After receiving the answer, Chaoge seemed satisfied. After a long silence, she whispered, "Let go, you're too strong. You seem to have changed a lot." She looked up and gazed at the face of the person holding her before uttering the name, "Qinghe." Her eyes held a mixture of disbelief, confusion, and unease.
"I thought you'd be happy to see me after what you just said. It seems you're even more cunning than I thought. You've discovered many suspicious points but haven't shown any sign of doubting me. Are you worried that something beyond your imagination will happen after you find out the truth?" Sikong Yufu, now Luo Qinghe, readily released her, her gaze fixed on Chaoge's expression, staring intently at her, her words carrying a hint of aggressiveness.
Chaoge rubbed her nose with the back of her right index finger, looking somewhat troubled. It took her a while to clear her mind of all other thoughts and focus solely on the person before her. Even with her bangs framing her forehead, her eyes still held a captivating, expressive quality, especially the relieved smile within them. "Qinghe, you're not as gentle as before. I won't ask how you got back; there must be a reason you look like this." Chaoge paused, as if wanting to say something about reminiscing after a long separation, but hesitated for a moment before realizing that any topic seemed to touch on issues she didn't want to discuss. Finally, she gave up and said:
"Would you like some pudding? The original flavor is pretty good."
Luo Qinghe saw through her thoughts and realized that the current situation was not what she wanted to create. Without making a sound, she withdrew her sharp edges and instantly transformed back into the obedient person that Chaoge knew, and agreed.
Chaoge turned around and went to get the pudding like a lost soul, but her mind was already exploding with thoughts: [Holy crap, Little Red Riding Hood! Are you there?! Are you there?! Are you there?! WTF, what's going on?! Why did Qinghe suddenly become my other classmate? Is this really okay?!]
Little Red Riding Hood, on one hand, really wanted to get Chaoge's permission to satisfy her curiosity and investigate her background; on the other hand, remembering Chaoge's attitude towards her earlier, she felt she had to maintain a proper demeanor to avoid Chaoge thinking she was unreliable. So, she feigned indifference and replied, "Hmm, it seems like there's a problem."
[Little Red Riding Hood, are you alright? Are you poisoned? Aren't you usually the most gossipy person when something like this happens?] Chaoge actually wanted to know if Qinghe was at risk and wanted Little Red Riding Hood's help. However, having somewhat guessed Little Red Riding Hood's thoughts, she couldn't help but twitch her lips.
[I think Luo Qinghe's judgment of you is very accurate. You always deliberately find the wrong point and pretend to be stupid to fool me, don't you?] Little Red Riding Hood felt that her master's emotional intelligence seemed to be very different from her initial judgment.
Chaoge chuckled inwardly, [Why are you speaking such blunt truths—so you've finally realized how clever your master is?]
Little Red Riding Hood: […Please allow me to solemnly retract my previous assessment; perhaps my visual system is blind.]
Chaoge: ...
When Chaoge brought out two small plates with two soft, bouncy puddings on them and placed them on the table, she found that Qinghe's appearance as Sikong Yufu didn't seem out of place at all, and she was smiling gently at her.
"I really want to see what you looked like before. By the way, is it fashionable to change your appearance to look like a completely different person now?" Qinghe casually remarked, but listened intently, as if the aggressive and intimidating guy from before was a completely different person.
Hearing this, she reached out and gently touched her face, smiling warmly at Chaoge. Her smile hadn't changed much since then, just like when she was with Chaoge before. She said softly, "Then, let's change back."
Unlike Qin Muge, whose face-changing ability relied entirely on technological disguise, the person in front of Chaoge suddenly had blue veins appearing beneath the fair skin on her left cheek. The lines were soft, yet at first glance, there was always a hint of cold terror about them. She reached out to cover Chaoge's eyes, her smile undiminished, and her facial features began to reshape themselves. A few seconds later, she released her hand, and what Chaoge saw was none other than Luo Qinghe's face.
The smile on her lips was gentle and mild, just right, perfectly matching her temperament, without a trace of aggression.
Chaoge felt a bit of a headache.
The reasons are simple. First, Little Red Riding Hood couldn't find any suspicious signs about Luo Qinghe's current identity, which was the biggest point of suspicion. Not everyone is at the top of the imperial system like her and Qin Muge. The other reason is Luo Qinghe herself. It's one thing for her to suddenly become as gentle as before, but this abrupt change—
"Because I like you." See, it's this kind of sudden, unexpected confession that can appear in all sorts of situations that gives Chaoge a headache.
Chaoge had just asked, "Do you want to go home this week?"—a perfectly normal question that had nothing to do with Qinghe's answer.
When Chaoge looked back helplessly, Qinghe would blink her eyes, hug the little puppy in her arms, and look at her with innocent eyes. Damn it, how come I never realized Qinghe was so good at being cute before?
Suddenly, her teeth started to hurt terribly. This couldn't be her imagination. Chao Ge covered her face with her hands, sitting in the cafeteria, her eyes filled with indescribable sadness as she looked at Luo Qinghe across from her.
She just dragged me to the cafeteria again with the excuse that she wanted to eat with me, and with her pitiful look.
She felt that she understood Qin Muge's feelings when he saw her cheating.
Royal Palace.
Qin Mu was twirling a fountain pen in her hand, an old relic that was practically useless in this day and age, with her hair falling across her forehead and obscuring half of her face.
A tall figure stood before the enormous desk. His indigo military uniform did little to conceal his flamboyance; rather, it added to his untamed charm. Outside of wartime, he was almost expressionless, mostly indifferent to everything, as if nothing could pique his interest.
“There’s no use standing here any longer, Tianquan. I’ve already handed over the recovery of M6 to Kaiyang and the Sixth Fleet.” She abruptly stopped spinning her pen, and slowly uttered a sentence in a tone completely opposite to the speed at which she was writing, without bothering to look up.
Ling Tianquan showed little disappointment at her answer, his gaze remaining fixed on his nominal superior. He watched as she swiftly reviewed documents with her left hand, gloved in a dark blue glove, and then, with the same unhurried pace, opened her mouth, her thin lips forming a sharp, drawn-out curve: "Give me a reason, Your Majesty." Her sexy, magnetic voice, delivered in a uniquely leisurely tone, carried a sensuality that would make any woman scream.
Especially that final address; it's not easy for such a proud man to utter such a title.
Qin Muge's unparalleled leadership charisma and strength have made countless people submit to her.
A faint blue light emanated from the back of Qin Muge's gloves, and her royal insignia was naturally stamped on the documents. She glanced at the number of remaining documents, leaned back in her chair, and her gaze naturally met Ling Tianquan's emotionless eyes. She suddenly realized that her personal guards were all expressionless in her presence, except for the more lively Tianxuan and the eccentric Yuheng.
"Reason?" She repeated the two words, then suddenly smiled, casually looking down at the documents. After a few seconds, she answered him calmly, as if stating a fact: "Because you'll lose if you go."
"Oh?" Ling Tianquan's aura shifted abruptly. Even a slight change in his posture created an indescribable pressure. Qin Muge remained unfazed by this aura, not even altering her posture. She lightly tossed her pen into the pen holder, exhaled softly, and her red eyes, clouded by Ling Tianquan's change in demeanor, became indifferent, like red glass, creating a sense of detachment.
Qin Muge placed one hand on the table, tapping the surface lightly with his fingertips. The sound was almost silent as he tapped the surface with his fingers intermittently.
"Tianquan, are you questioning me?"
After leaving the palace, the chill of the night crept up Tianquan's military uniform jacket. He got into the Ling family's private car, and a faint blue light lit up on the cufflinks of his sleeve. A video call was connected, and the face on the other end was none other than Ling Tianshu.
"Things are bad," he reported lazily. Tian Shu nodded to indicate that he understood, but there was no sign of the other party turning off the video.
Ling Tianquan's expression revealed a hint of irritation. He reached out and ripped open his collar. The constriction of the military uniform made him feel very uncomfortable, and several buttons popped off due to his force.
He took a deep breath before continuing, "Don't make me do this next time. It doesn't feel good to be looked down upon by her." A smug smile played on his lips as he tapped the screen and ended the video call.
Who knows what this monarch is planning?
☆ Chapter 47: The Forty-Seventh Evaluation of General Qin
The campus life of Chaoge and Qinghe was not as pleasant as the first month of school. After the midterm exams, almost half a month had passed.
Nearly a month would have been insufficient time in the past for Chao Ge to obtain items from Little Red Riding Hood that could be exchanged for points, or to create replicas of those items using substitutes available in the current era. However, now, more than half a month is enough for the Sixth Fleet of the Crystalless Empire to recapture Planet M6.
Orders were sent out from the palace one after another, but she never appeared again. Even under such circumstances, the emperor of the Red Cloud Star System remained calm and composed in the most powerful place in the empire, strategizing and planning.
That morning, Chaoge's terminal received a video access request. If it could pass Little Red Riding Hood's review, it must be a reliable AI message.
Chaoge has a punctual biological clock, and she hasn't experienced the joy of sleeping in since arriving here. Staying in a foreign land with an uncertain return date, especially for someone like Chaoge who has many thoughts on her mind, it's even more impossible for her to sleep well.
The video call connected. Looking at the slightly blue screen, she guessed it was probably some unfamiliar military personnel calling again. When the video signal came on, she stared wide-eyed at the person appearing on the screen, her lips moving, but she couldn't utter a single word for a long time.
"Is that A-Ge?" The video showed an elderly woman with a full head of white hair. She tugged at her overly neat clothes, looking a little uncomfortable. When she saw the young girl on the other side of the screen looking stunned, she smiled broadly at the screen, her face full of smiles.
"Your grandfather forbids me from touching these things. I secretly studied them today while he was away. Luckily, I wrote down your terminal number. Grandma misses you. Age, are you at school? Did I disturb your studies?" The old woman's face was full of joy, worry, and longing. Sometimes she would get very close to the screen to see her granddaughter, trying her best to raise her voice to her usual gentle tone. At other times, she would walk away because she was worried that the device was too high-tech.
Chaoge blinked, her eyelashes fluttering, subtle shadows extending to her eye sockets. Clutching the bedsheet tightly, she forced a smile, saying with some difficulty, "Grandma."
Little Red Riding Hood sensed Chaoge's extreme emotional fluctuation and was about to say something, but Chaoge spoke in her mind first: "Shut up, Little Red Riding Hood, don't bother me."
Little Red Riding Hood: ...What's with this sudden, bizarre atmosphere?
The old man chatted with Chaoge about ordinary topics, topics that Yan Chen and Li Wanfang had never mentioned. As Chaoge answered, warm tears welled up in her eyes and dripped onto the sheets.
"Age, my dear grandson, why are you crying? Are you unhappy at school?" The old woman's face showed worry again, her expression extremely concerned, as if she couldn't wait to come and see her right away.
Chaoge wiped the tears from the corner of her eyes with her finger, her eyebrows curving into a smile, and jokingly replied, "Yes, I'm unhappy at school, I want to go back."
I want to see you all, to see you all in this world.
"Your birthday is coming soon, and Grandma was planning to celebrate it for you..." The old woman stopped there, clearly knowing that it would be pointless and would only deepen her longing for her granddaughter.
Chaoge opened her mouth to say something, but was quickly interrupted by the old woman's sudden movement on the other end of the video. The old woman hurriedly studied how to turn off the screen: "Oh dear, the old man is back. If he finds out I'm disturbing your school, he'll definitely scold me... How do I turn this off again..."
Chaoge disconnected the video signal first. She opened the smart device's page, set the receiver to Qin Muge's terminal, and tried to say something to her. After typing for a long time, she only typed some gibberish, which she then deleted.
"You know what? I used to really hate you, until this video chat just now. Stop playing dead, I'm talking to you, my system." Chao Ge opened the chat window on her AI, without drawing the curtains. Only a faint light filtered into the room, making it very dark. She leaned against the wall by the bed, crossed her legs, and began talking to herself with a seemingly carefree air, assuming Little Red Riding Hood wouldn't respond.
She slightly curled the corners of her lips, dragged the blue screen back, and twirled it in her palm. "My disgust for you runs deep, deeper than my hatred for Yan Chen, Yan Xi, and Li Wanfang. Oh, sorry, did I forget to tell you that before?"
Little Red Riding Hood was completely bewildered. She couldn't understand why Chaoge seemed like a completely different person. Where was her master, whose AI was always offline? Where was the master who always missed the point, who was cute and gentle with her own people? Where did the master who was too lazy to argue go? Σ(°△°|||)︴
"But I just decided to cheer myself up a bit. By the way, have I collected enough points? Give me that energy converter." Chao Ge changed the subject very quickly. Little Red Riding Hood couldn't find the words for a while, but she acted quickly. A minute later, the machine was placed next to Chao Ge.
She slipped on her slippers, got out of bed, opened the curtains, found a box in the closet, and covered the thing. She took out a pen she'd once borrowed from Qin Muge from the bookshelf, and a piece of paper—paper was rare these days, almost all antiques. After thinking for a while, she simply wrote seven characters and slipped the paper into the gap of the box.
After she finished all this, she laughed to herself again, "Thinking about it, I still like her quite a bit, right? Otherwise, why would I miss her a little?" Her voice trailed off with a hint of melancholy, but she quickly perked up and looked toward the door, whispering, "She'd better be on time today, or I can't keep this feeling going for long."
The words had barely left her lips when a knock sounded at the door. Chao Ge smiled, her eyes crinkling. When the door opened, Luo Qinghe looked at Chao Ge, who was sitting in a chair, smiling brightly at her, and instinctively felt that something was amiss.
"Tell me, M1 won't be captured, right?" Chaoge smiled with extremely pleasant eyes, which even made Luo Qinghe feel a little unfamiliar. She nodded hesitantly, and Chaoge immediately relaxed as if she had received a great answer.
"Ah! That's great! I'm planning to go back home for my birthday in a couple of days. It would be so cruel if my hometown were also taken over by the P4 Nebula. I'll take your good wishes with me! Qinghe, do you want to take leave and come back with me?" Chaoge stood up excitedly from her chair, her eyes full of smiles, and rushed towards Luo Qinghe.
Luo Qinghe rarely received such treatment, and she was almost flattered as she accepted her. Thinking about her question just now, she felt that the tone of her voice was a little off, but there was nothing else abnormal about it.
Little Red Riding Hood: Assessment complete, my master has a tendency towards split personality.
"Hi~ Hello, dear Chaoge, do you remember what you just said?" Little Red Riding Hood asked cautiously in Chaoge's mind.
【Little Red Riding Hood, look what you've been saying! You said your memory module was fine! Heh heh, I caught you this time, what do you say now?】 Chaoge replied with a grin.
Little Red Riding Hood was stunned again, feeling like several modules of her thought process had collapsed. After a long pause, she asked blankly, "Do you remember you just said you hated me?"
[Holy crap, you caught me! When did I start talking to myself? My god, let me tell you, you're not allowed to make noise in my head!] Chaoge made a preemptive statement to prevent any potential problems.
Little Red Riding Hood was on the verge of tears. This was seriously a split personality! Help! The master I chose has a tendency towards a dark, split personality. It carefully searched for suspicious points on Chaoge's body, and after analyzing all her behaviors since she fell into this world, it found that apart from that inexplicably emotional "I didn't say I wanted to go back..." at the beginning, her behavior and personality at other times were still the same person.
Little Red Riding Hood felt she needed to calm down and think things through for a while, so she quietly turned off a few more thought modules to avoid getting stuck halfway through her thought process and then crashing the system.
Luo Qinghe was also somewhat puzzled. When she looked into Chaoge's eyes and met those eyes that were still as bright as starlight, she sighed with a touch of self-mockery.
I'm not much more normal than you. Whether you've noticed my identity or not, I have no intention of hiding it from you. Let's leave it at that.
Walking beside Chaoge, Luo Qinghe's gaze upon her was as gentle as ever.
The recovery of planet M6 caused a stir in both the Imperial Empire and the Red Cloud System. Many planets regained their trust in the Celestial Star and, while consolidating their own defenses, held even greater expectations for the Galactic Alliance Legion.
After the Red Cloud Galaxy suffered repeated defeats in this intergalactic battle, it finally gave its opponent a chance to fight back, rekindling everyone's confidence.
However, Qin Muge in the palace acted as if nothing had happened. Seeing Mu Guang enter, she leaned back in her chair, slightly lifting her eyelids. Her bloodshot eyes were devoid of any warmth or humanity. "Have you eaten?"
Her tone was businesslike, as if stripping away any possibility of variation or intonation from her already pleasant voice.
Min Kaiyang nodded, his golden eyes brighter than the sunlight outside, yet colder than Qin Muge's. "When do you plan to awaken her AI terminal?" You should know that this war, without that person, will be more difficult to deal with than you imagine.
Qin Muge seemed to have heard a joke, a hint of mockery in her eyes, her gaze falling lightly on him: "I thought you would be very happy with the current situation."
She gently brushed aside the pen that rolled towards her on the table with her little finger. Her red eyes shone brighter than the finest agate gems, yet the sarcasm within them was like a sharp sword, whether mocking Kaiyang or herself, it was unclear: "Do you really think I can control my emotions to such an extent?"
Her self-control may not be as perfect as one might imagine.
Min Kaiyang remained silent.
The room fell silent once more.
☆ Chapter 48: The Forty-Eighth Evaluation of General Qin
January 1, 2017 (Hongli 4017)
The Galactic Alliance Legion and the main force of the P4 Nebula met in the constellation Purple Scorpion in the Red Cloud Galaxy.
On the first day of the new year, the Red Cloud Galaxy was subjected to a full-scale attack by the P4 Nebula. Only then, through records from mechs far removed from the battlefield, did everyone glimpse a corner of the P4 Nebula's immense combat power. Among the most surprising aspects was that the P4 Nebula's space combat force contained no mechs!
The research institutes on Planet P4, untouched by the war, immediately began their investigations, receiving firsthand data from various sources. However, they lacked a crucial element—the number of prisoners of war was zero. This meant that regardless of the strength of the inhabitants of P4 Nebula, the Imperial research institutes were unable to conduct physical observations or dissections of the samples, thus making it impossible to draw any conclusions.