Chapter 79
Chapter 79: Commander in Chief, Catch Her, Dissect Her, Study Her, and Gain Immortality
By moonlight, Jiang Tea Tea and the others all turned their eyes toward Cheng Lin Yue, who had just spoken. They said together: “Little rabbit, what you said makes a lot of sense!”
Cheng Lin Yue scratched the back of her head in embarrassment: “I only learned it from you, Sister Tea. You taught me.”
Sister Tea never disliked her for being socially anxious. She patiently listened to her finish what she wanted to say, and when there was danger, she protected her and pulled her along to run. That was what gave Cheng Lin Yue the courage to speak up. Whether she was right or wrong, Sister Tea never put her down.
Cheng Xiao Ting slung an arm around his little roommate Cheng Lin Yue and said: “Alright, little mouse, don’t be modest. You’re very good.”
Cheng Lin Yue tried to struggle away, but his arm was like a pair of iron tongs. She could not break free. Softly, she argued: “I’m not from the rodent family. I’m from the rabbit family, a mouse-rabbit. Don’t call me little mouse anymore, or I’ll get mad.”
Cheng Xiao Ting answered carelessly and annoyingly, still not letting go of her neck: “I know you’re from the rabbit family, little mouse.”
Jiang Tea Tea reached out, grabbed Cheng Xiao Ting’s wrist, and pulled his arm off Cheng Lin Yue’s shoulders and neck: “You know she’s from the rabbit family, but you keep calling her little mouse. That is a twisted kind of school bullying, schoolmate.”
He had called her little mouse before and she hadn’t said it made her angry. Now that she said it did, the leftover awareness from the fake young miss’s memories slipped into Jiang Tea Tea’s mind, remembering the bullying she had suffered. She could not just stand there and ignore it.
Cheng Lin Yue quickly stepped to Jiang Tea Tea’s side and nodded hard in support: “That’s right, stinky wolf, you’re bullying me in a twisted way.”
Cheng Xiao Ting’s wrist hurt so much he could not pull free. He rushed to explain: “I’m not bullying her. I just think it’s fun to joke with her that way.”
Jiang Tea Tea said quietly: “You think it’s fun, but she doesn’t think it’s fun. That makes it school bullying.”
“Don’t act like some edgy young man who teases a girl just because he likes her. Even if you’ve never eaten pork, you’ve at least seen pigs run, right?”
“Liking someone means making them feel comfortable and happy, not making them stomp their feet and argue with you here with a red face, understand, schoolmate?”
Cheng Xiao Ting’s gaze snapped to Cheng Lin Yue: “So when I call you little mouse, you’re not happy?”
With Jiang Tea Tea standing in front of her, Cheng Lin Yue was braver: “If I called you lapdog, you wouldn’t be happy either.”
Cheng Xiao Ting froze: “That’s true. Then I should apologize?”
“Ah…” Cheng Lin Yue had not expected him to apologize. She looked over at Jiang Tea Tea, as if Jiang Tea Tea were her backbone.
Jiang Tea Tea let go of his wrist: “Go on, apologize.”
Cheng Xiao Ting could bend and stretch: “Little rabbit, I was wrong. I won’t call you little mouse anymore.”
His little roommate was very cute. He liked seeing the way she wanted to argue and puff up when he called her little mouse, but didn’t quite dare.
Cheng Lin Yue was simple and socially anxious. She said: “If you don’t call me little mouse, I’ll forgive you.”
“Alright, from now on I won’t call you little mouse, little rabbit.” Cheng Xiao Ting bared his teeth in a big grin at her. His carefree look scared Cheng Lin Yue so much she jumped and hid behind Jiang Tea Tea.
Jiang Tea Tea glanced back at her, then let the little episode slide and said to the others: “Fifty kilometers isn’t that far. There’s prey along the way. We’ll move in that direction and hunt as we go. If we get tired, we’ll find a place to rest.”
Sui Xuan Chu and the others agreed. The night was dark and windy but neither cold nor hot. With their signal shielding device, it was like having a cheat turned on. Everything felt under control.
All eight reached the same decision and headed toward the group of more than ten dragons. As they ran through the flowering trees and tall grasses, they ran into wild chickens, rabbits, mountain badgers, barking deer, and other small herbivores. Any animal they could catch, they twisted its neck and stuffed it into their space knob storage devices.
“Commander in Chief, we still haven’t found that person.”
Li Ao had woken up from his coma, fixed up his equipment, and worked hard for another long half day. In the dark night, he returned to the warship where Chong Ming was and made his report.
“But I can confirm that the person who has that powerful unknown energy is within five hundred li under our ship.”
“Their energy can drain the life force of living beings, and it can also make dead wood come back to life and grow green again.”
“With such a strange energy entity, if we find it and study it, raising the dead and living for a thousand years will not just be a dream.”
Chong Ming frowned slightly: “Director Li, you are dangerous.”
Li Ao’s expression froze. The excitement in his eyes did not have time to fade. He quickly explained: “Commander in Chief, I am doing this for the Empire. I am doing this for you. I have no other motives. Please see that clearly.”
Chong Ming sat in the command chair, his golden eyes resting on Li Ao. His gaze did not change at all, yet Li Ao felt a chill rise from the soles of his feet. Cold sweat was already breaking out along his spine. He did not dare raise his head.
In a slow, deep voice, Chong Ming said: “Director Li, you are very capable. You have found many potential and rare ability users for the Empire.”
“You have also helped a lot of ability users raise their ability levels. But you must understand one thing: everything you do has to be legal and follow the rules. Other people have to lie on your table willingly for you to study them. Other people have to be willing to risk everything to awaken their abilities.”
“If not, then all this talk about raising the dead and living for a thousand years is illegal. For any lawbreaker, no matter how much they have contributed in the past, those contributions cannot cancel out their crimes in the eyes of the Empire.”
Li Ao’s whole body was tense, his head lowered: “Please rest assured, Commander in Chief. I will never break the law, and I will not do anything illegal.”
Chong Ming’s frown slowly relaxed: “Director Li, I think you misunderstood why I called you here.”
“As for the appearance of this unknown energy entity, I had you come to identify her, not so you could find her, rub your hands together, drag her into a laboratory, dissect her, and study her.”
Li Ao answered at once: “Yes, this subordinate understands what I should do now.”
Chong Ming waved his hand: “You may go.”
Li Ao said: “Yes, Commander in Chief.”
Cold sweat had soaked his back. The oppressive aura that the Commander in Chief released without even trying crashed down on him like a mountain. It pressed so hard he almost could not breathe, and his Level S-3 ability felt completely useless in front of it.
Chong Ming slowly turned his head and looked at the small bucket on the table at his side. A single wild grass had sprouted inside. It was tiny and green.
The cracks on the table under the bucket, left by Jiang Tea Tea’s slap, were still clearly visible. With her strength, one more slap would have broken the whole table into pieces on the floor.
Jiang Tea Tea and the others ran all night. In their night raids, they cut the throats of three more squads totaling twenty-five people. They only stopped when they were five kilometers away from the group of dragons.
Here, the flowering trees were not like the giant trees on the tropical primitive planet that took several people to encircle. These trees were only two to three people tall, as thick as a human arm, with the occasional one as thick as a thigh.
In the place where they stopped, there were not even thigh-thick trees. They simply picked a spot and lay down on the ground to sleep.
Jiang Tea Tea had absorbed all the “fertilizer” in the soil within five hundred li. She did not dare sink her roots into the earth again. She could only reach quietly upward and draw nutrients from the air.
In the blink of an eye, dawn began to lighten the sky. Jiang Tea Tea woke up first. She looked at the gray sky, sat up, rinsed her mouth, and stretched her body in the morning wind.
Sui Xuan Chu and the others got up one after another and came to her side. They copied her movements, stretching, breathing in and out, watching the morning glow on the horizon and the rising sun.
When the sun had fully risen, Jiang Tea Tea turned to look at Sui Xuan Chu and the others: “Schoolmates, we’re about to face fifteen Dragon Clan clan members. With the combat strength of the eight of us, we can’t beat them head-on.”
“Let’s think it over and come up with a good plan that can wipe them out without us taking any damage at all.”
The seven of them all looked at Jiang Tea Tea. Those fifteen were Dragon Clan members, and whether they were male or female, they were at least S-level ability users.
If they faced them directly, eight against fifteen, they really did not have much chance of winning. They thought for a while, then said: “With eight against fifteen, our odds are bad. How about we look for allies, find some S-level and above ability users to form an alliance?”
“That alliance definitely won’t work. I checked the coordinates of the military academy students. The nearest royal Imperial Academies military academy students are eighty kilometers away from us.”
“And if we go hunt with them and lose, it doesn’t matter much if we drop in points since we’re so high now, but other people will think we lost on purpose. That idea won’t do.”
“How about we go hunt a few students from the Imperial Academies, put on their uniforms, then go cozy up to those dragons and catch them off guard?”
“No, if they check the light-brain wrist terminal and there’s no signal for us, we’ll be exposed. They might wipe us out instead.”
“This doesn’t work, that doesn’t work. So what will work?”
Jiang Tea Tea’s eyes turned as she got an idea. She pulled out a red soft blade, drew it across her palm, then pressed the red marking seal from her palm onto her neck. A red mark instantly appeared on her throat.
Huang Da Zhuang’s eyes went wide: “Sister Tea, are you crazy? Just because you couldn’t think of a good plan, you didn’t have to forfeit on purpose.”
Jiang Tea Tea put the red soft blade away and pulled a set of drill instructor group uniforms out of her space knob storage device, tossing them on the ground: “What do you mean, forfeit? This is called a disguise. Come on, put on the drill instructor group uniforms. Smear some paint on your faces. Wipe some of the red from your palms and press it on your own necks. How is that forfeiting?”
Sui Xuan Chu instantly got what she meant: “Hey, hey, hey, you know, this is a good plan. The drill instructor group members who have forfeit-marks don’t show up as signals on the light-brain wrist terminal. That will make the dragons drop their guard.”
The others finally understood her idea. They quickly pulled out their red soft blades, drew them across their palms, then pressed their bloody marks onto their own necks. Done.
In no time at all, each of the eight of them had a red mark on their necks, making it look like someone had cut their throats and they were already eliminated.
At their fastest speed-type ability pace, they changed into drill instructor group uniforms and smeared on the drill instructors’ face paint. Then they headed toward the fifteen dragons.
On the way, they made their footsteps loud on purpose, talking loudly and even singing at the top of their lungs.
Their voices echoed in the mountains. The fifteen-person squad from the Imperial Academies combat department, who were commanding from above the ground, heard the singing and quickly hid, getting ready to attack.
They waited and waited, and finally saw a squad of eight from the drill instructor group. Every one of them had their throats marked. In other words, they were all “dead.”
Jiang Tea Tea and the others reached the dragons’ location. A small pool, about a hundred square meters, lay there. Water flowed in from somewhere else in a gentle stream, and there were fish in the pool, big ones.
Jiang Tea Tea glanced around and quickly picked out a white dragon beastman. She shouted at him: “Hey, little white dragon brat, stop hiding. Those two horns on your head are way too obvious.”
Bai Han Shu had not expected his hiding place to be that careless. He was spotted at once. He stepped out, stared at the mark on Jiang Tea Tea’s neck, and asked warily: “You’ve all been eliminated. Who could take out eight drill instructors like you in one go?”