Chapter 75
Chapter 75: You are shameless, someone opened the back door for you
Jiang Tea Tea opened the potion box in Ye Ying’s hands. The seven potion tubes inside were carefully marked with the numbers 1 to 7, one for each day, all lying neatly in the box.
After a quick look, she pushed the box back together with Ye Ying’s hand and said: “Thanks, but I am not sick. Please return these to Chong Ming. Also, help me send him a message. If he has so much free time, he should go fall in love, find a partner, and have a few little brats to play with.”
“Instead of being 150 years old and still full of useless worry and overthinking.”
Looking at how wild, defiant, and lawless she was, Ye Ying could understand why the Commander in Chief liked her and cared about her health. The more Ye Ying looked at her, the more he liked what he saw too, and the more satisfied he felt.
What was so fun about a standard, rule-following soldier? Only a stubborn, arrogant troublemaker like her, who could draw inferences from one example to many, would give him a real sense of achievement once he had trained her well.
Ye Ying slipped into a “Dad” mode, speaking earnestly and kindly to her. He said: “You child, the Commander in Chief is thinking about your health. There are still two months left in the Supremacy Tournament.”
“With the way you eat dozens or even hundreds of jin in one meal, if you do not rein it in, forget the Commander in Chief being worried about you. Even I am worried that, if you get too hungry, you might end up eating your own teammates.”
“Come on, take it. One tube a day. In seven days, the medicine will cure you. I promise you will become a normal person who can go three days without food and still not die.”
She was never a normal person.
She was a monster, the kind that could stab herself into the ground like a post and turn everything that fell to the earth into her fertilizer.
Letting her take medicine? Did he think she was stupid? All medicine is three parts poison.
Who knew if that old mud Chong Ming was trying to hurt her?
Jiang Tea Tea took a step back and said: “I don’t want it. Goodbye.”
“Wait.” Ye Ying saw her turn to leave and quickly stopped her.
Jiang Tea Tea paused, her eyes wary and fierce: “What?”
Ye Ying shoved the box of potion into her hands and said: “Nothing. The Commander in Chief told me to give this to you, so I have to finish my task.”
“You hold onto it. Whether you take it or throw it away later has nothing to do with me. I just want to complete my task. Understand?”
[It can work like that?]
[Fine, fine.]
Jiang Tea Tea took the box and flipped it straight into her space knob storage device. She said: “Got it. See you.”
Ye Ying called out to her again: “Wait a second.”
This little girl was fine in every way except that she was too impatient. He might look fierce, but he was not a bad person. Why did she keep trying to run away so fast?
Jiang Tea Tea raised an eyebrow: “There is more?”
Ye Ying took two steps toward her, bent his waist a little, leaned closer to her, and lowered his voice, full of a sneaky feeling. He said: “Schoolmate Jiang Tea Tea, I am the chief drill instructor in charge of the drill instructor group for your academy, and I am also the army corps commander of the First Army Corps. I have been watching all of your performances and remembering them in my heart.”
“I think you are a talent that can be shaped. After the Supremacy Tournament ends, I will apply to the Commander in Chief and ask that you be allowed to come to my First Army Corps for special training three to four months every year.”
“By the time you graduate in four years, you will already have two years of special training experience. Then you can apply straight to my army corps. I will give you special approval and let you join us as an excellent soldier of my First Army Corps.”
“Don’t worry. As the army corps commander of the First Army Corps, I value talent very highly. For someone as talented as you, I will pour out everything I have. I will teach you everything I know and even things I don’t know yet.”
[What kind of Commander in Chief brings out what kind of soldiers?]
[That old mud Chong Ming has his eye on her, and now his soldier has his eye on her too?]
Jiang Tea Tea stepped back and put some distance between herself and Ye Ying. She said: “Commander Ye, if you want to dig me into your army corps, you should not be saying this to me. You should be saying it to your Commander in Chief.”
Ye Ying would never go talk to his own Commander in Chief about this. He was not stupid. If he said it, he would never be able to steal her away. He snapped: “Why talk to him? What matters is your will. As long as you agree, even if I have to go through fire and climb knives, I can still get you into my First Army Corps.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s eyes rolled as a plan formed in her mind. She said quickly: “All right, I agree. As long as you can bring me into your First Army Corps, I will go.”
Ye Ying was overjoyed: “Really?”
Jiang Tea Tea nodded hard: “Really.”
Ye Ying puffed out his chest at once, standing tall and proud: “Since you agreed, I will definitely get you into my First Army Corps.”
Jiang Tea Tea smiled: “Then I will wait for your good news. See you.”
Ye Ying waved both hands to send her off: “Go, go.”
Jiang Tea Tea turned and left his command room.
Ye Ying immediately opened the shared channel with the other twenty-nine army corps commanders and bragged: “My darling brats, I am so sorry, but I have to tell you a piece of good news that will make you very sad.”
The twenty-nine commanders did not indulge him at all. They snapped back at once: “Since it is ‘good news’ that will make us sad, shut your stinky mouth. We do not want to hear it.”
“That’s right. Whenever you open that stinky mouth of yours, there is never any real good news. Close it. That way, when we meet, we can still be friends. Otherwise, we will hit you every time we see you.”
“Ye, your First Army Corps has already dropped to the thirtieth Army Corps now. And you still have time to show off here? There are only two rounds left in the Supremacy Tournament. If you do not hurry and catch up, the fall from the First Army Corps to the Thirtieth Army Corps will be recorded on the internal network of the Imperial Military Headquarters and hung there nice and high.”
Ye Ying complained unhappily: “You lot, really, you have no eye for talent at all. You do not know how to cheer for someone.”
“Besides, life as a beast is full of ups and downs. First, second, third, thirtieth, it all goes up and down. That way you brats can have hope. If I took first place every time, I would worry that I would stress you so much you would want to die.”
The twenty-nine army corps commanders said together: “I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Goodbye. I am blocking you.”
“Same here. I don’t want to bother with you. I am already annoyed enough training these little darlings and not finding a single real talent. Now you come here and…”
Afraid they would all leave the group chat, Ye Ying hurried to interrupt them: “Wait, wait, wait. Even if you don’t want to talk to me, at least let me tell you the sad good news first, then you can leave…”
Before he could finish his sentence, the twenty-nine commanders had already quit the group chat one by one. Not a single one wanted to listen to him.
Looking at the channel with only himself online, Ye Ying cursed: “You brats, you mangy dogs, you really think that if you don’t listen to me, you can avoid hearing the sad good news?”
“Naive. I will send each of you a private message. I will make sure you all know that schoolmate Jiang Tea Tea is going to be one of my army corps’ people in the future.”
Ye Ying opened his light-brain wrist terminal and his fingers crackled across the keys. After he finished typing, he sent the same message to the other twenty-nine army corps commanders, telling them that schoolmate Jiang Tea Tea had already agreed to come to his First Army Corps.
What he had never expected was that the twenty-nine commanders had already predicted that he would do this. They kept quitting the shared chat channel, blocked him, and refused to receive any of his messages.
Huang Da Zhuang saw Jiang Tea Tea come back and asked quietly: “Where did you go, Sister Tea? Are you all right?”
Jiang Tea Tea sat down on the floor and said: “I’m fine. Commander Ye had something to discuss with me, so I went and said a few words to him.”
Sui Xuan Chu and the others all looked at her at once, their faces full of curiosity. They were just about to ask when a male red dragon nearby spoke in a mocking tone: “I knew it. There was no way any squad’s score could be that far above ours.”
“So it turns out they know our chief drill instructor. They are not even pretending to hide the back door now. Truly eye-opening.”
The other members of the red dragon squad raised their voices to chime in: “Exactly. These days a low-level red-and-black dragon, a useless pure human without any supernatural abilities, a beastman male, and a few weak little females form a squad of eight and act like they are the main characters. They show us a cliff-like gap in scores between heaven and earth, and then say they have no backing, that no one eased the rules for them. I do not believe it at all.”
“So that’s the way it is now. You must have backing. Without backing, you end up like us. We worked hard and did our best, but our squad only got 200 points, and our personal points are just over 100 each.”
Their voices were so loud that they drew the attention of everyone nearby. All eyes turned toward them, as if really agreeing with what they had just said, that Jiang Tea Tea’s squad had gotten their high scores through the back door.
Sui Xuan Chu and Cheng Xiao Ting reacted at once. They snapped back: “Hong, you lot are weak and trashy, so you should recognize that and accept it. Does sitting here being bitter and spreading rumors make your scores go up?”
“These days, trash is still trash. Just because you are not sitting in a trash can does not mean you are above everyone else. You are so full of self-righteous dad energy. I spit.”
Jiang Tea Tea asked Huang Da Zhuang: “Who are they, and when did they come over?”
Huang Da Zhuang whispered back: “They came over right after you were called away by Commander Ye. They sat beside us and did not say anything. We ignored them too.”
“The one in front with the red dragon horns is from the red dragon clan. His name is Hong Xiang Luan. He is a first year in the combat department. He has the same supernatural ability as Sui Xuan Chu, lightning element affinity at Level S squared, and he has always been fighting with Sui Xuan Chu and Cheng Xiao Ting for the top student rank in the combat department.”
Jiang Tea Tea said, in a voice that was not loud or soft: “So he is the defeated subordinate of Sui Xuan Chu and Cheng Xiao Ting. No wonder he gives off the smell of a loser looking for trouble.”
“Who are you calling a defeated subordinate?”
Hong Xiang Luan had already been unhappy about losing to Sui Xuan Chu and Cheng Xiao Ting and not getting the top student rank in the first year of the combat department. Now, being called a defeated subordinate by a pure human with no supernatural abilities made him explode at once. He pointed at Jiang Tea Tea and shouted: “Say that again and see if I don’t kill you.”
“Who are you going to kill?” Sui Xuan Chu shot to his feet. With one hand he slapped away Hong Xiang Luan’s finger that was pointing at Jiang Tea Tea and smiled in a way that made people want to cough blood. He said: “Defeated subordinate.”
The back of Hong Xiang Luan’s hand turned red from the slap. He curled his fingers into a fist and swung it straight at Sui Xuan Chu’s face: “Sui, you have lightning element affinity at Level S squared, and so do I. Last time we fought for the top student rank, I only slipped up by accident and fell into your trap, which is why you got that rank. Don’t think that means I really can’t beat you.”
Sui Xuan Chu did not dodge at all. He raised his own fist to meet Hong Xiang Luan’s punch head on and said: “A defeated subordinate is still a defeated subordinate. Being loud does not mean you can win.”
Their fists crashed together. Only they knew how much it hurt.
Neither of them pulled back their hand. They glared at each other with their fists still pressed together.
The red dragon squad had ten people. They had beaten the eight members of each of the other twenty-nine military academies’ squads. Now that these two were fighting, everyone except Jiang Tea Tea stood behind one of them, ready to jump in at any second.
Jiang Tea Tea sighed and coughed lightly: “Hong, I suggest you apologize to us now, or we will not be polite.”
Hong Xiang Luan still did not understand how serious this was. He shouted: “You are going to be ‘not polite’ to us? If we were not inside the ship, I would call lightning down and blast you back-door cheaters to death.”
Jiang Tea Tea answered with a simple: “Oh. So you refuse the toast and insist on drinking the punishment wine. Fine, you asked for this.”
Hong Xiang Luan sneered: “I’d like to see what you can do to me…”
“Commander Ye!” Jiang Tea Tea cut him off directly. Her voice rose over his as she shouted toward the direction of the ship’s surveillance system: “Commander Ye, someone is saying that the reason our squad is tens of thousands of points ahead of other squads, and each of us is tens of thousands of points ahead of others, is because you opened a back door for us.”
“Where is this back door of yours? Hurry up and come out and open the door for everyone else too and give them more points, so we don’t get beaten up by them!”