"You… who are you!" The matron looked at this man before her with some fear.
The man paid the matron no mind.
He walked straight up before Su Lan.
"Senior — long time no see."
Su Lan looked at this scene she seemed to have known before, at this familiar figure, and let out a pff of a laugh — and yet, from the corners of her eyes, tears slid down.
"Just who are you!" The matron couldn't help but ask once more, and threatened, besides, "I warn you — she is His Highness the Third Prince's woman!"
Zhao Chen pressed once upon the armor at his neck; the helmet opened of itself, baring his true face.
Seeing what Zhao Chen looked like, the matron was frightened straight back three or four steps.
For she, too, had seen the man in those two clips just now — and wasn't it none other than this very man before her?
Zhao Chen!
"There are escape pods over yonder; I'll not see you all off," Zhao Chen said with a smile, and waved a hand.
The other attendant-maids left, one after another.
The matron, for her part, hesitated a moment; she looked toward Su Lan, and spoke up once more.
"Miss Su Lan, you'd best consider this clearly. At your back is the Su family; doing such a thing — how great a trouble it will bring the Su family!"
Su Lan's expression was complex.
But Zhao Chen simply blocked the way straight before Su Lan, and said coldly, "Does this have anything to do with the Su family? Su Lan has already been flung off to you by the Su family; and I've snatched Su Lan from your hands. If there's blame to be laid, it can only be laid on that Third Prince of yours for being good-for-nothing — who can't so much as keep hold of his own woman!"
The matron was somewhat enraged, and made to speak still.
Zhao Chen's icy words rang out.
"One more word of nonsense, and there'll be no need for any escape pod — I'll send you out directly!"
The matron shuddered in fright; she felt this man truly dared do such a thing.
At once she fled off, tail between her legs, ducked into an escape pod, and was ejected clean out.
"There now — everyone with no business here is gone." Zhao Chen turned his head to look at Su Lan, who was wiping at her eye-rims.
Su Lan looked at Zhao Chen before her, and said with a laugh, "How is it you've come running all this way here?"
"That girl Xue Xiaoxiao came running to my place; and in order to get an audience with me, she went and said that I'd led her on and cast her off, that I'd abandoned my wife and child — very nearly ruined the good name of my whole life…" Zhao Chen told out the matter of Xue Xiaoxiao's earlier rescue-mission.
Su Lan covered her mouth and laughed; within, her heart was warm as could be.
She had, after all, these dependable friends, willing to go running hither and yon for her sake.
And even… this man before her, who, for her sake, would not shrink from making an enemy of the Third Prince, and snatching the bride to his very face.
Even now she felt this was for all the world like a dream.
"All right — it's time we went." Zhao Chen walked on ahead.
"I'm sorry, Zhao Chen. I may not be able to go with you," Su Lan said.
Zhao Chen stopped in his tracks and looked at Su Lan behind him, a whole face of apology on her.
Zhao Chen scratched his head.
"I've looked into it. Apart from that father of yours, Senior, you shouldn't have any ties of the heart holding you in the Su family, I take it."
Su Lan nodded.
"Though it may not be a nice thing to say — that father of yours, Senior, is no fine article either. Apart from your mother, he's brought back a dozen-odd women from the outside, first and last, and kept them penned up in the Su family. Don't, on account of some so-called debt of nurture, hold your own conscience hostage and go doing things you have no wish to do. This bears, after all, upon the happiness of your whole life; and your mother, who has passed on, would surely never wish for you to make such a sacrifice!" Zhao Chen said.
Su Lan's look was complex; it was plain to see how torn she was within — she still could not get over that hurdle in her own heart.
"I'm one who most detests all this wishy-washy dithering. In any case, now that I've come all this way, I can hardly go back empty-handed, can I?" As Zhao Chen said this, all smiles, he walked toward Su Lan.
"You… what are you going to do?" Su Lan looked at Zhao Chen for all the world like a guileless little lamb.
"If your heart truly can't get past it, then just take it that you were, in fact, carried off by me by force. And when the time comes, you can give me a couple of kicks and so ease your temper." No sooner had Zhao Chen said this than he, of all things, hoisted Su Lan up by the waist straightaway, tucked Su Lan beneath his right arm, and made off toward the outside.
"Zhao Chen… Zhao Chen… put me down…" Su Lan felt this posture truly rather mortifying — it was, in truth, for all the world as though she'd been snatched away.
But with that little strength of hers, how could she possibly wriggle free of Zhao Chen?
"Lilith. A transparent gallery-bridge like the Su family's one — can it be arranged to dock with this T3 Dragon-Croc?" Zhao Chen contacted the T4 Vermilion Bird's bridge at this point.
Lilith's voice came through.
"No problem; it'll be seen to within five minutes."
Five minutes later, Zhao Chen walked to the hangar he'd come in by, and, sure enough, an additional transparent gallery-bridge had docked in here.
"Senior — should I do anything overly forward in a moment, my apologies to you in advance." Zhao Chen suddenly spoke up.
Su Lan, who'd already given up her futile struggling, was stunned a moment — and thereafter her body was lifted high up, her backside coming to rest upon Zhao Chen's right shoulder.
"You… what are you doing…" Su Lan threw her arms about Zhao Chen's neck; in this posture, her white-stockinged legs, beneath her gauzy skirt, dangled right before Zhao Chen's chest.
"Don't move." Zhao Chen cautioned her with a word, and then walked on out toward the front.
Only now did Su Lan take notice that ahead of them was, of all things, the transparent gallery-bridge; and with that, she understood Zhao Chen's intent.
Her cheeks flushed faintly, and she looked at Zhao Chen with a coy reproach.
The T4 Starlight Emperor-class Medium Carrier Starship · the bridge.
"How is it that T3 Dragon-Croc shows not the least sign of movement?" the adjutant urged, in his anxiety, the crew member beside him charged with the comms.
"Still no getting through to them? Why don't they drive the warship out!"
The comm all along could not be connected.
The Third Prince Qin Hu's face, too, had gone grim to the very extreme; he watched, wide-eyed, as the combat mecha aboard that T4 Vermilion Bird-class Medium Interstellar Cruiser breached the interior of the T3 Dragon-Croc-class Medium Interstellar Battleship.
And thereafter, a great mass of escape pods was ejected out.
What this meant was plain enough.
Now the one thing the Third Prince Qin Hu could pray for was that his own people might bring Su Lan out to safety along with them.
"Your Highness, quick — look over there! Two interstellar warships have linked up with a transparent corridor." the sharp-eyed adjutant spotted that stretch of corridor.
The Third Prince Qin Hu looked over — and the next second, his face went grim to the very extreme.
His whole person shot up in a fury beyond all containing.
For he'd caught sight of the woman he was to marry — being carried, of all things, upon that man's shoulder, walking out.
Humiliation!
This was, quite simply, a monstrous, world-shaming humiliation!
And that man seemed, besides, to be deliberately slowing his own steps: that stretch of corridor needed only a minute to cross, and he stubbornly dragged it out to five.
So much so that the man had one hand resting upon Su Lan's right leg — and because of the way the skirt hid it, to outsiders' eyes that hand seemed to have reached in beneath the skirt, leaving all who saw it to let their imaginations run wild.
When Zhao Chen reached the middle of the corridor, he even deliberately stopped in his tracks, and, with a gaze carrying a trace of mockery and derision, looked off toward the direction of the distant T4 Starlight Emperor-class Medium Carrier Starship.
This scene, every last one of the interstellar media present captured.
In the end, before the eyes of the whole watching multitude, Zhao Chen bore the Third Prince's betrothed onto his own interstellar warship.
This act was, beyond all doubt, the leading of a man's own betrothed into one's own chamber, before that very man's face!
"Aaaaahhh!" Qin Hu roared in hysteria, for all the world like a very madman!