After that Zhao Chen talked over some further matters with President Guiji, and then took the thoroughly anxious Xue Xiaoxiao back to the Little Skeleton.
The Little Skeleton · bridge.
"This Guiji hasn't in fact come to trust us altogether. She's a crafty one. Her setting us to handle this business of Gu Xiaoxiao's is a way of sounding out our strength — of seeing just how much power we have in a place like the Stellar Alliance, where the sky is high and the emperor far away. For to her eyes, this is not the Owl Dragon System, and it isn't the Starlight Empire either." Chu Xuan looked at Zhao Chen in the captain's chair.
Xue Xiaoxiao at this hour was up forward laying the course; she knew the Stellar Alliance better than any of them, and knew the fastest run to the Qian family's main planet besides.
So the work had been given to her.
And with the distance between them, Xue Xiaoxiao did not hear what Chu Xuan said.
"No matter. How should a figure like Guiji come to work with you heart and soul on the strength of a few words out of your mouth? Nor are her misgivings wrong. This is the Stellar Alliance, and not the Starlight Empire. Had it been a year ago, our whip might truly have been too short for the distance. But now…" The corner of Zhao Chen's mouth lifted slightly, and he said it lightly enough. "Set against the Owl Dragon Legion, the Stellar Alliance is no more than a gathering-place of middlemen. The three great empires have no confidence of taking hold here — but the cards in our own hands are enough, well within the Stellar Alliance's rules of the game, to play these people a fine round or two."
Chu Xuan naturally guessed what Zhao Chen was driving at.
The Stellar Alliance's rules of the game came, beyond doubt, to interstellar trade and to money.
And the Owl Dragon Legion had not come this far on powerful starships alone; there were deeper foundations standing behind it.
Say nothing of anything else.
The Northern Goose Group, the North Dragon Group, the Rose-Red Dragon Group, the Earth-Dragon Mining Group — these alone.
Set colossi of that sort down in the Stellar Alliance, and it would be enough to send the Stellar Alliance's people out of their minds over them.
To Zhao Chen, a thing that money could settle was no thing at all.
Because now—
he, Zhao Chen, was a money tree.
The greatest money tree in this whole sea of stars.
"And by way of this Qian family as a stepping-stone, we can make the Star-Shark Guild clearly aware of our strength. So that they come to work with us out of their own hearts." Zhao Chen said it with a smile.
With business of that kind he could hardly have been better acquainted.
Over on the Starlight Empire's side, over in the Reef Star Region — was this not the very road Zhao Chen had walked all along?
He had no need of anyone's undying loyalty, nor did Zhao Chen suppose he possessed personal charm of that order.
He needed only to let those fellows see the worth of him, and they would follow along meekly enough.
Profit!
Forever standing at the pyramid's peak.
"Commander-in-Chief, the course is laid. We can reach the Qian family's main planet inside a day!" Xue Xiaoxiao came at a quick step to stand before Zhao Chen, urgency all over her.
"Then let's be off. And send word across to Su Lan's side. Have them go on following at a distance, keeping some way back from us, and keep their movements from being given away so far as they can," Zhao Chen instructed.
"Yes." Chu Xuan set about seeing to it.
The power held within this terrifying 'guard fleet' of Zhao Chen's was truly too great a thing; once that card was thrown down, it would astound the whole Stellar Alliance without fail.
So the later it came, the better.
…………
The Qian family's main planet.
The Qian family was a great power within the Stellar Alliance — and after the Mechanical Race's withdrawal in particular, unlike the other interstellar powers of the Stellar Alliance, who had begun to fall away—
the Qian family had instead risen once more, upon the Holy Radiance Empire and, later, upon a connection somehow established with the Starlight Empire's side.
With its back against two great mountains, the speed of the Qian family's rise ran as though the whole house were on some drug.
Indeed, at that rate, it might well become the Stellar Alliance's greatest interstellar power within a few years.
Unlike the Star-Shark Guild, the Qian family held several star systems as its own territory.
And this Qian main planet was the Qian family's own nest; the great bulk of the family's people lived upon it.
It was also one of the very few planets in the Stellar Alliance of so high a degree of prosperity.
And beyond the main planet, moreover, a resplendent 'palace' had been built.
Spoken of as 'the Qian family's City in the Sky'.
Which was in truth no more than a former space station, refitted in imitation of Stellar City, to make up a miniature Stellar City of their own.
And it was a 'gold-melting den' the Qian family had built besides.
Apart from certain items of the service sort, its chief uses were the Qian family's business, the entertaining of important guests, and the presiding over ceremonies of every important kind.
And now this City in the Sky of the Qian family's had come upon an important day of its own as well.
Which was the day of the Qian young house-head's great joy.
And which meant, too, the alliance of the Qian family with the Star-Shark Guild!
For this day, one district of the City in the Sky had begun a week ago to make careful preparation for this weightiest of marriages within the Stellar Alliance.
And within one exquisite room of it—
a woman was trying on a wedding gown. Gu Xiaoxiao looked at herself in the holographic mirror. Beautiful. Truly beautiful.
For this wedding, what the Qian family had readied for Gu Xiaoxiao was naturally nothing of the common sort.
Gu Xiaoxiao was no peerless beauty, but set her in Zhao Chen's old Northstar Starship Military Academy and she would have counted as the flower of her class, or of her faculty.
And with the care that had been taken over her appearance just now, she was like some delicate blossom on the branch.
Only that in Gu Xiaoxiao's eyes there was a feeling like cold ash.
"Miss Xiaoxiao, you will be the loveliest bride of tomorrow without fail!" said the woman charged with dressing and adorning her, in praise.
And a maidservant beside her went further. "And your bridegroom is the Qian family's young house-head, the finest eligible bachelor in the Stellar Alliance today! You truly are too fortunate!"
"So fortunate as that — then you marry this Qian young house-head." Gu Xiaoxiao returned it coldly.
The maidservant's expression stiffened, and something complicated came into her face.
She naturally knew those rumors of the Qian young house-head too — a pervert, a piece of human refuse, a man who took pleasure in cruelty.
But then, thinking of the Qian family's standing behind him, to her this was a complicated question to be weighed.
Bang.
And just at this moment, the room's door was pushed open.
A sordid-looking man came in drunk, with two alluring women in his arms.
"Where's my bride? Where is my bride?"
At the sight of who had come, everyone in the room but Gu Xiaoxiao at once lowered their heads, and called out with something of dread in it, "Young Master Qian."
Gu Xiaoxiao at once took hold of the handheld terminal at her wrist, and looked at this Qian young house-head before her with a sharp eye.
Let this fellow once dare anything with her, and she would absolutely see to it that this young house-head regretted it.
"My bride, you're truly lovely. Come — let's be affectionate together." The Qian young house-head looked at Gu Xiaoxiao with a burning in his eyes.
And now one of the personal maids Gu Xiaoxiao had brought with her stepped hurriedly in front of her. "Young Master Qian, by the rules of our Star-Shark— before the marriage is formally made, man and woman must have no contact. It's unlucky. It will cost you money."
At the hearing of unlucky, and cost you money—
the Qian young house-head's hand checked itself. People in trade, whether in the ancient days or now—
whatever the interstellar race, were all of them, for reasons nobody knows, exceedingly superstitious about this.
"Never mind… we're married tomorrow, and then I can be as affectionate as I please, however I please. Right then — let's go next door and enjoy ourselves properly." Young Master Qian, hiding nothing whatever, put his arms about the two women and left the room.
What was to happen with them next may be imagined.
Gu Xiaoxiao let out a breath, with the look of one come through a peril alive.
"Sister Xiaoxiao…" That personal maid who had stepped forward looked at Gu Xiaoxiao with pity.
What she had done could only put off the coming of the nightmare.
She was on good terms with Gu Xiaoxiao, and truly did not wish to watch Gu Xiaoxiao fall into the abyss.
If only there were someone who could save Gu Xiaoxiao.
But in the Stellar Alliance as it now stood, who would dare set himself against the Qian family for the sake of one woman?