Chapter 184
Chapter 184: Showing Off Your Love, Who Are You Trying To Drive Crazy
“No need.” Jiang Tea Tea refused cleanly and neatly. In her heart she wished time could rewind so she had never sent that spoiled, complaining message: “You go do your work, I’ll do mine, you don’t need to come looking for me.”
Chong Ming’s golden eyes blinked: “Aren’t you afraid the youngling in your belly will end up hungry with you?”
Jiang Tea Tea slapped a hand on her stomach and motioned for him to look at the big food chest beside her: “With a box like this, one every three days is enough.”
Inside the food chest, aside from a bottle of dragon blood, there were all kinds of fried, stir-fried, boiled, and braised dishes. Just lifting it weighed no less than fifty jin.
With a chest like that every three days plus dragon blood, she did not need that old mud loach Chong Ming to use his supernatural abilities and spiritual power to comfort and soothe her at all.
The corner of Chong Ming’s lips hooked up slightly. He said lazily: “I thought you liked biting straight into my neck more. I was even thinking of sending my neck over for you to bite, but it turns out you don’t want it.”
[Is he not just talking nonsense?]
A living big golden dragon, a pure yang, highly nourishing tonic.
Biting his neck and drinking blood was obviously more satisfying than drinking it from a bottle.
She wanted to so badly. She was craving so badly. If not for the screen between them, if she were standing in front of him right now, he could see for himself if she would not hug him and bite down.
Jiang Tea Tea lightly coughed: “It’s all the same, it’s all the same. I’m not picky about you. You don’t need to come in person, as long as the stuff gets here.”
Chong Ming chuckled hoarsely: “Alright, since you don’t want me to go over, I won’t. When you arrive at Ri Pan Star, there will be people specially assigned to receive you and arrange everything for you.”
“If anything comes up, you can call or message me. I’ll reply whenever I see it.”
Jiang Tea Tea said impatiently: “I know, I know, you nag.”
Chong Ming: “Mm, goodbye.”
The video call ended.
“Hey now, you left me hanging here for so long. You can’t even turn around and look at me?” The Western Kingdom’s Supreme Executive Commander Zhong Li He stared at Chong Ming through the screen, his tone sour enough that anyone who heard it would think the vinegar jars of all interstellar space had been knocked over.
Chong Ming turned his body: “Look at you? What is there to look at?”
Zhong Li He clicked his tongue: “Oh, my darling Chong Ming Commander in Chief, Your Highness, how did I never notice before that you have the potential to be a love-brained fool?”
Chong Ming’s gaze lifted slightly as he looked at Zhong Li He on the projection screen: “You’d love to have the potential to be a love-brained fool, but unfortunately no woman likes you and you don’t have a partner, so that potential just can’t wake up.”
Zhong Li He started rolling up his sleeves on the screen: “Are you looking for a fight?”
Chong Ming said in a tone that could anger someone to death: “You still can’t beat me.”
Zhong Li He corrected him: “That was before I couldn’t beat you, not now. So what if your supernatural ability level went up? My supernatural ability level has been rising too.”
“Let’s set up a fight, let’s set up a fight. If this fist of mine doesn’t land on your face, I won’t be able to sleep for days.”
Chong Ming said lightly: “You not being able to sleep, what does that have to do with me? I have a partner and a youngling. I sleep well, I sleep soundly.”
Zhong Li He felt like a mouthful of old blood was stuck in his throat, unable to spit it out and unable to swallow it back down.
He clenched his fists in rage and, through the screen, gnashed his teeth and waved his fist at Chong Ming: “You should be grateful we’re separated by a screen, or this fist of mine would definitely smash into your face.”
Chong Ming made a quiet sound of acknowledgment, then reminded him coolly: “Commander Zhong Li, very few people can calm your restless supernatural abilities, and even fewer can smooth out your spiritual sea. Listen to me and don’t be so hot-tempered. It’s bad for your health.”
“Think about it. You’re a man over one hundred years old, no woman sees you, no partner, no youngling. If you damage your health from anger, what will you do then?”
Zhong Li He choked on his own anger: “You…”
“Oh, you were asking where the shallow marks on my neck came from?” Chong Ming suddenly talked past him like a chicken talking to a duck. “They weren’t from someone beating me up. They’re bite marks my partner deliberately left. It’s been a week, they’ve faded, and made you misunderstand that someone beat and injured me. My bad.”
Zhong Li He’s eyes went round with fury. With a snap, he hung up the video call.
[Seriously, is he sick? Who asked him about the marks on his neck?]
He has a partner and a youngling, so what. He had to show it off in his face.
[Does he think I can’t get a partner? That I can’t have a youngling?]
No. He simply devoted himself to the Western Kingdom and didn’t care to look for any partner, that was all.
It really was enough to make him die of anger. He had asked when he would come to the space expo, and if he wasn’t busy sending messages to his partner, he was video calling his partner.
Who was he showing off to? Showing off to him. He wasn’t jealous at all, not one bit. Showing off to him was pointless.
Jiang Tea Tea took all the fried, stir-fried, boiled, and braised food out of the big food chest.
The chest’s heat preservation and freshness functions were excellent. Once she took the dishes out, they were just like they had come fresh out of the pot, full of color, smell, and flavor.
Jiang Tea Tea laid out all the food, then sent messages to Sui Xuan Chu and the other seven, asking them to come eat.
Sui Xuan Chu arrived first. Seeing the spread on the table, he clutched his chest as if he had taken heavy damage.
“Roommate, my uncle doesn’t love me anymore. He always told me, men are rough, as long as your clothes cover your skin and you eat enough to be full, that’s good enough. When I was starving, at most he would toss me a tube of nutrient injection.”
“But now he actually made ten dishes for you, three kinds of pastries, four kinds of fruit, and juice. I can’t live like this anymore.”
Jiang Tea Tea lifted her eyelids and looked at him: “If you can’t live like this anymore, the door’s open. Roll out on your own.”
Sui Xuan Chu whined: “I’m not rolling. I want to eat.”
Jiang Tea Tea shot back: “Then what are you complaining for?”
Sui Xuan Chu’s mouth split into a grin: “Because I feel like it. I want to. I just can’t stand his double standards. I just want to complain about him.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s eyes turned: “How about you complain about him again and I record it, then send it to him, so he can ‘take good care of you’?”
Sui Xuan Chu quickly waved his hands: “No need for that. He and I are roommates, we live under the same roof. It’s enough if I complain to you.”
Jiang Tea Tea spat at him: “Coward.”
Sui Xuan Chu: “…”
[She called me a coward?]
Yes. If he wasn’t a coward, who was?
His uncle really would hit him, really would kick him.
But when his roommate stuck her belly out in front of his uncle, his uncle was the one afraid of her.
She dared to talk back to his uncle, but he definitely did not dare.
In the blink of an eye, Huang Da Zhuang, Cheng Lin Yue, Cheng Xiao Ting, and the rest of the six arrived. When they saw the whole table of food, they immediately cheered.
“Sister Tea, this lunch is way too fancy. Where did you buy it from? It looks so delicate and smells so good.”
“Yeah, yeah, Sister Tea, which restaurant on the Capital Planet did you order it from? Later I’ll ask if they do deliveries, I want to get some too.”
“I haven’t even eaten yet, but just from the smell I can tell it’s delicious.”
Jiang Tea Tea instantly joked with a smile: “Orange Sparrow, if you can tell it’s delicious just from the smell, then you don’t need to eat. You can just smell it and we’ll eat.”
“Come on, come on, time to eat. Orange Sparrow, no food for you.”
Sui Xuan Chu, Cheng Xiao Ting, and the others quickly found seats, picked up chopsticks, forks, and knives, and started eating the moment their hands touched the table.
Orange Sparrow let out a howl, used a lot of effort to squeeze into a little gap, grabbed a little lamb leg, and took a huge bite, stuffing his face.
Jiang Tea Tea sat between Sui Xuan Chu and Cheng Lin Yue. She didn’t need to move her own chopsticks at all. Whenever those two scrambled for food, they would help grab dishes for her too.
She had just drunk dragon blood, so she wasn’t very hungry. She only ate a little and drank a little for form’s sake, nowhere near as much as they wolfed down.
Once everyone was full and the food cleaned up, they all flopped down on the floor of the room. Some turned into beast form, some into half beast form, not a single one kept a proper human shape.
Looking at them, Jiang Tea Tea also wanted to turn into a tree, plant herself there, and see if there was anything good in space she could absorb, if only the conditions allowed.
The trip from Barley Star to Ri Pan Star took three days. It was not too fast, not too slow. They even passed through a small space jump in the middle, so they arrived at Ri Pan Star three hours earlier than scheduled.
Chong Ming had told Jiang Tea Tea that he had already arranged people to pick them up, but she didn’t expect the one receiving them to be his Deputy General Xia Wei Yi.
Xia Wei Yi wore a combat suit, her high ponytail and long legs matching perfectly with the eye-catching insignia on her shoulder and her heroic features.
After the captain of Space Cruiser Warship No. 003 finished the handover with Xia Wei Yi, Jiang Tea Tea waved at Xia Wei Yi: “Deputy General Xia, long time no see. You’ve gotten even prettier.”
Xia Wei Yi smiled: “You’ve gotten prettier too, Schoolmate Jiang.”
Jiang Tea Tea smiled, her brows and eyes curving: “Thanks for the compliment. Your Commander in Chief sent you to receive us. Does that mean we’ll be under your command from now on?”
Xia Wei Yi nodded: “Yes. From here on out, I am your direct leader. I will be responsible for arranging all of your actions.”
Jiang Tea Tea said: “We’ll follow your arrangements.”
Sui Xuan Chu and the others echoed the same words.
Xia Wei Yi led the eight of them out of the Space Station and onto a warship, where they changed into Imperial Military Headquarters combat suits, put on combat caps, painted combat stripes on their faces, and strapped guns to their waists and in their hands.
Jiang Tea Tea’s spiritual power had not recovered yet, so she felt these hot weapons were useful. If her spiritual power recovered, these hot weapons in her hands would be nothing but scrap metal.
Cheng Xiao Ting and the others thought they looked extremely cool holding their guns. They loved them so much they could not put them down, and wished a few star pirates would show up so they could get some practice.
Once Xia Wei Yi saw they had finished changing into their gear, she piloted a military flying device, took the eight of them off the warship, and flew over the Space Weapons and Aerospace Expo. She said to them: “This Space Weapons and Aerospace Expo is hosted on our Zhenlin Empire’s Ri Pan Star, but the exhibitors include the Insectoid Race, the Western Kingdom, the Xiling Dominion Federal Republic, the country of Kleite, and so on, for a total of twenty-three nations.”
“The people in charge sent by these nations are all their top leaders, princes of the blood, or princesses. These people in charge hold real power and are responsible both for purchasing and for selling their own nations’ space weapons.”
“On top of that, there are 281 nations coming here to buy weapons, and there are visitor passes open to ordinary interstellar common citizens. Every day, one hundred thousand people can come tour the expo.”
“Zhenlin Empire’s Space Weapons Expo is open to all of interstellar space. This time is the fiftieth expo, and also the fiftieth anniversary.”
“Every time the Empire’s Space Weapons Expo opens, there will be violent incidents from different nations at the exhibition site.”
“This year is the fiftieth anniversary. Commander in Chief Chong Ming does not want any violent incidents. To maintain order, the army has mobilized five hundred thousand people to protect the safety of both the weapons expo and Ri Pan Star.”
“The eight of you and those five hundred thousand soldiers all belong to the Space Weapons Expo security army. Starting tomorrow at eight in the morning, you will be maintaining order at the expo. If you find any violent incident, no matter who it is, what nation they come from, or what the reason is, send them a bullet and expel them from Ri Pan Star!”