Chapter 4

Hearing her say that, Shen Li waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry. Trust my professional integrity. Since I’ve promised to help you repair it, I’ll see the job through to the end.”

She had been busy all day and was feeling somewhat tired. After exchanging a few words, she yawned, leaned back against her seat, and said to Chu Qingyi, “I’m sleepy. I’m going to take a nap.”

“Wake me when we get there.”

Without bothering to consider what Chu Qingyi might think, she hugged her toolbox, rested her head against the car window, and closed her eyes.

Shen Li didn’t have much of an appetite, but her ability to sleep was excellent. Less than half a minute after closing her eyes, she was already fast asleep.

The Alpha’s breathing was light, and she looked utterly defenseless in her sleep.

Sitting at the other end of the seat, Chu Qingyi leaned against the car window and studied her with a hint of curiosity in her eyes.

What a strange person. Previously, she had avoided Chu Qingyi so desperately that she practically wanted to disappear from the Imperial Capital altogether. Yet now, she actually dared to fall asleep right beside her.

Wasn’t she afraid Chu Qingyi might sell her off?

Chu Qingyi’s gaze lingered on her face for a moment before slowly traveling downward. When it landed on the ridiculously childish gray hoodie she was wearing, her eyes abruptly stopped.

Before the explosion in the Underground City, Chu Qingyi’s impression of Shen Li had never gone beyond the words “bookworm.”

When she was six years old, Chu Qingyi transferred from the Sirius frontline to the Imperial Capital Star. It took her only a read the original at bailiantales.com month to win over every child in her grade.

Every child except one.

And that child was Shen Li.

Shen Li was different from the others. She seemed perfectly capable of existing in a universe of her own, always clutching a pile of books and reading them with a cheerful expression.

It wasn’t that Chu Qingyi had never tried to play with her. But whenever she approached Shen Li, the girl’s eyes would light up, and she would enthusiastically drag her into watching dissection videos of Imperial Ringworms.

The sight of an enormous surgical knife slicing lengthwise through a ten-meter-long worm, extracting its glands amid sprays of insect fluid, was enough to make anyone nauseous.

Yet Shen Li remained completely oblivious to how disgusting it was, becoming extraordinarily excited instead.

Over time, Chu Qingyi reached a conclusion: this was not someone she could win over.

After all, she genuinely hated insects.

For a long time afterward, she and Shen Li remained classmates.

However, because of Shen Li’s peculiar interests, she never had any friends, apart from the occasional attention Chu Qingyi gave her.

Then Shen Li’s mom, Tian Zhi Zi, passed away, and her mother, Shen Buji, was transferred away from the front lines. Her family’s standing plummeted, and gradually… they ended up in different classes. As the years passed, the distance between them grew wider and wider.

The next time Chu Qingyi saw Shen Li was at a spring tea party.

It had been several months earlier. Flowers were blooming throughout the grounds of the First Military Academy, and Chu Qingyi and the Empire’s Third Princess had invited more than a dozen noble Omegas to a tea party in the rose garden.

Red, white, pink, green, yellow, orange… Roses of every imaginable color bloomed brilliantly beneath the spring sunshine.

The Omegas were like those vibrant roses themselves, gathering in groups of three or five around Chu Qingyi and the Third Princess, chatting about things they had recently seen and heard.

Just then, a golden-haired girl wearing a white T-shirt and blue cargo pants hurried past the rose garden with a white toolbox slung over her shoulder.

As she walked, she opened her smart terminal, her fingers constantly tracing movements through the air as though she were calculating something, muttering to herself all the while.

Perhaps she was too absorbed in her calculations, or perhaps she was simply walking too quickly. Whatever the reason, she accidentally missed a step and went sprawling forward.

Her toolbox burst open from the impact, scattering wrenches, screwdrivers, and various other tools all over the ground.

Startled by the commotion, the Omegas turned to look.

Chu Qingyi glanced over as well. By the time her gaze reached the girl, she had already gotten back to her feet and was swiftly gathering her scattered tools, paying no attention to the scrapes on her hands.

Seeing her in such a sorry state, several Omegas in the pavilion had already begun covering their mouths and laughing disdainfully.

Most students at the First Military Academy came from noble families.

Even the small number of exceptionally bailiantales.com talented students from humble backgrounds had, for the most part, been taken under the wings of the great aristocratic houses.

Chu Qingyi was familiar with practically every student at the academy, except this one…

She had her suspicions. Turning to the Omega closest to her, she asked, “Who is that? She looks somewhat familiar.”

The Omega, who had been covering her mouth as she giggled, turned toward her in surprise.

“Qingyi, you don’t recognize her?”

Chu Qingyi shook her head.

The Omega beside her leaned closer and explained mysteriously, “That’s the legitimate eldest daughter of the Golden Eagle Marquis’s household, the one who differentiated into an inferior D-rank Alpha.”

So it really was Shen Li.

Chu Qingyi couldn’t help turning her attention back to her.

In her memory, Shen Li had possessed a soft, round baby face. Because she loved drinking milk so much, she had also been quite plump as a child.

But looking at her now, Shen Li had long since grown into someone almost unrecognizable. From Chu Qingyi’s angle, she could see that the girl had a remarkably handsome profile.

Her eyebrows were sharply arched like blades, and her nose was high and straight, with a clearly visible bump along the bridge. Her lips were pressed slightly together, and her somewhat serious expression made her facial features appear even sharper. The contours of her face were strikingly defined.

The spring sunshine was brilliant, illuminating her fluffy golden hair and bailiantales.commaking every strand gleam.

As she swiftly gathered her tools, the skin exposed by her short-sleeved white T-shirt showed a healthy, natural complexion. Her muscles were clearly defined, every part of her body radiating strength.

Before long, Shen Li had finished collecting her belongings and stood up with her toolbox slung over her shoulder.

Only then did Chu Qingyi get a clear look at her entire figure.

Perhaps because of her inferior genes, Shen Li wasn’t particularly tall compared to other female Alphas.

She appeared to be only about 175 centimeters tall, roughly the same height as an ordinary A-rank Omega. However, she made up for it with excellent proportions: a high, well-defined hip line, broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and long legs.

At a glance, she was remarkably pleasing to the eye.

Chu Qingyi couldn’t help looking at her a few more times. Perhaps noticing her attention, the Third Princess sitting beside her casually picked up a crystal bracelet from the table and threw it at Shen Li.

With a clatter, the bracelet struck Shen Li’s back.

Shen Li seemed startled, her body trembling slightly as she turned toward the pavilion.

Through the layers of flowers and the lush, overgrown trellises, Chu Qingyi caught sight of a pair of deep green eyes.

They resembled a cold pool reflecting the shadows of an endless, secluded forest in summer, or emeralds gleaming beneath a bright moon, clear and breathtakingly beautiful.

Shen Li seemed bewildered by her [read the original at bailiantales.com]situation. With one hand gripping the strap of her toolbox, she blinked.

Her expression was so innocent that the Omegas in the pavilion covered their mouths and began laughing.

A trace of amusement also appeared in the eyes of the Third Princess, who sat in the center. With an imperious air, she ordered, “Go pick up that bracelet by your feet and bring it here.”

She didn’t even bother addressing Shen Li properly. She might as well have been calling a dog.

Shen Li didn’t get angry. She lowered her eyes to the broken bracelet lying near her feet, bent down to pick it up, and walked toward the pavilion.

When she reached its edge, she bowed respectfully to the Third Princess.

The princess instructed the noblewoman closest to her to retrieve the bracelet. The young noblewoman approached Shen Li, spread a handkerchief across her palm, and only then extended her hand.

Shen Li carefully placed the bracelet in her hand. The noblewoman accepted it and returned it to the Third Princess.

The Third Princess casually set the bracelet aside. Looking at the toolbox slung over Shen Li’s shoulder, she asked with interest, “What’s that thing you’re carrying? Some new fashion trend among commoners?”

Sitting nearby, Chu Qingyi watched as Shen Li lowered her head and bowed slightly in response.

“Your Highness, it’s a toolbox containing instruments for repairing machinery.”

“Oh? Does it have scissors?”

Shen Li paused briefly before answering, “Yes.”

The Third Princess issued another order.

“Perfect. The spring weather is lovely today, and all the flowers are in bloom.”

“My tea party is missing something. I ought to have flowers to present to these noble ladies.”

“Since you have nothing better to do, why don’t you cut some flowers from this garden, arrange them nicely, and make a few bouquets for me to give my honored guests?”

She was treating Shen Li entirely like a servant.

Shen Li was an Alpha, after all, and the heir to a marquisate at that. Even when dealing with royalty, anyone with the slightest pride would have refused such a request.

Yet Shen Li merely considered it for a moment before softly answering, “Yes, Your Highness.”

What Chu Qingyi saw next was Shen Li setting down her toolbox, taking out a pair of scissors, and walking into the flowerbeds to carefully select suitable branches.

“Snip… snip…”

As the sound of trimming continued, the noble ladies resumed their conversation and laughter.

The Third Princess turned to Chu Qingyi and spoke softly.

“I noticed you kept looking at her just now. I suppose you’ve been bewitched by her looks too.”

“That Shen Li inherited my youngest aunt’s appearance. Even among the royal family, or indeed the entire aristocracy, she’s one of the most attractive Alphas around.”

“But her personality is far too meek. She does whatever anyone tells her to do. She’s terribly boring…”

The Third Princess, Tian Zhi Wu, was the full sister of Imperial Crown Princess Tian Zhi Feng. She had followed Chu Qingyi around since childhood, acting as Tian Zhi Feng’s eyes and ears.

Whenever anything happened around Chu Qingyi, she would immediately pass the information along to Tian Zhi Feng.

After Chu Qingyi differentiated, this habit evolved to the point where, whenever Chu Qingyi so much as looked at an Alpha, Tian Zhi Wu would tell Tian Zhi Feng to pay attention, since that Alpha might be Chu Qingyi’s preferred type.

Over time, Chu Qingyi simply stopped sparing Alphas so much as a glance.

With Tian Zhi Wu having brought up the subject, the noble ladies nearby began talking about Shen Li one after another.

Chu Qingyi generally paid little attention to people who were of no use to her, especially those who were utterly “mediocre.”

In fact, Shen Li was quite well-known among the nobility. She even had a nickname: “Shen the Desperate Tryhard.”

But it was hardly a compliment.

After Shen Li’s mom passed away, she was always the first to arrive at school every morning. She spent her lunch breaks buried in the library and practically lived in the laboratories whenever she had free time. Rumor had it that she never even went out to have fun during her winter or summer vacations, spending every single day at a mech repair factory instead.

She kept to herself and had no friends.

By the time she reached high school, when students were allowed to choose from a much wider variety of subjects, she enrolled in practically everything and studied extraordinarily hard.

Unfortunately, she genuinely wasn’t very bright. No matter how many subjects she studied, she always ended up near the bottom of the class whenever exams came around, barely achieving grades good enough to avoid being expelled.

Logically speaking, with a 2S-rank Alpha mother and a 2S-rank Omega mom, there was no reason she should have been so unintelligent.

It wasn’t until her differentiation results came out when she was sixteen that everyone finally understood.

A D-rank Alpha. A useless individual who couldn’t even materialize her mental power into a physical form. At best, she could only pilot a mech weighing around ten tons.

Among the military’s lightweight mechs, a ten-ton model was considered a medium-sized unit.

After receiving the proper training, an ordinary A-rank Beta could easily pilot a ten-ton mech and join other Beta soldiers in creating an enormous mental-domain barrier to repel Zerg attacks in the frontier star systems.

In other words, on the battlefield, a D-rank Alpha was little more than cannon fodder.

That was precisely why Shen Li had chosen the Aerospace Department.

At this point, a male Omega sitting across from Chu Qingyi chuckled softly.

“The Aerospace Department… They can’t even secure their research funding these days. What kind of future could anyone have after graduating from there?”

“She’d be better off transferring to the Flight [bailiantales.com]Operations Department. At least then she might have a chance to work her way up from private to starship captain.”

His words were followed by a burst of laughter.

Chatter, chatter, chatter. They sounded just like a swarm of buzzing mosquitoes.

Chu Qingyi’s ears were beginning to ache from listening. She couldn’t help letting her mind go blank, while the corner of her eye secretly drifted toward the Alpha not far away.

Beneath the brilliant sunshine, the young Alpha crouched among the vivid flowers, diligently trimming them with her scissors.

The rhythmic opening and closing of the blades sounded exceptionally crisp amid the Omegas’ shrill laughter.

“Snip…”

Suddenly, the sound of the scissors stopped.

Chu Qingyi’s heart immediately tightened.

Her mind snapped back to attention, and her gaze focused sharply on Shen Li. She watched as the Alpha bent forward, reached into the flowerbed, and searched around for a moment. Then, carefully pinching something between her fingers, she raised her head and held it up to the sunlight.

Beneath the bright spring sunshine, surrounded by a sea of flowers, Chu Qingyi clearly saw Shen Li holding a long, slender Imperial Ring Bloodworm between her fingers, a dreamy, fascinated smile spreading across her face.

Seeing Shen Li look as though she had discovered a priceless treasure, Chu Qingyi felt a chill run down her spine.

Sure enough, no matter how much a person changed, their fundamental nature remained the same.

Compared to people, what Shen Li loved most was still insects.

Chu Qingyi clicked her tongue softly. Listening to the mocking laughter of the Omegas around her, she couldn’t help thinking that Shen Li would actually be much better suited to sitting in her place right now.

After all, since she loved insects so much, she probably wouldn’t mind all these chattering, buzzing bugs either.