The other party felt Zhao Chen's gaze as well, and the eyes of that ice-mountain beauty came round — but only swept once across Zhao Chen and his party.
Zhao Chen, without a flicker of it showing, halted his steps and waited for the party next door to go in through the Stellar Tavern's door first.
Only then did he step inside.
"Never thought we'd run into Saint Cana of the Sacred Angel Legion here, of all places. We had a fight with that lot not so long ago, and took apart no few of their interstellar warships. If this woman knew that the Commander-in-Chief of her mortal enemy the Owl Dragon Legion was standing right here, there's no saying whether she could keep that ice-mountain face of hers up at all." Xue Xiaoxiao's sniggering voice sounded in the earpieces of Zhao Chen and the rest.
But the attendant guiding them appeared to have heard nothing whatever.
This was one of the functions of the masks Zhao Chen and the others wore: within them lay a certain voice-blocking effect, and combined with the earpieces it made for a manner of private speech among themselves.
"So that is Saint Cana, the Sacred Angel Legion's commander?" There was surprise in Chu Xuan's voice.
She knew of the Sacred-War Duel back then, and knew that it was the Sacred Angel Legion the Owl Dragon Legion had beaten.
Only she had never seen Saint Cana in the flesh, and would never have supposed Saint Cana would turn up here.
"Since Saint Cana of the Sacred Angel Legion has appeared in this place, then it seems there truly are leads here on Qin Xiaotian's traffic with the Holy Radiance Empire," Zhao Chen said.
Before long, the attendant had led Zhao Chen and the rest into an enormous building, something after the manner of an atrium hall.
Zhao Chen raised his head and looked up, and could not see the top of it at a glance.
100 stories high at the very least.
Down both sides ran several hundred elevators, by which every floor could be reached.
"This will be the gentlefolk's first visit to the Stellar Tavern." The attendant now set it out for them. "What we chiefly answer to here is intelligence, though we can furnish lodging, hiring, and other services besides. But before any of that, a room must be taken here. The higher the floor the room stands on, the pricier it runs, and the finer the treatment."
With that, the attendant asked, his face all smiles, "And might I ask what manner of room the gentlefolk would care to take?"
As he spoke, the attendant laid out the several types of room, and the prices answering to each.
Take a room?
Zhao Chen was brought up short. He had not thought that coming to ask after a piece of intelligence would turn into taking a room.
But it had to be said, this tavern truly knew how to make money — not content with earning your intelligence fee, it earned a room charge off you first.
And this room charge was no cheap thing.
Zhao Chen ran an eye down it: from a few thousand star coins the night up to tens of thousands.
Tens of thousands of star coins… that was enough to buy a T1 interstellar warship.
"This one, then." Zhao Chen picked out a large suite; there were a good many of them, after all.
Besides Zhao Chen, Chu Xuan and Xue Xiaoxiao, there was a whole body of guards — a dozen-odd people all told.
To take single rooms would make moving about awkward.
Only a large suite answered.
The attendant, seeing the type of room taken, had delight flash across his eyes.
A room of this type could run above 10,000 star coins the night, and there was a commission in it he could scoop for himself besides; he had never thought to meet with so fine a customer.
"Very good. I'll see you settled in at once." The attendant got through every one of the formalities at great speed, and took Zhao Chen and the rest up by an elevator to a fairly high floor.
"This way, if the gentlefolk please. Here is your suite. Every service the tavern offers can be answered within the suite, and there are intelligent robots inside to assist. Beyond that, our suites are all fitted with privacy protection of the highest grade; not one secret of a guest's will ever be let out. Please use it with easy minds." So the attendant set it out.
And just then, Zhao Chen felt something and turned his head.
And saw, at the door of a suite next door and a few meters off, that white skin he knew, the points of light coming and going upon it, that face like an ice-mountain's jade lotus.
Enemies, it seems, are fated to meet on a narrow road.
And of all things she was lodged directly next door to him.
To change rooms at this point would be fooling nobody but himself.
And in any case, he had come this time to look into the Holy Radiance Empire — how was this anything but an opportunity?
Zhao Chen, without a flicker of it showing, took Chu Xuan and the others into the suite.
At the moment the suite door shut, the attendant was still standing outside it with a smile on his face.
And at the moment the door shut—
that squad of guards of Zhao Chen's moved on the instant, taking out the portable instruments they carried on them and running a scan over the whole of the room, inside and out.
Zhao Chen, for his part, sat down on the sofa.
The room was very large altogether, several rooms to it, near 500 square meters.
"Report, Commander-in-Chief. The room has been checked; no surveillance or listening device of any kind found. At the same time we have installed our own security equipment within the room, and made an attempt to raise comms contact with our own fleet outside." One of the guard soldiers took off her mask, showing black skin and black ears, and stood before Zhao Chen to report.
This was Zhao Chen's captain of the guard — one of the beast-folk, of the black-panther clan.
She had no name of her own, only a code name.
Panther-Girl.
An old subordinate of Charlotte's from over on the Warhammer side, whose charge had been the guard work there from the first.
Perhaps it was a matter of the gifts of her race, but Panther-Girl was exceedingly skilled at security and close protection, and had a kind of instinct that took the sense of danger before it came.
Under Charlotte's arrangement, and after passing a whole series of course assessments aboard a Goddess Academy-class ship, she had become Zhao Chen's captain of the guard, and had put the guard company together to her own standard.
Zhao Chen took off his own mask.
"This is the Stellar Tavern, after all; this pack of merchants sets great store by their own good name, and won't go digging their own graves. Chu Xuan — let's get to the real business." Zhao Chen waved a hand.
Chu Xuan nodded and went to a bar counter in front of the sofa, where there was a button plain enough to see.
She pressed it, and a woman's holographic image appeared.
"May I ask what service the honored guest requires?"
"I wish to purchase intelligence," Chu Xuan said.
"Please describe the substance of the intelligence you wish to obtain."
Chu Xuan turned her head to look at Commander-in-Chief Zhao Chen, and Zhao Chen gave a slight nod.
Chu Xuan set out, as had been prepared beforehand, the intelligence she wanted.
While this went on, Zhao Chen over on his side opened an electronic page belonging to the suite — a tavern intelligence page, with intelligence of every kind on it, and people posting bounties for intelligence they wanted as well.
Zhao Chen thought a moment, and entered two words.
Owl Dragon.
And soon the options, thick on the page before, grew a great deal fewer.
Intelligence: data on the Owl Dragon Legion's growth
Intelligence: personal intelligence on the Owl Dragon Legion's Commander-in-Chief
Intelligence: the Owl Dragon Legion's T4-grade interstellar warships
Intelligence: detailed account of the Owl Dragon Legion's Sacred-War Duel with the Sacred Angel Legion
Intelligence: the Owl Dragon Legion's interstellar warships possessing interstellar jump capability
……
There it was, sure enough.
The Owl Dragon Legion cut no small figure these days, so naturally there would be those digging after the Owl Dragon Legion's foundations. All of which lay well within what Zhao Chen had reckoned on.