Chapter 55
Chapter 55: Feeding the Cub’s Mom—Once She’s Full, She Still Wants to Eat the Cub’s Dad
Alarm bells screamed in Jiang Tea Tea’s head. She wanted to slap herself. How had she let that slip? It sounded like she already knew the ship.
“Jiang Tea Tea, Classmate,” Chong Ming said, his voice turning cold. “Answer my question.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s eyes flicked once, twice. Then she smiled shamelessly, pointed at her own eyes, and pointed past him. “My eyeballs aren’t decorations. I can see.”
Chong Ming turned his head slightly. Fixed to the ship’s hull was a clear Medical Department guidance sign.
Jiang Tea Tea’s excuse held. She even had the nerve to look smug. “Commander-in-Chief, as the ruler of a nation, your heart should be bigger. Don’t hold a grudge and test me just because I ambushed you at the Royal Military Academy.”
“I’m just a tiny cadet. I’m a little weird. I’m gifted. That’s normal. Don’t make a fuss.”
Chong Ming didn’t blink. “You misunderstand. I was testing your alertness and adaptability.”
His tone stayed even. “Good. You didn’t disappoint me.”
“Wow,” Jiang Tea Tea said, deadpan. “Thanks for the appreciation and the test.”
Then she bared her teeth. “Now can you give me a room to wash? Or do I need to jump off your ship?”
Chong Ming lifted the bundle in his hand, Sui Xuan Chu’s tail peeking out from the cloth. “I think you and your roommate both need an examination.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s patience snapped. “Goodbye.”
She turned to leave.
She was starving already. She’d gone into the sea to rescue Sui Xuan Chu and only managed to eat a few fish. She’d finally had ten sea spiders right there—fresh, practically delivered to her mouth—and then this Big Loach showed up.
It was like he was her natural enemy. Every time she tried to eat, he appeared out of nowhere to ruin it.
“Come back,” Chong Ming said.
Jiang Tea Tea ignored him. She waved one hand behind her without looking and walked faster.
Chong Ming’s voice sharpened. “Stop her.”
Guards moved in at once, blocking her path. Jiang Tea Tea halted—and in the blink of an eye, she was back in front of Chong Ming, rage flaring so hot it made her vision blur.
“Chong Ming, Commander-in-Chief,” she snapped, “I’m covered in disgusting, salty, bitter seawater. I need to wash it off. I do not need the treatment room.”
“And I’m starving. Starving, starving, starving. You’ve never been hungry, so you don’t understand how miserable it is to crave meat and not get it!”
Chong Ming’s gaze dropped from her face to her stomach.
Something shifted in the air around her—an unfamiliar energy. Within it was a faint trace of something oddly familiar, like a scent he couldn’t quite place.
For a few seconds, he simply watched. The thought didn’t fully form, but the recognition lingered.
Jiang Tea Tea caught his eyes on her and bristled. “What are you looking at? Never seen someone hungry?”
What was wrong with her?
With her strength still unrecovered, she should have been keeping her head down in front of someone this powerful. So why was she going head-to-head with him like this?
Did hunger make demons fearless?
Compared to her fury, Chong Ming remained unnervingly calm. “You’re right. I’ve never seen anyone hungry the way you are.”
He turned away. “Come with me.”
Only when Jiang Tea Tea realized he wasn’t heading toward the Medical Department did she follow, rubbing her stomach with a scowl.
The guards stared after them like they’d witnessed a cosmic miracle. A pure human girl had just blown up at their Commander-in-Chief—and he hadn’t gotten angry. He was leading her toward the living quarters.
After a long walk—turns, corridors, elevators down two levels—they reached a room.
It was spotless. White. Clean lines. One bedroom, one sitting room, one washroom.
Jiang Tea Tea paced once, still clutching her hungry stomach, then stormed into the washroom, stripped, and turned on the water. She scrubbed hard, as if she could physically erase the taste of seawater from her skin.
Meanwhile, Sui Xuan Chu was placed into a medical pod, still unconscious, undergoing examination by Director Lu of the Medical Department.
Chong Ming stood outside the pod and watched as the black scales on Sui Xuan Chu’s dragon body continued fading, gradually returning to gold.
When the gold fully restored, Chong Ming opened a shared frequency and issued orders.
“Waterwave Battalion: search every corner of the far-north deep sea for insect clan presence. If found, kill on sight.”
“Northwind Battalion: send a team to seabed coordinate NB637. Search for insect clan remains—corpses, tissue, anything.”
“Whatever you retrieve, preserve it intact and bring it up.”
Two commanders answered at once. “Yes, Commander-in-Chief!”
Chong Ming cut the channel and switched to Cai Xi Chao’s line.
“Minister Cai, pull a team from your subordinates. Their sole task is tracking insect clan movements.”
“Once insect clan is located, coordinate with the instructor teams of the thirty legions. No survivors. Kill on site.”
“Yes, Commander-in-Chief,” Cai Xi Chao replied.
Chong Ming switched to Adjutant AI. “Inform the remaining six members of the Wipe Out the Other Twenty-Nine Military Academies Squad: Sui Xuan Chu and Jiang Tea Tea are safe. They are on the command flagship. No life-threatening danger.”
“Yes, Commander-in-Chief,” Adjutant AI said, then added, “Commander-in-Chief, Security Minister Yan Lan Shen has arrived. He’s waiting to see you.”
“Let him wait,” Chong Ming said.
“Yes.”
Chong Ming cut the channel again as the medical pod cycled fresh treatment fluid over Sui Xuan Chu’s dragon body.
Director Lu stepped out in a white coat, saluted, and reported carefully. “Commander-in-Chief, the Crown Prince is not in life-threatening danger. He remains unconscious due to a powerful ability strike and severe scale loss.”
Chong Ming’s eyes never left the pod. “When will he wake?”
“Within twenty-four hours.”
“When will the scales grow back?”
“Fastest three months. Slowest half a year.”
Chong Ming nodded once. “Your disguise potion is fading. Reinforce it. I don’t want his disguise failing and raising suspicion.”
Director Lu’s heart jolted. “Yes, Commander-in-Chief.”
“Watch him. Notify me when he wakes,” Chong Ming said. “And do not allow anyone in the Medical Department besides you to learn his identity.”
“Yes, Commander-in-Chief.”
In the room Chong Ming gave her, Jiang Tea Tea scrubbed and scrubbed in cold water until her skin nearly burned. It took forty-five minutes before she finally felt clean.
She pulled fresh clothes from her storage button and stepped out.
Her stomach roared like thunder.
She couldn’t understand it. She was a tree that ate everything. Her philosophy had always been simple: never starve your belly—only what you eat truly belongs to you.
Yet after coming here, her hunger had worsened by the day, like a bottomless pit.
Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.
She clutched her stomach and yanked the door open—
—and found Chong Ming outside, his hand raised to knock.
She blinked. “What?”
Chong Ming lowered his hand. “I’m taking you to eat.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s eyes lit up. “Really? Is there meat?”
Chong Ming nodded. “As much as you want.”
Jiang Tea Tea looked like she’d just been saved from death. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
Chong Ming led her to the mess hall.
It was enormous, nearly as big as the largest cafeteria at the Royal Military Academy. Plenty of people were eating, but the moment they saw the Commander-in-Chief walk in with a human girl, chopsticks froze midair and mouths fell open.
The options weren’t as varied as the academy’s, but there were still six meat dishes and six vegetable dishes, buffet style. Take what you wanted, as much as you wanted.
Chong Ming took a modest plate.
Jiang Tea Tea stared at it in disbelief. “Commander-in-Chief… is that tiny amount your appetizer? Or dessert?”
Chong Ming looked at her. “It’s my meal.”
Jiang Tea Tea sized him up, then gestured wildly. “You eat that little and still grew that long? How?”
“Besides food,” Chong Ming said, “I also use special nutrient fluids, supplements, and nutrient fruit. They help me grow.”
Nutrient fluids and supplements? She’d rather chew bark. And nutrient fruit—what even was that? She’d never heard of it.
“Okay,” Jiang Tea Tea said, pointing at the meat. “Can your cook make six more basins of each of those?”
“Start eating what you want,” Chong Ming said. “I’ll have more prepared and delivered.”
Jiang Tea Tea didn’t waste a second. She rolled up her sleeves and carried all six meat dishes to a table like she was hauling loot off a battlefield.
She sat down and started devouring.
Chong Ming sat across from her with his modest plate and set a drink by her hand.
Watching her eat was… an experience. Small body, fierce appetite—both cute and savage. The way she tore into meat was rough, but strangely compelling.
If he hadn’t been monitoring their team this whole time, he might have suspected her squad had been starving her.
After she emptied her first basin, Jiang Tea Tea finally felt her stomach loosen. She took a sip of the drink Chong Ming brought—cool, sweet, lightly sour—and liked it instantly.
She downed the whole cup in two gulps, stood up, and set it in front of Chong Ming like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Please get me another cup. This is good.”
All around them, people sucked in cold air. A human girl ordering the Commander-in-Chief around?
Chong Ming looked at the cup, then stood, took it, and refilled it.
He even returned with a steaming basin of black tiger prawns. Each prawn was over a pound, longer than a forearm, glossy with oil and spices.
Jiang Tea Tea swallowed a chunk of meat and nodded at the prawns. “Peel them for me. My hands are busy.”
The entire cafeteria went silent.
Then it somehow got even quieter when Chong Ming rolled up his sleeves, wiped his hands, and started peeling shrimp.
Jiang Tea Tea ate.
And ate.
And ate.
She finished seven basins of stewed goat, seven basins of steak, seven basins of braised pork, seven basins of chicken legs, seven basins of stir-fried pork, seven basins of braised fish chunks, and seven basins of fried prawns. She drank ten cups of nutrient fruit juice.
Only then did she finally stop.
She wiped her mouth and hands, leaned back, and burped with bliss. One hand rested on her stomach, eyes half-lidded with satisfaction.
Chong Ming sat across from her, gaze steady. Even after that much food, her stomach looked no different—no bulge, no heaviness.
His golden eyes darkened slightly.
“Full?” he asked. “Satisfied?”
“Anything else you want, I’ll have them make it.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s head felt pleasantly light. Her eyelids drooped.
Then her mouth betrayed her.
“I want to eat you,” she said lazily. “Will you let me?”