Passing through the corridor and walking into this most majestic Forbidden City, one could see no few sculptures on either side.
These sculptures were, every one without exception, Owl Dragon-line warships,
from the earliest T2 warships to the T6 warships of now.
And some warships of some special worth or meaning had been made larger than the rest, with the events concerned engraved on them.
Such as the Owl Dragon line's earliest T3 warship, the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser.
It was this warship's entrance that had brought the Owl Dragon Fleet of the time into everyone's view.
Or again, the T2 Lion King-class Heavy Interstellar Missile Ship, which had first let the Owl Dragon Fleet fight the many with the few on the battlefield, and set the Owl Dragon Fleet's interstellar missile ships, and its standing as the terrifying champion of maximum firepower, before everyone.
Besides these there were records of some important battles as well:
such as the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser breaking alone into a bug swarm and saving the two academies' fleets, teachers and students;
or again, in the Starlight Empire's civil war, the decisive part the Owl Dragon Legion had played in it;
or again, after that, the two campaigns against the Demon Race on the northern border of the Warhammer Interstellar Empire,
and later the expedition against the Demon Race, and more.
They were all recorded on these.
All of these were records of the history of the Owl Dragon Fleet's growth into the Owl Dragon Empire of now!
Walking here, one could feel an air of killing, as though walking across a battlefield.
Walking farther,
the view before them opened out all at once.
But first to appear was a huge statue.
It was a stone carving of an Owl Dragon woman soldier in the first-issue Owl Dragon uniform.
After that the guests entering the Forbidden City were divided into streams.
There were maid robots set especially to guide the guests of every grade.
"Guests with red invitations, this way please." An Owl Dragon artisan lucky enough to be invited held his wife's hand and carried a child of about three,
and walked somewhat nervously toward the passage ahead.
In every branching passage, drones as large as frisbees would hover in turn over the stream of people, a hundred and more of them.
"You are a guest with a red invitation; those joining you at table are your wife and child."
The Owl Dragon artisan looked at the electronic screen before him, where there was information waiting to be confirmed.
The Owl Dragon artisan raised his hand and tapped confirm.
Then the drone was seen to shoot out a beam of light, and printed a small red crest on the chests of himself, his wife and his child.
It was a small ornament, to hang on one's clothes.
And now the Owl Dragon artisan could hear a voice at his ear, a guiding voice that came through the small crest on his chest,
directing them to the places at this banquet that were theirs.
And some who took the wrong branch would be directed the proper way by the drones.
The Owl Dragon artisan looked around; those who appeared here were in the main people with red invitations, orange invitations and yellow invitations,
going off in three different directions.
By the rumor he had heard, the invitations this time came in nine kinds, divided by color:
red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple, gold, and the highest grade of all, platinum.
Everyone could understand this division by grade.
For with so many people invited this time,
you could hardly have those lucky enough to be invited sit together with certain special people.
Not only for the safety of those special people; when it came to eating and enjoying themselves, everyone would feel ill at ease too.
Very soon, under guidance, the Owl Dragon artisan came into a huge square.
He was an artisan; though not an engineer, he knew something of buildings of this kind.
They had gone downward just now, which meant there were a great many levels here.
Otherwise it could never have held so many invited people.
And in this square were great round tables, one after another, with flower baskets, plants and ornaments in between marking off areas, so that no one felt too cramped.
But even so, at a sweep of the eye, swath after swath of banquet tables could be seen,
so many there was no counting how many tables there were here.
And everyone's place had been arranged.
The Owl Dragon artisan quickly brought his wife and child to their seats: the table numbered A13071.
Could there be more than ten thousand tables here?
On sitting down, the Owl Dragon artisan found to his astonishment that at his own table there were, of all things, people he knew:
old friends, and partners from work too.
They were all surprised on meeting, and greeted one another, and made the families they had brought welcome.
"Old Li, you're here too!"
"Little Song, you're at this table too? What a coincidence."
"Charles, you know all three of them? That's grand; we'll have to have a proper drink in a while."
"Is that you, Dandan? My God, it's been five years and more since we graduated from the military academy, hasn't it? Who'd have thought we'd meet here?"
"Class monitor? It's our old class monitor!"
"Teacher! Teacher, you came; wonderful. I was just thinking of going back to look you up, and here I've run into you!"
It was the same at the other tables.
Some neighboring tables even found they knew one another.
It brought a great deal more laughter, and less awkwardness.
They had all worried that coming to this banquet they would meet strangers and feel nervous.
Now, at a table with people they knew, there was no such worry at all.
This time the Owl Dragon's big data had taken special care to seat people who had dealings with and knew one another at the same table as far as possible, even in the same area.
That way the good atmosphere of this banquet could be greatly heightened.
At this point the spot in the middle of the round table where a small ornament had stood sank down.
Then small fruit pastries, one after another, were sent up, spread around the automatically turning round table.
"The banquet begins in one hour. These are pre-meal desserts prepared for you all; please enjoy them. For any drinks you need, you may use the ordering software on the tabletop. All dishes present today are provided by the Owl Dragon royal house. Provided without limit; please do not waste them."
Seeing these rich little pastries, and with friends close by besides, no one minded waiting an hour at all.
For so important a banquet, never mind an hour's wait;
even three hours, or a day and a night, would be no problem.
……
The nearer the center of the Forbidden City, the fewer the invited people.
No one walked fast, and they chatted with one another too.
Even people who did not know each other would introduce one another, and exchange contact details.
"You are a guest with a purple invitation; those joining you at table are your wife and father."
In the middle of their chat, a drone printed crests on the three people's clothes.
Though they did not pay much mind to one another, or to the purple crests on their chests, the corners of their mouths all lifted slightly, and they walked with straighter backs.
For this was a mark of standing, after all.
At this point some people with gold invitations naturally became the focus of everyone's attention.
Only, the two routes had already parted.
They could only gaze across at the still sparser people on the other route.
And some who had seen much of the world, on seeing those wearing gold crests, recognized who they were almost at once.
Though they did not stand at the top of the Owl Dragon Empire's pyramid, in their own fields, or say in their own star regions and kingdoms, they were all persons of great weight!
And here they saw no one wearing a platinum crest.
That was because those with platinum crests had been received early by special maid robots, and taken by a special passage to the banquet place that was theirs.
It lay beneath a palace resplendent with gold and jade:
a small square, not very large.
But through the square ran a little stream, with little trees and flowers around it; perhaps not especially lavish, but with an elegance of a different kind.
In this killing-aired Forbidden City, if anything, it added a quiet grace.
And the number of tables set out here seemed far fewer than outside,
only a few hundred or so.
A few hundred tables sounds like a great many, true.
But mind, every invited guest could bring family.
So it seemed a good many people.
Even so, the square still seemed very spacious.
"Just these pastries? Our Majesty is too stingy." Annie found herself a seat without ceremony, and frowned slightly at the pastries served first.
For that amount was not enough even to fill the gaps in her teeth.
The moment Annie's words fell, her head was rapped.
But this time it was not Nana.
Nana was sitting opposite, watching her with a look of glee at her misfortune.
And this time Annie only dared clutch her head, and did not dare argue back in the least.
For the one who had rapped her head was her father, now chief of the Owl Dragon Empire's foremost race of artisans, the interstellar dwarves: Chief Bajin.
Though in standing Chief Bajin fell short of his own daughter Annie, and even his coming to a place of this grade this time
was entirely on the strength of his two daughters,
still, he was Annie's father, and there was no getting round it.
However great a Chief Engineer Annie was, however high her post, before Chief Bajin she had to behave herself.
At Annie's table was in the main Annie's whole family.
By the rule that one invitation allowed two people, Annie and Nana alone would in truth not have been enough to bring the whole family.
For Annie had a great many younger brothers and sisters.
But for the people who could come here,
Lilith, in sending out the invitations, had in fact made special notes.
In Annie's and Nana's invitations, for instance, it was noted that they should bring their whole families.
That made exactly one table.
Annie was somewhat aggrieved; she reached out a hand to grab a pastry on the table, while her other hand made ready to order some drinks to wet her throat.
But the next second her father slapped her hand.
"What are you doing?" Chief Bajin glared at his daughter.
"Eating," Annie said, sounding very wronged.
"Annie, you must mind your standing a little now too; look where we are. His Majesty invited us here, and we must mind our conduct. Don't set your whole mind on food. Sit here properly," Chief Bajin said sternly.
Nana, opposite, held back her laughter.
She had no real objection to eating something.
But seeing her sister get her comeuppance was something she was very glad to do, so she did not stop it.
She knew her father's temper.
Her father was a very traditional man, with a thinking of rank in his very bones; and on top of that, over these years His Majesty of the Owl Dragon had become Chief Bajin's spiritual idol.
Chief Bajin had even set out no few things to do with His Majesty in the home they lived in.
Not long ago, when Annie had at last got some leave and was about to go home,
she had walked in the door of her home and frozen on the spot.
For she saw, standing above the pond at her own front door, a golden, shining statue of Zhao Chen, in a crisp uniform, striking a very cool pose.
The look on Annie's face then was ugly past describing,
worse than eating poop-flavored ice cream.
Later she learned that Chief Bajin had bought it with his own salary.
For now, with Chief Bajin's standing, and Annie's and Nana's besides, their family in the main had no pressure in their life any more.
Every month's salary, if anything, had nowhere to be spent.
So Annie's mother had no objection to Chief Bajin's spending.
Over time it had become a hobby of Chief Bajin's.
In Annie's home there was more and more Owl Dragon Emperor merchandise.
Even at the head of Annie's bed in her bedroom hung a self-portrait of the Owl Dragon Emperor.
That night Annie, who loved her sleep, did not sleep a wink the whole night; she felt her own room was not clean any more.
She had wanted to throw the Emperor's self-portrait away, but her father opposed it.
He even threw out: the portrait must hang there, and if she didn't like it she could sleep in the living room or the garden.
Uh.
At the thought of the living room, with still more Emperor merchandise, and the garden with that golden Emperor statue over the pond,
Annie thought she had better stay in her own room.
Only, every time before she slept, she would cover that portrait with a cloth.
Even so, several times in her dreams she had dreamed of Zhao Chen with a whip, driving her to work.
A nightmare!
So Chief Bajin now was an Emperor fan through and through!
Annie could not eat anything, and with a face like a dead woman's began to look around.
As luck would have it, she saw Zhao Waner at the next table, drinking freely and eating all sorts of good things.
When their eyes met, Zhao Waner even waved the fruit in her hand at Annie.
By the look of it, Zhao Waner was saying hello to Annie.
But in Annie's eyes it was mockery through and through.
It made Annie mutter resentfully in her heart: there really wasn't a single good one among those named Zhao; she was going to break off with that lass Zhao Waner!
"Oho, this time that Zhao lad has put on no small show." Chu Changhe's voice came from beside them.
Chu Xuan covered her face and looked at her grandfather helplessly, and reminded him once again, "Grandpa, mind where you are. That's His Majesty!"