System, are you messing with me? - Chapter 23: Chapter 23

After that first encounter between the Protagonist and the Male Lead, Shu Ning wasn't in the least surprised of how fast those two actually got closer. It was like there was a strong magnet involved, pulling them towards each other. Or a red string of fate, if you considered their role in this world.
And so, three month later, Wu Kang was practically wrapped around the female's little finger. Initially, he only appreciated his friend's strength and kind personality but then he found out about her real gender and their relationship almost immediately changed to that of a queen and her loyal pawn.
Shu Ning though couldn't care less about the fast development of their 'friendship' and wouldn't even bother interacting  with those fools if it weren't for Alpha reminding him about his missions all the time.
So, after listening to another one of the Systems complains about the leads, he finally set down the sword, he had been training with all this time and made his way to the Protagonist's quarters.
The room of Zhou Feng was one of the few single rooms that the Military allotted for special and high ranking soldiers. In the female's case, the room was gifted to her as a thank you for the amazing feat of saving her fellow comrade in arms in a desperat situation. If it really happened that way was doubtful though. But no one was bothered enough to further investigate the case.
The halls were deathly silent as Shu Ning made his way deeper into the heart of the military base and up the stairs to the more luxurious chambers. The Protagonist's room was luckily the first one  Shu Ning came across when he reached the top of the third floor and so he wouldn't need to worry about bothering any of the real big shots of the military.
"Yang Quan. What a surprise. What are you doing here?"
The Protagonist gnashed her teeth in irritation at being interrupted in whatever she was doing and for a moment Shu Ning worried that the Female would slam the door right into his face. That didn't happen though and instead Zhou Feng schooled her expression again and made way for him to enter.
"Thank you. It won't take long. I swear."
Shu Ning carefully stepped over the piles of clothes littering the floor to make his way to the small sofa standing at the foot of a medium sized bed, also accomodating different kinds of shirts and pants. Not all of them were the typical army uniforms, a lot of frilly dresses or shirts with deep necklines were lying in the piles.
"Zhou Feng. Or Zhou An, if you don't even know your own name anymore. You need to finally make a decision. I don't care about your real gender. I just care that you are lying to everyone in this base."
Zhou Feng stood right in front of Shu Ning with her arms crossed over her chest and a straight back as if to appear bigger and threatening.
"Yang Quan. What do you mean with this?"
"Isn't it obvious? You need to tell them about your real gender. You are a soldier and so you need to act like one. Be honest, moralic and courageous. Isn't that what they taught in the academy?"
"You stupid...."
A small beat of silence passt between them as the female tried to get her act back together again as her facial expression slipped into an ugly twist.
"So that's why you came here? To make me drop out or what? Do you feel threatened by my presence here?"
Shu Ning sight at her stupidity but didn't press it anymore and just stood back up again.
"Al right. But remember this. If you don't do it, then I will. And neither you, nor your so called 'friend' can stop me from doing so. Bye bye."
Alpha: "And what was the use of that now? She didn't agree."
Shu Ning: "I didn't expect her to. I was just staying in my role. You'll see."
After exiting Zhou Feng's room, Shu Ning immediately made his way back to the training grounds that he left his sword at an hour ago to pay a visit to the Protagonist.
The soldiers of the third army were present on the training grounds as well and were already swinging their swords or were engaged in fistfights. So Shu Ning just took up his own weapon from the rack again and took his position at the corner of the training ground to practice in peace.
But that peace only lasted for about three hours before the Protagonist and Wu Kang decided to march up on the wide field and disturb it.
"You asshole. How are you so arrogant? Who are you to decide what someone else has to do."
Wu Kang angrily grasped the collar of Shu Ning's uniform and shook him thoroughly while he spat some curses at him.
"What? Don't have anything to say anymore?"
"Wu Kang, was it? Who are you supposed to be? Her lapdog?"
The grasp at his collar tightened again and the male lead pulled him forward to have him right in hitting line. But Shu Ning was a soldier as well and so it took only one well placed hit from his own hands at the others elbows to dislodge his hold on him.
Wu Kang reacted fast and turned his upper body slightly to dodge an approaching kick and then swung his fist upwards to Shu Ning's jaw that was  quickly parried and contered with the swing of an elbow.
"What is going on here?"
Suddenly a dark and booming voice startled the fighters out of their concentration and made them stumble on their next moves. Wu Kang just caught himself in time before his raised arms would hit Zhou Feng behind him in the face, but Shu Ning couldn't say the same about him.
With a small grunt of surprise, Shu Ning stretched his hands out in front of him to catch his fall from the ground but the expected impact didn't happen and instead a familiar broad chest appeared in his vision.
Sun Zhilong hastily wound his arms around the waist of the thinner Yang Quan and worriedly looked at the clear blue eyes staring up at him.
"You all right?"
"I'm not frail. Not even your stone hard muscles can hurt me."
Shu Ning raised his hand to the chest of the general and carefully pushed him away. A strange but familiar feeling spread in his core as he gazed at the man's dark eyes. It took some distance and a bit of thinking before he could remember where this deja vu feeling was coming from.
Sheng Su. His lover from his first world always liked to watch him with such a deep and heated stare, just like Sun Zhilong had been doing just now. But that was impossible.
Shu Ning scowled in frustration from his conflicting thoughts and didn't even notice when the Protagonist and the Male Lead hurriedly made their escape after receiving another hateful stare from the General.
The sharp point of a sword suddenly appeared in front of his face and he automaticaly stopped his brain from thinking to dodge the quick swings of the weapon.
"Pick up your sword. It's time for a spar."
Shu Ning side stepped to the right just in time to see the silver metal miss his face and lunged for his own sword to parry the next hit.
"Give me a warning next time. You could have killed me."
"I couldn't. You are better then that."
A bright grin spread across of Shu Ning's face at the blatant trust the other had in his abilities. That was not a big surprise as the two of them had gotten well acquaintance with the others fighting skills over the past two month but it still made him proud to hear that.
In the time the third army had already been back to the military base it wasn't just Shu Ning visiting the training field to hone his skills but the General did so regularly too. And strangely enough to the same time Shu Ning did. Even going so far as to secretly stand in the shadows of the few trees growing on the ground and watching him train alone. It took a whole month for Shu Ning to finally snap at the strange behavior of the Man and rope him in to a spar with him. Since then they had been meeting daily to do exactly that.
"Who were those two people just now?"
Shu Ning needed a few moments to understand what the General meant but when he did, a new wave of irritation settled inside of him and he swung his sword with a bit more force than before.
"Zheng An and his concubine Wu Kang."
"Concubine?"
"Yes. It is fitting. Have you seen how that guy always follows Zhou An around and looks at him with such disgusting puppy dog eyes?"
"You seem to hate them very much."
At that statement Shu Ning shortly halted his attacks and studied the others calm demenor. Another sense of deja vu passed through his core when he locked eyes with the Man's contemplating stare and in that instance the familiar body of Sheng Su overlapped with that of Sun Zhilong.
"Yes , I hate them. Especially Zhou An, because he is not the innocent and moral soldier he pretends to be."
"How so?"
"Zhou An.... Or no. Her real name is Zhou Feng. She is a woman with such a pitch black heart that she even killed her own brother and took over his identity to enter the military. And that's not all. Didn't you ever ask yourself why I so suddenly appeared in the middle of the battlefield on Samadon with the blue moon in hands?"
Sun Zhilong's furrowed eyebrows and tight lines of his lips practically already answered Shu Ning's question before the Man even needed to open his mouth.
"It did seem strange but I do trust you. I knew you had some reason to leave your comrades behind and I didn't want to pry."
"Rather, not dared to pry. That woman was trained to be a soldier and I should have known that her pretended cowardice was an act but at that time I didn't. So I fell right into her scheme and promised her to bring her away from this fight. We planned to leave you all behind and steal one of the spaceships but I couldn't. I just couldn't leave like that. I was momentarily blinded by the sweet nothings that woman whispered into my ear and woke up from my dreams again before I could really do something so stupid. I am so so sorry that I even considered doing something so cruel."
The black figure in Shu Ning's sight turned blurry as more and more tears escaped his eyes and even a few shaky breaths were drawn into his body to regain control over his emotions again. The sword was long dropped to his side as his hands shakily lost it's grip on the metal.
"I wish I never actually listened to her words. I am a soldier but I still almost lost the heart of one. She used me. She uses everyone in her sight and I bet at this moment, she is even already planning my death."
Sun Zhilong's hands tightened itself around the sword still gripped in his hands and a fierce storm of emotions spread inside of his heart. There was hate because that atrocious couple actually dared to cause so much trouble under his watch, even going so far as to attack a team member, displeasure because he couldn't continue the spar with the youth and instead had to listen to the other talk about others and even jealousy that he couldn't quite understand yet.
"Rest assured, those two won't be allowed to hurt anyone in my team, that of course includes you as well. I will handle that girl appropriately as well. She won't get away lightly by causing so much trouble for you and the military."
Shu Ning raised his trembling hand and wiped away the rest of his tears. An amused smile appeared on his face and he even almost started laughing out loud when he saw the strange mix of seriousness and haughtiness in his expression.
"Please don't, General. Can I ask you to leave them alone for now? We don't have any evidence about any of Zhou Feng's wrong doings and even then, the girl is too good at manipulation. She will definitely find a way out of such a situation easily. No, we need to corner her. Give her no way out. I will handle it. Those two belong to me."
A cruel light passed through Shu Ning's eyes and a full fledged and murderous grin spread on his face. For a moment he truly forgot himself inside of his many fantasies of torture methods he wanted to try out on the Female Lead, so that the wicket part of his nature openly showed itself.
But it seemed that the General didn't even care about the intense killing intent of the other and instead even showed a slight softer expression while Shu Ning was too busy to notice it.