Chapter 41
Chapter 41: The Cub’s Dad Destroys the Food So the Cub’s Mom Can’t Eat
The seven of them had already been stunned senseless watching Jiang Tea Tea split three three-headed giant pythons in half with a branch.
Now she looked like she’d gotten addicted.
A dozen pythons wasn’t enough. She wanted to hit their nest.
“Sister Tea… you want me and Yan Yu to lure more?” Cheng Xiao Ting’s voice cracked. “You want us to drag a whole lot of them over so you can kill them?”
Jiang Tea Tea nodded once. “Yeah. Killing one is killing. Killing a hundred is killing too. If we’re already doing it, we might as well do it until it feels good.”
The essence of a three-headed giant python was in its gallbladder. She’d crushed three already, absorbed what benefited her, and her body felt noticeably lighter.
They’d refused to leave when she tried to cover the rear, so she might as well use them. Let them farm points while she ate. Everybody won.
She lifted an eyebrow. “What? You don’t want to?”
Without even looking, she snapped the branch in her hand and flung the broken half toward Ju Que.
It skimmed past the corner of Ju Que’s eye and drove clean through the joint where a python’s head met its body. The attacking snake recoiled with a furious hiss.
Ju Que turned, heart hammering. “Sister Tea… thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Jiang Tea Tea kept the remaining half of the branch. “Back-to-back. Eyes open.”
Ju Que grunted and rushed to Zhang Yan Zhou and Huang Da Zhuang. They closed in immediately.
The four gathered with their packs, beast form or human form, backs pressed together as they scanned the jungle.
“Fine,” Cheng Xiao Ting said tightly. “We’ll lure them.”
He tossed his backpack over to Ju Que’s group. His body shifted into wolf form. With his gale ability running, he shot out—fast, light, and hard to catch.
Yan Yu didn’t fall behind. He transformed into a fluffy red giant fox and triggered blink ability, flashing ahead of Cheng Xiao Ting and sprinting even faster.
“Come on, roommate!”
Sui Xuan Chu gathered lightning summoning in his palm and shouted at Jiang Tea Tea. A bolt smashed down on a python, then split midair into three smaller strikes, one for each head. Flesh charred and smoked.
Jiang Tea Tea tossed the broken branch aside, sprang up, snapped a fresh one from a nearby tree, stripped off the smaller twigs, and charged.
—
Far above the jungle, Ye Ying stared at the live feed and let out a rough laugh.
“Holy shit. That pure human girl is insane. Tell me—who else can take a single branch, pierce scales that hard, slice through flesh, and hit the gallbladder like it’s nothing?”
The other twenty-nine Legion Commanders were watching too. Jiang Tea Tea’s movements were so clean and ruthless it made their trained cadets look painfully bland.
“We can’t do that, and you can’t do it either, Ye. Stop running your mouth.”
“Yeah. Just because one tough squad showed up among your cadets, you think you get to yap nonstop?”
“I’m telling you right now,” someone snapped, “those eight members of the ‘wipe out the other twenty-nine military academies’ squad? The Eighth Legion wants all of them.”
“Oh, please,” another scoffed. “Eighth Legion, aren’t you afraid the wind will cut your tongue? The Commander-in-Chief docked you ten points and docked your legion ten points. Forgot already?”
“Dock points, then dock them! What are points for if not to get docked? We’ll earn them back—”
“Wait.” Another voice cut in, sharp with interest. “Look at that dragon clan kid, Sui Xuan Chu. His file says 2s rank, but the way he’s throwing lightning… I bet he’s higher than 2s.”
“Don’t even start. That red-black dragon clan kid is syncing with Jiang Tea Tea way too well. Better than the thousand-plus dragon clan cadets at our academy.”
“They’re impressive,” someone said bitterly. “But all you can do is watch and drool. When this competition ends, I’ll throw away my pride, kneel in front of the Commander-in-Chief, crawl on the ground and beg—cry and beg—whatever it takes. I’ll drag them into the First Legion.”
The other twenty-nine Legion Commanders fell into stunned silence.
As if they wouldn’t cry if crying worked.
The Commander-in-Chief would rather dock their points than even acknowledge them. It was obvious: any good seedlings he saw, he wanted to train himself.
Besides, women already held important roles everywhere in the legions. The Commander-in-Chief wasn’t the type to favor men over women. If he saw talent like that, he’d want her even more than they did.
—
Chong Ming’s voice cut through the chatter like a blade.
“Minister Cai. Still no ability fluctuations?”
Cai Xi Chao’s eyes stayed on her screen. Her fingers moved so fast they blurred across the virtual keyboard. “Reporting to the Commander-in-Chief—no ability fluctuations. But there is an unknown substance in motion.”
Chong Ming’s gaze sharpened. “Explain.”
Cai Xi Chao dragged her projection screen over in three quick steps, stopping beside him.
“Commander-in-Chief, look.”
She pointed at the display. “Eight lines—each one a different color. Each line represents a member of the ‘wipe out the other twenty-nine military academies’ squad: their mental power distribution and their heart rate.”
“This line is Huang Da Zhuang’s. He’s a canine beastfolk—no ability. He fought three giant pythons bravely, but his fear spiked his heart rate to two hundred beats per minute.”
“And this one—Sui Xuan Chu. His lightning-element ability isn’t 2s rank. It’s 3s. He already knows split-lightning form. He’s clearly hiding his strength.”
“The others show large fluctuations—abilities, heart rates. Only this pure human girl—Jiang Tea Tea.”
“Her temperature is lower than a normal pure human. Her heart rate is also lower. A normal pure human is usually between sixty and one hundred. Hers stays between thirty and sixty.”
“Facing this many three-headed giant pythons, she isn’t afraid. No fear response at all. Her heart rate stays steady, and the branches she uses to cut open the pythons are coated in a layer of something.”
“I checked the database. I can’t identify it. It’s invisible to the naked eye—I only detected it through changes in wind direction, airflow, humidity, and ambient scent.”
Chong Ming stared at the fluctuating lines, at the collisions between abilities and that unseen layer. His golden eyes darkened. “Could it be an ability mutation?”
Cai Xi Chao hesitated. “Sorry, Commander-in-Chief. I haven’t studied ability mutation. You can ask Director Li—he specializes in abilities and mutations.”
Chong Ming flicked his fingers in a silent dismissal.
Cai Xi Chao returned to her station and kept directing the surveillance team. They weren’t only monitoring the Primitive Tropical Planet—they were also monitoring Capital Planet and multiple other worlds.
—
Down in the jungle, the air stank of blood.
Three-headed giant python corpses littered the ground. Other fleeing cadets drifted toward the carnage like moths to flame.
They watched Jiang Tea Tea and Sui Xuan Chu coordinate with eerie smoothness and felt a poisonous mix of envy and disbelief. Who could’ve imagined a pure human with “no ability” could be this vicious?
Cheng Xiao Ting and Yan Yu finally returned after dragging in another wave of pythons. Their fur hung in wet strands—water, blood, mud.
They collapsed in a safer spot like exhausted dogs, tongues lolling, panting hard.
Jiang Tea Tea looked at the wave behind them.
More than a hundred three-headed giant pythons. All adults, all fat and thick as barrels.
Not a single cub.
Jiang Tea Tea swallowed. Mostly because she was hungry.
With surveillance everywhere, she could only eat the best gallbladders. If she could get away with it, she’d have digested the bodies too.
Damn interstellar tech. Satellites covered every living planet, and they still wouldn’t let a yao eat until it was full.
“Watch out!”
Sui Xuan Chu darted to her side and yanked her out of the way as a python lunged. “Roommate, are you trying to die? Why are you spacing out?”
Jiang Tea Tea couldn’t exactly admit she’d been thinking about hoarding fertilizer and eating herself stupid. She snapped, “I’m not spacing out. Come on. Let’s do it.”
She was moving before the sentence even finished.
Sui Xuan Chu hammered the field with lightning summoning. Bolts cracked, flashed, and stunned the snakes.
Jiang Tea Tea moved like a blur. She stopped bothering to slit bellies wide and struck straight for the gallbladder.
Hook. Yank.
One python split clean in half. Then another. Then another.
Under lightning, the pythons were sluggish. Add a severed midsection and a stolen gallbladder, and they died fast.
One… ten… fifty… a hundred.
In under an hour, every last one of the hundred-plus pythons had been cut across the waist and stripped of its gallbladder.
The corpses piled like a hill. Blood rose in a choking stench, and Jiang Tea Tea was splattered red from head to toe.
“Sister Tea! You’re insane!”
Huang Da Zhuang held up both thumbs like he was swearing loyalty. “You’re the best. You’re my forever god.”
Cheng Lin Yue nodded so hard it looked painful. “Yes! Sister Tea, you’re so badass. Your body is terrifying. When we get back, I’m making you do a full-body scan. How can someone be this strong?”
Cheng Xiao Ting and the other beastfolk stared at her with shining eyes—completely convinced, completely ready to follow.
Jiang Tea Tea tossed her blood-soaked branch aside. “Stop praising me. Find a place to rest. I’m about to die of exhaustion.”
Huang Da Zhuang shifted into dog form and turned his back toward her. “Sister Tea, get on. I’ll carry you.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s eyes lit up. She swung a leg over his back. “Deal. Thanks, Huang Big Dog.”
In beast form, Huang Da Zhuang could only answer with two sharp barks.
Sui Xuan Chu had burned through a lot of energy too. Cheng Xiao Ting supported him as they moved.
The eight of them headed deeper into the forest. Other cadets followed at a distance, too afraid to get close.
Jiang Tea Tea glanced back at the mountain of corpses and formed a magic power hand sign, striking it toward the pile. She would come back later.
They walked until the light began to fade. Near dusk, they found a slightly drier patch of jungle and decided to camp.
Jiang Tea Tea had a tent in her pack. She set it up quickly, then turned to the others before crawling inside. “You eat whatever you find first. Save the leftovers for me. I’m going to sleep. Don’t wake me unless the sky collapses and the earth splits.”
Everyone understood. “Okay. Sleep. We won’t wake you. We’ll protect you.”
“This is still a three-headed giant python gathering area,” someone added, “but we killed so many it’s safe. No big aberrant beasts are coming. You just sleep.”
Jiang Tea Tea took off her school jacket and crawled into the tent.
She pulled out a twig, whispered a spell, and created a copy of herself—lying there like a sleeping person.
Then she gathered magic power, cast invisibility, slipped out, and clenched her teeth as she formed blink shift.
The spell cost a painful amount of magic power. Hunger stabbed at her belly as she blinked straight back to the corpse pile.
Invisible, she pressed a hand to her stomach and stared at the mountain of “food.” The blood stench hadn’t dispersed.
It smelled amazing.
She immediately used transformation, revealing her true form—a tiny, bright green tea tree—
—and before she could even sink her roots, a voice rang out from above, cold and absolute.
“Adjutant Ai. Take samples from the cuts. After sampling, destroy every python corpse.”