Chapter 27
Chapter 27: You Let Aberrant Beasts Invade the School, Sold Yourself Out, and Framed Someone
Jiang Tea Tea stared at Chong Ming again. “He’s that strong?”
He could slaughter seventy or eighty thousand people?
Even at her peak as a great demon, she wasn’t sure she could do that. It sounded like pure bragging.
Sui Xuan Chu sighed, suddenly earnest. “Roommate, with how little you understand the Commander-in-Chief, Jiang Yi Zhu shouldn’t have accused you of being anti-social. She should’ve accused you of being a foreign spy. It would’ve been more convincing.”
Huang Da Zhuang nodded like a loyal lackey. “Yes, yes. Sister Tea, my male idol is that famous, and you don’t know anything? It really does look suspicious!”
Jiang Tea Tea cleared her throat and put on a pitiful tone. “I’m a Jiang family fake heiress. I’m broke. Eating is already a problem. Why would I care about some male idol? You can’t eat that.”
Huang Da Zhuang blinked. “For real? The Jiang family parents mixed you up and won’t give you a single credit?”
Sui Xuan Chu’s expression shifted. “So you’ve been leaving early and coming back late, always disappearing… you’ve been going out to earn money for food?”
Jiang Tea Tea looked at him like he’d asked something absurd. “What else? You thought I had a hole in my head and enjoyed suffering for fun?”
Sui Xuan Chu paused, like he couldn’t deny it.
As her roommate, her background had been screened—parents, siblings, everything. By all logic, she shouldn’t be unable to afford food.
Yet she truly was.
Huang Da Zhuang sniffed and wiped at imaginary tears. “Sister Tea, you’re too pitiful. It’s okay. My mom and dad give me a lot of allowance. From now on, we split it—half and half.”
Jiang Tea Tea perked up a fraction. “How much is half?”
Huang Da Zhuang grinned. “They give me 2,000 star credits a month. You get 1,000.”
Sui Xuan Chu made a face. “What can 1,000 even do?”
Before Jiang Tea Tea could answer, he waved a hand. “Roommate, I’ll lend you money. My uncle gives me more.”
Jiang Tea Tea and Huang Da Zhuang asked at the same time, “How much?”
Sui Xuan Chu held up his scorched hand like a trophy. “5,000 star credits.”
Jiang Tea Tea let out a slow breath. “Forget it. Still not enough. I’ll figure something out.”
Both boys remembered yesterday’s cafeteria scene—Jiang Tea Tea eating meat by the basin, barely touching vegetables. Even 5,000 star credits might not cover a single meal.
The three of them sat by the flowerbed, chatting freely about Chong Ming, allowances, and being broke, completely unbothered by the tension around them.
The academy leadership listened with sweat shining on their faces, equal parts horrified and oddly impressed. Newborn calves really didn’t fear tigers.
Other cadets watched and, seeing that even the Commander-in-Chief didn’t seem to mind, sat down too to wait for the investigation’s outcome.
Jiang Yi Zhu remained collapsed nearby, bloody and disheveled. Major Ma and two escort guards watched her closely. She didn’t dare move.
Chong Ming stood in silence, scrolling through Jiang Tea Tea’s lightbrain with one hand.
When he saw her account balance—0—his golden eyes sank.
Time crawled.
About half an hour later, Adjutant Ai returned.
He brought a first-year cadet from the Royal Military Academy Information Bureau: a gazelle beastfolk named Yang Jie Jun.
Jiang Yi Zhu’s heart lurched. She stared at Yang Jie Jun’s deathly face and told herself it had to be a coincidence. He must have messed up something else. It couldn’t have anything to do with her.
Adjutant Ai stepped forward and presented an empty tube with both hands.
“Your Highness,” he said. “In Cadet Jiang Tea Tea’s dorm, we did indeed find an empty tube for an ability-awakening banned drug.”
Chong Ming took it, turned it over, and studied it. “Model 1101 black ability-awakening banned drug. An older model from over a decade ago. Hard to find.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Adjutant Ai replied. “According to our information, this Model 1101 black ability-awakening banned drug was purchased by Yang Jie Jun, first-year cadet of the Royal Military Academy Information Bureau. It took him two and a half months, cost 100,000 star credits, and passed through six hands before he obtained it.”
“After the purchase, the banned drug passed through Jiang Yi Zhu’s hands and became an empty tube. The empty tube then returned to Yang Jie Jun.”
“And today, within twenty minutes of Cadet Jiang Tea Tea and her roommate leaving their dorm, Yang Jie Jun entered Cadet Jiang Tea Tea’s room under the excuse of checking dorm signal strength and planted the empty tube beneath her bed.”
“After planting it,” Adjutant Ai continued, voice steady and merciless, “Yang Jie Jun used his technical expertise to sabotage the dorm surveillance system and delete footage of his entry and exit, attempting to fabricate that he never entered the room.”
“Our information officers restored the surveillance system and recovered the deleted footage in under five minutes. Please look.”
He tapped his own lightbrain. A large projection unfolded into the air.
It showed Yang Jie Jun leaving his own dorm, slipping through the corridor, entering Jiang Tea Tea’s dorm, planting the tube, damaging the surveillance system, and deleting the footage—every step timestamped and dated.
It also showed him contacting Jiang Yi Zhu afterward, telling her the planting was complete and arranging to meet at First Hotel tonight.
Yang Jie Jun’s knees buckled. He’d still clung to hope, believing he’d been careful enough to escape notice.
Now his entire crime lay exposed in front of the Commander-in-Chief.
Panic swallowed him. He blurted, voice cracking, “Commander-in-Chief, it wasn’t my idea! It has nothing to do with me! Jiang Yi Zhu paid me—she told me to buy the banned drug and frame her sister, Jiang Tea Tea!”
“I know buying banned drugs is illegal, and injecting them is even worse, but Jiang Yi Zhu told me she lived on Trash Planet for more than ten years because Jiang Tea Tea stole everything that should’ve been hers.”
“She wanted Jiang Tea Tea to go to Trash Planet and live the same life. She said she wouldn’t truly hurt her. She gave me 200,000 star credits—she even said she’d be my female. I was stupid. I agreed. Commander-in-Chief, I didn’t mean it, I really—”
“You liar!” Jiang Yi Zhu shrieked, cutting him off. “You’re slandering me. You’re framing me!”
She whipped toward Chong Ming, desperate and frantic. “Your Highness, I never paid him. I never told him to buy banned drugs. Everything he did—I knew nothing!”
“I only saw banned drugs in Jiang Tea Tea’s bag, and she awakened abilities recently, so I guessed she—”
Chong Ming lifted a hand, stopping her mid-sentence.
He didn’t argue. He didn’t need to.
He only indicated the projection.
The image changed.
Transaction records between Jiang Yi Zhu and Yang Jie Jun.
Call logs. Messages. Voice recordings.
Everything.
No matter how Jiang Yi Zhu tried to deny it, the evidence pinned her to the ground.
Her breathing went ragged. Before she could stop herself, she looked toward Jiang Tea Tea—trying to beg, trying to plead for mercy.
Then the projection changed again.
Adjutant Ai’s voice stayed calm. “Your Highness. While investigating the banned drug, we also reviewed the Royal Military Academy’s surveillance footage from the past ten days.”
“And we discovered that the academy’s protected back gate was deliberately opened by Jiang Yi Zhu,” he said. “She used aberrant beast lure to attract multiple types of aberrant beasts and allowed them to invade the Royal Military Academy.”