ade in the photo as instructed by Char, who had something important to do, and asked this Uncle Ade to take care of her for a while. She doesn't like Uncle Glemy, and she doesn't like Aunt Haman either. She is a bit resistant to coming to the strange moon, but she is glad to leave her original place and she trusts Uncle Char. He won't harm her.
Although Mineva is slightly autistic, she can vaguely sense who is nice to her and who doesn't like her, an ability that even Char doesn't know. In her perception, Char is the only person who is genuinely nice to her; the others either don't care about her, pretend to care about her, or hate her.
She was placed in an empty room and dutifully waited for some more time, during which she ate a lunch given to her by the staff. Mineva was brave and didn't feel scared at all. In the afternoon, the Uncle Ade in the photo finally arrived, followed by a beautiful aunt.
Ade looked at the back of the photo repeatedly, and carefully measured Mineva for a while, thinking for a moment, and then suddenly sighed, "What's my image in your eyes? Why all of you think… sigh."
He squatted down and looked at Mineva, grabbed her small hand and shook it decently, "Hello, I'm the Adrien Lingus you're looking for, nice to meet you. May I ask if you are Mineva?"
Mineva still didn't say anything, but just nodded her head forcefully. She had a keen sense that this uncle was good and had a gentle aura about him that made her want to be close.
"Did Char say anything?" Ade added after a moment's thought, "If you don't want to talk, I'll ask you and you can just nod or shake your head. Don't be nervous, Mineva, you're safe here."
"…Uncle Char said he had something important to do." It was the first time Mineva spoke since she and Char parted ways yesterday, "He said Uncle Ade would take care of me."
"Why does Char think so? Aren't we on opposite sides?" Ade complained in a low voice, then said to Mineva in as gentle a tone as he could manage, "So, would you like to stay at my house for now? I'll send you back when Char comes to pick you up."
"Hm! Hm!" Mineva finally showed a smile and nodded her head vigorously.
"Lacus, sorry." Ade made an apologetic expression to the young girl behind him, "We'll discuss this with His Highness Loran afterward, but I think it will still be this result. We might have to take one more member in the family for now."
"It's okay, I like children too." Lacus squatted down too, looking at Mineva with a smile on her face, "Hello, Mineva, my name is Lacus Clyne, I'm living with Ade now, welcome to our home."
Mineva looked at Lacus with an expressionless face. She could sense that this aunt didn't like her, just like Aunt Haman. She was only pretending to like her. She still preferred Uncle Ade to this aunt.
Although Mineva didn't answer her, Lacus did not look embarrassed at all. She naturally turned her head to Ade, "Mineva is very scared, it seems that she is only willing to talk to you. You will have to take care of her later. Ade, can I say you deserve to be a NewType? You just get what you want!"
"…NT doesn't have that kind of function, and I didn't really want it." He looked at Mineva and said to her, "Say hello to this Aun…, no, sister. You will be living together in the future."
Mineva hesitated for a long time and finally reluctantly called out, "Sister Lacus." Lacus happily agreed.
"Then let's go to the place where you're going to live, shall we?" Ade took Mineva's small hand and found her reluctantly walking around, "What's wrong, Mineva? Don't want to?"
"Uncle Char will hug me all the time." Mineva looked at him with expectation.
Ade looked at Lacus helplessly, took a deep breath, and picked Mineva up. The little girl in his arms was about six years old, probably about twenty kilos. He could withstand the weight.
When they got home, Ade entrusted Mineva to Lacus and went to Loran himself. Lacus kept talking to Mineva enthusiastically and singing to her, but Mineva did not make any response from the beginning to the end. It wasn't until dinner time that Ade returned, and before he opened his mouth, Lacus read from his expression that Mineva was really going to stay at their house.
Loran, as long as the country's interests are not being violated, is a good man with overwhelming love. He was very sympathetic to Mineva's plight and strongly supported Ade to adopt her. After Ade told Lacus Loran's decision, the young girl made an "as I expected" expression.
"Fortunately Char did a good job, Mineva's picture didn't expose on the Internet, but she is actually his … she seems to not know it." Ade compassionately held Mineva to his lap, and Mineva intimately rubbed, "We decided to let her go to the government-run school, she needs to have a fake name. How about to call her Tang Xiaomei?"
Lacus looked at him speechlessly.
"Okay, okay, I'll think of an appropriate name." He pretended to think for a while, "Audrey Burne?"
"Isn't that a good name? Why is the first one so strange?" Lacus inclined her head, "But it's not weird for your style, I think."
After that, it was dinner time. Mineva did not like Aunt Lacus, but she liked Aunt Lacus's cooking. After dinner, Uncle Ade played with her for a long time and talked a lot of things to her. Uncle Char said that Uncle Ade is a good man, Mineva also thinks so, so she told him everything she knew, but after all, she is just a child, and she can't describe many things clearly.
Before going to bed, Aunt Lacus helped her take a bath, Uncle Ade dried her hair, and then let her sleep in a room by herself. Although Mineva was a little scared, she agreed because Uncle Ade would tell her a story before she slept. No one had ever told her a story before.
Ade dug out a fairy tale from the depths of his memory, and sat by the bed and told it to Mineva until she slept. In all conscience, Mineva was very cute and adorable. When he went back to his room, Lacus was already lying down, and he followed her to bed.
"Is the little princess finally asleep?" Lacus was still awake, turning over to look at him, "Ade, you are very abnormal today. She is after all Aznable's daughter, and you gave your promise too quick."
"… I don't know how to explain it, it's just a feeling, an intimacy that comes out of nothing, something like NT resonance. Mineva probably feels the same way as me, she has the potential to be a NewType." He came up and kissed the slightly disgruntled young girl, "I apologize for upsetting you."
"Not upset, I also like children's, just a little worried about you. But you're the uncle and I'm the sister, you seem to be a generation older than me all of a sudden?" Lacus breathed softly in his ear, "Uncle Ade?"
Just when he thought he couldn't sleep well again today, the bedroom door was pushed open and Mineva, who should have been asleep, stood pitifully in the doorway, clutching a pillow, "Uncle Ade, I'm afraid."
