Chapter 110
Chapter 110: Studying So Hard We’re Almost Dead, Yet Someone Still Comes Looking for Trouble
Huang Da Zhuang, Yan Yu, Cheng Xiao Ting and the others sat with their backs straight, eyes fixed on the teacher’s projection screen, listening with full focus. They had only ever seen this battle before in news reports, on the net, and in campaign histories.
Jiang Tea Tea leaned back in her seat. Compared to their seriousness, she looked lazier and more casual, but her eyes still stayed on the projected screen.
The battle from 130 years ago was reconstructed through veterans’ oral accounts and simulated filming, clearly shown on the giant screen, with a few clips from movies and dramas spliced in.
When Chong Ming was twenty years old, it took him only twenty-eight days, using a single battleship and just over three thousand people, to suppress an entire nation and annex it into their territory. That kind of iron-blooded method shocked the whole interstellar space. His record was truly terrifyingly impressive.
The entire morning was spent on this one battle. They analyzed the causes and consequences, the differences in firepower, manpower, and tactics.
The teacher held nothing back. He poured all his passion into the lecture and freely expressed his admiration and reverence for Commander in Chief Chong Ming.
In three and a half hours, among more than two hundred students, almost no one went to the bathroom. Everyone sat with ears pricked, some even holding their light-brain wrist terminals up to record.
When the class ended, the teacher assigned two pieces of homework.
One: Imagine you are the commander in chief. Using the same number of troops and the same firepower as Chong Ming, how would you take down Juxi Nation in less than twenty-eight days?
Two: Imagine you are the sovereign ruler of Juxi Nation. While the Zhenlin Empire and the insectoid race are locked in fierce battle, how would you launch a sneak attack on the Zhenlin Empire, seize victory, and invade successfully?
Before leaving, Jiang Tea Tea and the others added the teacher’s student group chat. The teacher welcomed them warmly and told them that if they didn’t understand anything, they could him in the group and ask questions.
After adding the group, the eight of them, because they were in the first row, became the first to rush into the bathroom. Once they finished, they went to the school cafeteria to eat. After eating, they started reciting the Criminal Code.
Some were memorizing so painfully they wanted to die, stumbling over every line. Some read smoothly, but after reciting, they still had no idea what they had just said.
Jiang Tea Tea, a dignified Great Demon Stage tree spirit, scanned the pages at a rate of ten lines at a glance. She remembered almost everything, snapped the book shut, sprawled over the cafeteria table, and fell asleep.
The time they spent eating and reciting the Criminal Code passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, it was time for the afternoon Simulated Campaign command exercise.
In the holographic combat simulation, every person was a field commander. Each person had their own sandbox and their own troops.
Whoever could lead their simulated army to suffer the fewest casualties, occupy the most high ground, and deal the most damage to the enemy would be the winner.
Jiang Tea Tea, a proper tree spirit, lay in the holographic simulation pod. She did not know how to command at all. She only had one word in her mind: charge.
As the saying goes, strike while the iron is hot and take the enemy by surprise. Just charge straight in and be done with it. With that reckless momentum, she sometimes created completely unexpected results.
By incredible luck and that one word “charge,” Jiang Tea Tea actually took first place in the Simulated Campaign command exercise. Her grade broke past A and went straight to S.
Aside from her, all the other military academy students who attended class with them, including Sui Xuan Chu and the others, had homework. She was the only one who didn’t.
After class, they ate, rested, and then went back to memorizing the Criminal Code. Once they finished with the Criminal Code, it was time for supernatural ability manipulation and attack practice.
Jiang Tea Tea’s recorded supernatural ability was a variant plant-type ability that had only awakened less than four months ago, so the teacher gave her special attention and taught her how to control it.
She spent the entire class learning control and did not practice attacks at all. Sui Xuan Chu and the other seven all learned attack skills. Every one of them ended up with visible injuries on their faces and bodies.
After just one day of study, the six-person squad that had started off full of fighting spirit, as if they had been injected with chicken blood, all looked like they had caught some kind of chicken plague. Their energy was completely gone.
There was no such thing as a late-night snack. Except for Jiang Tea Tea, no one else ate supper.
Back at the dorm, they took quick showers to clear their heads and then started writing homework.
Once they started, they wrote until one in the morning. After turning in their assignments, they flopped onto their beds. The moment they closed their eyes, it felt like they hadn’t slept at all before the alarm went off. They dragged themselves up, washed quickly, and went downstairs to run.
After running, they went back to the dorm, then to the school cafeteria, then to class. The second day’s schedule, compared to the first day’s, could not be called “similar” at all. It was completely different.
After finishing the second day’s courses, the third day’s classes were, again, totally different from both the first and second day. In this way, the pattern repeated: five consecutive days of completely different courses.
After they finished five days of unique classes, the schedule looped back to the first day’s content. They handed in their homework and then started learning a new, different battle.
Rest did not exist. When others were resting, they were not. Extra help sessions and one-on-one tutoring, finishing one department and jumping straight into the next, had all become normal.
This endless cycle went on for three full months without a single break.
The homework was never-ending. They simply could not finish it.
The courses were too much. They simply could not keep up.
They could not memorize the entire Criminal Code either, no matter how they tried.
At first, they went to the school cafeteria for three meals a day, sometimes adding a late-night snack. But once the real studying began, they wished they could just pour nutrient injections and nutrient solution into their mouths three times a day instead.
If Jiang Tea Tea had not plucked a few leaves from her true body, shared them out, and told them to brew tea with them, they would have collapsed long ago, too tired to live, not wanting to be human, not wanting to study, just wanting to lie flat.
Jiang Tea Tea herself finished all three bottles of dragon blood. The supernatural abilities, oppressive aura, and spiritual power from Chong Ming that had been soothing her body were completely eaten up by the babies in her belly.
The babies were almost seven months along. Even though they no longer had their biological father’s supernatural abilities and spiritual power to soothe them, compared to the first three months they were much more sensible. They no longer devoured their birth mother’s spiritual power without restraint and only drew energy from food.
When other people were studying, Jiang Tea Tea was also “studying” – but her mouth never stopped. When others were gulping down nutrient injections and nutrient solution, her mouth still did not stop as she gnawed on meat.
After three months, everyone else had starved themselves thin, their eyes ringed like panda beastmen. Jiang Tea Tea had neither lost nor gained weight. Only her belly was slightly rounder.
Luckily, the school uniform was roomy and large enough that no one could see her belly at all. The nearly seven-month-old babies had grown from tiny little worms and little loaches into something slightly bigger. Just a little bit.
They were golden from the inside out, so golden that Jiang Tea Tea could not help sighing to herself: [Old Mud Loach’s genes are really strong.]
Because the eight of them had been studying at such a high intensity for three continuous months, with no rest and only three to five hours of sleep each day, the academy was afraid they might suddenly drop dead. So they decided to give them three days off in a row so they could rest properly.
When the eight heard this good news, they did not do anything else. They rushed straight into the school cafeteria, found the largest round table, and began piling it with all kinds of meat, all kinds of dishes, all kinds of drinks, and all kinds of fruit. Then they just ate and drank like crazy.
The sight of what they grabbed and how they devoured it made other people stare, dumbfounded, unable to believe their eyes. They thought these eight had to be sick, and not just a little sick.
Of course, even if they thought that, they only dared think it in their hearts and would not say it out loud.
Because by now the eight of them were already famous in the academy. They spun like tops every day, never stopping, each of them touching at least eight departments. Their worst grades were B, and their best were Level S.
The academy’s attention and the teachers’ focus on them made the other military academy students feel jealous and envious, their eyes full of red, yet they also could not help feeling sorry for them.
After a full hour of fierce eating and drinking, Jiang Tea Tea and her friends finally slumped in their chairs, each hugging their round bellies.
Someone sighed: “Sister Tea, you ate more than all of us put together, but your belly is flatter than any of ours. Just what kind of broken, heaven-defying constitution do you have?”
“Right, right, Sister Tea, look at my stomach. If I cover my face and only show my belly, people will think I’ve been pregnant for three months.”
“Sister Tea, I used to think you didn’t eat all that much. I didn’t expect that in just a short time, you’d go back to devouring food like this.”
“Right, Sister Tea, let’s eat well today, sleep the whole day tomorrow, then go out and have fun the day after, and only come back on the last day to write homework.”
“Have fun what, sleep what? You’re going back to sleep the moment we get back. Once you wake up, you’re going to write homework. You got all Bs in those departments you’re taking. How do you still have the nerve to go play?”
Huang Da Zhuang instantly became the target of everyone’s scolding. They complained about him and pushed him, all determined not to let him go out and play.
Huang Da Zhuang, with the worst grades, shrank under their disgusted looks and nagging, weak and pitiful. He did not dare talk back or even sulk. He just quietly scooted closer to Jiang Tea Tea’s side.
“Everyone, studying is just like gaining weight. You can’t get fat with a single bite.”
Suddenly, in the middle of everyone’s disgusted muttering, three new voices cut in – two male and one female – sounding like “good people” standing up for him.
“Classmate Huang Da Zhuang, as a beastman male without supernatural abilities, being able to learn so many departments already makes him very outstanding. You shouldn’t be so strict with him.”
“Yeah, Huang Da Zhuang is your classmate, your friend, your teammate. Teammates and friends should support each other and improve together. Criticizing and despising him like this will easily crush his enthusiasm.”
Sui Xuan Chu and the others fell silent. They followed the voices with their eyes and saw two white wolf tribe beastmen and a white wolf tribe female beastman. Each of them was carrying a tray with a few cups of fruit juice and several fruit plates as they walked over, acting like they were already familiar with everyone, putting the drinks and fruit in front of them.
Once they had placed four fruit plates and eight glasses of juice by each person’s hand, Jiang Tea Tea stood up: “Sui Xuan Chu, Cheng Lin Yue, Huang Da Zhuang, come with me to the academy’s Healing Department. I’ll help calm your restless supernatural abilities and comb your spiritual sea.”
“Especially you, Huang Da Zhuang. The leaf water I gave you to drink before was meant to help you awaken supernatural abilities midway.”
“Since I happen to be free today, I’ll go to the Healing Department and give you a proper checkup. That way no one can say you haven’t awakened any supernatural abilities, and that we’re being too harsh when we push you, that we’re suppressing you or looking down on you.”
The two white wolf tribe beastmen and the white wolf tribe female were the fake young miss’s fifth sister, sixth brother, and seventh brother.
Over the past three months, they had wandered in front of her ten or so times, always hanging around. Every time, they never said a word, and she ignored them.
She hadn’t expected that the moment she mentioned having a holiday, they would show up right after, as if they had smelled something good. She had long since figured out that they never came for nothing.
Huang Da Zhuang suddenly shot to his feet, glared at the three white wolf beastmen and the white wolf female, and snapped: “Hey, hey, hey, who exactly are you three? What right do you have to interfere with whether my teammates are strict with me, whether they scold me, whether they hit me?”
“I’m not outstanding. My grades are just Bs. Them being disgusted with me is for my own good. Them ‘crushing’ me is also for my own good. Why do I need you putting on your fake ‘kind’ faces, trying to sow discord and stand up for me?”