Chapter 148
Chapter 148: Commander in Chief Lord Wants Pats, a Chicken-and-Duck Food Chain
The police officers looked Wolf Xin Rui up and down and asked: “You were the ones who got beaten. Were you the ones who called the police?”
Wolf Xin Rui froze for a moment, then shook her head and said: “No…”
One of the police officers glanced around and asked: “Who called the police?”
Jiang Tea Tea raised her hand and said: “Me.”
The police officer walked over to her and said: “Hello, please show me the ID code on your light-brain wrist terminal.”
Jiang Tea Tea opened her light-brain wrist terminal and, working with the police officer, pulled up her electronic ID code for them to check.
The police officer scanned it, saw that she was a Level S variant plant-type healing ability user, and his eyes darkened slightly. He spoke in an official tone and asked: “What exactly are you reporting this time? Do you want on-site mediation, or do you want to go to the Police Bureau for mediation?”
Jiang Tea Tea glanced at Wolf Xin Rui and the others, taking in all the unwillingness, fear, and anger in their eyes.
The corners of her mouth curled up slightly. She lifted the branch staff in her hand and pointed at Wolf Xin Rui and the other two, breaking the usual script as she said: “Officer, sir, I do not need on-site mediation. I called the police because I have evidence-based suspicion that the three of them are connected to last night’s Insectoid race invasion and the release of aberrant beasts into the Royal Military Imperial Academy. They might be inside agents for the Insectoid race.”
Wolf Xin Rui, Wolf Xin Ping, and Wolf Xin Chong all had their pupils shrink at her words. Terror flashed in their eyes, and they shouted: “Jiang Tea Tea, what nonsense are you talking about? Who are you calling inside agents of the Insectoid race? We are students of Zhenlin the Empire’s Military Academy!”
Wolf Xin Rui argued loudly: “Jiang Tea Tea, you can eat whatever you want, but you cannot say whatever you want. Our White Wolf tribe, from top to bottom, inside and out, are all loyal residents of Zhenlin the Empire.”
Wolf Xin Ping shouted too: “Jiang Tea Tea, you beat us and now you are slandering us. We are going to sue you. We are going to sue you until you are exiled and executed!”
Colluding with the Insectoid race and acting as inside agents touched the foundation of the Nation. It was not something to be taken lightly. The four police officers who had come immediately started reporting the situation on the spot and moved to detain Wolf Xin Rui and the other two.
Sui Xuan Chu, the Empire’s crown prince, felt shaken deep inside, but his expression stayed calm, like a mountain collapsing in front of him while he did not even blink.
Huang Da Zhuang and the other six watched in disbelief, their eyes wide and their minds blank. They could not guess Sister Tea’s plan or what she was thinking at all.
The school leaders, Old Jin, and the teachers from each department who were in charge of Jiang Tea Tea and the others all arrived one after another.
The Central Public Security Bureau, the Special Affairs Bureau, and Imperial Military Headquarters had been helping the Royal Gold Lion Imperial Academy clean up the mess since yesterday, tying up loose ends, checking the situation, and hunting for the Insectoid race’s nest.
Now that someone had called the police and testified that there might be inside agents, the Central Public Security Bureau, the Special Affairs Bureau, the army, and the Security Bureau were all alerted at once.
That was right, even the Security Bureau was alerted.
People from all four departments arrived very quickly, and many of them came. They not only took away Wolf Xin Rui, Wolf Xin Ping, and Wolf Xin Chong, along with Jiang Tea Tea and her eight-person group, but also invited the school leaders, Old Jin, and the teachers from every department.
Chong Ming, who had gone back to Imperial Military Headquarters to work, received the report and coordinated with the four departments. He had all of them sent to the Security Bureau.
After they entered the Security Bureau, Jiang Tea Tea was the first one to be interrogated.
She sat calmly in the interrogation room and answered without hurry: “I suspect Wolf Xin Rui, Wolf Xin Ping, and Wolf Xin Chong, the triplets, are connected to last night’s Insectoid race attack because they killed five bugs. Those five bugs were in the Jin Garden zone of the academy.”
She continued: “Before those five bugs were killed, I shot each one of them with at least five tubes of tranquilizer.”
She added: “These are the space knobs we found on the five bugs, and the tranquilizer guns they used. My roommate Sui Xuan Chu also has a tranquilizer gun. He and I had something to do last night, so we left the academy early and did not have time to hand them in.”
After she finished speaking, Jiang Tea Tea took the tranquilizer gun and the space knob storage devices out of her own space knob storage device and put them all on the table in front of her. She did not forget to remind the interrogation officer: “These tranquilizer guns belong to the Insectoid race. I did not only shoot five bugs. I also shot a few of the crazed Dragon clan students on campus. My roommate did the same.”
Jiang Tea Tea said calmly: “You can go ask Old Jin. He was in charge of treatment. He should know whose bodies still have tranquilizer in them.”
She added: “Also, please check the dissected bodies of the five bugs. See if the amount of tranquilizer in them is enough to keep them from waking up for several days, unless there is some outside force.”
She leaned back slightly and went on: “After that, you can interrogate Wolf Xin Rui and the other two. Ask them whether, when those five bugs were in a deep coma and could not wake up, they killed them to cover something up, or if they did it just to get second-class merit or third-class merit.”
The interrogation officer recorded her statement in both audio and written form, then asked: “You, your roommate Sui Xuan Chu, and your schoolmate Cheng Lin Yue left with the Central Public Security Bureau, the Special Affairs Bureau, the army, and the Personal Guard squad after they entered the Royal Military Imperial Academy. You say you had something to do and left the academy.”
He looked at her seriously and asked: “Where did you go, who did you meet, and what did you do? Please explain in detail.”
Chong Ming sat in his office chair, looking at the giant screen in front of him. On the giant screen was the Security Department interrogation room, with Jiang Tea Tea and the interrogation officer.
He had thought Jiang Tea Tea would give him up and drag him in so he could settle this personally. He had not expected Jiang Tea Tea to not mention him at all, and to not even bother to rely on him to clean up after her.
Jiang Tea Tea opened her light-brain wrist terminal and projected a holo projection screen. On the holo screen was Secretary Wen’s contact number. She said: “The places we went and the people we met are not very convenient for me to talk about. But you can ask him. If he is willing to tell you, I will not have any objection.”
The minister of the Security Department, Yan Lan Shen, who had been sitting beside the interrogation officer without speaking, saw that contact number. He suddenly straightened up and waved his hand at the other interrogation officers.
The interrogation officer stood up and said: “Alright, schoolmate Jiang Tea Tea. We will contact the person in your contacts. For now, please come out with us.”
Jiang Tea Tea stood up with them. As she walked out, she glanced at Yan Lan Shen. He was a fox clan beastman. He looked a bit familiar, a little like their squad’s intelligence division member Yan Yu.
Maybe the two of them were related, or maybe fox clan people simply looked somewhat alike.
After Yan Lan Shen watched Jiang Tea Tea leave, he had not even dialed Secretary Wen’s number yet before a call came in from Secretary Wen.
The message showed: “Schoolmates Jiang Tea Tea, Sui Xuan Chu, and Cheng Lin Yue left the Royal Military Imperial Academy last night and went to the Imperial Palace. They stayed there until 7:45 this morning, when they were sent back to the academy. The primary witness is Commander in Chief Chong Ming.”
It also said: “Minister Yan, if you have any questions about what they did after leaving the Imperial Academy, you can call Commander in Chief Chong Ming.”
If Commander in Chief Chong Ming was the witness, then what problem could there be? There was no problem at all. Even if Chong Ming started to suspect that he himself might be an inside agent, he still would not suspect Jiang Tea Tea and the others.
Even so, the people who had been brought to the Security Department still had to be questioned as a routine step. They had to follow the proper procedures.
But all those questions were built around Jiang Tea Tea’s words, used to support and verify her statement.
The Security Department’s information officers started digging deep into all of Jiang Tea Tea and her companions’ personal files.
They did not think much of it at first, but once they actually dug in, they were shocked. The files of the school’s teachers and leaders showed a few small alternate identities or little hobbies here and there, which was nothing.
But the eight people in Jiang Tea Tea’s group all had extremely simple, bare-bones identity files. They were so stripped down that the information officers felt like the data had to be fake.
They strengthened their efforts and did a deeper search. The first person they connected to was their own boss’s younger brother, Yan Yu. The second person they found was the young master of the big Black Wolf family.
When they kept digging further, their minister, Yan Lan Shen, came over and stopped them from digging into the eight students’ identities. He ordered them to dig into Wolf Xin Rui and her brothers instead.
After Sui Xuan Chu, Huang Da Zhuang, and the other six were questioned separately, all seven were brought out and reunited with Jiang Tea Tea.
Old Jin, the teachers from each department, and the school leaders were questioned for a longer time.
Old Jin submitted evidence that the wounds on Wolf Xin Rui and her brothers’ bodies were all cut-type, close-range wounds, not the kind you got from a real fight.
Imperial Military Headquarters, which had taken away the bodies of the five bugs, provided the most detailed dissection report on those bodies. The report showed that all five bugs had been killed while they were in a state of heavy anesthesia.
Staff members from the Central Public Security Bureau, the Special Affairs Bureau, and the Security Department all reviewed the academy’s surveillance system again, especially the cameras near the blind spots around the Jin Garden zone.
They had not noticed anything before, but when they focused and watched closely, they finally found it. Before they killed the five bugs, Wolf Xin Rui and her brothers had already been hiding in the dark around that area.
As soon as Jiang Tea Tea jumped into the air to help Sui Xuan Chu, the three of them ran straight into the surveillance blind spot in the Jin Garden zone. Soon after that, the sound of fighting came from that direction.
That blind spot had no camera footage, but the outer ring did, and the outer cameras picked up the sounds of the fight.
Experts listened carefully and analyzed the audio. They judged that the so-called fighting noises were a mix of edited sound effects and human voices.
In other words, the fight Wolf Xin Rui and her brothers claimed had never really happened. Their story that they fought the five bugs at the risk of their lives and killed them was a lie.
At first, Wolf Xin Rui and the other two firmly insisted that they were the ones who had killed the five bugs. They said Jiang Tea Tea and the others were just jealous, that they hated them, and that they were slandering them on purpose.
But faced with the evidence laid out in front of them and the interrogation officers’ stern questions, the three of them were still too young. No matter how rich their families were, how favored by heaven they were, or how outstanding, they could not handle this kind of huge pressure.
Their mental defenses collapsed on the spot. They broke down, cried until they were a mess, spoke in confusion, and begged for forgiveness and mercy.
They sobbed and said: “We are not inside agents. We did not collude with the Insectoid race. When the Insectoid race invaded the Royal Military Imperial Academy, we were just hiding. We did not expect to see Jiang Tea Tea fighting the bugs head-on.”
They admitted: “She was amazing. Even when the bugs threw a capture net over her, they could not catch her. She still beat all five of them.”
They confessed: “She shot the tranquilizers into those five bugs, then left. We went over to check. When we saw the five bugs were not dead, we wanted the credit for killing them.”
They continued to cry and talk: “We just happened to know that the surveillance system in that area was broken. So we talked it over, hurt each other on purpose, cut some wounds onto the bugs, killed them, and then dragged their bodies out to claim the credit.”
They explained through their tears: “We only wanted to be stronger than Jiang Tea Tea. We did not want her to outshine us. For the Insectoid race’s invasion of the Royal Military Imperial Academy this time, her merits are at least worth a second-class merit. We thought it would be enough if we could get a third-class merit.”
They kept repeating: “We really only wanted a third-class merit. We do not know any Insectoid race, and we have never acted as their inside agents. Please believe us. Please believe us!”
Jiang Tea Tea’s variant plant-type supernatural abilities were far too eye-catching. Their dad and mother had told the three siblings to make sure they got on her good side.
They had tried, but Jiang Tea Tea completely ignored them. They held in their frustration and refused to accept being beneath her, so they took a risk.
They never thought Jiang Tea Tea would accuse them of colluding with the Insectoid race and acting as inside agents, dragging them all the way into the Security Department.
They were done for now, completely done. Their dad and mother would find out, and they would have a criminal record. They did not even know if it would be a major demerit or expulsion.
If they were expelled from the academy, they would become discarded pieces, with no more support, backing, or help from their family.
The Security Department investigated everything thoroughly and really did not find any trace that Wolf Xin Rui and her brothers had acted as inside agents for the Insectoid race.
Given that Jiang Tea Tea’s suspicion had been reasonable, they handed the results of the investigation to Jiang Tea Tea and to the administration of the Royal Military Imperial Academy.
Jiang Tea Tea took the investigation report, glanced at it once, then left with Sui Xuan Chu, Cheng Xiao Ting, Cheng Lin Yue, and the others. Together with the teachers of each department, they went back to the academy for class as if this whole incident was nothing more than a small interruption.
The school leaders got the report and saw how, just for the sake of second-class and third-class merit, Wolf Xin Rui and her brothers had pulled this stunt, stealing credit, killing the bugs that should have been live prisoners, and causing the Empire the loss of five living captives.
The school leaders were furious. They immediately decided to cancel the three siblings’ rewards and turn them into a negative example. Their story was posted once more on the academy intranet to warn all the teachers and students to treat their actions as shameful and never follow them.
As for Jiang Tea Tea and her companions, each of the eight was rewarded with 300,000 star credits. The academy also submitted applications to get them military merit, so their records would look even better.
The school leaders also notified Wolf Xin Rui and her brothers’ parents and told them to come to the academy.
Before their parents arrived, the three siblings would be indefinitely suspended from classes. Whether they would be expelled or simply given a major demerit would be decided after discussion.
Because of their greed, their desire to steal credit, and their need to compete, Wolf Xin Rui and her brothers ended up with their reputations in ruins and became absolute nobodies.
At noon, when other students of the Royal Military Imperial Academy saw the announcement on the intranet, the whole school exploded. They cursed Wolf Xin Rui and her brothers as badly as they could, while praising Jiang Tea Tea, Sui Xuan Chu, and their eight-person squad just as loudly.
When Jiang Tea Tea and her group went to eat lunch, many senior female schoolmates, senior male schoolmates, and classmates from the same grade bought dishes for them and tried to treat them.
Jiang Tea Tea and the others were so scared that they ran away faster than lightning. They did not even finish their food before they bolted back to the classroom for lunch break and started memorizing the Criminal Code.
After they finished their classes in the afternoon and evening, the teacher of their last period said to them: “There are a little less than ten days left before vacation.”
The teacher added with a straight face: “You eight are a special small group for focused training. When others go on vacation, you will not. When others rest, you will not rest.”
The teacher continued: “After these ten days, you will be given a mission. The exact day and what that mission is will be told to you when the time comes.”
Then the teacher said: “What you need to do now is use these ten days to inform your parents and family that you will be training in the academy. But you cannot tell them that you will be going out on a mission.”
Jiang Tea Tea and the others answered in unison: “Yes, teacher.”
Class ended on time at nine o’clock.
Cheng Lin Yue and Huang Da Zhuang took the other six and went back to their own dorms.
Jiang Tea Tea and Sui Xuan Chu returned to their dorm, picked up the stack of books piling up there, and headed toward the school gate.
At 9:30, a low-key but luxurious flying vehicle appeared in front of them right on time, not a minute more or less, like it had been perfectly scheduled.
Jiang Tea Tea and Sui Xuan Chu got into the flying vehicle.
Sui Xuan Chu, relying on the fact that Jiang Tea Tea was there, chose to sit with her in the back and treated his uncle as nothing more than a driver.
The whole way back, the two of them chattered nonstop. When they reached the Imperial Palace and Sui Xuan Chu had just stepped out of the flying vehicle, before he could even catch his breath, two flying jiao beastmen and four bird-type beastmen rushed over and took him straight to training.
Jiang Tea Tea followed Chong Ming back to his living quarters in the palace. When she went inside, she saw the table covered with late-night snacks. She sat down and started eating while Chong Ming went to wash up.
After Jiang Tea Tea finished eating and Chong Ming finished washing, she went to wash while Chong Ming had people come in to clean up and also took care of some work.
When Jiang Tea Tea came out of the bathroom, she did not see Chong Ming. She thought he had gone out, and she felt secretly happy as she jumped onto the half-round bed.
But then she saw something lying on the bed. It was a golden dragon, about as thick as her arm and a little over a meter long, with two big dragon horns that did not fit his small body at all.
The golden dragon was lying on the bed, the golden mane along his neck and back hanging down, soft and smooth. His golden eyes were tightly closed.
Jiang Tea Tea’s heart thumped hard in her chest. She had clearly eaten her fill of late-night snacks, but when she looked at this shiny golden dragon, she suddenly felt hungry again. She swallowed over and over.
As the saying went, a single tree spirit could treat all things as food. Dragons were a great tonic. The sight of him made hunger rise right from her gut. She wrapped her hand in spiritual power and reached out to grab the golden dragon.
But although the golden dragon’s eyes were still closed, he cheated a little. He lowered his dragon head onto her hand, half opened his golden eyes, and said: “No need to sneak a touch. I will let you touch me!”