The eyeball on her wrist gave her a guilty glance, instantly jolting the drowsy Jiang Yue wide awake.
In her panic, Jiang Yue knocked over the stack of books on the desk. The pile of notes and textbooks, stacked like a small mountain, toppled over with a loud clatter like falling dominoes.
Xi Boyu lifted his head from behind the fallen books. “What’s wrong?”
Jiang Yue discreetly tugged her sleeve down to cover the eyeball, patted her chest, and said, “Nothing, just nodded off and dreamed that I failed the exam and had to retake it.”
Xiang Sui also poked his head out from the pile of books, frowning as he said, “Can you shut up already? Don’t mess with people’s nerves like that.”
Jiang Sen opened a new bottle of blastozyme perfume and sprayed it over his forehead with a psst, psst, psst.
Meanwhile, Jiang Yue gathered up her books and notes, her heart pounding rapidly.
She muttered softly, “I’m going to the restroom.”
Once inside a stall, Jiang Yue rolled up her sleeve, revealing the red eyeball on her wrist.
Pulling something like this right before exams, Jiang Yue was nearly in tears. She covered her face, took a deep breath, and forced herself to calm down before lowering her head to stare fixedly at the eyeball.
Meeting Jiang Yue’s gaze, the red eyeball suddenly looked guilty, its little glance darting around nervously.
Jiang Yue poked at it, trying to figure out how deeply it was embedded.
Unlike the one growing on Xiang Sui’s butt, the eyeball on Jiang Yue’s wrist was oddly seamless. When she touched it, there was no sense of protrusion at all, as if it had merged completely with her own flesh and blood.
Jiang Yue patted it twice and whispered threateningly, “Are you going to come out on your own, or do I have to dig you out myself?”
The eyeball trembled in fear, its pupil quaking. The silver spiral in its iris dispersed, turning into the familiar mosquito-coil pattern.
Truth be told, Jiang Yue wasn’t confident at all. She had no idea how this thing had moved from her stomach to her wrist, or whether it could even be removed anymore.
Uneasy as she was, she kept her expression dark and continued to intimidate it. “Well? Are you coming out or not?”
The eyeball’s mosquito-coil iris began spinning even faster. Jiang Yue’s voice dropped lower and lower, like the blare of a death knell, the whisper of a demon: “I’ll give you one last chance.”
Then, something unbelievable happened. Countless hair-thin red threads extended from the pores of Jiang Yue’s wrist, interwoven with a few white strands. The filaments twisted and gathered together, slowly condensing into a blood-red eyeball.
It looked just the same as before. The eyeball wriggled a little, then stretched out two white tendrils to wrap around Jiang Yue’s wrist, rubbing ingratiatingly against the base of her thumb.
This was absurd.
Jiang Yue started searching for the other eyeball, and finally, she found it—on her left ankle.
The moment it was discovered, the eyeball tensed up. Jiang Yue stared at it with dead-fish eyes, and the eyeball, showing an unsettling sense of self-awareness, instantly unraveled into countless thin threads and rolled out from under her skin.
It sprouted eight tendrils and, like a red spider, began crawling up Jiang Yue’s pant leg.
Jiang Yue’s skin crawled; goosebumps erupted all over her body, and she nearly peed herself from fright.
The little fairy was terrified of spiders! Somebody save her—ahhhh!
In terror, Jiang Yue grabbed the eight-legged eyeball and furiously smashed it into a little pancake.
The two eyeballs huddled together, trembling uncontrollably, and Jiang Yue was trembling too. Despair pretty much summed up everyone’s mood in that moment.
These things could contaminate the human brainwave spectrum, and Jiang Yue absolutely didn’t want to risk bringing harm to her roommates.
Should she report it to the base? Say that she’d been parasitized by the eyeballs too? That way, she could get rid of both of them once and for all.
Countless ideas flashed through Jiang Yue’s mind, but none of them seemed quite right.
First of all, her eyeballs were… special. Compared to everyone else’s, these two were clearly premium-grade specimens.
And last time, when she’d used one for an experiment, she’d accidentally killed a lot of mice. The woods behind the school had been littered with dead rodents, enough to draw the attention of the Omegas from the Rose District. But everyone just assumed some student had scattered rat poison there, hardly the first time such a thing had happened. The other animals in the grove were still perfectly fine, so the school never bothered to investigate.
But what if the people from the base connected the two incidents?
They’d definitely trace everything back to her, down to the color of underwear she wore each day.
Jiang Yue groaned and raked her fingers through her hair in frustration. Then, a thought struck her: even though the eyeballs had only just shown themselves, by her count, they’d already been living inside her for a month and a half, and none of her roommates had shown any signs of drowsiness.
Lu Xiu had once said that people parasitized by the eyeballs acted like radiation sources, but only those with brainwave frequencies similar to the host’s would become infected.
“So… what’s going on now?”
Jiang Yue muttered to herself, “So… am I infected or not? Or maybe my brainwave frequency’s just different from my roommates’, so that’s why nothing’s happened to them?”
She glanced down at her palm, both eyeballs were sitting there obediently, quiet and still.
Since she could take them out, it probably didn’t count as parasitism… which meant it wasn’t really an infection either.
Her body was unusually resilient, strong enough to swallow even the spiritual energy of a mutated species whole. Her brainwave frequency was likely far from normal.
In any case, the most important thing right now was the final exam. Even if she died, she had to pass first.
As for the two eyeballs…
Jiang Yue thought for a moment. Something this dangerous was safest kept on her own person.
She picked up the two eyeballs, rolled her sleeves up to her elbows, and pointed at the inside of her arm.
The eyeballs seemed to understand, dissolving into countless fine threads that seeped back into her skin.
Lowering her sleeves, Jiang Yue returned to the dorm room. Thankfully, it was cold this time of year and everyone’s pajamas had long sleeves, otherwise, things would’ve been a real hassle.
Jiang Yue walked down the hallway, which was packed with Alphas wearing anxious expressions. Dressed in their pajamas, they filled every inch of space, many clutching energy bars to gnaw on whenever hunger struck between study sessions.
She let out a weary sigh, flicking her high ponytail over her shoulder, then suddenly remembered she hadn’t washed her hair in four days.
Her long gray hair was already tangled into clumps. After a brief internal struggle, she decided to keep studying anyway.
Yawn after yawn escaped her. She was tired, exhausted, hungry—on the verge of tears—and all she wanted was to sleep.
In dorm room 2708, studying went on until 2 a.m., but Xiang Sui and Jiang Yue kept going until 3:30.
When Jiang Yue carried her washbasin out to freshen up, the hallway was still brightly lit. She spotted Zhou Xi, the class monitor from Class Three, a female Alpha chewing on an energy bar while flipping through slides, one eye open and the other half-closed.
Another Alpha was slumped against the wall, fast asleep.
At the military academy, exams lasted for two full weeks.
They had a total of eight subjects to take: Current Affairs and Policy, Federal History, Anatomy, Holographic Simulation, Strategic Analysis, Dynamic Vision Tracking, Load Capacity, and Physical Training.
The first day’s exams were Current Affairs and Policy and Anatomy, two absolutely brutal subjects.
Jiang Yue pulled an all-nighter. Her breakfast consisted of nothing more than a bottle of mineral water and a single explosive energy bar, and her steps were unsteady as she walked.
By 11:30 a.m., the Current Affairs and Policy exam was finally over. The Alphas didn’t even bother going back to their dorms, in a rush, they flooded the nearest cafeteria, collapsed into seats, and, while sipping nutrient solution, pulled anatomy notes out of their bags to keep studying.
Her roommates all looked utterly miserable.
Xiang Sui clutched his chest, face pale. “There’s a metallic taste in my mouth, like blood.”
Jiang Sen lay slumped over the table, weakly muttering, “Mine’s bitter. I think I’ve boiled up bile.”
Bai Wang’s eyes were unfocused as he fanned himself with his e-reader. “My chest feels tight, I can’t breathe.”
Kuri dabbed at his forehead with a napkin. “I keep breaking out in cold sweat. Am I done for?”
Xi Boyu silently sipped his nutrient drink. His complexion, already pale, had gone even whiter, and his usually fluffy, styled hair was now greasy and limp.
He hadn’t washed his hair in four days either.
Jiang Yue was too drained to speak. She collapsed onto the cafeteria table and slept for twenty minutes, and when her alarm went off, she gritted her teeth, pushed herself upright, and leaned on the table, weakly declaring, “Help your emperor up, I can still study!”
The Anatomy exam started at two in the afternoon and ended at five.
The group stumbled back to their dorm, dazed and exhausted. Jiang Yue climbed onto her bed and fell asleep the instant her head hit the pillow, only to jolt awake a moment later, remembering she hadn’t set an alarm. Summoning the last of her strength, she forced herself to do it before finally collapsing again.
Everyone managed to nap for two hours. When the alarm went off, Jiang Sen dragged himself up and sprayed blastozyme perfume all around the dorm.
The stuff really did help clear the mind, it finally brought everyone back to life a little.
Bai Wang groaned into his pillow. “Do we really have to push ourselves this hard? The next exam isn’t until the day after tomorrow!”
Xi Boyu yawned and asked, “Have you finished memorizing Federal History yet?”
Bai Wang opened his eyes and got out of bed. “Federal History is ridiculously long and boring. I can’t even make sense of my own home planet’s history, why do I have to learn about six others? I’m losing it, guys!”
Jiang Yue felt even worse. As a transmigrator, she actually had to study the histories of seven different planets. She yawned, eyes misty with exhaustion, and looked at Xi Boyu. “Did you print the Aquarius Star World History slides? I forgot to.”
Xi Boyu pulled out a thick stack of printed notes and handed them to her.
Xiang Sui was hunched over his desk flipping through a textbook, but when Jiang Yue glanced over again, he had already fallen asleep on it. With a sigh, she reached over and shook him awake.
On the third day, they took the Federal History exam. Fortunately, the teacher was somewhat considerate this time, the questions weren’t too difficult. The dorm mates managed to get five hours of sleep, and everyone felt that much-needed rest was an absolute luxury.
By the fifth day, it was time for Strategic Analysis, which meant another all-nighter. Even the most resilient person couldn’t survive consecutive sleepless nights. Jiang Yue went to the military academy’s infirmary to get an oxygen concentrator, studying while inhaling oxygen to keep herself alive.
At dawn, she stepped out to wash her face and refresh herself, only to see several tall, burly Alphas standing in the hallway, wiping tears from their eyes. Jiang Yue felt a surge of grief herself and sniffled painfully.
When she looked up while washing her face, her eyes were bloodshot all over.
Missing a month of classes was truly brutal.
After the Strategic Analysis exam, they finally had two days to rest. The dorm building was completely quiet; everyone was catching up on sleep.
When Xi Boyu walked into the room carrying steaming buns and soy milk, it felt like a whole new world.
For the past few days, they’d been surviving solely on nutrient drinks, and their mouths had gone completely bland.
Tears of happiness streamed down everyone’s faces.
On the eighth day, they had the Holographic Simulation exam. Everyone had to enter the holo-chambers and fight virtual opponents, with an AI scoring them based on their performance.
They emerged from the holo-chambers battered and bruised, then collapsed onto their beds, completely exhausted for the rest of the day.
The tenth day brought the Dynamic Vision Tracking and Neural Load Capacity exams. Both were mentally taxing, and after finishing, everyone rubbed their spinning heads in silence, too drained to speak.
After a day of recovery, on the twelfth day, the first-year students faced the Physical Training exam.
A 60-kilometer marathon, it only counted as passing if you reached the finish line within two hours. On Earth, any Alpha from a military academy could easily break the world record with this distance.
Because Alphas’ humps can store energy, every single energy bar in the nearby supermarket had been swept clean.
Since becoming an Alpha, Jiang Yue no longer hoarded supplies like before (mostly because she didn’t have the money). The rest of the dorm had forgotten about that, too. But at the critical moment, Xi Boyu pulled a large box out of the cabinet, inside were energy bars of every flavor imaginable.
Jiang Yue exclaimed sincerely, “This habit of yours is excellent, definitely keep it up. I know Omegas in the Rose District love to stockpile things; during every shopping festival, they buy a year’s supply of facial wipes, tissues, skincare products, everything. We Alphas rarely do this, most of us live pretty rough.”
The night before the marathon, everyone was frantically devouring energy bars to stock up on fuel.
Jiang Yue ate twelve bars that night, five more in the morning, and even stashed two in her pockets.
Her final time was 1 hour, 23 minutes, and 5 seconds, solidly above average. She could have run faster, of course, but there was no need; she had no intention of joining the military.
With exams finally over, the students were about to start winter break. After sharing the last meal of the semester together, everyone headed off to their own homes.
Jiang Yue had nowhere to go. Once her roommates left, the dorm was empty, and an overwhelming wave of loneliness swept over her.
In that mood, she gloomily packed her things, wandering dejectedly around each of her roommates’ desks before finally booking a short-term apartment near the military academy.
Luckily, the 500,000-credit compensation from the base covered her expenses. The short-term apartment cost 5,000 credits a month, so two months would only be 10,000.
With almost nothing to her name, Jiang Yue packed all her belongings into a single backpack. Carrying her two eyeballs on her arms, she stepped out of the mechanical gates of the Federal Military Academy.
And just like that, the first semester of her freshman year came to an end.
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Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152