Chapter 162

Chapter 162: You Kneel, Your Whole Family Kneels—I Can Take It

Lang Xin Chong’s eyes went bloodshot with rage. He forced his fist down with pure will. “Jiang Tea Tea—there’s no humiliating people like this.”

Lang Xin Ping jabbed a finger at her, seething. “Jiang Tea Tea, don’t go too far. We’re your brothers and sister. If we kneel to you, can you bear it?”

Jiang Tea Tea lifted her chin. “Not only you three. Even if your whole family—ten, twenty people—kneels in front of me, I can take it.”

She wasn’t the fake heiress who clung to hollow family affection.

She was a demon.

A great demon.

If you measured by age, she was older than their ancestors. What did their kneeling amount to? She could accept their ancestors’ eighteen generations kneeling together.

She raised one finger, cutting Lang Xin Chong off before he could speak again. “I’m going to count to three. If you don’t kneel and apologize loudly by then, I’ll give you three months.”

Her tone stayed light, almost bored. Her words were not.

“In three months, your SS-rank abilities will drop to A-rank. Your S-rank abilities will drop to C-rank.”

“Three months after that, you’ll drop from A and C… to nothing. No abilities at all.”

Her eyes gleamed coldly. “You’ll go from the White Wolf Clan’s proud geniuses to worthless beastfolk with no abilities. Think about your mom and dad. With their personalities, you without abilities is the same as trash. They threw away the ‘trash’ I used to be, and they’ll throw you away the exact same way.”

Her coursework was brutal. She wanted to become famous across the entire galaxy as quickly as possible and end her contract with the fake heiress.

And these idiots kept hurling themselves onto the blade.

Lang Xin Rui, Lang Xin Ping, and Lang Xin Chong all went numb. Scalps tight. Bodies rigid. Hands and feet cold.

They couldn’t befriend Jiang Tea Tea. They couldn’t convince her to return home. And after they’d tried to steal her credit, their parents had already cut off their allowance.

If they lost their abilities too, their dad and mom would issue a statement in an instant, declaring they had nothing to do with them.

Their parents were the White Wolf Clan’s clan chief and madam. They didn’t raise useless children. Every child had to achieve something to deserve the title of “their child,” to be acknowledged.

Jiang Tea Tea watched them hesitate and began counting without pity. “Three. Two—”

Lang Xin Rui cut in fast, desperate to bargain. “We’ll kneel! But change places. To our dorm. We’ll kneel there, okay?”

“No,” Jiang Tea Tea said, crisp and final.

Lang Xin Rui’s face twisted. “You—”

Jiang Tea Tea opened her mouth again. “One—”

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Three heavy impacts as three pairs of knees slammed into the ground, loud enough to swallow Jiang Tea Tea’s voice.

For their abilities, the triplets dropped to their knees, grinding every shred of pride and face into the dirt and letting Jiang Tea Tea step on it.

Sui Xuan Chu lifted his thumb at Jiang Tea Tea, then started recording, aiming the video at the kneeling triplets.

Lang Xin Rui’s face flushed red as if she were walking to her death. She shouted, voice shaking but loud. “Jiang Tea Tea, I was wrong! I shouldn’t have guilt-tripped you. I shouldn’t have called you my sister. Please forgive me!”

Lang Xin Ping’s humiliation was written all over his face. “Jiang Tea Tea, I was wrong. You are you, I am me—we have no relationship at all. I shouldn’t have guilt-tripped you and tried to drag you home.”

Lang Xin Chong squeezed his eyes shut and forced the words out. “Jiang Tea Tea, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have pretended I had backlash and rolled around on the floor. I shouldn’t have guilt-tripped you to stabilize my ability. Please forgive me. Don’t touch my ability.”

Jiang Tea Tea stood over them, looking down, feeling the leftover consciousness inside her—belonging to the fake heiress—thrumming with bright, satisfied joy.

The triplets finished apologizing. When Jiang Tea Tea didn’t speak, panic crept up their throats.

Lang Xin Rui tried to ask, but she didn’t dare raise her voice. “Jiang Tea Tea, we apologized… you…”

Jiang Tea Tea lifted the branch and tapped each of them once on the head—hard enough to sting, not hard enough to split skin.

“All right,” she said. “Now get lost.”

The triplets’ eyes widened. That was it?

Really?

They moved in perfect sync, each one hastily activating their ability—careful not to aim at Jiang Tea Tea. They fired into the ground instead.

The abilities came out cleanly, without hesitation.

Their faces went slack with disbelief. They didn’t even glance at Jiang Tea Tea again. They scrambled up and ran back toward the Medical Department like their feet were on fire.

Sui Xuan Chu immediately forwarded the recording to his uncle. Then he turned to Jiang Tea Tea, breathless with glee. “Roommate, you were incredible.”

Jiang Tea Tea smiled at him. “Thanks. Come on—class. We’re going to study. Let’s try to finish all our courses in two years.”

Sui Xuan Chu made a strangled sound. “Your cubs are viviparous. You give birth and don’t even have to incubate eggs. Why are you in such a hurry?”

Jiang Tea Tea gave him a look that screamed, Use your brain, and started walking.

She moved so fast she didn’t look seven months pregnant. She looked like she wasn’t pregnant at all.

Sui Xuan Chu followed behind her, staring at her quick, strong stride. He couldn’t help thinking she was unnaturally gifted at carrying cubs.

And his uncle was unbelievable too. Who didn’t coddle a mate carrying cubs like something fragile? Who didn’t hold her close, afraid she’d fall?

His uncle knew she was pregnant and still didn’t reduce her workload. He kept pushing her to fight.

Someday, when he had the chance, he was going to ask his uncle why he didn’t keep Jiang Tea Tea tucked into his palm—safe, protected, treated like she might vanish if you blinked.

They returned to the classroom. Huang Da Zhuang and the others hadn’t arrived yet, so the two of them went in and waited.

About ten minutes later, the rest showed up. Eight people reviewed together, discussed together, and kept at it until class began.

After the morning classes ended, they walked to lunch. Cheng Lin Yue followed behind Jiang Tea Tea and called softly, “Sister Tea, you smell so good today—especially your hair. What brand of hair care do you use?”

Jiang Tea Tea froze. “You can smell me? Like… a clean fragrance with a hint of bitterness?”

Cheng Lin Yue nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes! It wakes you up and clears your mind. I sit next to you and catch that faint scent on and off, and I’m so alert in class. I stay focused the whole time.”

She’d never smelled anything like it before. It seemed natural, but it really did sharpen the mind. It felt incredible.

Jiang Tea Tea couldn’t exactly tell her the truth—that it was her own tea-blossom fragrance, and it was all because that Old Loach Chong Ming kept feeding her blood until she bloomed and started smelling like a whole garden.

So she answered smoothly, “I didn’t use anything. Maybe last night I went camping in the woods among flowers and picked up some floral scent.”

Cheng Lin Yue nodded as if that made perfect sense. The night before, Crown Prince Sui Xuan Chu had casually mentioned that his uncle had taken Jiang Tea Tea on a date.

Commander-in-Chief Chong Ming had chosen a flower field, going all-in on romance.

Seeing Cheng Lin Yue believe it, Jiang Tea Tea secretly let out a sigh of relief.

According to tea trees’ blooming season, the scent should linger for two or three months.

But she wasn’t a normal tea tree. She was a tea tree demon. And the flower hadn’t even fully opened; it was more bud than bloom.

That meant the scent wouldn’t disappear in three to five months. It could take a year, two years—maybe even three to five years before it truly faded.

The thought of walking around smelling like tea blossoms, like she was shamelessly advertising herself for pollination, made her skin crawl.

She muttered a few spells under her breath and formed a seal to block her scent.

A moment later, Cheng Lin Yue could barely smell it anymore. She didn’t find it strange. She just assumed the floral scent had faded.

After lunch, they took a short nap. In the afternoon, they had class. In the evening, there was none.

Jiang Tea Tea had planned to return to the dorm.

Then she received a photo from Chong Ming: bottles filled with dragon blood, lined up neatly. Another photo followed—his neck, with the tooth marks she’d left.

She stared at the bottled dragon blood and wanted it.

She stared at his neck and wanted to bite it.

She wanted his blood, and she wanted to gnaw on his neck.

Shamelessly, she didn’t go back to the dorm with Sui Xuan Chu. She walked straight into the trap on her own, showing up at the school gate and climbing into a black flyer—low-profile, luxurious, windows so heavily tinted you couldn’t see the interior.

She and Sui Xuan Chu sat in the back seats.

The flyer’s primary driver was Chong Ming.

They treated him like a chauffeur.

Less than half an hour later, the flyer landed at the Imperial Palace.

The moment Sui Xuan Chu climbed out, he saw ten people waiting for him in training gear—five land-animal beastfolk, and five avian beastfolk.

He shot Jiang Tea Tea a desperate look: Save me. Save me, roommate. I don’t want to be trained.

Jiang Tea Tea hadn’t even opened her mouth when Chong Ming spoke first. “Captain She. The Crown Prince’s eyes seem a little off. Before you train him, contact the Royal Medical Team. Have someone come check his eyes.”

Captain She answered immediately, respectful and crisp. “Yes, Your Highness.”

Sui Xuan Chu’s eyes flew wide. He stopped squinting, stopped blinking hard—

And, miraculously, his eyes were suddenly “fine.”

Jiang Tea Tea gave him an utterly unhelpful look that said, You’re on your own, and sauntered away.

Sui Xuan Chu stared at her back, his expression full of betrayal.

And then it hit him: he didn’t need to ask his uncle why he didn’t hold Jiang Tea Tea in his palm.

His uncle did hold her in his palm.

The only one suffering in this world was him—one lonely dragon.

Chong Ming waved a hand at Captain She and the others. The ten of them immediately surrounded Sui Xuan Chu and escorted him away.

Chong Ming quickened his pace and caught up to Jiang Tea Tea, speaking like he was making small talk over tea. “How was school today?”

Jiang Tea Tea didn’t slow. She cut him a sideways look. “Was it Sui Xuan Chu, that little traitor, reporting what I did at school? Or were you bored out of your mind and watching me through satellite surveillance?”

Chong Ming didn’t hesitate to sell his nephew out. “Sui Xuan Chu sent me the video of you making Lang Xin Rui and her brothers kneel and apologize.”

Jiang Tea Tea clicked her tongue. “I knew it. Sui Xuan Chu’s elbow always bends outward. Of course he’s on your side.”

Chong Ming’s mouth curved faintly. “Not exactly. He likes being your roommate, classmate, teammate. He’s argued with me for you more than once.”

Jiang Tea Tea didn’t believe a word of it. “Yeah? Really?”

“Yes.”

She still didn’t believe him. She waved it off with perfunctory sarcasm. “Sure. If you say so, then it must be.”

Chong Ming asked, “You really don’t plan to acknowledge the Lang family?”

Jiang Tea Tea answered with blunt honesty. “I’m afraid if I acknowledge them, they’ll suck my blood dry and use my name to pressure you into granting me some big noble title.”

Chong Ming’s smile deepened. “Thank you for thinking of me.”

He was very good at getting bolder—taking an inch and trying to steal a mile.

Jiang Tea Tea gave him a perfectly fake smile. “You’re welcome.”

Chong Ming hummed. “Then I’m relieved.”

Jiang Tea Tea frowned. “Relieved about what?”

Chong Ming’s golden eyes fixed on her, steady and unreadable. “The day after tomorrow, your team of eight has a mission. The destination is the planet where your biological parents live.”

His voice didn’t shift as he delivered the final blow. “And the mission involves your biological parents.”