65

That day's conversation provided Yuan Hanshuang with plenty of useful information. In addition, occasional reminders from her former subordinates would pop up on her military communicator.

For instance, Feng Bai advised her to keep her appearances before Wei Wenwei to a moderate level. Although Feng Yuanming was Wei Wenwei's mentor, Wei Wenwei was certainly not in their faction. Feng Bai's initial suspicion of Yuan Hanshuang stemmed from a passport-sized photograph taken when Yuan Hanshuang enrolled in the primary academy, which allowed him to track her existence by following her father's lifestyle trajectory.

However, the incident that occurred on the low-level polluted star back then accidentally landed her on the death list. Once submitted to the Privy Council, her file was sealed as a deceased royal family member. Because royal family archives possessed extremely high-security clearance, and coupled with the fact that Yuan Hanshuang's father was the true criminal while she was merely a small fry, only a handful of people knew the truth. This effectively shielded her from the prying eyes of others. Consequently, for years, she merely dyed her hair and matured in appearance without doing anything else, allowing her to stroll about safely until now.

[Feng Bai: Wei Wenwei has an excellent memory. However, because he was investigated by the Privy Council a few years ago and a portion of his memory was copied, his impression of your photograph from back then might be vague. Still, if you frequently linger in front of him, there are no guarantees.]

Over these past few days, Yuan Hanshuang had not gone anywhere, honestly staying at the school to attend classes.

During military training, her instructor had exempted her from elementary and advanced combat classes, promoting her directly to elective combat classes. Instead of choosing ancient martial arts, she opted for simulated combat training.

This course turned out to be quite interesting. There were no lecturing instructors, and instead of fixed routine teaching, the combat simulator in the teaching building was left open for students to train independently.

After experiencing it once, Yuan Hanshuang instantly became hooked.

Within the holographic combat simulator, one could not only customize combat modes but also adjust enemy parameters. For instance, she had recently been frantically practicing her somewhat lacking swordsmanship, striving to refine and improve it.

After all, accumulating academic credits was necessary for graduation, and hunting Zerg during the graduation assessment was an extremely crucial part of it.

Thus, enduring a difficult week, the weekend finally arrived. While she was finishing her assignments and essays in the dormitory, she heard the wealthy young lady putting on her nails ask nonchalantly, "Next week is Grace Day, and the school is giving us a seven-day break. Are you going home?"

Yuan Hanshuang thought about it. "I probably won't go back."

She still wanted to go to the Black Street to continue working. Recently, the various instructors had assigned quite a few homework tasks, causing her to rush through assignments even on the weekend, and she had already asked for leave from the Black Street.

However, since she was a contracted fighter with the Black Street, she had a fixed number of matches each month, not to mention that she had recently signed up for the Star Project. Without completing the required number of matches, it would be difficult to enjoy generous perks. Driven by the desire to freeload at the luxury hotel's buffet, Yuan Hanshuang felt she should honestly finish her match quota.

Xia Mengrong hesitated for a moment. "Then do you wan—forget it."

"What?"

Because Yuan Hanshuang was searching for information, she didn't catch the middle words for a moment.

"It's nothing," Xia Mengrong replied quickly.

Soon, the time arrived on the eve of Grace Day.

Grace Day was a major holiday across the entire interstellar society, roughly equivalent in importance to the National Day of Yuan Hanshuang's past life—a festival celebrated by the entire nation.

Silver Star issued the holiday notice, but after pondering it, Yuan Hanshuang still chose not to submit an application to stay on campus.

During the experimental class on the day before the holiday, she received a message on her military communicator.

[Feng Bai: There have been unusual movements on the front lines recently. The Third Legion may be urgently deployed to the front lines in the near future.]

[Feng Bai: You might want to pay more attention to the news and try not to go to dangerous places during Grace Day.]

[Feng Bai: Things are indeed not very peaceful lately. Young Lord, please take care.]

Her gaze shifted calmly away from the communicator and back toward the classroom.

This session was an experimental class, and the lecturer was Feng Bai.

Although they had formally recognized each other, Yuan Hanshuang still maintained a student-teacher relationship with her former subordinates on campus, refusing any special treatment. In fact, Feng Yuanming had even graded the essay she had painstakingly rushed to submit last week as a barely passing E-grade, under the pretext of promoting the Young Lord's comprehensive moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labor development, which was why his standards for her were stricter than for anyone else. How absurd!

"Today, we are going to learn about an extremely special type of Zerg called the Blasting Bug."

At the central experimental desk, Feng Bai held a laser thermal-fusion knife, pointing at a Zerg specimen placed on the table for demonstration, instructing the students on where to make their cuts.

"The appearance of the Blasting Bug is bloated, closely resembling an inflated balloon. Its combat tactic is to detonate itself, serving the role of a vanguard and a living bomb within Zerg armies. What you are seeing now is a version with its poison sac removed. A true Blasting Bug is about twice the size of this one."

The holographic screen timely displayed a photograph of a complete Blasting Bug.

Judging by the scale, each Blasting Bug was several square meters large, with the poison sac alone occupying four-fifths of its entire body.

"If the poison sac is not removed, the venom contained within a single Blasting Bug could corrode this entire laboratory in an instant, and this is merely a low-tier Blasting Bug."

While explaining, Feng Bai demonstrated with his hands: "The survival model of the Zerg differs from that of humans. Humans are mutually independent individuals, whereas the Zerg function as a collective. All Zerg share a collective consciousness, and the Zerg Queen residing in the hive can directly control every single Zerg through higher-level administrative privileges, sharing their field of vision."

Having been enemies with the Zerg for many years, human research into the Zerg had grown increasingly sophisticated.

In a sense, because the Zerg Queen could directly monitor the thoughts and actions of every Zerg, the individual consciousness of the Zerg was extremely weak. Rarely would you find a situation like that of humans, where people harbor hidden agendas beneath friendly exteriors.

Listening to the division of labor within the Zerg race, Yuan Hanshuang was reminded of ants. The survival and reproductive model of ants was very similar to that of the Zerg, featuring divisions like queen ants and worker ants.

"Therefore, whenever dealing with Zerg, the primary choice is to sever their antennae. Especially for low-tier Zerg like Blasting Bugs, which possess little self-awareness and are deliberately manufactured as weapons of war, they typically receive commands from higher-tier Zerg to detonate."

With a gentle flick of his wrist, Feng Bai precisely excised the crack-like antennae on the head of the Blasting Bug. "Of course, I know you will definitely ask: how can one promptly discover Zerg with extremely high stealth capabilities like Blasting Bugs? Actually, you don't need to worry, because normally Blasting Bugs only appear on the battlefield front lines. Being a war weapon with immense destructive power but equally massive resource consumption, the range of Zerg deployment is not wide."

"Naturally, there is one exception: wormholes."

At the mention of wormholes, understanding dawned on the faces of the students present.

No one was unfamiliar with the existence of wormholes. A major event recorded in imperial history was when the Zerg utilized advanced spatial transition technology to open a wormhole, invading the rear of an imperial checkpoint a thousand miles away, resulting in rivers of blood and nearly destroying the nation. Ever since then, the term wormhole truly entered the public consciousness.

However, up to the present day, wormholes had appeared in historical records no more than ten times, making it easy to deduce that opening a wormhole also placed a tremendous burden on the Zerg. Yet, every single appearance of one signified the outbreak of a massive battle.

Recalling the message Feng Bai had sent her before class, Yuan Hanshuang sank into deep thought.

Lately, the interstellar network did carry news of the military situation at the Scorching Sun Checkpoint growing critical, but public opinion across the empire generally still believed that this Zerg offensive was merely a routine attack. After all, ever since the Zerg birthed a new Queen, they would pressure the defense lines every single year, and people had long since grown accustomed to it.

Feng Bai continued, "If a wormhole that breaches spatial limitations appears, following the Zerg's pattern of attacking via wormholes, Blasting Bugs will inevitably become the first wave of suicide squads."

"Teacher Feng," a student raised their hand to speak, "how can we know when a wormhole appears?"

"That is a good question. If the empire could accurately predict the appearance of a wormhole every time, why is it that whenever a wormhole appears, it inflicts irrecoverable losses?"

The adjutant shook his head. "To this day, humanity has yet to find any precursor signs of a wormhole opening."

The class quickly drew to a close.

"Goodbye, Teacher Feng. Have a pleasant holiday."

Lingering behind while packing her things, Yuan Hanshuang deliberately waved at Feng Bai before leaving, indicating that she had already reviewed the message he sent at the earliest opportunity.

This was the final class before the holiday. Upon returning to the dormitory, Xia Mengrong was just preparing to leave with her head housekeeper and maid, seemingly having waited for her for a little while. "There are instant ingredients on the table, and a month's worth of nutrient fluid is stored in the spatial expansion cabinet. You can eat whenever you're hungry."

Even during the holiday, the young lady was still concerned with feeding her. Yuan Hanshuang felt moved to tears. "Thank you, Mengrong."

"Hmph. Bye, see you after the holiday."

After Xia Mengrong left, the dormitory instantly grew quiet and empty.

Her companions had all returned home for the holiday. Needless to say about Xuantuan Sheng and Xia Mengrong, Wu Haoxuan and Ke Jiunda also stated they planned to take advantage of the long break to visit their parents. As for Gu Dong, he came and went like a shadow; aside from spotting him punching the clock for morning exercises, he was usually invisible around campus.

"Forget it, I might as well spend this holiday working honestly at the Black Street and earning more food money."

Yuan Hanshuang rolled around on her bed and cheerfully finalized her holiday plans.

However, as the old saying went, plans could never keep up with changes.

When Yuan Hanshuang tidied up and rushed to work on the first day of the holiday, stepping into the Black Street combat arena and presenting her fighter account, the way every staff member looked at her was somewhat strange.

—What, it's SpongeBob!

Their chatter came to an abrupt halt as they turned their heads in unison, staring directly at her.

"What's wrong? Is there something on my face?" Yuan Hanshuang asked.

"Nothing, nothing at all, ah哈哈哈. You misunderstood, esteemed star fighter."

They laughed it off awkwardly before turning around and notifying the higher-ups at top speed.

Just two weeks ago, an invisible priority-watchlist had been issued from the depths of the Black Tower, containing only a single name: SpongeBob. Staff members across the entire Central Star System's Black Street had memorized this ID; the moment it appeared, it had to be reported immediately without delay.

At the same time, Jialou, who was attending class at the Federal Military Academy, abruptly stood up from his seat with a swish.

After two full weeks of radio silence, the anger of being played for a fool not only failed to subside but reignited fiercely, causing his expression to instantly turn gloomy.

In a place as heavily stratified as the Federal Military Academy, even seat assignments vividly reflected hierarchy. As the academy's student union president, Jialou naturally occupied the front row.

The moment he moved, everyone in the classroom had their attention drawn toward him, and even the instructor spoke with trembling apprehension: "Student Jialou, what is the meaning of this?"

This was merely an ordinary lecture on Federal history, holding little weight in a military academy that favored martial arts over literature. The instructor assumed he possessed no capital to offend this Black Tower crown prince, making even his speech appear exceptionally servile.

"Too boring," Jialou dropped the cold words and left without looking back.

The cold wind stirred by the closing classroom door whipped up the heavy hem of his black cloak like rolling waves of darkness.