Chapter 97
Chapter 97: My Mother Empress Followed Him with a Bullet
Jiang Tea Tea coughed until her face was red and her lungs burned. When she finally stopped, she shot Sui Xuan Chu an enormous eye roll.
“You think I’m secretly in love with your uncle,” she rasped. “Why don’t you say I’m secretly in love with you?”
“In love with me?” Sui Xuan Chu spread his hands, arrogance tempered by a weirdly accurate self-awareness. “I have self-awareness.”
“Leaving aside the fact I’m not even an adult yet—if I were, compared to my uncle, I still wouldn’t stand a chance. Any female would fall for my uncle’s beast form—two or three hundred meters long—before they’d fall for a cub whose beast form is only ten-odd meters.”
Jiang Tea Tea gave him a thumbs-up. “You really are self-aware.”
Then she stabbed him. “No, I’m not in love with your uncle. And I definitely don’t want to be your aunt. Thanks.”
Sui Xuan Chu clicked his tongue. He reached behind him, fumbled around, and pulled out a carton of milk. He stabbed in a straw and took a long sip.
Jiang Tea Tea stared. “You still have a storage button?”
Sui Xuan Chu shushed her. “An invisibility storage button. For milk.”
He lifted his chin. “Want one?”
Jiang Tea Tea’s mouth twitched. Of course the Crown Prince would be good at hiding things.
“Fine,” she said. “Give me one.”
Sui Xuan Chu pulled out another carton and handed it over.
Jiang Tea Tea took it, punched the straw in, and took a sip.
The moment the milk slid down her throat, a warm, gentle energy spread through her body and sank into her belly.
The cubs immediately perked up.
Jiang Tea Tea blinked, thinking it might be her imagination.
Then she took another huge sip, swallowed, and confirmed it.
This milk carried energy.
She downed the whole carton in one go, then stared at Sui Xuan Chu without shame. “This milk is good. Give me a few cases. And send me the link. When we get back to school, I’m buying it.”
Sui Xuan Chu stared at her like she was insane. “I only have two cases total. You want a few cases? What are you, a bucket? How can you drink this much?”
Jiang Tea Tea narrowed her eyes. “Are you insulting me?”
“No!” Sui Xuan Chu waved quickly. “No malice. Just a metaphor.”
“Give me one case,” Jiang Tea Tea demanded.
Sui Xuan Chu pulled out a case of milk and handed it over, then warned, “Drink less.”
“It’s special milk. It’s packed with energy specifically for dragon clan cub bodies. If you can’t absorb it, you’ll feel awful.”
Jiang Tea Tea tossed the empty carton into the trash and started counting on her fingers. “Your scale color-change serum is special. Your blood color-change serum is special.”
“And now even milk is special.”
She looked up, eyes sharp with sarcasm. “Not bad, Crown Prince. Your privileges are impressive.”
Sui Xuan Chu bristled. “Stop mocking me. I’m not an adult. Having a milk habit is normal.”
“And it’s not privilege. It’s basic knowledge.” He sounded deeply offended that she didn’t know. “Dragon clan cubs drink one-to-one custom milk starting the day they hatch. The empire subsidizes this. I’m a resident of the empire. This isn’t privilege. This is welfare.”
He lifted his chin. “Also, our golden dragon imperial clan isn’t like other dragon clans. We can’t even breed the way they do.”
“So I drink some milk and you want to talk to me about privilege? Are you serious?”
Jiang Tea Tea’s eyes narrowed. Her hand, which had been reaching for another carton, froze.
“Wait,” she said slowly. “What do you mean your golden dragon imperial clan can’t breed like other dragon clans?”
Sui Xuan Chu looked at her like he’d just found proof she was an enemy spy.
Jiang Tea Tea saw his expression and snapped, “Put away that ‘I think you’re a traitor’ face. Your uncle already investigated my ancestors for eighteen generations.”
Sui Xuan Chu inhaled, then launched into an explanation like a textbook.
“Other dragon clans find a mate, marry, and lay eggs. Sometimes it takes five years. Sometimes ten. Sometimes twenty.”
“Usually it’s two eggs per clutch. Sometimes one. And within three years of laying eggs, they’ll definitely get pregnant again.”
“On average, a new dragon couple will lay at least three eggs. That means three or four dragon hatchlings.”
“But the gold dragon clan is different.”
His voice grew proud. “Gold dragon clan are born kings. Our ability levels are high. We often awaken dual abilities.”
He lifted a hand solemnly. “Beast God is fair. The higher your ability level, and the more abilities you awaken, the harder it is to reproduce.”
“My father emperor and my mother empress were married fifty years before they had me.”
“My grandfather and my grandmother were married thirty years before they had my father emperor. Twenty years after that, they had my uncle.”
He pointed at himself. “I was incubated by my uncle. He held me in his hands. He carried me with him. He kept me close.”
“My uncle was incubated by my father emperor and my mother empress.”
His expression softened slightly. “My mother empress wanted, after she had me, to give me a brother as powerful as my uncle—someone I could rely on, someone I could talk to and face the world with.”
His face tightened. “But my father emperor died on the battlefield.”
“My mother empress was heartbroken. She gave birth to me early.”
“She loved my father emperor so much she couldn’t accept his death.”
“She handed me to my uncle…”
“And before her body even recovered, she returned to war.”
Sui Xuan Chu’s voice rose, thick with fury and pride. “She attacked the insect clan like she didn’t care whether she lived.”
“She killed the insect clan general who cut off my father emperor’s head.”
“She slaughtered a million insect clan.”
“And then she kept one bullet for herself.”
He made a sharp sound—like a gunshot. “Bang. Through her heart.”
“She followed him in death.”
Jiang Tea Tea’s pupils tightened. “Your mother empress… she died for love? While you were still in your egg, she left you and died for love?”
In the demon realm, the god realm, the human realm—dying for love was the stuff of ancient myths.
She hadn’t expected to encounter it in the interstellar age.
Sui Xuan Chu’s eyes turned red, but his mouth curved into a proud, almost glowing smile. “Yes.”
“She loved me.”
“But she loved my father emperor more.”
He spoke like he was reciting a legend. “She was a red-black female dragon. Her dragon form was 198 meters.”
“Ice ability and water-element ability. Her ability level was 9S rank.”
“She was an empress.”
“And she was a general.”
He sniffed hard. “My uncle says my father emperor couldn’t beat her. Not in beast form, not in human form, not in abilities.”
“My uncle says my father emperor chased her for a long time.”
“He signed a lot of unequal treaties to win her.”
“She only ‘reluctantly’ married him.”
“My uncle says if my father emperor hadn’t died, the Commander-in-Chief position would have been my mother empress’s.”
“She was my father emperor’s strongest warship and his most lethal firepower.”
Sui Xuan Chu’s eyes shone as he spoke. “My uncle says my father emperor’s proudest, happiest thing was marrying her.”
“And when my father emperor was bored, he’d drag my uncle over and brag about how he chased her—how shameless he had to be.”
His voice softened. “I never met them. I only saw photos. Videos.”
“My mother empress was beautiful. Fierce. Powerful.”
Sui Xuan Chu smiled a little, bitterly. “And honestly? When I look at her, I think my father emperor didn’t deserve her. If he suffered chasing her, that was fair.”
Jiang Tea Tea lowered her foot from the coffee table, her expression shifting.
In the fake heiress’s memories, she vaguely recalled that the empire’s late empress had the surname Sui.
So Sui Xuan Chu’s dyed red-black scales and red-black blood weren’t just for fun.
They were mourning.
A way to remember his mother empress.
Jiang Tea Tea’s voice turned careful. “So… your golden dragon clan isn’t like other clans. You don’t lay multiple eggs, have multiple cubs, or keep reproducing every few years.”
Sui Xuan Chu nodded. “Exactly. Our fertility is extremely difficult.”
“My grandparents having two male dragons was a miracle in thousands of years.”
He looked grim. “Gold dragon clan numbers are tiny. If we didn’t have bloodline suppression over other dragon clans… with our population alone, we’d have been eaten alive long ago.”
Jiang Tea Tea hesitated, then asked, “Hypothetically… if the golden dragon clan had twins. Or triplets. Or four. Or five…”
“What would happen?”
Sui Xuan Chu wiped at his eyes and stared at her. “Roommate, do you hear yourself?”
“A clutch of five? Forget five. Even twins would be treated like royalty. They’d ask for stars and you’d have to bring them the stars.”
Then his face changed, suspicion flashing. “Wait.”
“Why are you asking that?”
“You told me before my uncle is looking for a female…”
His eyes widened. “Don’t tell me a female really did have a one-night stand with my uncle, got pregnant with dragon hatchlings, and ran away with the cubs?”