Thorns That Cannot Be Shaved Off

The interstellar media swarmed around Liu Zheng, but Xu Lingqu failed to slip away as she'd hoped.

A few stragglers still stubbornly clustered around her, insisting on interviews. None of them looked familiar—faces she hadn't really seen before.

Spotting the doubt in Xu Lingqu's eyes, they hastily pulled out their press credentials.

"We're game media, not league reporters. We just wanted to ask about games."

Why would game media want to talk to her? Xu Lingqu was even more confused.

Afraid she might bolt, the reporter cut straight to the point: "Under your influence, an obscure desert game has suddenly blown up in the gaming world. Lots of people are buying it just to have a Xu Lingqu-style photo spot. What do you think about that?"

"I don't know." Xu Lingqu, who rarely bothered with the Sky Network, knew nothing about this.

The reporter looked surprised; after a whispered exchange with his colleague, his expression shifted to genuine astonishment. "Well then, after today's match, Sin City's pre-orders broke a hundred million within the hour. What are your thoughts on that?"

If she'd known being a game-streaming influencer in the interstellar era paid this well, she wouldn't have gone off being someone's substitute fighter.

Xu Lingqu looked straight into the camera and said four words, dead serious: "Sky Network, pay up."

【You guys at Sky Network really should pay our little Lingqu already!】

Liu Ming was grinding through the Sky Network as usual. Since the league started, the fans of Moye and Xu Lingqu had never once lost a single battle of words on the league forums.

Now that Sin City was over, the entire screen was flooded with Liu Zheng and Xu Lingqu posts, like this was a Moye fan zone.

Remembering Xu Lingqu's bitter days of substitute fighting, Liu Ming immediately clicked into the thread to chime in: "Exactly, exactly! Sky Network makes so much money, it's only fair they share some with Xu Lingqu!"

Liu Ming figured that once Xu Lingqu had money, she could be pestered into buying that little dog-exclusive toy it had picked out from the Sky Network pet shop recently.

—

In the VIP seats for the Cimei versus Lianda match, Lieutenant General Jia Deli had arrived in person.

Everyone knew this would be a tough match for Cimei—quite possibly their last one of the league. Basically everyone who could make it was there.

"I told you Xu Lingqu would come watch. She hasn't missed a single Cimei match; she's totally biased toward them." Jin Fang Taibai locked onto Xu Lingqu's figure in one glance, then turned to Guan Chuanjun. "Pay up."

He'd finally won a bet. Thinking about the ones he'd lost to Gu Tingzhi still stung.

Today's VIP section was lively. Moye's group had Shaji and Du'e in front of them, Dolanston and Longyuan behind.

Xu Xiqin noticed Gu Tingzhi had shown up and asked curiously, "Isn't your match against Zhicheng tomorrow?"

Gu Tingzhi nodded. "Yep."

The implication: Longyuan needed no preparation to beat Zhicheng.

Well, they were a powerhouse academy, after all. They had the right to be confident.

Cimei and Lianda had drawn a city siege map—standard fare, no special mechanics, no novel weapons. Pure test of the cadets' combat ability.

"Over on the Federation side, Tansen Meilin was doing his pre-match interview and said he's really looking forward to the semifinal against Moye." Jin Fang Taibai was always well-informed. "That guy is seriously asking for a beating."

Li Muyi also frowned—a rare sight. "That man has mentioned Xu Lingqu in every single Federation interview since the qualifiers..."

"Total closet fan." Jiang You from Dolanston, sitting beside Jia Xiangying behind the Moye group, chimed in.

He'd been pretty down after losing to Moye, but one night seemed to have fixed his mood.

Emotions really did come and go fast.

"He practically talks about Xu Lingqu like she's his destined rival. Disgusting." Jin Fang Taibai shook his head. "Not like me—I only pray that Xu Lingqu transfers to Du'e next year and becomes my teammate."

"What's so fun about being her teammate? Being her opponent is where it's at." Hei Yingzhi cut in. Fighting Xu Lingqu was thrilling.

After reviewing the Sin City match, he seriously suspected that if they hadn't fallen for the trap on Bliwell Huabin Avenue, Xu Lingqu might have cooked up a plan to bomb the whole city.

She was a calm, rational, powerful madwoman. The most terrifying kind—and the most exciting.

"Just thinking about being at her mercy for three more years keeps me up at night with excitement." Hei Yingzhi couldn't help sharing his inner thoughts.

Jia Xiangying couldn't listen anymore and punched him.

This guy was embarrassing!

"You're all professing your love to Xu Lingqu while she's right here," Jin Fang Taibai, squeezed among the five of them, was the first to crack. But the subject of all this attention was deaf to the chatter around her, eyes fixed solely on the Cimei match.

The game had already begun. Tansen Meilin was arrogant and prone to talking over others, but that didn't mean his skill level was low.

From the very start, Lianda fought tooth and nail for control of the city's airspace. Their sky combat clearly showed pre-planned strategies combining multiple aircraft types. From the first aerial clash, Cimei was on the back foot.

"Tansen Meilin has strong opinions on aerial and space combat," Senior Colonel Ren sighed from the commentary booth. "In terms of squadron formations and the position and timing of airdrops, Cimei was outmatched from the start."

"In this kind of urban siege, grabbing air superiority is crucial. In this terrain, aircraft resupply and airdropped troops can make a huge difference in battle." Professor Zhuang nodded.

By now, Lianda's squadrons were basically chasing Cimei's tail. Tansen Meilin didn't seem willing to leave a single aircraft for Cimei. After this, the sky over the city was conservatively estimated to belong entirely to Lianda's remaining planes.

While everyone was holding their breath for Cimei's pilots, one of them suddenly did something that shocked everyone.

She flipped her aircraft around, abandoning escape, and charged at the Lianda pilot in a seeming kamikaze run, accelerating to full speed.

The Lianda pilots flinched and instinctively dodged, only to watch her fly straight toward Lianda's airspace.

It must have been intel from Cimei's scouts—she piloted her plane straight into a building.

The audience already knew her fate in advance—Tansen Meilin wasn't in that building—but the raw tragedy of the act still struck everyone hard.

This map's pain feedback was at a standard 70%. Even Jiang You's jump had been at 50% pain.

What she was willing to do for Cimei's victory deserved applause from everyone present.

When the Cimei pilot emerged from the pod, she was drenched in cold sweat. The academy medics rushed over, but she just waved them off, signaling she was fine, and stared at the big screen with eyes full of defiance.

Her suicide strike failed, and in the end, Lianda's three remaining aircraft held complete control of the skies. Cimei was left paralyzed, forced to find cover wherever they could, dodging bombs while fighting Lianda to the bitter end.

For the rest of the match, all you could hear was gunfire and explosions. Ye Yu shouldered her responsibility as an S-class soldier, piloting a Z2p armored vehicle loaded with anti-air missiles to successfully shoot down one of Lianda's planes.

But that gave away her position. Tansen Meilin ordered a barrage on her position, determined to destroy her vehicle and kill her. Yun Yao asked over the comms multiple times, and each time Ye Yu answered firmly: no backup needed. With Lianda's firepower diverted, the rest of Cimei should attack now.

The atmosphere grew heavy.

Back during the top-eight draw, Senior Colonel Ren and Professor Zhuang's analysis of Cimei had been spot on—their matches always gripped the audience and moved everyone's emotions.

This tense mood was also partly the map's doing, making the whole thing feel less like a league match and more like a slice of real war.

Director Yin's face darkened as she immediately called the deputy director of the League Center at the Federation venue: "Wasn't this map evaluated before? Weren't the unmodified ones supposed to be decommissioned?"

The deputy director could barely get the words out: "President Jia Tu personally decided. He looked at several maps, saw no issues, and just gave the green light to put them back in rotation."

"Does he think he's some big shot, stirring the pot between the Empire and the Federation? If war actually breaks out, Sky Network will take the worst hit!" She hadn't even gotten to enjoy the double win of yesterday's explosive match viewership and Sin City's massive sales before Jia Tu was already causing trouble.

The deputy director asked quietly, "Are the Empire side's spectators really upset?"

Director Yin glanced at the eerily silent audience and gritted her teeth: "What do you think?"

She'd always held that the league was a competitive sport—it had both entertainment and cruelty, but it shouldn't be as brutal as a real battlefield.

The military departments of both the Federation and the Empire could teach these students true cruelty. There was no need to display it so graphically in the league.

And today, at this Cimei match, their own principal, Lieutenant General Jia Deli of the Empire, was sitting right there in the VIP seats!

Cursing under her breath, Director Yin cut the communication. She looked at the big screen. There was nothing to do but take it one step at a time.

Tansen Meilin had set his mind on a total wipeout.

His reasoning was simple: Xu Lingqu would definitely watch this match. He had to show her his true strength here, enough to be her destined rival.

And so, even knowing exactly where Yun Yao's command post was, Tansen Meilin didn't act on it. Instead, he went hunting for every surviving Cimei soldier one by one.

Even when Yun Yao led her people out of the command post and joined the fight herself, Tansen Meilin simply had his forces avoid her—no decapitation strike, just total annihilation.

Yun Yao showed no negative emotion. She exploited that fact actively, fighting on the front lines and leading the remaining Cimei girls in a final desperate resistance, taking down as many Lianda soldiers as she could.

In the end, Tansen Meilin's plan failed. Yun Yao led the last dozen or so survivors to hold out until the map timer ran out. The match was decided by kill count—no decapitation, no wipeout.

The moment she exited the combat pod, Yun Yao's tears finally broke free, streaming down like beads from a broken string.

Ye Yu walked over and patted her shoulder. "Yun Yao, don't cry. Lieutenant General Jia Deli is still waiting for us."

It was Lieutenant General Jia Deli herself who'd come to watch today, and they'd still lost.

Yun Yao trembled, forcing back her tears and grief as she rose. They walked up to Lieutenant General Jia Deli, and all the Cimei students gathered around.

Lieutenant General Jia Deli stood. The audience fell silent—no one left their seats, no one spoke. Everyone waited for her to say something.

"I've always been strict with you—or rather, every principal of Cimei has been strict with her students."

Her dark, shoulder-length curls fell across her shoulders. She'd come in full formal Imperial military dress, wearing the rank of lieutenant general and her medals of honor. Just standing there, she radiated an authority that reached every spectator in the arena.

"Because we are an all-female military academy, many see you as representing the highest standard of hundreds of millions of young women across the Interstellar Empire." In this interstellar age, with artificial wombs and advances in medical technology, gender discrimination had lessened compared to Earth.

But 'less' didn't mean 'gone.'

The gender ratios among the Empire's six military academies, or the Federation's Qingjun and Lianda, still said a lot.

Lieutenant General Jia Deli lowered her gaze, looking at each of the Cimei students in turn. "So when I took over Cimei, I continued the style of the principals before me—strict expectations, hoping you could reach the highest tier."

Yun Yao lowered her head in shame. They had let Lieutenant General Jia Deli down. Only making the top eight—how could that count as a top academy?

"But today, I'm not here to admonish you, nor to criticize you." Lieutenant General Jia Deli's voice softened, and Yun Yao slowly lifted her head.

"I watched every one of your matches this year. When I wasn't at the arena, I watched with my officers. When we were patrolling the border planets, it happened to be your second qualifier."

That match—Cimei had taken the initiative to support Moye, and in the end, the Empire academies had pressed the Federation academies, fighting a beautiful group-stage battle.

"At that moment, my officers and I witnessed your loyalty, courage, wisdom, unity, and kindness. And in that instant, I realized I was genuinely proud of you. The honor and satisfaction you brought me were worth far more than any hollow score." Lieutenant General Jia Deli looked at these girls as if looking at her former self.

"And at that moment, I made up my mind: this competition, no matter how it goes, I love you. I want my students, my girls, to always keep that sincerity and walk into your brilliant futures."

She opened her arms, and the Cimei students, already weeping, surged forward, embracing her in a tight cluster.

Rose petals rained down from above—a gift from Cimei's fans for the girls.

Flowers bloom and wither; petals always fall. But no one can shave off the thorns they grow.