"Ahem, ahem, ahem."
The middle-aged man seated in the head chair swept his gaze once around everyone present. "You are all Yaqi's uncles and elders in standing. Yaqi's branching into the interstellar-arms trade is done with our Northern Goose in mind, too. This counts as breaking new ground, opening fresh frontiers — and everything is hard at the start. When my own father built Northern Goose up in his day, didn't he have to weather those first 10 years before there ever came to be the Northern Goose Interstellar Trade Group we have now?"
This middle-aged man was the chairman of the Northern Goose Interstellar Trade Group, the current head of the Li family — which was to say, Li Wei's father.
"Chairman, then was then and now is now. Nowadays every last one of us has a family to feed. It's because we trust you — trust you, the head of the Li family — that we've thrown our whole livelihoods behind Northern Goose. And now? We're spending more than we take in. Investment in the starship-arms trade is a bottomless pit! Carry on like this, and our Northern Goose will be dragged into ruin sooner or later!" the second director said with a cold snort.
"Clinging to the old ways, with no drive to advance, too afraid to step out of the comfort zone — that is what will drag our Northern Goose into ruin!" Li Yaqi could hold back no longer, and shot to her feet in fury.
Hearing Li Yaqi speak so, the directors fell to muttering among themselves, one and all — accusing her of not knowing her place, of no respect for her elders, and the rest of it.
"I said as much long ago — business is no trade for a girl. You're near 40 now, Yaqi. Had you listened to me back then and married that count's son, would you have any need to toil away here now? You'd have been a countess living in ease long since." The second director spoke with a light chuckle.
"Living in ease? Second Uncle, I have no wish to end up a caged canary in another's hand, like my cousin — who dares not so much as make a peep even when her husband goes chasing skirts abroad! If that is what you call living in ease, then I, Li Yaqi, would sooner do without!" Li Yaqi gave as good as she got, striking straight back.
The second director's face turned very ugly.
This second director was Li Yaqi's second uncle, the younger brother of her father — and the second-largest shareholder in the Northern Goose Interstellar Trade Group.
"All right. Here's what we'll do — let's give Yaqi a little more time. Didn't we agree on five years before? A five-year term. So long as, within those five years, Yaqi's starship-arms division can turn its losses to profit, we'll let the division go on existing. There's still half a year left, isn't there? What's everyone in such a hurry about." The Li family head spoke with an easy good humor.
"Then we'll give my niece half a year. And when the time comes, Second Uncle will see a fine match arranged for her." With a cold snort, the second director left the meeting room.
The other directors filed out one after another as well.
The Li head looked at his daughter, unreconciled and seething, and heaved a long sigh. "Yaqi — it isn't that Dad won't help you. Business is simply the way it is. In everyone's eyes there's only profit. You have half a year left. Within that half year, so long as your arms division can turn its losses to profit — break even, even — Dad can keep your division alive. But… if it fails, then let it go. If you still want to be in business, you can go back to the interstellar transport-trade as before."
Half a year… how in the world was she to turn a profit in half a year?
She didn't have so much as a single presentable ship product in hand right now. She didn't believe, herself, that she could turn losses to profit inside half a year.
"I understand… Dad, I'm a bit tired; I'll head back first," Li Yaqi murmured, and walked out of the meeting room.
——
Li Yaqi flung herself down onto the bed in her room, and a fluffy, cat-like little pet came springing up before her.
"Mengmeng, I'm very tired today; go and play by yourself for a while." Li Yaqi draped an arm across her eyes, doing all she could to keep her tears from spilling over.
Five years of preparation, five years of toil.
More than a decade of her youth.
Was it all to come to an end here?
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
Just then Li Yaqi's handheld terminal sounded, and she cut it a glance.
It was a comm request from that younger brother of hers.
She sat up, took a moment to settle the state of her feelings, and tapped to accept.
"Sis… Sis, how come your eyes are so red?" Li Wei greeted his sister across the video image.
Owing to the cross-system transmission, though, there was a delay of near 10 seconds.
"It's nothing, just too tired these past few days. What's the sudden call for? Run through your allowance again? If I remember right, isn't it the holidays in a few days? Or is it that you failed your year's assessment and you're being held back?" Li Yaqi eyed Li Wei.
Li Wei pursed his lips. "Sis, how come you never once wish me well? I've got allowance left, and I'm not being held back — next year's my fourth year, and I'll finally get to pilot a starship for real!"
"Then what put it into your head to contact me?" Li Yaqi eyed this brother of hers dubiously — the sort who never came knocking without a reason.
Li Wei got down to business. "I sent you a ship-blueprint file yesterday; it should have reached you by now, so take a look at it. It's something a friend of mine… came up with. He wanted me to ask whether you'd any interest in buying it."
"A ship-blueprint file?" Li Yaqi fixed her brother with another stare. "You haven't gone and racked up some debt, have you, and now you're trying to hoodwink me?"
"Sis, why do you always think so little of your own brother? Fine, fine — just go and have a look at it yourself, quick. If you're interested, contact me, and I'll put you in touch with that… friend. Don't set your hopes too high, mind. If it's just barely usable, give it some passable sort of price — call it a favor to your little brother." Li Wei, even now, didn't believe a ship Zhao Chen had made could amount to much, and so he laid out a few soothing words in advance.
"I'll leave off here; remember to contact me once you've read it."
Li Wei had no wish to say much to this sister who was forever looking down on him, and cut the comm outright.
This kid… where would he get a friend who could design starships? It's plain as day he's trying to con me. Li Yaqi didn't believe a word of Li Wei's.
But she sat on the bed in a daze for a dozen-odd seconds — and then, as though driven by some unseen hand, opened her inbox after all. And there, sure enough, lay a data file, already showing as decrypted.
It's not as though I have anything else to do right now. My ship-design division hasn't a glimmer of a lead. I'll just take a look at this thing Li Wei sent. Li Yaqi told herself so by way of comfort — and when she opened the file, and looked at the vast trove of ship-blueprint data within, her gaze began, little by little, to change.
From the careless glance of the start, to an unwonted intentness after — until even her breathing had gone a great deal quieter.
She read for a good half-hour, then snapped abruptly back to herself, raised a hand to summon up a holographic computer, and began simulating some of the data in the file on it.
No problem… no problem… it was all no problem!
This process went on a further three hours.
Li Yaqi's expression ran through an extraordinary range of feeling; she murmured under her breath, "The T1 Wolf-Louse-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer… this… this technical blueprint…"
She shot to her feet, swiftly copied this ship technology onto a data disk, then ran out of her bedroom, making straight for the starship-design research division she'd established.
A trip that would ordinarily take an hour, she — flying her aircar by hand — covered in a mere 10 minutes.
She couldn't spare the time even to change into a researcher's garb; she charged straight into the research division, planted herself before that team of researcher-engineers of hers, and pointed at the data disk.
"Quickly — help me see whether the technology in this ship blueprint is viable!" Li Yaqi could scarcely contain her excitement. "I want a reliable feasibility report within five hours!… No… I want it within three!"