Chapter 150
Chapter 150: Flirting Like That—Your Drool Is About to Land on Someone. Is That Even Proper?
Jiang Tea Tea immediately scooted away from him. “You’re so scatterbrained and careless. If you act like this, how are you supposed to lead a country when you inherit the throne?”
Sui Xuan Chu took one look at her disdainful expression, and every trace of gratitude for the breakfast she’d brought him vanished.
“How am I scatterbrained? How am I careless?” he argued. “Everything I say has been thought through.”
Then, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, he added, “But you should work hard too. Make it so I can legitimately confer a title on you—so the public can’t dig up any dirt. Just good stuff. All good stuff.”
This was the Zhen Lin Empire. Under imperial succession law, any cub born of the sovereign’s line had the right to inherit—male or female. A son would be king, a daughter would be princess. Either way, they had succession rights.
Right now, Sui Xuan Chu was first in line to the throne. His uncle was second.
If Sui Xuan Chu ever had a brother or sister, his uncle would automatically drop to third, and the newborn sibling would rise to second.
And if Sui Xuan Chu married and had a cub, that cub would become second in line. His brother or sister would slide to third. His uncle would fall all the way to fourth.
In other monarchies across the M31 Star System, you could pick any imperial family at random and find heirs stacked forty, fifty, even a hundred deep.
Sui Xuan Chu, however, dreamed of the opposite problem. He wanted his family’s line of heirs to be so overflowing that he couldn’t even make the top ten without squeezing.
Better yet, he wanted the golden dragon family to thrive—cubs everywhere, the Imperial Palace loud and crowded—so no one would ever have to worry about a lack of dragons to inherit the throne.
Jiang Tea Tea gave a polite little laugh that sounded like a refusal. “Thanks for the thought. If you’re really touched, convert your feelings into cash. If you don’t have cash, bring me something valuable from your family’s vault. I can sell it.”
Sui Xuan Chu huffed. “You’re so vulgar.”
Jiang Tea Tea lifted her chin and puffed out her chest. “I’m vulgar. I’m happy. I’m proud. So what? Are you eating or not?”
“If you’re not eating, give it here.”
Sui Xuan Chu clutched his breakfast with one arm and shoved food into his mouth with the other. “Eat, eat, eat. I’ll eat.”
Up front, Chong Ming drove the flyer. In the rearview feed, he watched the two of them bicker like there wasn’t another soul in the universe.
Sui Xuan Chu—usually sharp-edged and arrogant—looked different around Jiang Tea Tea. He seemed livelier. Looser. More like a young man under the morning sun, grounded and human, not a dragon wearing a student’s skin.
Breakfast was absurdly generous: a meal, fruit, dessert. Sui Xuan Chu had already downed two tubes of nutrient solution earlier, and now he ate until he was stuffed.
The flyer arrived at the school gates and eased to a stop.
Before Jiang Tea Tea pushed the door open, Chong Ming reminded her, “I’ll pick you up here at nine-thirty tonight. Don’t forget.”
Without looking back, she tossed out, “You’re so long-winded.”
Sui Xuan Chu badly wanted to echo those two words at his uncle.
He didn’t have the guts.
He climbed out with Jiang Tea Tea, ran into the school, and took the campus hover shuttle to their class building to meet Huang Da Zhuang and the others.
Once all eight of them had gathered, the conversation inevitably drifted to gossip about Lang Xin Rui and the Lang Xin Ping triplets.
“Sister Tea, good thing you’re not living in the dorms,” someone said. “They went to your dorm entrance to block you.”
“But don’t worry. Someone posted a video of them waiting outside your door on the intranet. The school warned them and ordered them not to leave their own dorm.”
“And the school even notified their parents. It’s been a whole day and night and they still haven’t shown up. Rumor says their parents were so ashamed they basically gave up on them.”
“Though their distant cousin, Cheng Xiao Ting, has been asking around. No one’s sure yet whether the parents really cut them off.”
“Enough,” Jiang Tea Tea cut in, impatient. “Whatever happens to them has nothing to do with us. Class. Now. We test every day—B, C, A, over and over. Can any of you get an SS-rank score for once? Show some backbone.”
They were duly scolded into silence. The group hurried to the classroom, heads down, reviewing.
New material. New drills. When class time came, the teacher arrived and started the lecture.
Their schedule was brutal—one course after another. They only got breaks at lunch and dinner. After eating, they went right back to it: study, practice, repeat.
Everyone kept themselves keyed up all day. Some people absorbed everything. Some people didn’t. And if they didn’t, they met up again at night to argue through problems and discuss until late.
Sui Xuan Chu had it the worst. He slept six hours a night, if that. The rest of his time was either spent in class, on the way to class, in combat training, or running to combat training.
Jiang Tea Tea, on the other hand, had it easier now. No more twenty-kilometer morning runs. She only needed to walk for forty-five minutes to an hour. Chong Ming also tutored her one-on-one, reviewing and explaining lessons she hadn’t understood.
The one who looked relaxed was Jiang Tea Tea.
The one who was most tormented was also Jiang Tea Tea.
For several nights in a row, Chong Ming—her “Old Loach”—kept transforming into his beast form at bedtime.
The first night, he was as thick as her wrist, over a meter long.
The second, as thick as her arm, over two meters long.
The third, as thick as her calf, three meters long.
The fourth and fifth nights, he changed again—different girths, different lengths.
Before, he’d curled up in a tight coil, taking up a tiny corner of the bed.
Now, he took up half of it.
His whole body gleamed gold. When he felt like it, he’d flick his tail at her, flex his golden claws as if showing them off, and stare at her with those golden eyes like nothing else existed.
Jiang Tea Tea ate three meals and a midnight snack every day. Then, right before she went to sleep, she’d be forced to look at this enormous walking supplement lying right next to her.
She swallowed. She craved. She drooled.
The problem was that she only had about thirty-five to forty percent of her magic power restored. She couldn’t even pierce the scales of his beast form, let alone kill him, bury him, and use him as fertilizer.
It felt as impossible as ascending to immortality.
Yet the supplement kept swaying its tail in front of her face—swaying, swaying—until her craving turned into irritation, her irritation into rage, and she was one snarl away from snapping.
“Old Loach,” she growled, “move your claw. If you don’t, I’m chopping it off.”
Chong Ming retracted his sharp claw mid-reach and paused just short of touching her. His golden eyes stayed fixed on her, unblinking.
“You keep staring at my claw,” he said calmly. “Don’t you want to touch it?”
Jiang Tea Tea sat cross-legged and let out a cold snort. “I’m not looking because I want to touch it. I’m looking because I want to chop it off.”
Chong Ming lifted his dragon head, mouth opening as he stated the obvious like he was delivering a report.
“My scales are sharp and hard. Ordinary blades can’t chop off my claw.”
Then his tone tilted into something faintly suggestive.
“The kind of blade that could is contraband. Civilians can’t buy it. Unless you become the Commander-in-Chief… or my mate. Then you can buy whatever you want.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s mouth twitched.
She had to admit it: the reason Chong Ming could become Commander-in-Chief wasn’t just strength. The man was stubborn to a frightening degree.
Every night before bed, he asked her the same questions. Would she register a marriage with him? Could he touch her belly? Could he say hello to her cubs?
Jiang Tea Tea told herself, Don’t get mad. Getting mad over an Old Loach isn’t worth it.
After she soothed herself, she spat out a single word. “Get lost.”
Chong Ming pulled his claw back. Instead of coiling, his thick body sprawled across the bed, dragon head pointed toward her.
He didn’t move.
Jiang Tea Tea’s eyes narrowed. “You won’t get lost? Fine. You asked for it.”
She threw the blanket over him in one swift motion, lunged forward, swung a leg over his body, and climbed on top of him. Then she started pounding—head, shoulders, whatever she could reach—fists slamming down again and again.
“Old Loach! Are you seriously too rich to buy your own bed? Your house is huge. You can’t afford a mattress?”
“You’re always squeezing in here—squeeze, squeeze, squeeze—like you don’t know how big you are, how heavy you are! You want to fight me for space? I can’t even lie down straight anymore!”
“I’ll let you fight! I’ll let you fight! I’ll beat you to—”
Halfway through, she froze.
Something was wrong.
He hadn’t made a sound. Not one.
A chill ran through her. Did she… did she actually beat him to death?
Was she that strong?
She doubted herself, paused, and cautiously lifted a corner of the blanket. Slowly, she peeked under—
In the next instant, the golden dragon beneath her—thicker than her thigh, several meters long—shifted into human form.
Long hair slightly mussed. Chest bare. Shirt open.
And the position she was straddling…
Her thighs were spread around his waist, her weight settled low, right below his abdomen.
Jiang Tea Tea stared at the expanse of exposed skin. Tight muscle. Clear lines. Strength you could see and feel. Somehow, his human form looked even more delicious than his beast form.
She swallowed without meaning to.
Chong Ming watched her stare, watched the way her throat bobbed. His voice dropped into something rough and low.
“Jiang Tea Tea,” he murmured, “your drool is about to land on me. Wipe it off.”