Li Yaqi gave a helpless smile, and came forward to comfort her brother's wife.
Madam Miao held Li Yaqi in great respect.
For Li Yaqi and one other were now spoken of together as the Owl Dragon's two golden flowers!
Not that the two of them were the most beautiful.
But that the two of them were the best money-makers within the Owl Dragon.
They were Li Yaqi, at the head of the Northern Goose Group, and Red Rose, at the head of the Rose-Red Dragon Group.
"Sister. In two months more I shall be delivered, and then you will be an aunt." Madam Miao paid Li Wei no more heed, but stroked her swelling belly with tenderness.
Li Yaqi too looked at Madam Miao's belly; that was the posterity of the Li house.
"I shall come and keep you company when the time comes."
Madam Miao was overwhelmed by the favor: "Sister, there is no need. Li Wei's company is enough."
"That will not do; you are the great treasure of our Li house now." Li Yaqi took her brother's wife by the hand and said it.
At this Li Yaqi heard a stir next door: a company passing cups back and forth in high merriment.
"Who is over there?" Li Yaqi could see no one, but she could hear a familiar voice.
Li Wei took a look and said: "Who else? It is Father. Those people cannot get at us, so naturally they go to our father to draw a connection."
As the saying goes: when one man attains the Way, his very fowls and dogs ascend to heaven.
Now this brother and sister of the Li house were trusted favorites before the Owl Dragon Legion's Commander.
So the Li house too had become one of the great families.
It might even be said that, apart from the imperial house, the Li house and the Chu house were spoken of together as the Starlight Empire's two great families.
"Give Father a word of warning. Drinking is no matter. But let him not talk of anything else," Li Yaqi cautioned.
"I have said as much to Father. And he holds no real power in his hands, so set your mind at rest. When people grow old they are all fond of face. Let him earn a little face; it makes the old man happy," Li Wei said with a laugh.
Li Yaqi said no more.
"Sister, come to that. Father spoke of it to us before: that Li Wei is married now and has children, so he frets over him no longer. But you… have always been alone…" Madam Miao looked at Li Wei with some hesitation.
"It was my father who told you to say it." Li Yaqi had no need to guess whose words those were.
Madam Miao said no more.
Li Yaqi held her wine cup, drank a mouthful, looked out beyond the floor-length window, and said nothing further.
Li Wei drew his wife aside and said in a low voice: "How many times have I told you not to raise this before my sister."
"But… it was your father who told me to say it…" his wife said, aggrieved: "And your sister has a great many suitors now, how is it that not one of them catches her eye?"
Li Wei looked at his sister's solitary back before the floor-length window.
He sighed long: "Who told my sister to meet a man without peer in the world, as I am? One can only say: one meeting, and a life undone."
"You mean… that one…" His wife thought of a certain rumor; if it were truly that man.
Then it could indeed be understood.
For where within this universe could one find a man more excellent than he?
And at this moment a figure of fiery allure came over.
And nodded slightly to Li Wei.
Li Wei raised his cup in return.
Then that fair figure carried her cup to Li Yaqi's side.
"Isn't it lonely, drinking by yourself?" Red Rose looked at Li Yaqi.
Li Yaqi glanced at this rival of hers.
"Aren't you alone yourself?"
"What, still thinking of him? I hear that one of your suitors covered the face of a whole planet with roses, only to win a beauty's smile?" Red Rose looked at Li Yaqi in banter.
"Dull," Li Yaqi remarked coldly.
"And if that man had done it, would it still be dull?" Red Rose said lightly.
Li Yaqi said nothing.
"I hate nothing so much as people like you, who bottle their words up. He is excellent indeed, the sort that a woman, once she has seen him, can hardly come to love another all her life. I am the same as you; I daresay I shall never look at another man as long as I live. But…" Red Rose drained the wine in her hand at a draught, and said with the firmest resolve in her eyes: "I want no standing. But I must have posterity by him; the Rose-Red Dragon Group that I founded must have someone to inherit it. If it cannot be done openly, then it shall be done in secret. I do not believe that I cannot get him into bed!"
"You… you…" Li Yaqi looked at Red Rose in astonishment; she had not thought she would dare say such a thing.
"I do not mean to leave myself with regrets." Red Rose lifted her head.
The Bauhinia Space City · the topmost ceremonial viewing platform
"You two have come so early?" Blanche came out and looked in astonishment at those already seated upon the two half-moon sofas beside hers.
The two of them raised their cups in sign of greeting.
Qin Xiaolei, Empress of the Starlight Empire.
Saint Cana, Empress of the Holy Radiance Empire.
And she herself, Blanche, now Consul of the Warhammer Interstellar Federal Kingdom.
In name the Warhammer's highest leader was in fact Charlotte.
But Charlotte could not free herself at all to manage the Warhammer's affairs, so naturally these fell upon Blanche, this dragon-kin princess.
And she had indeed both the ability and the standing to manage them.
Coming before Saint Cana, Blanche paused.
And looked at Saint Cana in curiosity: "Empress Saint Cana, I had not thought that you too would consent to this business. That the Starlight Empire would consent I had guessed. But you… don't you have your faith? To consent to such a thing at such a time, does that count as forsaking that… what is it… Holy Light of yours?"
Saint Cana looked calmly at Blanche: "The Holy Light has always been within our hearts. As for this business, it was the united choice of the Holy Radiance Empire's upper ranks."
"It seems faith knows the times well enough," Blanche said in banter.
There was an air of needle meeting point.
Back in the days of the Galactic Alliance, among the three great empires the Warhammer and the Holy Radiance had never got on.
The Holy Radiance looked down upon the Warhammer, and the Warhammer held the Holy Radiance to be hypocrites.
In a private room next door.
"Well! So you have come too, you old thing!"
"What, you may come and I may not? Reckoning it up, that lord graduated from our academy."
"Enough, do not bring that up again. You advertise it across the whole universe now, as though you feared that anyone might not know Zhao Chen graduated from your Northstar Starship Military Academy. And your Northstar has become the greatest interstellar academy in all the Starlight. That is a harvest of a kind." Marshal Chu Changhe scratched his ear.
Dean Qin looked at Marshal Chu Changhe in his impatience, laughed, and teased him on purpose: "Come to that, how is it that your granddaughter's business is still not settled? Didn't you boast before to us old fellows that we should soon be drinking at the wedding? I have waited until the flowers have withered, and not only is there no wedding wine; I have not so much as seen a wedding sweet."
Hearing this, Marshal Chu Changhe's face fell a mile, and he poured himself a mouthful of wine.
Whose fault was it, if his own granddaughter would not do him credit!