Chapter 199
Chapter 199: My Partner and Youngling Are So Weak I Do Not Even Have the Right to Die for Love
Zhong Li He really could not understand him: “Come on, the fire is this big. You cannot just step back a little? You have to stand this close? Does it not feel like you are burning?”
Even if Jiang Tea Tea was a huge little darling, she had thrown herself down from midair and was wrapped in flames. She had not called for help or screamed. It seemed like there was probably no big problem. So what was Chong Ming doing here tormenting himself?
Chong Ming stared at the flames without blinking: “I will not move. I am standing right here. If she calls me, I can hear her at once.”
“If you are afraid of getting burned, afraid the fire will burn off your feathers, you can stand farther away. Do not worry about me.”
Zhong Li He’s sapphire blue eyes were wide like eggs. His hands kept moving as he used the Fire-against-Fire Technique so the flames would not reach them: “Chong Ming, be honest with me. Is Jiang Tea Tea a phoenix hen from our Phoenix clan?”
Chong Ming said coldly: “No.”
“If she is not, how can she condense a Flame Sphere?” Zhong Li He questioned in disbelief: “A Flame Sphere this huge is hard even for me to condense. Not only can she condense it, she can burn inside it. You say she is not a phoenix hen from my Phoenix clan, and I really cannot believe that.”
His mind spun as he tried to remember whether the Phoenix clan had lost any eggs or any birds.
Chong Ming slowly shifted his gaze from the crater to look at him. His voice was strong and firm: “Believe it or not, she is not a phoenix hen of your Phoenix clan. She is my person.”
Zhong Li He was so mad his lungs almost exploded. His hands never stopped, still using his supernatural abilities and the Fire-against-Fire Technique. If he did not have a personal friendship with Chong Ming, he would have just burned him to death.
Kong Que could not watch anymore. He took a flame-blocking shield out of his space knob storage device and placed it in front of the two of them.
The transparent flame shield did not block their view, only the waves of fire surging out of the deep crater.
Chong Ming reached out and grabbed the flame shield. With a squeeze, the shield in front of him shattered into pieces.
Zhong Li He stomped his feet: “That Chong guy… uuuu…”
Kong Que quickly stopped him and clapped a hand over his mouth.
Zhong Li He could only make muffled sounds while Kong Que dragged him backward. He could no longer use the Fire-against-Fire Technique to shield Chong Ming from the flames.
The waves of red fire were like a sinister, greedy snake, its long tongue licking at Chong Ming.
He stood above the crater like nothing was wrong, letting the flames lick at him. His golden hair was blown up and curled by the heat.
Zhong Li He was pulled off to the side and shook off Kong Que’s hand: “What are you doing, what are you doing, why are you pulling me?”
Kong Que looked at him. In front of Commander in Chief Chong Ming, he was not steady at all. He was only calm and steady when dealing with great national affairs or on the battlefield.
“Say it. If you do not say it, I am going over there…”
Kong Que grabbed his arm again, stopping him from stepping forward: “Chief executive commander, you still have not noticed that Commander in Chief Chong Ming’s attachment to Miss Jiang Tea Tea is far from normal?”
Zhong Li He frowned: “What do you mean?”
Kong Que reminded him: “Maybe Miss Jiang Tea Tea’s status, in Commander in Chief Chong Ming’s eyes, is not just a Level S variant plant-type ability healing master.”
Zhong Li He’s blue eyes blinked like spring thunder: “You mean Jiang Tea Tea is some little lover he is keeping?”
Kong Que raised a hand to his forehead, covering his eyes. He could not bear to look. He really could not. This chief executive commander, this lord, was clear-headed when he should be confused and confused when he should be clear.
[What is he even saying? A little lover? How has Commander in Chief Chong Ming not smashed his face in and shaken some water out of his brain?]
Zhong Li He pulled Kong Que’s hand away from his forehead: “Say something. If she is not Chong Ming’s little lover, then is she his good nephew’s partner?”
Kong Que took a deep breath and said in a low voice: “Can she not just be his own partner?”
Zhong Li He denied it at once: “Impossible. His partner already has a youngling. From the last medical report he showed me, it has been seven and a half months now.”
“When a female is carrying a dragon egg, it might not show much in Beast Form. But in human form, after seven and a half months, her belly cannot be as flat and small as Jiang Tea Tea’s. And there is no way she could still fight like that.”
“Do not argue or deny it. I may not like eating pork, but I have seen pigs run. Dragon eggs and phoenix eggs are not much different when they are in the belly.”
Kong Que was speechless.
[Alright, alright, what else can I say? I will just shut up.]
“Zhong Li He.” Chong Ming’s voice suddenly rang out, calling him: “Come over and take a look.”
Zhong Li He had been about to correct Kong Que again, but when he heard Chong Ming call, he gave Kong Que a warning look, then flashed to Chong Ming’s side: “What is it?”
Chong Ming pointed at the blazing crater: “Look. Has the fire changed color?”
Zhong Li He looked where he pointed. His pupils shrank. He thought his eyes were playing tricks, so he rubbed them hard, but they were not.
The fierce flames burning in the deep crater had changed. Strands of blue-green fire were mixed into the red.
“It changed. The color of the fire changed.” Zhong Li He’s voice had a trace of barely noticeable tension: “It has become blue-green fire. How could it turn blue-green? It should not.”
All the things that should not happen seemed to always happen on Jiang Tea Tea.
The blue-green flames were slowly replacing the red ones.
The color of the fire grew deeper. It was even harder to see what was inside.
Chong Ming’s golden eyes stared at the flames. His deep voice did not rise or fall: “I remember your Phoenix clan has a legend. Long, long ago, one of your ancestors, a phoenix hen with very high-level supernatural abilities, lived to be 500 years old. During a Fire Summoning, a spark accidentally fell on her body, and the fire started burning from her.”
“The fire grew stronger and spread to the wutong grove on her mountain estate. The flames around her burned and burned for twenty-one days, changing from red to blue-green, from blue-green to…”
Zhong Li He’s heart pounded and he cut him off: “Wait, wait. How do you know our clan’s legend so well?”
Chong Ming slowly turned his head. His golden eyes were sharp as he looked at Zhong Li He: “I want to know, now that it has changed from red to blue-green, will it change from blue-green to blue, then to white, and finally to black?”
Meeting his gaze, Zhong Li He’s heart gave a heavy thump. His eyes were too sharp, too cold, too aggressive, and inside them there was also fear and worry.
Chong Ming, who did not fear when faced with hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions, even billions of Insectoid race invaders, now had fear and worry in his eyes.
Could it really be like Kong Que had said, that Jiang Tea Tea was his partner?
Zhong Li He locked eyes with him without looking away and said seriously: “I cannot give you a clear answer.”
“If Jiang Tea Tea were a bird of our Phoenix clan, according to the legend, once the fire changes, it will go from red to blue-green, from blue-green to blue, then to white, and finally to black.”
“You say she is not a bird of our Phoenix clan, not of our bloodline. Our Phoenix clan’s flames burning on her body is already something rare and special. There is no example before this for us to follow. I cannot imagine what she will be like under those flames.”
“About the legend you mentioned, you might not know this. That ancestor, that senior of our clan, when she was being swallowed and burned by the great fire, suffered pain so terrible it tore her heart and lungs apart.”
“The ancient books say that the entire Wutong Mountain burned with her. Her hysterical screams of pain echoed over Wutong Mountain for eighty-one days before they stopped.”
“In the end, all the wutong trees on Wutong Mountain turned to ashes. Our senior, our ancestor, became a phoenix egg in that ash.”
“After she became a phoenix egg, she was hatched by hand for three years. Then she turned back into a phoenix hen, with no memories at all, just a naive, clueless fledgling.”
“All of her past memories had turned to ash. She had to learn everything all over again, systematically, and live through the first five hundred years of her life one more time.”
“She lived a thousand years. Other people knew she had lived a thousand years, but she herself did not. During that time, our people studied her for a long, long time, trying to find the secret of long life so our whole clan could live a thousand years. The process was extremely ugly.”
In the huge crater, the blue-green flames grew more and more, almost completely replacing the red.
Chong Ming forced himself to stay calm so that he would not call down lightning to smash the Flame Sphere in the crater and pull Jiang Tea Tea out: “Jiang Tea Tea will not become an egg. Her Gene Profile does not contain any Phoenix clan genes.”
Zhong Li He frowned hard: “She has no Phoenix genes in her Gene Profile, but she can stay inside a Phoenix clan Flame Sphere.”
“In her case, you cannot call it amazing innate talent. You can only say she might be like that ancestor, that senior of my clan, a special case that stands out.”
“What we can do now is only wait…”
Chong Ming looked back at the huge crater. The sphere of fire inside had lost all red and turned entirely into blue-green flames.
The Flame Light was even hotter than the red flames from before, even harder to endure. The firelight was also brighter and bigger than before.
Even the crater holding the Flame Sphere was being eaten away by the fire, constantly widening and collapsing.
Chong Ming could no longer stand steady at the edge. He quickly stepped back, and kept stepping back. His golden hair would have caught fire if Zhong Li He had not used supernatural abilities to block the flames for a moment.
Zhong Li He saw that he was silent, staring fixedly at the blazing blue-green Flame Sphere: “Chong Ming, what are you thinking?”
Chong Ming’s fists tightened and loosened, loosened and tightened again. After a long time, he suddenly gave a bitter smile: “I am thinking that, if I were an ordinary beastman, and my partner and youngling met with disaster inside that Flame Sphere, I could go after them. I could die for love with them.”
“But I am not an ordinary beastman. I am the Commander in Chief of the Zhenlin Empire, a Prince of the Blood. The Empire’s Crown Prince is only eighteen. He cannot hold up the Empire, cannot keep all the army in line, cannot make the common citizens of the Empire submit.”
“If my partner and youngling have an accident, I do not even have the right to follow them or die for love. The Empire and its common citizens are responsibilities I can never throw away or escape from.”