Chapter 108
Chapter 108: Little Brat’s Mom Furious, Wants To Kill Old Mud Loach
Jiang Tea Tea understood everything clearly and immediately mocked him without mercy: “Old Mud Loach, the Star Pirates coming to capture me just proves you are useless as the Commander in Chief of the Empire’s Three Armies and the Prince Regent. Why are you telling me this?”
Chong Ming’s serious expression did not last ten seconds. The corners of his mouth hooked up in a faint curve as he repeated her words: “I am useless?”
Through the screen, Jiang Tea Tea started lecturing him sharply: “Old Mud Loach, you are the Commander in Chief of the Zhenlin Empire’s Three Armies, the Prince Regent, and the golden dragon divine beast that guards the nation.”
“Under you, your soldiers number over a billion. Every year there is so much military spending, all kinds of deadly training. Every star system’s defense space station has strict checks on every entrance and exit, and every planet’s ship dock gets thoroughly inspected.”
“Yet just twenty Star Pirates say they are coming to the Zhenlin Empire’s capital planet to capture me alive, and you get worried, you get scared, and you even warn me to make me scared.”
“So here is the question: all that time you spend, all that money, all that work you do, is it all just for show? Or are you just that useless, letting twenty Star Pirates with countless lives on their hands slip through all your layers of defense, come right under your nose, and stand on your head to poop and pee?”
“And besides, my bounty is only fifty billion. Even if my bounty goes up to five hundred billion, if they dare post that reward, whose face are they slapping? I will not say it out loud, but it sure is not mine.”
[Trying to scare me? Does he think I grew up being scared?]
[Fine then, come on, let’s hurt each other, scare each other, stab each other in the heart.]
Her babies were almost four months along now. Only in the past two days had they finally eaten their fill, and her mood had gotten just a little better. He had to jump up and down on her mood. If this demon did not show her power, did they really think she was just a tree.
Chong Ming’s cold, expressionless face did not change at all: “Your analysis makes a lot of sense. I have a lot of confidence in the defenses I have arranged and in the nation I govern.”
“But no matter how tight things are, there are always gaps. In everything…”
“There is no but.” Jiang Tea Tea cut him off: “Remove the three satellites over my head. I do not need a surveillance system, I do not need anyone hiding in the dark to protect me. I can protect myself.”
Chong Ming sighed softly, his low voice easing: “Schoolmate Jiang Tea Tea, all your current courses overlap with your roommate’s.”
“In the next three and a half years, or even ten years, twenty years, you and your roommate will always go in and out together. Even if I remove the three satellites over your head, those three satellites will just be placed over your roommate instead. The surveillance system will protect your roommate’s safety, and you will be included in that net. So what difference does it make whether I remove them or not?”
Jiang Tea Tea threw him a knife-like glare: “What difference? The difference is huge. I do not want people watching me sleep, use the bathroom, and take a bath.”
Chong Ming was speechless: “You are worried about people watching you sleep, go to the bathroom, and bathe… Fine, it is my fault for not having Secretary Wen explain it clearly.”
“In your dorm, apart from the surveillance in the common areas and around the outside of the dorm, there is no surveillance system in your private room or your bathroom. You have a private space.”
“Your surveillance security monitoring system is set up the same as your roommate’s, with the highest level of privacy and safety permissions. No one except me can casually view it.”
“So you do not need to worry about not having privacy. You have absolute privacy.”
It would have been better if he had not explained at all.
The one she wanted to guard against was this Old Mud Loach himself.
Jiang Tea Tea bared her teeth, fierce in an adorably vicious way: “So what you mean is, after I said so much, you still will not remove them?”
Chong Ming paused for a moment: “Remove them.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s eyes lit up: “Really?”
Chong Ming reminded her: “Remove two.”
Jiang Tea Tea was choked with anger: “You remove two satellites and leave one. How is that any different from not removing them?”
Chong Ming followed up: “Then should I not remove any?”
Jiang Tea Tea’s eyes went round: “Do you want to anger me to death?”
Chong Ming looked her over through the screen. Her face was flushed and she was fuming: “No. You are so young, I will die before you.”
Jiang Tea Tea was so angry she laughed: “You bastard, you dog, Old Mud Loach, serves you right that you are already one hundred fifty and still single with no one who wants you. Get lost!”
After speaking, Jiang Tea Tea cut off the light-brain wrist terminal connection, grabbed her long hair with both hands again, and let out a crazed scream.
“Knock knock knock!”
A low, urgent knocking sounded at the door.
Jiang Tea Tea stopped her frantic movements, took a deep breath, and slapped a hand on her belly. The babies inside quieted down and stopped moving.
She rushed to the door in two big steps, pulled it open, and since she could not out-argue or out-fight Chong Ming, her temper went straight at Sui Xuan Chu: “Knock, knock, knock. If you have this much time, why are you not reading, why are you not studying? What are you knocking for?”
Sui Xuan Chu hissed and hurriedly took a step back: “Roommate, who poured gunpowder into your mouth? Why are you so explosive?”
“Your uncle!” Jiang Tea Tea snapped.
“My uncle poured gunpowder into your mouth?” Sui Xuan Chu looked at her in puzzled surprise: “That should not be. Right now he should be in the Imperial Military Headquarters building, holding meetings, scolding people, and urging his Information Department to filter all the official information of the Zhenlin Empire to check for any corruption. How would he have the free time to pour gunpowder into your mouth?”
Jiang Tea Tea stepped forward and pointed a finger at Sui Xuan Chu: “You should count yourself lucky that right now I cannot drag you in together with him, or I would beat you to death. I just do not get it. With three satellites aimed at you and at me, we do not have a bit of privacy. How does he have the nerve to do that?”
Sui Xuan Chu let out an “oh” of sudden understanding: “You are hung up on this? What is there to fuss about? He is doing it all for your own good and for mine.”
“If you insist on being hung up, insisting on blaming someone and getting stuck in a dead end, then you should blame yourself. It has nothing to do with my uncle.”
She had been tangled up for so long over the three satellites aimed at her, unable to get past it. Fortunately his uncle had not told her that there were also invisible fighter craft and invisible warships hovering above their heads. If they were ever in mortal danger, even if those ships could not arrive at the scene within thirty seconds, their bullets would.
Jiang Tea Tea’s fists clenched: “Blame me? Did I kneel and beg him to aim three satellites at me?”
Uncle and nephew were equally shameless.
Listening to what he said, it sounded like she had begged on her knees to have those three satellites aimed at her.
[If that nonsense gets around, it will be like snow falling in August.]
Sui Xuan Chu nodded solemnly: “Yes, blame you. Blame you for being too outstanding, blame your market value and how precious you are being on par with me, the Crown Prince.”
“If he did not keep satellites on you twenty-four hours a day, then in the entire M31 Star System, in all the large and small planets and nations, including those hundreds belonging to the insectoid race, who would not want to have an excellent healer like you to calm the agitation in their supernatural abilities, comb through their spiritual sea, and raise the level of their supernatural abilities higher and higher?”
“In this interstellar space era, technology and medical arts have advanced at high speed. Many difficult diseases and cancers can already be cured, but only the agitation of supernatural abilities and the spiritual sea cannot be treated with technology.”
“And just so, supernatural abilities and spiritual power are tied to lifespan. As long as the agitation and the spiritual sea are properly combed and soothed, the higher the level of one’s supernatural abilities, the longer one can live. Living to five hundred or eight hundred years is no problem.”
“And you, this person with a variant plant-type supernatural ability and spiritual power, are the key for countless beastmen, humans, and members of the insectoid race to live long lives.”
“Tell me, as someone in power, who would not want to snatch you to their side, keep you for themselves, let you calm their supernatural abilities, comb through their spiritual sea, and let them live to five or eight hundred years to enjoy a life they have not had enough of?”
[Good grief, the world is really upside down. All things under heaven are food for trees, and now the food is eyeing her and wants to snatch her? This is really something new.]
Jiang Tea Tea asked: “Your uncle…”
Sui Xuan Chu raised his index finger and wagged it in front of her: “My uncle is not like those flashy hussies outside. He looks at the big picture. He feels that your value goes far beyond that of just a healer.”
“He thinks that rather than sending people to protect you twenty-four hours a day, it is better to set you up high, so that those who covet you and want to get you can only look up at you and cannot even touch the hem of your skirt.”
[Fine. She had crossed from the demon realm into this interstellar era and still did not even have freedom. In the end, it was because her spiritual power had not recovered and her strength was too weak.]
She had to find a way to restore her spiritual power. If that really did not work, she would wait until her babies were born and then train each one of them well.
She refused to believe that she, a proud great demon stage being and the glory of the Tea Tree clan, would flip her boat in a gutter in a place like this.
Sui Xuan Chu saw she was silent, stepped closer to her, and whispered like a thief: “Roommate, if you do not want to stand up high, but still want to be protected so no one can touch you, there is another simple way.”
Jiang Tea Tea did not believe the “simple way” he mentioned would really be simple, but seeing his sneaky look, she still asked: “What way?”
Sui Xuan Chu cleared his throat: “Marry my uncle, become my aunt, and become the consort of a prince of the blood of the Zhenlin Empire!”
Jiang Tea Tea put her hand on his forehead and pushed him away: “Get lost!”
Sui Xuan Chu answered with a laugh: “Alright!”
Jiang Tea Tea backed into the room, slammed the door shut, flopped onto the bed, pulled the blanket over herself, and pretended to be dead.
After Chong Ming’s light-brain wrist terminal connection was cut, the meeting continued. In the meantime he opened the satellite surveillance feed for Sui Xuan Chu and Jiang Tea Tea and happened to see the two of them arguing up a storm at Jiang Tea Tea’s door.
He also connected to the audio in the surveillance system. Every word of their conversation poured into his ears.
As he listened, the corners of his thin lips lifted. Seeing this, everyone in the video conference was so frightened their hearts trembled and their thoughts ran wild. The Commander in Chief’s smile was so eerie. Who had broken the law, who had drawn his attention again?
Jiang Tea Tea fell asleep clutching the blanket and slept straight through until she was woken by knocking at 4:45 in the morning. With a messy bird’s nest of hair, she opened the door: “What are you doing so early in the morning?”
She had indeed forgotten the wake-up time and that today they were starting the study schedule his uncle had arranged for them.
Sui Xuan Chu cleared his throat and said solemnly: “Schoolmate Jiang Tea Tea, my uncle asked me to remind you that starting today, every day you get up at 4:45, finish washing up by 4:50, take three minutes to get downstairs from the dorm, seven minutes to run to the Grand Parade Ground, and from 5:00 to 6:30, in that hour and a half you must run at least 20 to 30 kilometers.”
“At 6:40 you return to the dorm to wash up. From 7:00 to 7:15 you must appear in the school cafeteria. At 7:30 you have to arrive in the classroom early to review, and at 8:00 class starts on the dot.”
“Today we have three classes. From 8:00 to 11:30 in the morning is Campaign Analysis and Dissection. From 11:30 to 2:00 we rest and eat, and at the same time memorize 50 articles of the Criminal Code.”
“In the afternoon from 2:00 to 5:00 we have Simulated Campaign Command Drills. From 5:00 to 6:00 we rest and eat for an hour and memorize 10 articles of the Criminal Code. In the evening from 6:00 to 9:30 we have supernatural ability manipulation and attack practice.”