Chapter 57
Chapter 57: You Want to Dig a Pit for Me, I Was Born in One, You Can’t Bury Me
Jiang Tea Tea’s steps stopped cold. She looked sideways at Chong Ming, the corners of her lips lifting as she laughed in a wild, unrestrained way: “Commander in Chief Chong Ming, the big pancake you are drawing is not only big and fragrant, it is even stuffed with filling. Too bad my teeth are bad. I am afraid I will chip them, so I still prefer eating meat and seafood.”
He wanted to dig a pit and bury her in it, make her stay down there as his flunky and work for him. That was simply a joke.
She, a grand big tree spirit, had been born in a pit. How could she not see through this kind of petty trick, where the abacus beads in his head were about to bounce out and hit her in the face?
Chong Ming met her gaze: “You have not taken a bite of the pancake I am giving you. How can you decide it will chip your teeth? Maybe it is softer than you imagine, more filling than the meat and seafood you eat, and even more delicious.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s eye corners lifted, her eyes sparkling: “Really? If I do not understand myself, do you think I do not understand other people?”
“If a pie from the sky just happens to fall and hit me on the head, am I the darling of the Heavenly Dao or the darling of the Beast God?”
“Enough. Go draw your pancakes for someone else. Do not draw them for me. I do not like them. If I end up allergic to pancakes, that would be bad.”
“I am done talking with you. I am going to sleep. Do not call me if there is nothing, and if there is something, do not call me either. See you!”
Jiang Tea Tea threw down her words and left cleanly and neatly, with big, confident strides. She was not enchanted at all by the big pancake Chong Ming had thrown her way, and she did not take him to heart at all.
Chong Ming stood where he was and watched her until he could no longer see her. Then he turned his head to the robots who were cleaning up: “Send five jin of nutrient fruit to room 920.”
The robots answered: “Yes, Commander in Chief!”
Chong Ming straightened his combat suit a little, glanced at the school cafeteria, and spoke to the people there who had long finished eating but still had not left: “If you have nothing to do after eating and just sit here with your ears pricked up, then all of you can add ten hours of intensive training for me.”
Everyone eating: “Yes, Commander in Chief.”
Chong Ming lifted his foot and left the school cafeteria. As soon as he walked out, the heavy pressure in the cafeteria suddenly vanished. The people eating looked at each other and started gossiping, full of sighs and emotion.
“Who is that pure human little female? What kind of background does she have, for the Commander in Chief to value her so much and train her as the successor to the Commander in Chief of the Three Armies?”
“You asked a good question. Have you ever seen the Commander in Chief bring anyone to eat with him? Have you ever seen him eat here with anyone? No. This little female is the first. That alone shows this little female is definitely not as harmless as she looks to us.”
“What harmless? You call that little female harmless? What are you looking at with those eyes?”
“Yeah. That little female is not harmless at all. She is arrogant and overbearing, with nobody in her eyes, and she is crazy cool, okay?”
“No, no, no. That little female is not just cool. She is insanely amazing, a role model for our generation. Her future is definitely limitless!”
“Exactly. When I make eye contact with the Commander in Chief, my legs shake. But that little female not only looked straight at the Commander in Chief, she even provoked him, did not put him in her eyes at all, and was not scared of his powerful aura even a little.”
“My god, I did not think that in my lifetime I would get to see a little female whose aura is almost on the same level as the Commander in Chief, and who actually rejected the Commander in Chief.”
“Right, right. The Commander in Chief’s word is law. He never says empty things. As long as that little female agreed to what he promised, comprehensive training and nurturing would start for her right away. But the little female refused him without even hesitating. I really did not expect that.”
“It is not that only you did not expect it. None of us expected it. Okay, okay, we cannot keep talking. We cannot keep gossiping. Go to intensive training. Ten hours.”
Everyone who had been eating stood up and went back to their own departments. They told their coworkers there that a little female had refused the Commander in Chief’s offer to train her.
The coworkers who heard this then went to tell others: a little female refused the Commander in Chief. Those people then turned around and told even more people: the Commander in Chief’s confession was rejected by a little female.
The gossip spread wider and wider, and got more and more exaggerated. Soon, half the people on the command flagship “knew” that the Commander in Chief had been moved, actively chased after a little female, and was rejected by her.
There were two reasons for the refusal. One was that the little female thought he was too old and too fierce. The other was that he only gave her pancakes to eat and no meat, so the little female was unhappy and rejected him.
Jiang Tea Tea strolled back to her room in a relaxed mood. She found a bunch of golden fruits on the table.
Although she was full, the fruits were about the size of a fist, golden and extremely tempting. She could not hold back and picked one up, then took a bite.
The fruit, sixty percent sour and forty percent sweet, exploded over her taste buds. It suited her taste even more than the juice Chong Ming had given her.
Jiang Tea Tea finished one fruit, took off her jacket, flopped onto the bed, flipped the quilt open, pulled it over her head, and went to sleep.
In the command room, Chong Ming looked over all the holo-projection screens in front of him. After confirming there were no major sudden incidents, he spun the chair under him and looked toward Yan Lan Shen, the head of the Security Department: “You have been undercover at the Royal Military Imperial Academies for more than ten days now. Do you have any insights?”
Yan Lan Shen was wearing the combat suit uniform of a first-year student of the Royal Military Imperial Academies, with a disguised young face: “Reporting to the Commander in Chief, I have discovered some things. I am still watching and have not confirmed them yet.”
Chong Ming leaned back in the command chair, his hand resting on the armrest: “Tell me what you found.”
Yan Lan Shen tapped open his Light-Brain Wrist Terminal and brought up a holo-projection image: “I found that in the Royal Military Imperial Academies, several groups of students are very interested in ‘killing off the squad members of the other twenty-nine military academies’.”
“It is just that they have no signal and cannot locate them, so they can only run around the Primeval Forest, searching everywhere.”
“One of the groups is from the Yellow Dragon Clan. Another is a human group. Most of these two groups are avoiding the drill instructor teams that are trying to find them.”
On the holo-projection in front of Chong Ming, one team was a ten-person group led by the Royal Military Imperial Academies’ first-year combat department’s top-ranked student, a Huang Dragon Clan member, Chong Qixing.
The other was a six-person small team led by Jiang Yi Cheng, Jiang Tea Tea’s so-called older brother, a water element supernatural ability user of the human race.
Besides these two teams, there were people from other Imperial Academies too. One team was led by someone from the Green Dragon Clan, and another was led by someone from the Black Dragon Clan.
Seeing the Commander in Chief stay silent, Yan Lan Shen kept talking: “I have already told my people to keep an eye out for the Yellow Dragon Clan, the Green Dragon Clan, and the Black Dragon Clan.”
“As for this water element supernatural ability user of the human race, Jiang Yi Cheng, who leads that team, he is a bit weird. He likes to hide somewhere and talk to himself for no reason.”
The image in front of Chong Ming shifted and became Jiang Yi Cheng standing in front of a thick, leafy big tree, saying ‘yes, yes, yes’, looking exactly like a lunatic talking to himself.
Chong Ming spoke: “Minister Yan, do you think it is possible that Jiang Yi Cheng is not talking to himself, but is communicating with Insectoid Race hiding on the tree or Insectoid Race in beast form whose color is the same as the rocks?”
Yan Lan Shen’s pupils shook: “I am sorry, Commander in Chief. That was my mistake. I will go and investigate right away…”
“Wait.” Chong Ming stopped him: “Before you even came aboard my ship, the Insectoid Race had already locked onto the crown prince’s position and movements and kidnapped him. If you go investigate now, is it to collect the crown prince’s corpse?”
Yan Lan Shen did not expect that he had made such a huge mistake and let the crown prince get taken. He immediately said: “Your Highness, for the crown prince’s safety, I am willing to go rescue him and make up for my mistake.”
Chong Ming’s golden eyes were icy cold and sharp: “Minister Yan, as head of the Security Department, you have been acting very immature and unprofessional lately. Your judgment is almost gone. Is it because I gave you too much work, or because you are getting old?”
Yan Lan Shen’s mind went clear in an instant. He lowered his head: “I am sorry, Commander in Chief. I am willing to take full responsibility for the crown prince being kidnapped by the Insectoid Race.”
Chong Ming looked at him: “Minister Yan, you have disappointed me, and you have also disappointed your younger brother, who has always taken you as his role model.”
Yan Lan Shen suddenly raised his head and looked at the Commander in Chief. He had not expected that he knew his younger brother was also part of this Supremacy Tournament.
Chong Ming’s words were like blades stabbing into Yan Lan Shen’s heart: “Your younger brother, the half-beastman male Yan Yu, in order to catch up with your footsteps, is studying in the Intelligence Division of the Royal Military Imperial Academies.”
“In this field training, even if his supernatural abilities and physical ability are not outstanding at all, his team spirit, his ability to carry out orders, and his trust in his teammates are very outstanding.”
“In contrast, you. I had you come here not so you could look for your younger brother and worry about him. I had you come here to find the hidden dangers.”
“But what have you done?”
In that moment, Yan Lan Shen deeply felt what shame was, and what it meant to have nowhere to hide in front of the Commander in Chief: “I am sorry…”
“I do not want an apology.” Chong Ming cut him off with a cold voice: “I want ability. I want results.”
“Yan Lan Shen, if you do not have this ability and cannot give me results, then resign on your own and find a place to go train properly.”
Yan Lan Shen’s body shook hard: “Yes, Commander in Chief. Within ten days, I will figure out what Jiang Yi Cheng, the Yellow Dragon Clan, the Black Dragon Clan, and the Green Dragon Clan are trying to do, and I will get first-hand evidence.”
Chong Ming waved his hand. He did not say another word.
Yan Lan Shen snapped to attention, gave him a crisp military salute, took three steps back, then turned and strode away quickly.
Not long after Yan Lan Shen left, people from the North Wind Battalion found the corpses of the Insectoid Race deep at the bottom of the sea and brought them aboard the ship.
On the laboratory table in the healing department, the huge bodies of sea spiders were lined up in rows. There was also the corpse of a black giant mantis.
Chong Ming, with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and long legs, stood there with two golden dragon horns on his head and golden, smooth hair falling to his waist. His hands were clasped behind his back, and his aura was strong.
Minister Lu finished his examination, then pulled the lab table over and moved the sea spider corpses in front of Chong Ming: “Commander in Chief, after my examination, I found that what caused their death was a sharp weapon shaped like a stick.”
“The weapon pierced through their bodies and heads, making them lose the ability to counterattack or struggle. About two or three minutes later, they died.”
“After death, their bodies were thrown by a great force into the depths of the Deep Sea. The strength needed to fling them down into the Deep Sea is beyond my understanding.”
Chong Ming stared at the sea spider and giant mantis corpses and called out: “Ai, Deputy Officer, chop these corpses up and grind them to pieces, then find a pretty box and pack them inside. Send the package to the Insectoid Race’s great Imperial Prince, and tell him that next time, he should send over some trash that is at least useful and nicer to look at.”