Very soon the contracts were signed.
Guided by the Flower-Fairy staff concerned, Zhao Chen's Villain-Envoy Mercenary Legion Fleet sailed toward a set of coordinates.
On reaching the destination, they saw the interstellar transport fleet waiting there.
Nearly 30,000 ships great and small: on a very large scale indeed.
But most of these interstellar transports were still T3 grade, with only a few T4-grade interstellar transports.
That too was because the Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes' own industrial ability was low; other interstellar civilizations and powers were willing to do business with them, but would not lightly hand over their core technology either.
And among the many universes, T5 and T6-grade technology was still core technology now.
Only T4-grade technology was within the Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes' reach.
That too was why these interstellar transports were T3 and T4 grade.
Some T2 and even T1-grade interstellar transports could be seen too.
That made one wonder: "T3-grade interstellar transports, fine; but why are there T2 and T1-grade interstellar transports too? Their speed can't possibly keep up."
That was the question the deputy captain beside them raised.
Lilith answered, "Faced with difficulties, everyone naturally looks for their own way around them. Look at the sides, the bellies and the sterns of those T5 and T4-grade interstellar transports: aren't there some strange things there?"
The deputy captain looked closely, and sure enough, some strange devices could be seen.
And at this moment those T2 and T1-grade interstellar transports were slowly drawing near, then hooking onto those strange devices, and at last fixing themselves to the hulls of those T4 and T5-grade interstellar transports.
The picture…… was like small fish clinging to big fish in the ocean.
"The Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes' interstellar traders know this too, but they find it hard to get enough T4 and T5-grade interstellar transports themselves. And for now, the most numerous are naturally T1 and T2-grade interstellar transports. So they thought of a way to solve the problem: with a certain technology, these T1 and T2-grade interstellar transports can join onto T4 and T5 interstellar transports, which tow them along, even at warp. Of course, there's some risk in it. They say that each time they sail this way, on average 20% of the small interstellar transports vanish without a trace, and everyone knows what that means. But compared with the profit it brings, the risk is nothing."
It dawned on the deputy captain.
Sure enough, faced with hardship, everyone came up with some strange technology or other.
Zhao Chen glanced over these interstellar transports: worn, backward.
Of interstellar transports of the same grade, Zhao Chen could see no fewer than thirty different models.
That was enough to show how hard those interstellar traders of the Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes had scraped to cobble these interstellar transports together.
And the one thing these interstellar transports had in common was two crests on their hulls.
One was a pink "Flower-Fairy crest."
It meant these interstellar transports came from the Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes.
The other was a crest like a white orchid, standing for the Bailan Interstellar Trade Group.
Zhao Chen gazed at this Bailan Interstellar Trade Group crest.
He brought up the files on this Bailan Interstellar Trade Group again.
The Bailan Interstellar Trade Group could be counted among the first Flower-Fairy-line interstellar traders set up when the Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes entered the age of cross-universe travel.
It was even called one of the Flower-Fairies' First Ten Merchants.
And of the Flower-Fairies' First Ten Merchants of that time, the only one left now was this Bailan Interstellar Trade Group.
Of the other nine, some had been weeded out, others swallowed up by later rising stars, or reorganized.
Hardly any had kept their original names.
Only this one Bailan Interstellar Trade Group was left.
The Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes looked like a united organization now, but that was toward the outside; inside, competition had always been fierce.
Within the Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes the law of the jungle had always held: the weak are meat for the strong.
So long as you kept within their tacit rules, you could seize others' markets and others' customers, and also work together to grow stronger.
In short, whatever you could do within the rules, no one would condemn.
Some might ask: then why set rules at all?
In truth the Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes' rules were very simple.
Rule one: for no reason whatever may anyone endanger the safety of the Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes and its people.
That one was easy to understand: you could use any means, but you could not sell out your own people.
On this everyone agreed; the interstellar trade groups the Flower-Fairies had built had come this far partly because of their own abilities, but also because they had the Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes at their backs.
Without the Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes as a body, they would be nothing but some of the most ordinary interstellar traders among the many universes,
and would not carry the name "Flower-Fairy."
Rule two: no one may harm or coerce interstellar traders of their own race by force or the like.
That was a high-voltage line; they were interstellar merchants, not killers or hunters; had this limit been loosened, it might lead in future to bloodshed among Flower-Fairy interstellar merchants.
After that there were some other regulations.
In broad direction they came to this: you could use any means in the marketplace, but only commercial means.
If you used other means that harmed the Flower-Fairies and sullied the Flower-Fairy name,
you would be spurned by every other Flower-Fairy interstellar trader, and in the end go bankrupt.
In the Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes' history there had been Flower-Fairies who took the risk, but everyone had put them down.
A Flower-Fairy interstellar trader, however strong, was only one interstellar trader.
But all the Flower-Fairy interstellar traders combined were an interstellar trading empire!
Back to this Bailan Interstellar Trade Group before them.
By its own toughness the Bailan Interstellar Trade Group had kept going until now, and was called one of the Flower-Fairy Federal Tribes' ten great interstellar traders today too.
It was now controlled by two sisters:
Huaya Lanlan and Huaya Nini.
Their main business now was interstellar trade in some medium- and high-risk areas.
It was not that they did not want to trade in low-risk areas, but that their market share there had been taken by others.
This was all they had left for now.
And so far the situation was still getting worse.
Rumor had it that the Bailan Interstellar Trade Group's cash flow already had problems; if the next few deals went wrong as well, it might go bankrupt and close.
The earliest of the Flower-Fairies' First Ten Merchants would pass wholly into history.
As the saying goes, better to send charcoal in the snow than to add flowers to brocade.
So most of the candidates the Bluewater Elf Queen had recommended were in situations like this.
Such candidates would be somewhat harder, but at the same time they meant a high return.
"It's plain that this Bailan Interstellar Trade Group is indeed not doing well right now. For a transport project like this, the president's sister has to take charge in person." Zhao Chen looked at a T5-grade interstellar shuttle patrolling past in the distance.
On it the Bailan Interstellar Trade Group's crest could be seen very plainly.
"Yes. By my calculations, if this deal goes through smoothly, they'll make the equivalent of four months' past profits, which will ease the Bailan Interstellar Trade Group's finances a good deal. But at the same time, this operation carries no small danger," Lilith said beside him.
"Danger? Then His Majesty……" The deputy captain at once looked at Zhao Chen with worry.
To them, nothing could matter more than His Majesty's safety.
Lilith explained, "But that danger is nothing to our Emperor's Guard Fleet."
Hearing this, the deputy captain breathed easier.
Lilith began to set out the main content of this task.
First, they were going to a universe at war, and the target area was a high-risk area at that.
What was a high-risk area?
An area judged to be one where, wherever you sailed in it, you might be attacked by others for no reason at all.
Generally, others were advised not to enter such an area.
And within this high-risk area, a free-for-all war was going on.
The one who had reached the agreement with the Bailan Interstellar Trade Group was an interstellar lord who called himself the Lord of Gold-Mountain Shire.
This Gold-Mountain Shire was a self-proclaimed domain, about equal to a small star region, pieced together from several star systems.
In a chaotic universe like this, because everyone's domains differed in size, a great many grades of names had arisen.
A "shire" like this was one of them,
a special name for a domain between a star region and a star system.
"This Lord of Gold-Mountain Shire has bought a batch of interstellar warships; it hasn't been made public, but by my calculations it comes to about 3,000 interstellar warships. And all of it is T5-grade interstellar warship core modules. On the Lord of Gold-Mountain Shire's side, most of the construction of these 3,000 T5 interstellar warships was finished before; what's left now is the core modules. The Lord of Gold-Mountain Shire can't build these core modules himself; he can only buy them from outside. And he has no ability to ship them himself now either, so naturally the whole process has to rest on the Bailan Interstellar Trade Group. And the reason the Lord of Gold-Mountain Shire is in such a hurry for this batch of interstellar warships is that a great lord is rising around him, and has already swallowed up several other lords' powers. As a result some weak lords' powers have now chosen to go over to this newly risen great lord."