"To make you come running over here, busy as you are. Thank you for the trouble." Zhao Chen looked at Li Yaqi, Li Wei and the others.
Li Yaqi said with a smile, "Your Majesty jests. What trouble is there in this? Doing business, we do have all sorts of things on our plates as a rule. But for an occasion as important as this, of course we must be here. On occasions like this, some partnerships actually get settled very smoothly."
As she spoke, Li Yaqi's gaze could not help lingering on Zhao Chen a little longer.
Li Wei saw through his sister's thoughts; his sister had found no one all these years, and could he fail to know what was on her mind?
Were it anyone else, Li Wei might simply have tied the man up and delivered him to his sister's bed.
But as luck would have it, the one his sister fancied was this personage.
Was this one to be tied up?
Tie him up, and tomorrow the whole Empire would be turned upside down.
"How's business going now?" Zhao Chen asked with concern.
Li Yaqi began to tell Zhao Chen, item by item, how interstellar trade was going now.
At present the North-Dragon Interstellar Trade Group Li Yaqi headed was one of the leading houses of interstellar trade within the Owl Dragon Empire,
holding at least 20% of the market!
The North-Dragon Interstellar Trade Group did not deal only in arms; it had now turned chiefly to the Owl Dragon Empire's growth, such as light industry, interstellar transport, the grain trade and so on,
taking in every side of the Owl Dragon Empire.
Put in any other interstellar kingdom, a house so large and so rich would surely have drawn the covetous eyes of those above.
But with Zhao Chen there was no such trouble.
For the great boss behind the North-Dragon Interstellar Trade Group was Zhao Chen.
The largest share of it was now held by the Zhao royal house.
And the Li family behind Li Yaqi was only a great commercial family raised up by the Zhao royal house,
which now bore the title of the Owl Dragon Empire's foremost interstellar commercial family.
But Li Yaqi knew very well that within the Owl Dragon Empire any great family stood or fell by one word from Zhao Chen.
So long as this personage wished it, a word from him could make yesterday's quite ordinary little family a giant family at a bound,
and yesterday's most glorious family might collapse within a day.
But Li Yaqi had never once worried about such things.
For in her eyes, the money she made had long since become a string of numbers; to call her the richest woman in the Owl Dragon Empire would be no stretch.
She only wished, in the field she was good at, to give her own share of strength quietly to the man she had looked up to all along.
Perhaps only when he no longer needed her would she give it up.
At least now he still needed her strength.
The thought of it warmed Li Yaqi's heart.
She reported the past year's work with great relish too, like a child reporting her marks to her parents,
waiting to be praised.
Beep beep beep beep
Just then, in a department on the quiet bridge, the equipment before one crew member flashed red.
At once that crew member's face showed some tension and alarm.
Interrupted by the sound, Li Yaqi frowned, somewhat angry, and said coldly, "What is it?"
At once the crew member pressed the button, and seemed to hear some news.
She turned her head at once and reported, "Word from Hold No. 4. When the Empire's patrol personnel boarded for inspection, they found three hundred-odd stowaways in Hold No. 4."
At once Li Yaqi frowned, and shot an angry glare at Li Wei beside her, who had already lowered his head.
Li Wei knew there was no dodging it, and said at once, "Sister! I truly knew nothing about this; I'm not short of that little bit of money. There's no reason at all for me to be in the stowaway business. I promise. I'll go and look into it now, and find out who put these stowaways on my starship."
Li Yaqi glared at her brother. "I'll give you ten minutes; if you can't find out……"
She had meant to say something severe about punishment.
But glancing at the child in Madam Miao's arms beside her, her face softened, and she only added, "Then you can see for yourself what comes of it!"
"Five minutes, five minutes! Within that I'll find out which reckless fellow dared do this right under my nose." Li Wei ran off in a hurry toward the bridge doors.
A thing like this:
if it were only one or two people, it might be the doing of those one or two alone, who had crept aboard the starship quietly by who knew what means.
But fully three hundred-odd people was certainly an organized thing,
and done by someone inside this starship besides, likely meaning to make a sum of money, and thinking that since this starship was the great personage Li Wei's own ship, the Owl Dragon System's inspectors would not check it too closely.
So they had taken the risk.
But they had not thought they would be found all the same.
"Your Majesty, forgive this spectacle." Li Yaqi looked at Zhao Chen apologetically.
"Stowaways are indeed very common in the Owl Dragon System these days. The main reason those people come all the way to our Owl Dragon System is really ourselves. It shows that there are still many places in the Owl Dragon Empire that haven't developed well. It forces these people to leave home and become stowaways, trying every way to reach the heaven they think can change their fate. If their homes could give them a good life too, they wouldn't do such things. And Li Wei has no reason to do this either; he really must not have known," Zhao Chen said in a deep voice.
As for the spread of stowaways,
Jiang Hong had reported it this while, and Lilith had mentioned it too.
It showed the uneven growth of rich and poor within the Owl Dragon Empire.
Zhao Chen had even looked into it himself.
The order he gave was this: the stowaways themselves, so long as they broke no other law, were all to be sent back to their own systems, and the local authorities must properly arrange their lives and work.
What was to be struck hard were the organizers who made things easy for these stowaways; these people would not rise early without a profit.
Naturally they did not deliver these stowaways into the Owl Dragon System for nothing; there were big fees in it for them.
And along the way, bad things were bound to happen.
There had been one case before, where more than a thousand stowaways were all put into the compartments of a T1-grade warship.
For mind, the most that T1 warship had been meant to carry was no more than three hundred people.
They had crammed in three times the people by force.
That meant enormous strain on the starship's own life-support system.
In the end tragedy struck too:
when that T1 stowaway warship was found, everyone in its compartments was found dead, of lack of oxygen and the like.
And the people who had organized the smuggling, Jiang Hong sentenced to death outright.
That had eased the stowaway situation for a time.
But such a thing was bound never to be stamped out.
For greater difficulty meant a higher fee the stowaways had to pay.
And the higher the fee, the more there were, naturally, whose eyes lit up at the money and who would take the risk.
And among them there were also some lucky ones who got past the Owl Dragon System's layers of blockade and landed on out-of-the-way planets in the Owl Dragon System.
But these people had no identity at all; once found, they too would all be sent back.
"I know Li Wei didn't know about this. But it's his starship. He ought to manage it properly, naturally. Any problem that turns up on this starship is his responsibility. This is your Empire, so there's no trouble. What if it happened on someone else's ground? If they found some contraband? Would those people talk nicely?" Li Yaqi said gravely.
As an interstellar trader, she knew very well that for a long-haul interstellar trading voyage it was a great matter:
checking every section and compartment of one's own starship to make sure no 'dangerous goods' sailed along with you.
That was the most basic of principles.
What made Li Yaqi angry was that Li Wei had forgotten this most basic element of his own work.
Seeing it, Zhao Chen could not very well say any more.
"Your Majesty, you came aboard in person just to see us old friends?" Li Yaqi looked at Zhao Chen curiously.
Madam Miao, beside her, looked at His Majesty the Emperor puzzled as well; the child in her arms blinked her big, bright eyes at Zhao Chen, as though very curious about this handsome big brother.
"There are some other small matters. But most of all, to see you old friends. We could meet at the New Year's banquet later, yes. But those are public occasions after all, too stiff; not right for old friends meeting. I like it more like this." Zhao Chen spread his hands with a smile.
Since the time he had been trapped in the Star Alliance universe, and since he had learned that the memories of a former life in his head were false,
he knew his world was only here.
His good memories were all here too.
And his precious family and friends were all here.
In the Star Alliance universe he had been alive, yes, but like an outsider.
A loneliness such as he had never known had wrapped him round then, so that he had truly feared he would never come back.
"Then tell us Your Majesty's small matters first." Li Yaqi looked at Zhao Chen with a smile.
"Those really are just small matters." Zhao Chen stressed it once, as though afraid she would doubt him.
Li Yaqi covered her mouth and laughed lightly, and nodded, as though she believed Zhao Chen's words.
"With the Owl Dragon Empire's future growth in mind, and since military building needs economic growth too: Lilith must have talked with you about it, I'm sure, but there are some things she still hoped I'd talk over with you as the Empire's Emperor. Truly I think there's no need at all. You're very clever. Whether back in the Northern Goose Group days or now at the North-Dragon Group, whatever I've handed you, you've always carried out very cleverly, and I've had no need to worry at all."
Zhao Chen paused, and went on, "What we want is this. For some time to come, the North-Dragon Group should give up some short-term profit as far as it can, and put its weight on building up our Owl Dragon Empire. But at the same time, it must make sure our growth in interstellar finance and trade doesn't slow. However strong an interstellar fleet is, it needs an economy to keep it going, for one."
When he had said it, Zhao Chen spread his hands. "That's more or less the gist of it. If there's anything you're unsure of, go and ask Lilith. She knows it better than I do."
"Are you going to say these things to the Rose-Red-Dragon Interstellar Group too?" Li Yaqi asked suddenly.
Zhao Chen nodded. "Yes. Lilith was particular about it."
"Then you came to see me first?" Li Yaqi asked a question Zhao Chen found rather odd.
"Mm… yes." Zhao Chen nodded.
"I understand. The North-Dragon Interstellar Trade Group guarantees to carry out what you've asked, and will absolutely put the Owl Dragon Empire's interests first!" Li Yaqi promised with a smile.
Zhao Chen looked at Li Yaqi's smile, somewhat puzzled.
Madam Miao, beside them, wore a look of seeing through it all.
Li Yaqi had asked the one extra question about the Rose-Red-Dragon Interstellar Trade Group just now
because for years the two had been rivals.
Both were backed by Zhao Chen from behind, and both had beautiful women as their bosses; so many things in common that outsiders often compared the two beautiful bosses.
In time, when the two beautiful bosses met, there were some standoffs too.
And Madam Miao knew one piece of inside news besides:
at an interstellar trade banquet within the Empire some time before, Li Yaqi and Red Rose had both happened to be present.
And as ill luck would have it, in a deal just before, Red Rose had come out on top, and been praised by the Emperor for it.
Though Zhao Chen likely did not remember the matter at all, for many of the Emperor's statements to the outside were in truth 'ghostwritten' by Lilith.
And it was said that at the time Red Rose had flaunted it before Li Yaqi,
and said to Li Yaqi, like a victor: only the strong may stand at His Majesty the Emperor's side.
But if Li Yaqi were willing to call her "Big Sister,"
she would not mind letting Li Yaqi share a little of her glory when the time came.
It had touched Li Yaqi's reverse scale outright, the one scale no dragon lets be stroked the wrong way.
Li Yaqi, who never changed countenance on any occasion, had picked up a bottle of wine then and there and drained it in one go,
and then glared at Red Rose like an evil dragon.
The onlookers had thought the two were going to come to blows, and were worrying over it.
Then Li Yaqi pointed the empty bottle at Red Rose, left a string of words only the two of them could hear, threw down the bottle, and swept out.
From then on, in every business venture where the North-Dragon Interstellar Trade Group under Li Yaqi competed with the Rose-Red-Dragon Interstellar Trade Group, it brought out its very best,
fighting for every inch of ground.
But all within the rules Zhao Chen had marked out beforehand:
they could compete, but not cross the line.
That was the standard Zhao Chen had set.
And after that, the two interstellar trade groups could be said to have spread themselves wide, enlarging the maps of their own commercial empires as well.
In the end, in truth, the one who profited was the Owl Dragon Empire.
For those few months the tax revenue on the Owl Dragon Empire's books rose a good deal.
Had Zhao Chen been told of this, he would likely have remembered it,
for in that time Lilith would grin foolishly at him,
as though she had seen something very good.