Language, Integrated Science, and Military Theory — three subjects combined into one exam, lasting four hours.

Rong Shi first took the Language and Military Theory tests. Opening the Integrated Science paper, he glanced at the last big question — to simply argue, from the perspective of fundamental particles, whether time has directionality and if it is reversible.

Rong Shi almost immediately thought of his own rebirth.

He used to disbelieve time could be reversed, but now he had no choice but to believe.

Just like Professor Qin said, science is a process of constant overturning.

He wrote slowly and finished, then clicked to submit. Checking the time, only forty minutes had passed.

He cleared the draft paper and began drawing the shell design of his younger brother’s battle armor.

01 was the clumsy apprentice’s eighteen-year-old creation — the first work in his battle armor series. The overall design and concept were groundbreaking, but the details were a bit immature.

Before deployment, Rong Shi promised his apprentice he would help test the real combat data, but in the end, none of those test results were ever reported back.

[Wow! Little brother is seriously handsome!]

Rong Shi: “…”

[I want to be handsome too, boohoo QuQ]

[If I behave, can I upgrade to the same shell?]

[Master~]

[What if little brother thinks I’m ugly and doesn’t recognize me?]

[So sad~]

Rong Shi: “…”

He listened to 01’s mental chatter for an hour while drawing, until finally he couldn’t take it and muted him.

The proctor sat on the podium, his eyes sweeping the entire exam hall.

More than half of the students had been motionless for over half an hour; some hadn’t moved since the exam started.

His face was stern, but inside he shook his head wildly.

If even the honors class was like this, it looked like the monthly exam results would cause a lot of crying.

His eyes involuntarily scanned over Rong Shi and Song Yu.

Those two kids were always slacking off but firmly held the top ranks. At least when it came to grades, they were indisputably excellent.

He wondered how they’d fare this time.

First, he glanced at Song Yu — the noble young master was lying on the desk, clearly asleep for quite some time.

Then he looked at Rong Shi — this guy wasn’t sleeping. The movements of his pen clearly showed he was drawing — and drawing seriously.

Proctor: “…”

Great. The only two hopes were gone. This exam was a total loss.

The bell to submit papers rang, startling all the students awake as if abruptly pulled from a dream.

Less than a minute after submission, the scores popped up in big, clear numbers on the virtual screens.

Rong Shi had 01 save the drawing, then glanced at the three 61s, and casually walked over to Song Yu’s desk, patting his head: “Finished.”

Song Yu’s hand slowly reached out to touch his, struggling to open his eyes: “My hand fell asleep.”

Rong Shi: “…”

Others closed their terminals with grim faces, only to look up and see those two big shots holding hands, striding out of the exam hall like they owned the place.

A double blow to morale.

Just as they reached the corridor, a chorus of wails and complaints broke out around them.

“The test setter must be crazy. So exhausting. Destroy everything.”

“This is called ‘much easier’? This? I can’t do any of the physics big questions!”

“You can’t do the big questions? I can’t do a single one!”

“Ah— Am I an idiot?”

“Hearing you all say this makes me feel better. Whether hard or not, I still can’t do it.”

“Test setter, draw your sword—!!”

Rong Shi: “…”

Song Yu: “…”

Seeing Song Yu’s expression, equally bewildered, Rong Shi knew he wasn’t the only one fooled.

“What did you score?” Rong Shi asked quietly.

Song Yu: “Heard it was easy, so I just added one point to each subject, so Qian would stop nagging. You?”

Rong Shi: “…”

Before he could answer, the monthly exam rankings were announced.

Rong Shi and Song Yu tied for first place with three 61s each. Qin Luo ranked third with three 59s. Lu Ming placed fourth with 49, 42, and 50, Zhao Wan fifth, and the scores dropped sharply, with a total of only 110.

Qin Luo flipped through the rankings, laughing loudly.

“The harder it gets, the bigger the score gap. My eternal third place is solid!”

Not far away, Lu Ming’s face darkened.

His eyes couldn’t look away from Rong Shi’s scores.

Why?!

Both had lost a month to the league, but while Lu Ming worked hard to catch up, his scores had dropped so much!

Yet Rong Shi wasn’t affected at all?!

“Wow! The Chairman broke through 60 to 61!”

“This month’s exam covers seriously out-of-syllabus material. How come the Chairman scored even better?!”

“Big shot got six 61s — even his slacking is so perfect. I’m defeated.”

“If 61 is the difficulty this time, how easy were the previous 60s?!”

Lu Ming’s face turned blacker and blacker, and he stormed out of the gate in a rage.

Surrounded by admiring gazes, Rong Shi’s face wasn’t much better.

Judging by this, he and the little cat were probably going to be summoned by Qian Fan for tea again.

---

Academic Affairs Office —

Qian Fan and several teachers had finished discussing next month’s work plan. Seeing it was almost time, they didn’t rush back to the office but opened the school announcement page to check the monthly exam rankings.

Second-year head teacher Zheng Hai sat next to him, smiling: “Guess how much Rong Shi scored this time?”

Qian Fan sipped his wolfberry tea and shook his head: “Hard to say.”

“Definitely not 60!” Third-year head teacher Zhao Qiqi came over holding his thermos confidently. “With this paper’s difficulty, anyone scoring over 40 is outstanding.”

Continuously raising difficulty each exam to pick out top students was the military academy’s routine, but occasionally they lowered the difficulty to check if most students had mastered basic knowledge.

Zhao Qiqi always got this task. Other teachers tacitly agreed that whenever it was his turn, he would lower difficulty.

Unexpectedly, he pulled a surprise move that caught everyone off guard.

Zheng Hai: “Want to bet? I bet he still scored 60.”

“Impossible.” Zhao Qiqi pulled up the paper to show them. “At this difficulty, if he still scores 60, I’ll run a hundred laps and call him daddy.”

Zheng Hai: “Don’t say that so confidently. Since Rong Shi enrolled, I’ve lost every bet.”

Thinking of his two humiliating “call him daddy” moments, his face flushed.

“Not sure if it’s 60, but —” Qian Fan looked serious, “taking first place should be no problem.”

Zhao Qiqi, Zheng Hai: “No need for you to say that.”

Qian Fan: “…”

“Results are out!”

Someone shouted in the big office. Qian Fan immediately refreshed the page and clicked.

The first glance at the top of the list showed the two well-behaved kids tied for first. He smiled, eyes crinkling.

The second glance at their scores made his smile freeze.

“Rong Shi!”

He slammed his thermos on the desk, denting it, shaking with anger.

“Damn!”

“Shit!”

“My god.”

The monthly rankings caused the teaching staff to curse in frustration.

“Could early marriage improve study? These two kids are about to take off!”

“The harder it gets, the better they do.”

“All 61s? No way they didn’t control the scores? Oh my god—”

“I think so too! This probably isn’t even their real level!”

Zhao Qiqi thought he misread it — maybe it was 31, not 61?

He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, put them back on, and it was still 61!

“Impossible!” He didn’t believe it. He pulled up Rong Shi’s exam papers from the backend.

A crowd of teachers gathered to look.

“This score control is too obvious.”

“Looks like they randomly picked which questions to answer.”

“This simple question was obviously answered wrong, but this hard one was answered correctly.”

“If they controlled scores, it should be by selecting which questions to score based on the question.”

Zhao Qiqi ground his teeth and pulled up the physics paper, scrolling down — the big questions were all blank except for the very last one, which was fully answered and scored full marks.

This was the one he adapted from the Physics Institute’s project — totally beyond the syllabus.

“Just got lucky guessing?”

“This really isn’t luck. Look, every step he wrote is spot on — even better than the official answer.”

“Isn’t there a line of small print below the question?”

Hearing this, Zhao Qiqi squinted through his reading glasses and zoomed in on the paper.

After reading that line, he almost fainted with anger.

[This question was crafted with real skill.]

“Is this a provocation?!” Zhao Qiqi pointed at the line and looked at Qian Fan. “Are you mocking me, saying my questions aren’t hard enough? What, my other questions were trash and not worthy of his answers?”

Qian Fan: “… Calm down first.”

“He can just get 60, but doesn’t that make me look like a terrible test setter?” Zhao Qiqi grew more furious, his eyes red as he began to cry, “This is too much bullying! Waaah—!”

Qian Fan handed him some tissues and sniffled, “Stop crying. When you cry like this, I want to cry too.”

Outstanding students are too wild, completely uncontrollable.

The young teachers looked at each other silently as the two wiped their tears side by side.

This new student president really had something — making two big shots cry at once!

“Do you think he… has a grudge against me?” Zhao Qiqi’s glasses were crooked from crying, “That extra 1 point — is that mocking me?”

Qian Fan sighed, “Probably my fault — I made them lose their ability to predict difficulty.”

Zhao Qiqi: “?”

As soon as the results came out, the forum exploded.

After lunch, while all freshmen prepared for the afternoon’s simulated combat assessment, the forum released the school’s overall score coefficient for this monthly exam.

Although everyone’s individual scores looked dismal, big data analysis showed the overall coefficient was 10% higher than the previous year at the same time.

In other words, with the same difficulty, this year’s students scored 10% more than last year’s.

The forum lagged for a minute from the flood of posts.

“No wonder I’m so tired — turns out I studied too hard [doge face].”

“The old slacker single-handedly drove the entire new class into crazy studying.”

“Don’t forget the goddess — should be the genius couple.”

“After catching up to the old slacker, I became a top student.”

“So scoring 22 means I did well?”

“I got about one-third of President Rong’s total — basically one-third of a genius. [doge face]”

At 1 p.m., the simulated combat test officially started.

Almost simultaneously, in the Imperial Capital Star, Qin Zhao was dumbfounded listening to his adjutant’s report.

“Say that again?!” Qin Zhao refused to believe it. “Who transferred me to logistics?!”

The adjutant pursed his lips and read the official order again.

“Sir, besides your transfer, 82 other corps brothers have all been transferred to logistics as well.”

Qin Zhao snatched the file, eyes flicking through it in a daze.

Without any warning, a major general like him was being sent to oversee sanitation?!

He flipped to the next pages, scanning the list of transferred personnel.

Eighty percent were people he had supported!

What happened?! Where did it all go wrong?!

He collapsed back into his chair, a vague suspicion growing but afraid to think it through.

After the adjutant left, he immediately dialed a communication number.

When the video connected, he eagerly asked, “What’s going on? I—”

“I’m the one who should be asking you!” The man on the virtual screen wore a major general’s uniform but didn’t show his face. “Who told you to recklessly mess with him?! You caught me completely unprepared, and the Qin family set me up!”

“Qin family?” Qin Zhao’s scalp tingled, his eyes flickering as he tried to recall how he offended the Qin family.

The assassination hadn’t succeeded, had it?

Had the Qin family already traced it back to him?

Was Song Yu getting revenge for Rong Shi?

This speculation seemed absurd to Qin Zhao.

Could Song Yu really go that far for Rong Shi?

How dare he act under these circumstances?

If the Qin family got struck down in retaliation, Song Yu would lose any cards to play.

“You need to help me!” Qin Zhao stepped closer to the virtual screen, panic in his eyes, “If I go to sanitation, I’m finished! Then my line—”

“You’re almost finished even if you don’t go!” The man dressed as a general shouted, “This time I’ll cover for you, but no next time!”

Qin Zhao breathed a sigh of relief, surprised, “And my brothers—”

“Saving you alone is already an exception. You want me to save your shrimp soldiers and crabs too?!”

Qin Zhao choked, embarrassed. Before he could thank him, the man snarled, “Your wife will cause big trouble sooner or later. If you keep obeying blindly, I’ll reconsider working with you!”

The screen went black.

Qin Zhao supported himself on the table, drenched in sweat.

No way, he couldn’t resist.

Disobedience meant a fate worse than death!

By the end of work, no cancellation of the transfer notice came. The security bureau showed up first.

The adjutant stood beside Qin Zhao, looking helpless, whispering, “I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t.”

“Major General Qin, hello.” The security bureau’s external enforcement officer showed a document, “We have orders from superiors that you’re suspected of endangering national security. Please come with us for investigation.”

The adjutant’s eyes widened, “What are you talking about?! How could our commander endanger national security?!”

“It’s not your call.” The officer waved, signaling two men to cuff Qin Zhao and take him away.

The security bureau outranks the Ministry of Defense and is outside the military system, directly governed by Qian Li.

Qin Zhao was roughly handcuffed, pale-faced.

The Qian family had made their move — openly, without hiding.

This signal gave him a strong premonition.

He probably wouldn’t come back.

---

The simulated combat was too easy, so Rong Shi didn’t have to exert much and still won.

Once again ranked first in the monthly exam, his heart was calm.

The deployment day approached bit by bit — the battle armor must be finished soon.

Over the weekend, he brought his two little cubs to Qian Fan’s house to look after them and used the president’s authority to open the school’s armor-making lab.

The lab was fully equipped with everything needed to make chips.

“01, turn off all surveillance.”

Rong Shi sat at the control desk and unpacked the components he brought.

[All shut down.]

The battle armor chip was divided into two parts: the main chip implanted in the brain, and the auxiliary chip embedded in nanometal.

The main chip issued commands; the auxiliary chip executed them.

Together, the two chips were smaller than a fingernail, but the technology was very complex.

Once busy, he lost track of time. When the terminal beeped, he looked up — it was already 2 a.m.

He missed two meals.

[Still not back?]

Rong Shi glanced at the message and replied.

[Not coming tonight. Go to sleep early.]

Song Yu sat on the bed hugging a rabbit doll, reading, annoyed by the popup message.

Rarely having the little cubs disturb them on a weekend, he hadn’t seen Rong Shi all day.

Unable to sleep, he pulled up files sent by Gu Xi from the terminal.

The Gu family controlled the most advanced weapons tech, but Song Yu had flipped through the internal documents many times without finding anything about shape-shifting weapons.

He had probed a few days ago, but Gu Xi only understood simple form changes, nothing like 01’s free telescoping.

Even Gu Xi didn’t understand that tech, so where had Bunny gotten 01?

If he asked directly, would Bunny tell him?

For two whole days over the weekend, Rong Shi stayed in the lab making chips; even 01 couldn’t stand it.

[Master, you haven’t eaten all day, and slept less than three hours in the last two days. You’ll get dark circles.]

Rong Shi worked on without pause, replying casually, “My constitution’s good; I don’t get them.”

[…]

On Tuesday, the nanometal arrived. To avoid accidents, Rong Shi sent 01 out to pick it up personally.

01 transformed into a flower-shaped pot spinning in the air, gradually becoming invisible.

“I’ll make sure to bring little brother back safe and sound!”

Rong Shi: “…”

By Wednesday, they hadn’t properly talked for five days. Song Yu’s Bunny withdrawal symptoms worsened his temper.

Returning from dinner, walking through the little garden path, they were suddenly attacked.

Qin Luo turned and caught the assassin’s wrist, “So many people looking to die these days—”

Before finishing, his hand was empty.

Song Yu coldly grabbed the assassin’s neck, slammed him against the wall, and twisted hard.

The assassin didn’t even have time to scream before dying.

Song Yu wiped his hands and gritted his teeth, “Song Ke is itching to act like an idiot again.”

Qin Luo: “…”

The eldest prince is your punching bag, huh.

On Thursday, Song Yu invited Rong Shi to dinner — finally no refusal.

“What’ve you been busy with these days?” Song Yu pressed against his back, watching him add seasoning to the pot, “If you weren’t useless, I’d suspect you had another cat on the side.”

Rong Shi: “…”

After putting down the seasoning and covering the pot, he tilted his head at him, “I’m useless?”

Song Yu smiled, chin on his shoulder, raising an eyebrow, “Isn’t that so?”

Rong Shi lightly bit his lip, saying nothing, then continued cutting fruit.

Song Yu: “…”

What does that mean? Too lazy to argue?

After dinner, Song Yu and Qin Zhuo finished their call and came out of the room.

The living room was quiet. Song Yu was about to look for someone in the gym when his eyes caught a corner of the sofa.

Rong Shi was asleep there.

What had he been doing to be so tired?

Song Yu walked quietly over, scanning Rong Shi’s sleeping face.

They hadn’t hugged in days; now that he was close, he wanted to hold him tightly and not let go.

Song Yu fought the impulse and quietly watched for a moment.

He bent down and gently kissed Rong Shi’s lips.

Stealing kisses — so nice.

Afraid to wake Bunny, he didn’t linger, kissed once, then pulled back.

He tiptoed to adjust the thermostat in the living room, then grabbed a light blanket from the bedroom and covered Rong Shi.

Looking at his pale lips, Song Yu’s Adam’s apple moved.

One more kiss, then he wouldn’t disturb Bunny’s rest.

He carefully leaned over and kissed him again.

Only two words filled his mind — pure happiness.

He kissed slowly for several seconds before reluctantly pulling away.

Seeing there was still plenty of time, he went to the bedroom to work, waiting for Bunny to wake so they could relax and play.

The plan sounded great, but when he reached the bedroom door, his legs wouldn’t move.

Maybe one more kiss? Just the last one.

He quietly walked back twice as fast, hands pressing on either side of Rong Shi, pretty eyes shining with a smile.

The obedient Bunny lying still for a kiss was adorable.

“Good boy.” Song Yu chuckled softly and leaned closer.

But just before touching his lips, the scene suddenly blurred.

Before he could react, he was pinned to the sofa.

“Damn! You’re faking—”

Before finishing, he was silenced.

Rong Shi pinned the mischievous cat and kissed him back, patting his butt.

“Nobody told you that stealing kisses means you have to pay them back?”

Song Yu’s breath grew heavier, “When did you wake up?”

Rong Shi raised an eyebrow, “Closing my eyes doesn’t mean I’m asleep.”

Song Yu: “…”

“Here’s something for you.”

Rong Shi pulled him up and took a blue terminal decoration from his jacket pocket.

Song Yu was stunned, “This is—”

---

Author’s note:

Song Cat: Today’s happiness — stole a kiss from a fragrant Bunny.

Rong Bunny: Today’s happiness — waiting for the cat to come to the bowl himself.

#SongYuJustice, no mercy#