AGTCTCC Chapter 8
by VolareChapter 8 Chu Little Bean
Someone next to him struck up a conversation, with neat bangs and small glasses.
Xiang Li glanced at him and looked away, mainly because he didn’t expect anyone to approach him while he was sitting in the corner.
“I’m not from any academy,” Xiang Li said.
He didn’t even lift his eyelids, and he heard the other person gasp beside him, noticing out of the corner of his eye that the person was pushing their round-rimmed glasses up the bridge of their nose.
“Ah, you are… oh, oh.” The other person stopped talking.
After all, very few people outside of academies apply, but it’s not prohibited, just rare.
The other person was somewhat amazed, not expecting to just randomly find someone who wasn’t affiliated with an academy. Such a small probability event happened to them.
“What do you want to do in the future?” After a long silence, they couldn’t help but ask again.
Xiang Li looked at them strangely, originally not wanting to respond, but noticed the regularly flashing red dot in the upper corner of the room.
“Join the military, earn a salary, and repay a debt.”
The person hesitated, ultimately scratching their head. They couldn’t very well say, “Someone without academy training shouldn’t even think about it.”
The central light panel activated with a beep, the list was announced, and the sound of boot heels striking the alloy floor was like a sudden rain.
Xiang Li stared at the dense array of admission symbols after his name, the serpent staff emblem of the medical base and the sword emblem of the military academy overlapping in his eyes.
Before he could even react, the person next to him exclaimed softly.
“I can go to military academy!”
They immediately covered their mouth, looking at Xiang Li with an apologetic expression.
Xiang Li: “…”
“Students interested in attending military academy can come here to fill out their names and prepare for the upcoming combat assessment.”
Hearing this, Xiang Li ignored the person and went to fill out his name.
The staff confirmed his number, then pulled the screen over and scanned it again. After confirming everything was okay, they handed the student a piece of paper.
That person: “?”
“!”
“You! You got in too.” They quickly read the information on the paper and exclaimed.
“Your name is Xiang Li?!”
Although the light panel doesn’t reveal talents, it defaults to placing those with higher talents at the top.
“Is there a problem?” Xiang Li’s tone was indifferent as he quickly filled out the form.
“No… no.” The person hesitated for a moment, then pulled out a notebook and a pen from somewhere, looking at Xiang Li with the excited expression of someone who had caught a gossip-worthy celebrity.
“Xiang Li, have you really never been in the mech preparatory academy? Even for three months?”
“Xiang Li.”
Before Xiang Li could answer, Chu Qi’s voice came from the side. His voice wasn’t quiet and was very recognizable.
After all, not many people on the Main Star don’t recognize their own Colonel.
Xiang Li looked up, saw Chu Qi calling him from not far away, hurriedly handed the paper to the staff, and jogged over.
“Chu Officer.”
Xiang Li didn’t lower his voice when he said this, and the surrounding people turned their attention over, then began to discuss quietly with each other.
Chu Qi had been watching Xiang Li from the beginning, and seeing him come over, he couldn’t suppress the corner of his mouth, letting out a soft snort, his Adam’s apple bobbing, but he quickly pursed his lips again, suppressing that hint of a smile.
“I came to cheer you on, and also to tell you that if you don’t pass the upcoming combat assessment, your training schedule will be extended.”
Xiang Li: “…”
On the way back in the car, Chu Qi held Xiang Li’s report card in his hand, and said.
“Pretty good, first place.”
Xiang Li hummed twice, taking it as an answer.
In his heart, he was full of complaints: How could I not be good? How could I not be first! I’m already being worked to death, and you still want to add more training.
Xiang Li thought of what the incessant chatterbox had told him earlier, and he turned to look at Chu Qi.
Chu Qi: “There’s still a week before the military training, these few days we…”
Just as Xiang Li thought that Chu Qi would say he was going to take him somewhere, the other person changed his tune.
“You’re coming with me to the military academy early.”
Xiang Li: “?”
Chu Qi chuckled, folding the report card in half.
“My vacation is over, I have to go back to the military. You don’t want to stay at home alone, do you?”
Xiang Li opened his mouth and then closed it, neither refusing nor agreeing.
Back home.
When Chu Qi opened the door, he caught sight of the cacti by the door, which had become much more vibrant, and couldn’t help but smile.
“You’ve taken good care of them.”
Xiang Li also looked over, feeling a little confused.
Was Chu Qi smiling a little too much today?
The cacti in front of him weren’t wilted like they were a few months ago. At this moment, they were vibrant and lively, showing off their thorns. The tender yellow thorns looked soft and fuzzy, quite pleasing to the eye.
Xiang Li looked away, coughed twice, a hint of guilt in his eyes.
Chu Qi tilted his head slightly. He had seen Xiang Li watering the cacti by the door more than once, and occasionally moving the potted plants to places where they could get sunlight.
There were even several books in his room, such as “How to Raise a Pot of Cactus Well” and “Complete Cactus Cultivation Method”.
What was this kid feeling guilty about?
As soon as the door opened, Shen Gui suddenly rushed out from behind, squeezed in between the two of them, and then turned around with his hands raised high: “Welcome home.”
Chu Qi seemed used to it, nodded, without even frowning, raised his eyes and looked at Shen Gui’s raised hands, and asked: “Came empty-handed?”
His face clearly had the words “Aren’t you embarrassed” written on it.
Shen Gui coughed lightly, lowered his hands and touched his nose, secretly scolding Chu Qi for not giving him any face in front of the kid.
“Of course not… Xing Zi, you came empty-handed!” Shen Gui shook his head, shifting the blame.
“Tsk tsk tsk.”
Xing Zi Mu walked out of the shadows, military boots crushing the setting sun on the ground.
He threw a kraft paper bag at Xiang Li, the metal badge on the bag mouth shining with a cold light: “Permit.”
Xing Zi Mu turned his eyes to Shen Gui.
Shen Gui: …
As soon as he entered the door, Shen Gui rushed towards one direction.
Xiang Li’s vision followed and looked over, he had an impression.
There was a fish tank placed there, with a shallow layer of sand, and only a rock lying quietly on it. Chu Qi would stare at it when he had nothing to do.
But strangely, there was no fish in the fish tank, nor other crabs or anything. Xiang Li always thought that the one Chu Qi raised before had died, so Chu Officer would often look at the object and think of the fish.
Shen Gui bent his knuckles and tapped the fish tank, the glass shaking and stirring up a string of pearl-like bubbles.
His nose was almost touching the observation window, his eyebrows stained with water mist precipitated from the ecological cycle system: “Long time no see, Chu Little Bean, you’re even more beautiful now.”
Xiang Li: “…”
He was a little confused, who was Chu Little Bean?
Chu Qi’s reaction was indifferent, without a trace of expression on his face: “Yeah, say hello to your Uncle Shen.”
Xiang Li reached out and took the water that Chu Qi handed over, took a sip, and looked at Shen Gui’s direction with a pitiful look as if he were looking at an idiot.
“Chu Officer, they…”
“Hmm?” Chu Qi tilted his head, noticing the unspeakable look in Xiang Li’s eyes.
“You also want to say hello to Chu Little Bean?”
“Speaking of which, you haven’t said a word to him in the past two months.”
Shen Gui was still arguing with Xing Zi Mu in the previous sentence, “Chu Little Bean likes me the most, you’re just jealous”, and in the next second, his whole person appeared in front of Xiang Li, holding the fish tank in his hands.
He smiled and stretched out an index finger, understandingly: “Chu Qi didn’t introduce you, did he.”
Shen Gui’s index finger tapped twice on the surface of the ecological tank. After he finished speaking, he glanced at Chu Qi reproachfully, the meaning was self-evident.
That was indeed a rock.
The rock, about the size of a fist, lay quietly in the artificial coral bush, with luminous bacteria parasitizing in the surface grooves.
Where Shen Gui’s fingertip passed, the hyphae suddenly burst into blue-purple fluorescence, piecing together a pattern similar to a smiley face on the surface of the rock – Xiang Li then noticed the miniature holographic projector embedded on the rock body.
“Last month he just learned to use the bacteria to simulate the twelve constellations.”
Chu Qi’s military boots ran over the undried water stains on the ground, and the laser pointer attached to the combat suit belt cast a red dot on the tank wall, “He’s currently in his rebellious period, and he just used the bacteria to spell out a swear word yesterday.”
Chu Qi pressed the red button on the right side of the console, and the nutrient solution began to oscillate at a specific frequency.
The hyphae jumped a strange waltz in the ultrasonic waves, gradually arranging into the words “Welcome Uncle Shen”.
Xiang Li saw his face reflected on the glass was cracking, and some kind of cognition that transcended common sense surged upward with the gurgling sound of bubbles.
“You guys used the highest specification ecological tank of the Military Science Academy…” His voice floated like bubbles emerging from the water, “to raise a swearing… stone?”
Shen Gui suddenly squeezed his face into a strange grimace, and the pressure sensor in the ecological compartment issued a beeping alarm.
In the ecological tank, the bacterial colonies suddenly gathered into a middle finger pattern like a riot, and the blue-purple cold light illuminated Shen Gui’s twisted features like a demon in the abyss.
Chu Qi poured himself a glass of water.
“Where’s Sang Quan?” he asked.
“He went to the supermarket to buy some ingredients, to celebrate Xiang Li and show us his skills.”
Xing Zi Mu on the side grabbed Shen Gui’s collar and pulled him away: “Don’t bother Chu Little Bean, didn’t you see he doesn’t want to talk to you?”
“Impossible, he likes me!” Shen Gui refused to accept. “I play with him every time I come, he must be the closest to me among these people.”
Xing Zi Mu: “Then who broke three of his ecological tanks last month?”
Xiang Li’s gaze slowly moved down from Shen Gui’s face, and finally stayed on the rock (crossed out) Chu Little Bean, with shock and regret in his heart.
How come he didn’t realize that Chu Qi liked raising stones!
He didn’t see him having this habit when he was a child.
Xing Zi Mu tugged at Shen Gui’s arm: “Put it back.”
“Got it.” Shen Gui fiddled with the angle of the fish tank, his tone dragging on, obviously with a hint of unwillingness.
Shen Gui, a long-term browser of the forum, suddenly turned his head.
“Do you two know that the trending searches are exploding?”
Chu Qi: “What trending searches?”
Shen Gui stretched out two fingers and pointed at Xiang Li and Chu Qi respectively.
“It’s you two, a paparazzi exposed it before.” As he said, he took out the communicator, and his fingertips drew afterimages on the floating screen.
At the top of the trending searches.
#Surprise! Chu Ye Forcing a Beautiful Young Man# followed by the deep red word “Explode”!
Clicking in was a video.
The holographic projection projected the secretly filmed video into the air with the smell of disinfectant (lemon version).
In the noisy and mottled picture, the titanium alloy gate of the Beta Zone shone with a cold light.
The protagonist on the screen, Xiang Li, was lying on the access control system, surrounded by several white coats, and Chu Qi at the head looked indifferent.
An extremely out-of-context video, plus the person who took the picture was far away, and only a few blurred words could be heard.
The person clinging to the access control shook his head: “No, I don’t want it!”
“Don’t come over, you… bullying the few with the many, forcing…”
The colonel at the head looked indifferent: “Take him in.”
Distorted dialogue came from the video.
Xiang Li’s crying “no” shook along with the hem of the researchers’ white coats, and Chu Qi’s sentence “take him in” was cut into sharp blades by the current sound.
The shooting lens shook constantly with rapid breathing, creating the effect of a kidnapping scene.
The two parties involved after watching the video: “…”
Then Shen Gui’s comment on this account was pushed to the top.
[Not Expensive: That was brought back by Chu Qi from a mission, they are going to check his body. ]
So the trending search has become today——
#Child Bride Picked Up on the Battlefield#
#Love Story of a Trash Planet#
The two parties involved were silent again.
“Why hasn’t Sang Quan come over yet.” Shen Gui also noticed that his comments were exposed, and changed the subject and laughed.
Fortunately, speaking of Cao Cao, Cao Cao arrived, and Sang Quan Shi Li came in with a lot of dishes, struggling to open and close the door.
“I’m here!”
Sang Quan Shi Li came in with a lot of ingredients, and Shen Gui quickly broke away from the “fire” and went to take the things in his hands.