Chapter 79
Chapter 79: Commander-in-Chief, Catch Her, Dissect Her, Study Her—and You’ll Live Forever
The squad stared at Cheng Lin Yue.
Jiang Tea Tea raised her thumb, impressed. “Little Bunny, that’s a solid read.”
Cheng Lin Yue flushed and scratched the back of her head. “I learned it from you, Sister Tea. You taught me.”
She wasn’t lying.
Sister Tea didn’t despise her social anxiety. Sister Tea listened when she spoke slowly. Sister Tea protected her when danger came—pulled her along when she froze.
Because of that, Cheng Lin Yue dared to speak up now.
Cheng Xiao Ting slung an arm around Cheng Lin Yue’s shoulders like she was a plush toy.
“Good,” he said brightly. “My little roommate is amazing.”
Cheng Lin Yue stiffened. “Let go—”
He didn’t. His arm was like iron.
She scowled. “I’m not a rodent. I’m a rabbit. A mouse-rabbit girl. Stop calling me ‘little mouse.’ I’ll get mad.”
Cheng Xiao Ting nodded exaggeratedly. “Sure, sure. Rabbit. Little mouse.”
Jiang Tea Tea grabbed Cheng Xiao Ting’s wrist and forcibly peeled his arm away from Cheng Lin Yue’s shoulders.
“You know she’s a rabbit and you still call her ‘little mouse’?” Jiang Tea Tea snapped. “That’s bullying, classmate.”
Cheng Xiao Ting blinked. “It’s not bullying. I just—”
“You think it’s fun,” Jiang Tea Tea cut in. “Because you think it’s fun.”
“She doesn’t think it’s fun.”
“When one person laughs and the other doesn’t, it’s bullying.”
She looked him dead in the eye, sharp as a blade.
“Don’t act like some edgy teenager who says, ‘I tease her because I like her.’ Haven’t you ever seen how liking someone works?”
“Liking someone means making them comfortable. Making them happy.”
“Not making them jump and blush and argue because you won’t stop poking them.”
“Understand, classmate?”
Cheng Xiao Ting turned to Cheng Lin Yue, stunned. “When I call you ‘little mouse,’ you’re not happy?”
Cheng Lin Yue hesitated—then, with Jiang Tea Tea in front of her, found a sliver of courage.
“If I call you a lapdog, you won’t be happy either.”
Cheng Xiao Ting froze. Then he exhaled. “Fair. Then… I apologize?”
Cheng Lin Yue blinked, surprised, and instinctively looked at Jiang Tea Tea like she was her anchor.
Jiang Tea Tea let go of Cheng Xiao Ting’s wrist. “Go on. Apologize.”
Cheng Xiao Ting could bend when he had to.
“Little Bunny,” he said, straightforward, “I was wrong. I won’t call you ‘little mouse’ anymore.”
Cheng Lin Yue hesitated, then softened. “If you don’t call me ‘little mouse,’ I’ll forgive you.”
“Deal,” Cheng Xiao Ting said immediately, grinning. “From now on, you’re Little Bunny.”
His grin sharpened like he might bite.
Cheng Lin Yue yelped and ducked behind Jiang Tea Tea.
Jiang Tea Tea brushed the small drama aside and turned to the others.
“Fifty kilometers isn’t far,” she said. “There’s prey along the way. We move toward them while hunting. When we’re tired, we rest.”
The squad agreed.
Night was deep, the wind sharp but not cold, the air clean.
With signal jammers, they had a huge advantage. Their risk was much lower than other squads’.
They moved through flowering trees and tall grass, hunting as they went.
They caught wild chickens, rabbits, badgers, small deer—anything they could catch. Necks snapped cleanly, bodies stuffed into storage buttons.
Back on Chong Ming’s warship, Li Ao returned after waking from his earlier unconsciousness, resetting equipment, and spending most of the day searching again.
He stood before Chong Ming and reported, voice tight with eagerness.
“Commander-in-Chief, I still haven’t found the person.”
“But I can confirm: the owner of that powerful unknown energy is within five hundred li beneath our ship.”
“That energy can make living creatures lose vitality… and it can make dead wood turn green again.”
“If we find it and study it—bringing the dead back, living to a thousand years won’t be a dream.”
Chong Ming’s brow furrowed.
“Director Li,” he said quietly, “you are dangerous.”
Li Ao stiffened. The excitement in his eyes didn’t have time to vanish.
“Commander-in-Chief,” he blurted, “I’m doing this for the Empire. For you. I have no other intentions. Please see clearly.”
Chong Ming sat in the command chair, golden eyes calm.
He didn’t move.
And yet Li Ao felt cold climb from his feet up his spine. Cold sweat soaked his back. He didn’t dare lift his head.
Chong Ming spoke slowly, like a warning given once.
“Director Li. You are excellent. You have helped the Empire discover many rare, latent ability users.”
“You have helped many ability users raise their ranks.”
“But you must understand: everything you do must be legal and compliant.”
“If others willingly submit to your research, if others willingly take risks to awaken abilities, that is one matter.”
“If not…”
He paused, and the silence felt like a blade at Li Ao’s throat.
“Then talk of reviving the dead, living to a thousand—those are crimes.”
“The Empire will not erase criminal facts simply because you made contributions earlier.”
Li Ao went rigid.
“Commander-in-Chief,” he said quickly, “rest assured. I will never break the law. I will never do anything illegal.”
Chong Ming’s furrowed brow eased slightly.
“Director Li,” he said, “I think you misunderstood why I called you.”
“When I told you to investigate this unknown energy, I told you to find her.”
“Not to find her and then sharpen your knives to drag her to a lab—dissect her and study her.”
Li Ao swallowed hard. “Yes. Subordinate understands.”
Chong Ming waved him away. “Go.”
Li Ao left, drenched in cold sweat.
Chong Ming’s unintentional pressure had crushed him like a wave. His 3S-rank ability felt useless under it.
After Li Ao left, Chong Ming’s gaze drifted to the small bucket on his desk.
A tiny wild grass sprout had grown there—small and stubbornly green.
The desk beneath it still held cracks: the marks left when Jiang Tea Tea had slammed it earlier. One more strike from her and it would’ve shattered.
Meanwhile, Jiang Tea Tea’s squad ran through the night and marked the necks of three squads—twenty-five cadets total.
When they reached a point five kilometers away from the dragon clan cluster, they stopped and slept on the ground.
The trees here weren’t like the Primeval Forest. No ancient giants, no massive trunks. The flowering trees were only two or three people tall, mostly arm-thick.
Jiang Tea Tea didn’t dare root into the soil anymore. She’d already drained the fertilizer within five hundred li and nearly killed a mountain.
Now she absorbed only what she could from the air—nutrients so thin they barely counted.
At dawn, Jiang Tea Tea woke first.
She rinsed her mouth, stretched into the wind, and loosened her limbs.
The others rose gradually and joined her, mimicking her breathing and movement as the sunrise lifted over the horizon.
When the sun fully rose, Jiang Tea Tea turned to them.
“Classmates,” she said, serious now, “the next prey is fifteen dragon clan members.”
“Male or female, they’re at least S-rank.”
“We can’t win in a direct fight.”
“We need a plan. We need to take them without taking any damage.”
The others frowned, thinking hard.
“Alliance,” someone suggested. “Find S-rank allies.”
“That won’t work,” another said. “I checked the map. The nearest Royal Military Academy cadets are eighty kilometers away.”
“And if we lose, even with our high score people might think we threw it on purpose. Bad plan.”
“Then maybe we kill a few from their academy, wear their uniforms, approach them, and strike unexpectedly?”
“No,” someone argued. “They’ll check the lightbrain map. Our dots won’t match. We’ll be exposed immediately, and we’ll get wiped out.”
“So what does work?”
Jiang Tea Tea pulled out her red flexible blade.
She dragged it across her palm, then pressed the red mark onto her own neck.
A vivid line appeared instantly—like she’d already been eliminated.
Huang Da Zhuang’s eyes bulged.
“Sister Tea! Are you insane? We can’t think of a plan and you’re… eliminating yourself?”
Jiang Tea Tea tossed an instructor uniform onto the ground.
“Eliminating myself?” she scoffed. “This is camouflage.”
“Come on. Put on instructor clothes. Paint your faces.”
“Swipe your palm, press it to your neck.”
“How is that eliminating yourself?”
Sui Xuan Chu’s eyes lit up. “Oh. That’s good.”
“Eliminated instructors don’t have active map dots,” he said quickly. “That’ll lower their vigilance.”
The others immediately followed her example—swipe palm, press neck.
In moments, they all had matching red lines on their throats.
They changed into instructor uniforms, smeared instructor face paint across their skin, and moved toward the dragon clan cluster.
As they approached, they made their footsteps loud. Their voices loud.
They even started singing—deliberately obnoxious.
The song echoed through the hills.
The fifteen-person squad from the Airborne Command Academy Combat Department heard it and went into hiding at once, ready to strike.
Then they hesitated.
Eight instructors?
All with red lines on their necks?
Meaning… they were already eliminated.
Jiang Tea Tea’s group reached the area.
A small stream fed into a pond the size of a small room—clear water, fish gliding beneath the surface.
Jiang Tea Tea scanned the trees and found exactly what she wanted: a white dragon beastfolk hiding nearby.
She shouted without restraint, voice bright and sharp.
“Hey, little white dragon brat! Stop hiding. Those horns on your head are way too obvious.”
Bai Han Shu stepped out, expression wary.
His eyes flicked to their red-marked necks.
“You’ve been eliminated,” he said cautiously. “Who could wipe out eight instructors at once?”