"Waah waah waah waah."
Hearing the crying of the child in his arms,
Zhao Chen's face held nothing but a look of foolish delight.
"So… a newborn child is this small."
"Your Majesty… a newborn child is frail. Let's put her in the incubator first," a medical attendant beside him suggested.
"Mm… all right." Zhao Chen handed the baby carefully to the medical attendant.
Then at once he looked at Lilith, her cheeks all beads of sweat.
"Lilith." Zhao Chen took Lilith's hand.
"We… have a child." Lilith looked at Zhao Chen, her eyes full of love.
"Yes, our child. You've been through so much." Zhao Chen looked at Lilith with tender pity.
Lilith laughed lightly and looked at Charlotte by the bed. "What I went through is nothing. When Big Sister Charlotte gave birth, she fainted outright. This counts as easy. A little rest and I can go back to work tomorrow."
"You've both been through so much, both of you." Zhao Chen said it over and over, holding the two women's hands.
His heart was warm as a little sun.
At such a time, Zhao Chen could feel clearly what it was he was guarding.
It was nothing complicated; just this simple:
just this small love.
"Have you thought what to name Lilith's child?" Charlotte said beside them.
Zhao Chen said at once, "It's a girl; she'll be called Zhao Liler."
"Liler… Liler……" Lilith said her daughter's name over, and her face was full of a happy smile.
"Lilith, you need rest now too; rest properly. Don't think about work; if anything comes up, we'll see to it for you." Charlotte tucked the covers over Lilith.
"You're tired; get a good sleep first." Zhao Chen kissed Lilith's forehead.
At this point weariness swept over Lilith too; she closed her eyes and fell deeply asleep.
Zhao Chen and Charlotte exchanged a look, and did not stay to disturb Lilith.
When they had given the medical attendants a few instructions, Zhao Chen and Charlotte left the room.
Outside the room,
through the transparent floor-to-ceiling windows, Zhao Chen could see his two treasures, one large and one small, each in a room of her own, side by side.
Then he took Charlotte's hand and looked at her guiltily. "Charlotte, I'm sorry."
"Why say this all of a sudden?" Charlotte looked at Zhao Chen, puzzled.
Zhao Chen said guiltily, "When you gave birth, at such an important moment, I wasn't even by your side. It's a debt I owe you. I can never repay it in this life… I'm sorry……"
Zhao Chen wanted to say more, but Charlotte's finger pressed against his lips.
Charlotte looked at Zhao Chen with a smile, and said, "Never say sorry to me. In this life you may do wrong by others. But you will never do wrong by me.[1] When you bought me back then, I owed you for my whole life. If it weren't for you, I could never have imagined having the life and fortune I have now. Or my family's situation now. All this I could never have imagined. It was like something that happens only in dreams. But now, with your help, all of it has come true. So never say sorry to me."
Looking into Charlotte's sincere eyes, hearing these words of Charlotte's,
Zhao Chen could not hide the happiness in his heart.
He could not help stepping forward, and took Charlotte straight into his arms and sealed her mouth with his.
Charlotte did not struggle either.
Only when the footsteps of a medical attendant came near did the two part, loath to let go.
Charlotte saw the 'thread' between the two of them, and a faint flush appeared on her cheeks.
"With the two of you, this life is enough." Zhao Chen looked at Charlotte, happy.
Charlotte blinked, looked at Zhao Chen, and said in a small voice, "Won't you really think about Chu Xuan?"
In that moment Zhao Chen all but choked on his own spit.
"Why are you saying that at a time like this?"
Charlotte shrugged. "Isn't it the most natural thing? In our White Tiger tribe, to make their own clan stronger, the strong have as many offspring as they can. Like my father and grandfather. Only so can someone with enough ability to inherit the family be raised out of the many offspring. And my father meant to hand the White Tiger tribe to me to begin with. But how could I go back now? After that he wanted to hand it to my half-sister Midai. She's joined the Owl Dragon Legion now, and is even less willing to go back. My father's looking for an heir now so he can retire early; he's staring his eyes out waiting."
Hearing Charlotte speak of this, Zhao Chen could not help laughing.
He could already picture the old White Tiger chief's knitted brows.
It set Zhao Chen thinking, too:
he had better get a move on over this matter of retiring.
In future this whole big mess… this vast Empire, would have to be tossed to someone.
And that kind of thing had to be started from the cradle.
Zhao Chen looked at the baby behind the glass window, and thought of Charlotte's two children as well,
and the corners of Zhao Chen's mouth could not help lifting.
"Hey, I'm asking you something." Charlotte pressed Zhao Chen's cheeks in both hands and turned his face to hers. "If you have no objection, I'll go and raise it with little sister Chu Xuan right now."
"Cough cough cough……" This time Zhao Chen truly did choke on his own spit. "You'd go and tell Chu Xuan?"
"Yes. It's quite normal in our White Tiger tribe too. Several of my aunties were even found for my father by my mother. Because if you find them yourself, you can trust them. It saves my father bringing back unsuitable ones from outside." Charlotte said it quite seriously. "I know Chu Xuan very well. I've been with her a lot this while. Actually there are many good ones in our legions. Shen Bing, for one; she's very clever! She was top of the class at the Northstar Starship Military Academy; her children would surely be very clever. Medusa is snake-folk, but that would add genetic variety; who knows, she might have some very formidable children. Chitong would do too; she's of the Demon Race. The Demon Race makes up a big share of our Owl Dragon Empire now; if you had a connection with Chitong, the demons who are each of them afraid you'll settle accounts with them could rest easy too. Su Lan is a bit quiet, but she's very quick-witted, and when she commands interstellar fighters and interstellar drone swarms, she's something else. When she and I have simulated air battles, I lose ten times out of ten. Baixue… she… apart from her loud voice she doesn't seem to have much to her, but she has wide hips, and wide hips mean lots of children! I hear the wolf clan can have five or six at a time! Xue Xiaoxiao……"
"Stop, stop, stop!" At once Zhao Chen put his hand over Charlotte's mouth.
If she went on counting them off like this, there would be no stopping her.
She had even got as far as Xue Xiaoxiao.
At the thought of how madly infatuated that lass was with big ships and big guns, Zhao Chen felt his scalp prickle.
"Leave these things to me." Zhao Chen made Charlotte calm down.
Charlotte pouted and looked Zhao Chen up and down. "Leave it to you, and who knows till what year of the monkey and month of the horse our royal house will have to wait to branch out? You're nearly thirty now. And only three children. Do you know how many my father had by thirty? Enough to crew a T2 warship at full complement!"
"Slowly, now; this… feelings have to be grown, don't they?" Zhao Chen had never thought he would be pressed to marry, and by his own wife of all people.
"Lilith says this kind of thing can't wait. Neither Lilith nor I can have another child any time soon, and you're nearly thirty now. And with the Empire's future stability in mind, the family must branch out. If they aren't to your liking, we can think about others. But not just anyone will do." Charlotte rubbed her chin with a thoughtful look. "They must have standing enough. Qin Xiaolei of the Starlight Kingdom? Or Saint Cana of the Holy Radiance Kingdom. Or else that Holy Angel Queen of the Angel Race. Those royal sisters of the Warhammer Interstellar Federal Kingdom would do too, dragon blood! Or that sister of mine, Midai……"
Zhao Chen put his hand over Charlotte's mouth again to stop her going on.
"Please, please. Let me handle this myself, won't you? I'm not a stud horse," Zhao Chen said with a wry smile. "Give me some time, just a little time!"
"Then here's what. I won't rush you. I'll give you half a year: bring one of those I just named to me!" Charlotte put her hands on her hips and pointed at Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen did not know whether to laugh or cry.
How did this scene feel so very strange?
"Let's go and get something to eat first. Once Lilith wakes up, we'll stay with her and the baby a while. After that I'll have to go back to the Imperial Military Industry Research Academy. There's a lot there waiting for me to deal with." Zhao Chen drew Charlotte off toward the dining hall.
"Oh, right! That lass Annie……" Zhao Chen put his hand over Charlotte's mouth once more; he wondered whether Lilith's giving birth this time had flipped some strange switch in Charlotte.
She had actually taken an interest in his affairs.
And now she had even kicked Annie into it!
Though so many years had passed, and Annie was long since grown up,
still… Zhao Chen had watched her grow up with his own eyes, and he could not get past that in his heart.
He only hoped this was a passing notion of Charlotte's, and that in a while she would forget it.
Otherwise, Zhao Chen truly could not take it.
……
After keeping Lilith and the baby company,
Zhao Chen hurried back to the Imperial Military Industry Research Academy.
In truth Zhao Chen would have liked to stay with them a while longer.
But it was no use: Lilith and Charlotte, talking on, had come round again to the matter of branching Zhao Chen's line out.
Zhao Chen could only flee back as though from disaster.
Zhao Chen walked into the office,
and gave a start to Annie, who was sitting in Zhao Chen's office chair with her legs crossed, eating from a tub of ice cream.
"This… this… this is my first tub today!" Annie explained at once, but her eyes plainly had something of a guilty conscience in them.
But Zhao Chen's thoughts now, the moment he saw Annie, went back to what Charlotte had said to him.
He had no mind at all to pursue this matter with Annie.
"Why are you sitting in my seat?" Zhao Chen looked at Annie.
"Heh heh heh, your chair's comfortable," Annie said with an awkward laugh.
"Comfortable to sit in?" Zhao Chen narrowed his eyes at Annie.
Annie caught on at once and jumped down from the chair right away,
and even brushed the chair off with her own hand. "Please, have a seat, have a seat."
After that, Annie, holding her tub of ice cream, ran off at once toward her own side of the office.
"Wait."
But at this point Zhao Chen suddenly called Annie back.
Annie stopped, and looked at Zhao Chen warily.
"How are those few project plans getting on?" Zhao Chen asked.
Hearing what Zhao Chen was asking about, Annie let out a breath of relief.
Luckily Zhao Chen was not going to take her up on sitting in his chair; sitting in his chair gave her the feeling of being the big boss herself.
The chairs were all the same, but Zhao Chen's chair was just more comfortable to sit in.
So Annie often took the chance, when Zhao Chen was away, to sit in his chair eating every kind of snack and treat.
"Those few project plans have made a little progress. But not much. For those project plans also need T7-grade raw materials and energy to go with them. Otherwise, raising these technologies to T7 grade on existing materials and energy alone is a very hard thing. It's like filling a cup of water to the brim without letting it spill over; there'll always be a limit. The best way is to make the cup that holds the water bigger and stronger!" When Annie spoke of work, she was still exact about it.
Zhao Chen nodded, signing that Annie could go back.
Such a result was just as Zhao Chen had expected.
Without the two keys of new materials and new energy, for the Owl Dragon to step into T7 technological civilization was truly very hard.
Even if there were a chance, it would likely mean waiting thousands of years, even tens of thousands.
Beep beep beep beep
Just then Zhao Chen's handheld terminal sounded.
Zhao Chen opened it and found that the caller was the genius girl Camille, of all people!
Zhao Chen's heart jumped: could that plan have made progress?
Without a second word Zhao Chen rose, and hurrying toward that office, opened the communication channel.
Camille's figure appeared on the other side.
The expression on her face was very excited.
"What's happened?" Zhao Chen asked at once.
The scientist Camille swallowed and said excitedly, "Just now we got the first prototype built from the blueprints you designed, and gave it a trial run. We didn't hold out much hope. But we never thought that this prototype, though it ran for only ten seconds, in those ten seconds scanned out a map of the cosmos, including the cosmic space around us. And in it there was even a faint signal that seems to be another cosmic space!"
Hearing Camille's words,
Zhao Chen stopped short, his face full of joy past belief.
Then he suddenly quickened his pace.
"Can the first prototype still run?" Zhao Chen asked.
"The first prototype is already ruined; it was designed to run for only ten seconds," the scientist Camille said helplessly.
"Then at least it shows our direction is right. I'm coming straight back; we'll start developing the second machine at once!" Zhao Chen said, unable to wait!