With this T4 Skeleton-Legion-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer Zhao Chen had provided, Chu Xuan was more than satisfied.
Its every trait was for all the world tailor-made for the Chu family as they were now.
Chu Xuan was confident that, so long as she took this technical blueprint back, the T4 Skeleton-Legion-class Medium Interstellar Destroyer's monthly output could reach 10 ships!
And in the present wartime footing, even higher.
Chu Xuan had meant to hurry back at once and bring the blueprint to her grandfather.
But at Zhao Chen's urging, she stayed for a meal after all.
"What's the rush? This isn't some matter to be settled in a moment. Building a warship — it won't miss a day or half a day. What's more, you could perfectly well give the order now to integrate the Chu River Star Region's various industrial systems, and get ready to build this warship." Zhao Chen pressed Chu Xuan down into her seat.
Chu Xuan wore a helpless look, and could only settle in to eat this meal first.
She glanced round at those present — near enough all of them people she knew.
Lilith, Chitong, Annie, Zhao Wan'er, Shen Bing, Su Lan, Xue Xiaoxiao…
"Strange — how is it I don't see Charlotte?" Chu Xuan noticed that Charlotte, Zhao Chen's trusted right-hand general, was absent.
Bear in mind, Charlotte and Lilith had all along been Zhao Chen's left and right arms; the two were near enough never apart from him.
"Charlotte, she… is off playing with fire in someone else's backyard. Never mind her; let's eat our own." Zhao Chen laughed.
Chu Xuan froze a moment, not catching his meaning at once, but didn't press.
That big white cat Charlotte was, at this moment, off setting fires in the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth's backyard.
"Consider this a small celebration feast of ours. First, thanks to our Chief Engineer Annie for all she's given the Owl Dragon Legion this while. And here I must stress one thing: our Chief Engineer Annie was, for our Sacred-War Duel, the very first great hero. You may none of you know — in the first battle of the Sacred-War Duel. The T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship was, by the original plan, to take four months, even half a year, to build and complete. But our Chief Engineer Annie, knowing how the matter weighed— —built our T4 Blue-Eyes White Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Battleship in under two months, and it's for that we had our first win in the Sacred-War Duel! …… A toast to our great hero, Chief Engineer Annie!"
Around the great round table, Zhao Chen first heaped praise on Chief Engineer Annie.
At the start, hearing the Commander praising her, Annie even pinched her own thigh.
Annie: My heavens, I'm truly not dreaming.
The Commander is actually praising me before so many people.
From the initial doubt, to savoring the praise, to the Commander praising her so she went bashful—
—she waved her hands over and over, murmuring a modest word or two.
But those flitting little eyes, and those short little legs swinging without cease, seemed to be saying:
Don't stop! Go on! Go on!
Annie: (^▽^)
After a good round of praising Annie, this banquet truly began.
Annie, still dazed and drifting from the praise, swore up and down to Zhao Chen that she'd surely work with all her heart and strength for the Owl Dragon Legion, and forge fresh glories!
When she ate afterward, the corners of her mouth kept curving up, and she sat there grinning like a fool.
Seeing Annie so, Zhao Chen knew this bit of sweet-talk of his had done the trick.
Zhao Chen had by now grasped Annie's soft spot.
A round of verbal praise like this could keep Annie toiling without complaint for a good few months to come — more than worth it!
Everyone enjoyed the fine delicacies on the table while talking, too, of the just-ended Sacred-War Duel.
Chu Xuan, as one of the audience, was very curious about the Sacred-War Duel's particulars.
But there was one grumbling with a dejected face too.
"Haah… Sister Chu Xuan, don't look at me. This Sacred-War Duel, I was purely a bystander. From start to finish, my interstellar stealth-bomber didn't fire a single shot!" Zhao Wan'er pouted, a touch put out.
Zhao Chen laughed at her side: "That was your own choice back then. An interstellar stealth-bomber isn't a main-force ship type for a head-on interstellar battle in the first place. An interstellar stealth-bomber's main task is, in the course of a large campaign, to harry the enemy fleet, to strike at some of the enemy's important military installations, or its logistics-transport fleets. What's more, you saw it yourself. The Sacred Angel Legion was equipped with interstellar anti-stealth ships. Send those few T3 Phantom-Assassin-class Light Interstellar Stealth-Bombers of yours charging in, and wouldn't they be sitting ducks for the enemy?"
Before this, Zhao Chen had counselled Zhao Wan'er to choose some other ship type.
But having tasted the thrill of ambushing people, Zhao Wan'er took a special fancy to the interstellar stealth-bomber, and resolutely stayed with this ship model.
Zhao Wan'er knew this was the sense of it too, but within she was still put out.
For now she could only turn grief and indignation into appetite, and set to eating the fine delicacies on the table without cease.
Though Zhao Wan'er here had nothing to tell, others had no few stories.
Listening to them tell of the contest with the Sacred Angel Legion, Chu Xuan wore a look of pure envy.
She picked up a cup of fruit wine from the table and drained it in one draught, and said, helpless: "Set against fighting the Princes' faction, this Sacred-War Duel of yours is far more satisfying. Zhao Chen — how about, once the civil war's over one day, I come to your Owl Dragon Legion too, and you fix me up with any post you like?"
Zhao Chen laughed: "On my side I turn no one away, of course — it's only a question of whether your old man's willing to let you go."
"That can't be right — I hear that on the civil-war battlefield now, the total forces both sides have thrown in top 400,000 warships. That's a true large campaign. Our few-thousand-warship contest, set beside it, is a small scene indeed," Xue Xiaoxiao asked, puzzled.
Chu Xuan shook her head: "Don't be fooled because they say there are hundreds of thousands of warships on the battlefield. The count of warships actually fighting, at any one time, won't top 100,000. And more often than not it's fight-and-halt, fight-and-halt — neither side truly cutting loose. Not satisfying in the least. Yours, this sort, is the comfortable kind. Though if it were the kind where nobody calls a halt at the end — that would be truly satisfying!" Chu Xuan said enviously, then added a line: "And there's no telling when this accursed civil war will ever end."
"Soon." Zhao Chen tossed out, out of nowhere.
"Soon?" Chu Xuan caught the undertone in Zhao Chen's words; she narrowed her eyes at him: "Could it be you have some news on your side?"
"Not news, exactly — this civil war truly is about to end. No later than March of next year," Zhao Chen said, light and unruffled.
Though the Warhammer Interstellar Commonwealth and the Holy Radiance Empire were both barred at the gate, this state of internal strife was no long-term plan.
The more so with the Mechanical Race, that ticking bomb, in the picture.
So the civil war had to be settled as soon as possible; it could not be dragged out.
And the moment Zhao Chen had been waiting for was, near enough, all in place.
It was time to end this civil war.