Gu Xiaoxiao looked in astonishment at the Sacred Angel Legion's commander, who was slurping away at her noodles.
The snail-rice noodles Xiaoxiao had spoken of must be the strong-smelling dish this Commander Saint Cana was eating.
That an ice-mountain beauty so lovely and so proud should be fond of food with a smell of that kind was indeed a thing to take one by surprise.
Those several Sacred Spirit people were watching their own commander warily too.
At first they had been unable to understand either why their commander should have taken so particular a liking to this stinking dish.
It had been on their first day in the starship canteen, apparently.
That Owl Dragon Commander-in-Chief had recommended the dish, and goaded Saint Cana into it.
So Saint Cana had given it a try — and that one try had been quite enough.
These last days, half of what she ordered had been snail-rice noodles!
And were it not that Saint Cana went back to her quarters to bathe and change her clothes every time she finished, the smell of the stuff would likely have been about her person permanently.
"Eating snail-rice noodles, are we?" A man's voice sounded from beside them.
The only man who could appear aboard an Owl Dragon starship was that one man.
"There's a free seat here. If nobody minds, I'll sit myself down." Zhao Chen, seeing Xue Xiaoxiao and Gu Xiaoxiao at the next table—
sat down beside them, so that he was diagonally across from Saint Cana with the aisle between them.
Saint Cana paid Zhao Chen no notice, for all the world as though she had never marked his existence at all, and only went on eating the snail-rice noodles in her own bowl.
But the eyes of those subordinates of hers were very soon drawn over to Zhao Chen's side beyond their own control.
For there was a whole table of crayfish!
Crayfish in flavors of every kind, dish upon dish!
A full dozen catty of them!
No few of the Sacred Spirit people gulped. They knew this dish too; some had ordered a small portion before now, and the flavor of it truly was rather fine!
By nature, proud Sacred Spirit folk would not eat food that looked so much like insects — but the crayfish was an exception!
It was simply too good.
But the unit price was very high as well, a good deal above ordinary food.
So to order crayfish with as free a hand as Zhao Chen did was beyond what their own standard of provision could manage.
"What is this?" Gu Xiaoxiao looked at the portion of little red creatures in front of Zhao Chen, and at first glance was rather unwilling to put any of it in her mouth.
But the Xue Xiaoxiao across from her had already sucked down one crayfish on the sly.
"That flavor… splendid, that is, and they're big ones too. These are the specially supplied crayfish, aren't they?" Xue Xiaoxiao looked at Zhao Chen with a grin.
Zhao Chen did not say, but shelled several crayfish one after another and chewed the good meat of them.
"Xiaoxiao, you try it. The flavor truly is rather fine! It's one of my favorite things for a late supper, though the unit price is a little dear — even I can only order it now and then. And today it's a rare thing, with the Commander-in-Chief treating us. Quick, try it." Xue Xiaoxiao pressed it on Gu Xiaoxiao.
When did I say anything about treating anyone?
Zhao Chen let his eyes slide toward the Xue Xiaoxiao beside him; today he would let it pass, for he had a matter to see to, and would not haggle with the girl over it.
Gu Xiaoxiao's eyes asked Zhao Chen for leave, and only when Zhao Chen said of his own accord that she should try it did she reach out for one, and begin shelling it in imitation of Xue Xiaoxiao's method.
And when that meat went into her mouth and she chewed it, Gu Xiaoxiao felt in an instant as though a wholly new world had opened.
That these little red beetles should have so fine a flavor to them!
"Xiaoxiao, afterward you and Su Lan are to make ready together; we may be opening some military operations before long. You're to have your contingency plans in order." Zhao Chen spoke up.
Xue Xiaoxiao's eyes lit, and she said in excitement, "Is there finally a battle to be had? Tell us first who our target is, so Sister Su Lan and I know how to draw the plan up."
Zhao Chen said it carelessly. "The Sacred Lancer Legion."
And in that instant, with Zhao Chen at the center of it, the air about them began to change.
Gu Xiaoxiao looked at Zhao Chen in astonishment.
Saint Cana and the rest at the next table plainly checked in what they were doing, and some of the Sacred Spirit people went further and looked at Zhao Chen with astonishment in their faces.
They had found, too, that since coming among the Owl Dragon fleet their own feelings had grown less and less steady.
"You mean the Sacred Lancer Legion — one of the Holy Radiance Empire's Ten Great Sacred-Light Legions!" Xue Xiaoxiao's eyes shone, and she said it in excitement.
Zhao Chen nodded, drank a mouthful of his drink, and said, shelling crayfish as he spoke, "The detailed particulars of the operation Chu Xuan will send to you and Su Lan afterward. This operation's plan is to be drawn up by you and Su Lan together. The time of action is estimated at three days from now."
And in the very moment Zhao Chen was speaking, a figure appeared across from him and sat straight down.
Gu Xiaoxiao looked with some surprise at the Saint Cana who had sat down beside her, and swallowed nervously. Once, to her, this had been a figure out of rumor.
And now she was sitting right beside her… and with a smell about her, moreover, that was hard to put a name to.
"What in the end is it you mean to do? Hold us prisoner? And then speak of a plan to attack the Sacred Lancer Legion right in front of us!" Saint Cana fixed her eyes on Zhao Chen.
She truly could not work out what purpose this man before her had.
"Because I wish to work with you." Zhao Chen looked at Saint Cana and said it with a smile.
"Work together? Enemies from a Sacred-War Duel, working together? Are you making a joke of me?" Saint Cana knit her brows.
"With me, there are no permanent enemies. The more so as we now have an enemy in common." Zhao Chen said it smiling.
"The Sacred Lancer Legion? That is one of the Sacred-Light Legions. How should it possibly be an enemy of mine?" Saint Cana treated it with scorn.
Zhao Chen smiled slightly, and licked the sauce from his fingers. "And if I told you that the ones who wanted you dead this time were the Sacred Lancer Legion?"
Saint Cana's pupils dilated sharply.
Her mind turned over without stopping at this news come out of nowhere from Zhao Chen, working the intelligence through.
"What do you mean by that?" Saint Cana stared at him.
Zhao Chen swallowed in one mouthful the heap of crayfish meat he had shelled in advance into his bowl, and after a satisfied belch went on, "By the intelligence our investigation turned up— the power standing behind the Sacred Lancer Legion wants you dead. As for the reason, I imagine you understand it well enough. It is precisely your purpose in coming to the Stellar Alliance this time. And the Sacred Lancer Legion's appearing in the Stellar Alliance will get in the way of a plan of mine. Which being so, it is an enemy to both our sides. So I hold that we can work together."
Saint Cana said nothing; she was weighing what Zhao Chen had said.
She knew too that this attack upon her must have been the work of people within the Holy Radiance Empire itself.
And standing behind the Sacred Lancer Legion were exactly those several family powers.
A moment's thought, and Saint Cana judged Zhao Chen's intelligence to be broadly accurate.
"Even if they want me dead, that is a matter internal to our Holy Radiance Empire. What has it to do with you? And in working with me — what is it you mean to gain!" Saint Cana stared at Zhao Chen, wanting to see clean through this man in front of her.