"This matter, my big sister and my parents in fact don't know. I happened to learn of it while my grandfather was alive. You all say I'm very clever; I started remembering things early too. When I was little there was a time I stayed with Grandpa, and Grandpa would often sit staring at a photo. It was a photo of a girl of seventeen or eighteen. At the time I teased Grandpa: is this some grandma? Grandpa laughed and stroked my head and said this isn't your grandma, but your little aunt. When my grandpa was young, he had in fact known a girl before my grandma. But later, because of a family marriage alliance, he had to give that girl up and be with my grandma. Later my father came along. But who'd have thought that once, while my grandpa was doing business, a rival family targeted him and hired an assassin to kill him. My grandpa nearly lost his life; it was the girl who had been secretly protecting my grandpa all along who saved him. Then came months of flight. During that time on the run, that girl came to carry my grandpa's child. My grandpa had meant at the time to go back and tell my grandma everything about it; whatever happened, he wanted to do right by that girl. But he never imagined that after that girl brought my grandpa back to the family, she would vanish. He searched every corner then and couldn't find her. Over it he quarreled with Grandma, and quarreled with the family too. He thought it was their pressure that had driven that girl away. For decades after that, he gradually got used to life without that girl. Until one day, in a familiar breakfast shop, he saw the girl, already in her fifties… or rather a woman by then, I should say. Only, in Grandpa's telling, she was always a girl. And beside her was a teenage girl. He asked her like a madman where she had gone all these years. He had promised her clearly he'd do right by her, even if it meant giving up everything he had. But that girl said that was what she hadn't wanted to see. The girl had no father or mother from childhood; she had been raised by Grandpa's family to begin with, with the duty of looking after and protecting Grandpa. Grandpa's parents were very good to her too. In fact her leaving had nothing to do with pressure from Grandpa's wife or Grandpa's parents; she had chosen to leave herself. She was grateful to the old master and the old mistress for their care, and she knew too that Grandpa's present wife was a good person, and better suited than she to be Grandpa's wife. And her presence would only break that peaceful life. And the child Grandpa had left her was the best gift he could give her. So she chose to leave. With the savings she had put by over those years, she went off to a remote little town, settled down, and opened a breakfast shop. She raised the girl alone."
Hearing this, the Nancy Empress and Huang Min both looked greatly astonished.
They had never imagined the Jiang Group's former chairman had such a secret unknown to others.
"And after that? Since your grandpa had found your aunt, didn't he think of bringing your aunt and… your second grandma home?" Huang Min asked curiously.
Nannan lowered her head and said, somewhat sad and grieved, "It was all too late. When my grandpa found her, she already had a fatal illness and hadn't many days left to live. Whether it was luck or what, at least she had Grandpa with her for her last stretch of time. And Grandpa had promised to take good care of my aunt too. But my aunt hated Grandpa very much then, because, on Grandpa's account, she had grown up a child without a father. So after her mother was buried, my aunt chose to vanish too. This time she vanished, Grandpa never found her again. To the day Grandpa died, it was always the deepest regret buried in his heart. When I was little, Grandpa loved me best. So I've always kept this matter in mind. And not long ago, in a news report on the Dragon Palace Starport, I seemed to see my aunt. Though I've never seen my aunt with my own eyes, Grandpa often used to describe her to me, so I can be sure I definitely didn't see wrong."
"So in coming here you have another aim too: to fulfill your grandfather's last wish and find this aunt of yours. That news report you saw: do you still have the clip?" the Nancy Empress asked.
Nannan lowered her head and said with some regret, "I was still little then, and my memory's somewhat in pieces. So even when I went back to look, I couldn't find it. I even wonder now whether it was only a dream of mine. But whatever the case, I have to try. What if it's all true!"
"With no video footage, finding someone in the Dragon Palace Starport is very hard. And since your aunt can get into the Dragon Palace Starport, her identity details are certainly all classified," the Nancy Empress said with a slight frown.
Nannan said at once, "Though I don't have video footage, I drew my aunt's likeness from memory."
As she spoke, Nannan took a drawing from her backpack as if taking out a treasure.
"Big sister's so amazing; she can even draw. The big sister in this drawing is so beautiful; a thousand times more beautiful than Mommy!" Huang Nannan was the first to see the sheet Nannan had brought out, and her eyes lit up at once.
Huang Min, who had been eating her meal and enjoying the melon,[1] never imagined she would catch a stray bullet herself.
She pinched her daughter's cheek: "Fine, fine, fine, so I'm not as pretty as other people, am I? Your pocket money's halved next month!"
The moment she heard her pocket money would be halved, Huang Nannan at once smiled ingratiatingly and took her mother by the wrist; that was her fund for buying skins in Goddess World next month.
"My dear Mommy. You're the most, most, most beautiful mommy in the world. No one could be prettier than you."
Looking at her daughter's fawning airs, Huang Min paid it little mind, and looked instead at the drawing Nannan had brought out.
She wanted to see just how beautiful a woman her own daughter praised as a thousand times prettier than her could be.
The drawing was a sketch, without color.
But from a mere sketch, one could actually see the woman was a rare beauty.
And this was only a profile.
The Nancy Empress stared at this face; she felt she had seen this profile somewhere.
Chu Xuan?
The image of that unsmiling Fierce Dragon Marshal rose in her mind.
But this far-fetched thought was soon flung aside.
The Fierce Dragon Marshal with a love child out in the world: she would not believe it if they beat her to death.
Besides, though the two looked a little alike, their bearing was utterly different.
The woman in Nannan's drawing had more the air of a good wife and loving mother.
Then think of that Marshal Chu Xuan.
A good wife and loving mother?
That one could carry out an orbital bombardment of a planet without blinking.
How could she be a good wife and loving mother?
So the Nancy Empress strangled this guess of hers in its cradle.
"Mm, she truly is very pretty. Someone this pretty shouldn't be hard to find in the Dragon Palace Starport. Could I take a photo of it?" the Nancy Empress said.
"Yes."
The Nancy Empress took a photo of the sketch in Nannan's hands with her handheld terminal, then sent it to her subordinate.
"Find this woman for me."
She composed the message and sent it.
Then she added another.
"She may work in the Dragon Palace Starport now, or within the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's system. If you find her, contact me at once."
Having sent the messages, the Nancy Empress looked at Nannan: "I've already had my subordinate set about it. If there's any lead, they'll tell me at once."
"Thank you, big sister," Nannan thanked her sweetly.
The Nancy Empress looked at this child; the more she looked, the more she liked her.
If only she could have one of her own.
Just then a knock came at the door.
"Who is it?" the Nancy Empress asked.
"It's me; I've come to drop by." Zhao Chen's voice came from outside the door.
The Nancy Empress stood up and went to open the door herself.
Zhao Chen appeared in the doorway, and behind him was a food cart laden with desserts and pastries.
"I've come to see you all. I rather like these two children. And I've brought some desserts and pastries while I was at it; I hope you'll like them." Zhao Chen's gaze fell on Huang Nannan and Nannan.
"Quick, say thank you to the uncle." Huang Min at once patted her daughter.
Because at this moment Zhao Chen was not wearing his cap and sunglasses,
Huang Nannan recognized at a glance that this man before her was the legendary Fierce Dragon Emperor, Zhao Chen!
"It's the Fierce Dragon Emperor!" Huang Nannan pointed at Zhao Chen excitedly.
"You know me?" Zhao Chen looked gently at the two children.
The child called Nannan was looking at him too, her eyes curious, but nothing like as excited as Huang Nannan.
"Of course I do. Where I go to school, the teachers often mention you. Lots of the women teachers have your photo in their dorms. I often hear them talking about you in their breaks." Huang Nannan looked at the man before her.
Perhaps from growing up steeped in such surroundings, she too had a kind of worship for Zhao Chen.
"What's said out there is all a bit exaggerated. Sit down first and try these pastries and desserts I ordered." Seeing an empty seat between Nannan and Huang Nannan, Zhao Chen sat down right beside the two girls.
One of the guards following Zhao Chen stood behind him, her gaze seemingly casual, but fixed all along on the girl called Nannan.
No word had yet come back from Dragon Star
on whether this girl posed any threat.
But if the Fierce Dragon Emperor wanted to come to this room, they had no right to stop him.
"What's this?" Zhao Chen noticed the sheet Nannan had put away and asked curiously.
"That's Nannan's aunt; she's said to hold a post at the Dragon Palace Starport, or perhaps in the Fierce Dragon Kingdom. So she wanted to trouble me to look for her." As the Nancy Empress spoke, her gaze fell on Zhao Chen.
This one was the Fierce Dragon Emperor.
When it came to finding someone, no one here was better suited to it than he.
"An aunt?" Zhao Chen stared at the profile in the sketch.
Why did this face seem somewhat familiar; why did it look so like Chu Xuan?
But Chu Xuan had no family here at all, still less any niece or the like.
Then Zhao Chen too heard the girl called Nannan tell the story of her family's aunt.
"Rest assured; if there really is such a person in the Dragon Palace Starport, I'll have people find her. There should be a result very soon." As Zhao Chen spoke, he waved to the guard behind him: "Take a photo of this sketch, and have people look for her."
"Yes." The guard photographed the sketch and passed it down at once.
Compared with the Nancy Empress's arrangements,
on the guards' side, once this order was passed down, it spread at astonishing speed.
First it reached the staff department.
Learning it was the Fierce Dragon Emperor's order, they at once began passing word to every department of the Dragon Palace Starport.
Then these departments' heads, whether on duty or at rest, almost at once had the people in charge under them carry out a carpet search.
They themselves did not sit idle either; they brought out the records of all the staff under them and began comparing them one by one.
Some were even more thorough: they had all their staff gather in person,
then, holding the drawing, compared it against face after face.
And just in case of disguise, men with women's features and the like,
they would even touch the person's face with their own hands to make sure the face had no problem; not even the men were spared.
And some more cautious still investigated whether these employees had any plastic-surgery records over the past several years.
All because of this one small search for a person, an uproar broke out across the whole Dragon Palace Starport.
And at the same time,
in that villa,
something extraordinary was happening at this moment too.
For a whole day and night the young miss had not left her room.
Though each time Aunt Song came to check, the young miss would appear at a different spot in the room,
her not leaving the room at all was still somewhat worrying.
"Miss, your room hasn't been cleaned today. Shall I have someone clean it before you go to bed?" Aunt Song pushed open the door and asked, standing in the doorway.
"No need. When I've finished this book I'm going to bed. If it needs cleaning, have someone come tomorrow."
In the room, Nannan sat at the desk with a book in her hands.
Aunt Song glanced over and made to close the door.
But just the moment before the door closed, she realized something was wrong.
She looked into the room doubtfully.
Her gaze fell on the book in Nannan's hands.
Nannan made page-turning motions, and the words on the pages changed too.
But!
This book, Aunt Song remembered Nannan had read it last week.
She knew very well Nannan was a very clever child, almost never forgetting anything she read.
Rarely did a book get opened a second time in her hands.
But this point alone proved nothing.
Nor could she be sure.
What if the young miss simply liked this book?
Aunt Song looked her over once more.
This time she was sure something was wrong!
The length of her hair!
As the one who looked after the young miss so carefully, Aunt Song knew Miss Nannan's body better than anyone.
She found that the young miss's hair had not grown the least bit longer since the day before!
Though it was only one day,
Aunt Song could tell.
At this moment she could not hold back her worry, pushed the door open and walked straight in.
"Miss, I have something to report to you."
Aunt Song made her footsteps deliberately heavy.
But the young miss never turned around.
Aunt Song came close to the young miss, and just as her hand was about to rest on her, her hand passed straight through.
It was a holographic projection!
The young miss had vanished!