Chapter 128
Chapter 128: Uncle, You’re Going to Sleep with My Roommate?
“Wait.” Jiang Tea Tea pointed at her belly. “So the punch to my belly counts as a charge now?”
Sui Xuan Chu nodded fast. “Yes. Attempted murder of a Golden Dragon Imperial Clan cub. Same level as trying to abduct and kill me.”
Jiang Tea Tea lifted her Lightbrain and logged into Starnet.
The trending topics hit her like a flood.
“Traitor Jiang Yi Cheng Gains Another Charge: Attempted Murder of a Golden Dragon Imperial Clan Cub!”
“Golden Dragon Imperial Clan Has a Cub! Empire’s National Idol Chong Ming Has a Cub!”
“Congratulations to the Golden Dragon Imperial Clan—Welcoming Their Third Gold Dragon!”
And then the question that made her blood pressure spike:
“Who Is Chong Ming’s Mate?”
The news had not only taken over Zhen Lin Empire’s trending list—it had climbed the M31 Star System’s global trends as well. Official accounts from other nations were sending congratulations. Calls were coming in. The whole galaxy was buzzing.
Starnet comments were feral:
“Husband! How could you have a cub behind my back? We promised we’d register and fly off together in two years!”
“Husband! I’m about to immigrate to Zhen Lin Empire for you—why didn’t you wait for me before having a cub?!”
“Idol, husband—if you have the guts to have a cub, you have the guts to reveal the mother!”
“Who is this gorgeous woman who stole my husband? I need to see her!”
“Male idol is 150 and finally not single! Congratulations! Don’t scare our young highness!”
“Wait, is the young highness male or female? Anyone got inside info?”
One argument thread kept surfacing:
“Who says the cub is Chong Ming’s? What if it’s the crown prince’s?”
“Are you stupid? The crown prince just came of age. You think he dared create a life under his imperial uncle’s nose before adulthood? Not with Chong Ming’s personality.”
And underneath that, even more praise:
“Zhen Lin Empire’s golden dragon imperial family is the cleanest royal line. No messy lovers, no secret children.”
“If the Ministry of Justice announced a case involving a Golden Dragon Imperial Clan cub, it means Chong Ming is furious. Someone touched his cub, and he’s taking revenge.”
Sui Xuan Chu leaned in over her shoulder and whistled. “Oh wow. Star-friends are really fired up.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s voice turned cold enough to freeze steel. “What is your uncle doing?”
Sui Xuan Chu blinked in innocent confusion. “Doing what?”
“Stop playing dumb,” Jiang Tea Tea snapped. “Who gave him permission to expose my cubs?”
“He didn’t expose your cubs,” Sui Xuan Chu said quickly. “He exposed his own cub.”
Jiang Tea Tea nearly choked. “What ‘his’ cub? He doesn’t have a damn cub. The cubs are mine.”
Sui Xuan Chu remembered his uncle’s instructions—watch her, soothe her, don’t let her get worked up—and immediately folded.
“Yes, yes, yes. Yours. Yours. Don’t be mad.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s eyes narrowed. “Tell him to go clarify it. Tell him he has no cub.”
Sui Xuan Chu stared at her like she’d asked him to jump into a volcano. “Roommate… that’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?” Jiang Tea Tea demanded.
Sui Xuan Chu launched into rapid explanation. “Because now the whole empire—and the whole M31 Star System—knows he has a cub. If he suddenly comes out and ‘clarifies’ it, it’ll look like he’s trying to cover it up.”
“That’s basically confirming it.”
“Right now, he doesn’t clarify, and people are just guessing.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest. “And they’re also guessing it’s my cub, aren’t they? Aren’t they?”
Jiang Tea Tea pointed at him like a warning blade. “You tell your uncle this: don’t keep quietly proclaiming he has a cub.”
“The cub has nothing to do with him. It’s mine.”
“And don’t forget—rabbits bite when cornered. Dogs jump walls when desperate.” Her smile turned sharp. “I’m not a rabbit.”
Sui Xuan Chu nodded like his head was about to fall off. “Understood.”
He hurried to change topics. “So… tomorrow’s execution. Do you want to go watch?”
“No.” Jiang Tea Tea refused instantly. “I have class tomorrow.”
Sui Xuan Chu exhaled. “Okay. I’ll tell my uncle—”
Jiang Tea Tea slammed the door in his face.
Sui Xuan Chu stared at the closed door and silently admitted his uncle had been right.
Wanting the cub was easy.
Wanting the cub’s mother too?
That was going to be a very long road.
—
Jiang Tea Tea returned to her room, drank two bottles of dragon blood back-to-back, and finally felt satisfied—no hunger, no gnawing emptiness. She kicked off her shoes, collapsed onto her bed, and fell asleep.
Starnet’s obsession with “Commander-in-Chief Chong Ming has a cub” only grew more intense through the night. Other dragon clans in Zhen Lin Empire held emergency clan meetings, furious that none of them had heard a whisper about a mate or a cub.
The black dragon and white dragon clan chiefs reportedly raged the loudest. They’d been waiting for the golden dragon imperial family’s last two dragons to die out so they could take the throne.
Now a new golden dragon cub had appeared.
A gold dragon could live three hundred to five hundred years. A new one meant at least a thousand more years of golden dragon supremacy.
They weren’t willing to wait.
They wanted to be at the table, too. They wanted to rule. They wanted Zhen Lin Empire’s crown.
—
In a luxury reception hotel, Insect Clan Crown Princess Asais snarled at her subordinates.
“Useless. You failed to locate Zhen Lin Empire’s crown prince inside Royal Military Academy. You lost plenty of our infiltrators and drew Chong Ming’s attention.”
Dozens of escort officers lowered their heads, swallowing the humiliation. “Yes, Your Highness. We were incompetent. We didn’t realize Commander-in-Chief Chong Ming already had a mate and a cub.”
“We will investigate immediately. We will identify his mate and the cub’s age and identity.”
Asais forced down her anger. “Besides investigating, if you can capture his mate, capture the crown prince, or capture that mutant 3S-rank healer… then the advantage is ours.”
“Any one of those three is worth a fortune. With one hostage, we can get my imperial elder brother back. We can demand star systems. We can demand unequal treaties.”
“I’m staying in Zhen Lin Empire for eight days. Two days have already passed.” Asais’s eyes narrowed. “You have six days left. In six days, I want results.”
“Yes, Your Highness!”
Night fell.
Above Royal Military Academy, an invisibility warship appeared silently in the sky.
Sui Xuan Chu was jolted awake by his Lightbrain vibrating. Half-asleep, he would never have imagined the message was from his uncle—telling him to open a window.
He stumbled out, opened the living-room window, and the next second a golden dragon—thick as an arm and over a meter long—slipped inside.
It hit the floor and transformed into Chong Ming.
Sui Xuan Chu stood there in pajamas, hair a mess, whispering like a burglar. “Uncle… my roommate has been asleep since before five yesterday. I listened at her door before bed. She’s sleeping great. Nothing happened.”
Chong Ming’s gaze fixed on the closed door of Jiang Tea Tea’s room. His voice was quiet.
“After you left, I consulted several top healers about Jiang Tea Tea’s condition.”
“They all believe dragon clan cubs cannot be live-bearing. But they can’t rule out a miracle. They want to examine the cub and the mother.”
Sui Xuan Chu swallowed hard. “So you came… to take my roommate and show her to those healers?”
“No.” Chong Ming’s answer was immediate.
“Cheng Lin Yue was right. The most excellent healer in Zhen Lin Empire—possibly the entire galaxy—is Jiang Tea Tea herself.”
“I merely asked those healers out of caution. They argued endlessly, insisting it couldn’t exist. When I said it might, every one of them looked like they wanted to nail that ‘miracle’ to a dissection table.”
Sui Xuan Chu’s brows lifted. “So you finally understand why my roommate hid it from you. Why she refuses to admit the cub is yours. Why she doesn’t trust you.”
Chong Ming nodded once. “Yes.”
“In healers’ eyes, she isn’t a person. She’s a medical miracle. A specimen.”
“And she herself is mutant plant-type. No one understands what’s happening in her body better than she does.”
“If I were her, I would hide it too.”
Sui Xuan Chu’s heart finally loosened. Understanding. Thank Beast God. Understanding was everything.
He asked carefully, “Then… why are you here this late?”
Chong Ming didn’t look away from that closed door.
“To give the cub and Jiang Tea Tea psychic-force soothing.”
Sui Xuan Chu blurted, “Uncle… you’re going to sleep with my roommate?”