"To have you."
At that one saying of Zhao Chen's, the points of light on Saint Cana's face would not stop coming and going.
The Sacred Spirit people at the next table pricked up their ears one and all, for all the world as though they might overhear some piece of gossip past all reckoning.
Gu Xiaoxiao, in the middle of eating, very nearly choked.
Xue Xiaoxiao's eyes went wide as she looked at Zhao Chen in astonishment — but very soon she wore the look of one to whom all is now clear, having likely filled in 3,000 episodes of romantic melodrama in her own head.
"—your trust." Zhao Chen had been talking while he ate just now, and a piece of crayfish meat had lodged square in his throat.
Saint Cana glared at him in shame and anger. "Do you not think that a very laughable thing to say! Trust? Why should I trust you?"
Whether the fury about Saint Cana just then was on account of those words and their double reading, there is no telling.
"Your trust matters a great deal to me, of course. At present the Starlight Empire is in civil war; and after the civil war ends, you may indeed keep to those three years of the Sacred-War Duel. But I believe that three years on, your Holy Radiance Empire will most certainly launch a war of invasion outward! And a Starlight Empire just come out of civil war, with its strength fallen away, is beyond doubt the finest target there is," Zhao Chen said.
Saint Cana looked at him and did not deny what he said, but countered, "That is not called invasion. It is only to bring more of the interstellar races under the shelter of the Sacred Light."
Saint Cana's loss in the Sacred-War Duel had, it was true, brought the Holy Radiance Empire's plan of invading the Starlight Empire to a halt.
But in point of fact the loss was not so great as one might imagine.
Because the Holy Radiance Empire's strength as it stood had not in any case been enough to swallow the Starlight Empire in so short a span.
The original plan had been first to take control of the Mechanical Race territories the Starlight Empire held, and then, having digested those resources, to widen their own legion fleets.
To spend five years to 10 raising their own strength, and only then to make war upon the Starlight Empire.
But on account of the Sacred-War Duel, the Holy Radiance Empire could do no more than digest that one stretch of Mechanical Race territory of its own.
And once three years were up, that war was fated to happen.
Zhao Chen shrugged, and gave no attention to Saint Cana's question of faith; to get tangled with her over that would not be finished in three days and three nights.
"But what if, during these three years, something not at all good were to happen within the Holy Radiance Empire itself? What happened in the Starlight Empire, for instance, playing out in the Holy Radiance Empire. Saint Cana, is not that the very thing you are anxious about, that you should have appeared in Stellar City at all? You are anxious that the cooperation between people inside your Holy Radiance Empire and that Qin Xiaotian is not so simple a thing as it appears on the face of it. The more so as Qin Xiaotian now holds a technology for controlling the hive-race that came from who knows where." Zhao Chen looked at Saint Cana with narrowed eyes. "That is a bomb with a timer on it. For you and for me both."
An expression of thought came over Saint Cana; she was working through what Zhao Chen had said.
"The cooperation between the two of us wants no selling out of the Holy Radiance Empire's interests on your part. On the contrary, for you it is all gain and no harm whatever — and just the thing to clear out the worms gnawing beneath your great Sacred Light. First, I can tell you my plan. My first purpose in coming here this time is to wreck the cooperation between your people and Qin Xiaotian." Zhao Chen stated his own aim for this journey outright.
Xue Xiaoxiao looked at the Commander-in-Chief with some astonishment. How was it the Commander-in-Chief should state their strategic aim right in front of an enemy?
In truth, Saint Cana had long since guessed the reason Zhao Chen and his people should have appeared here.
It came to no more than that business between Qin Xiaotian and the Holy Radiance Empire.
So there was no further need for Zhao Chen to keep it hidden.
Hearing of it, the expression on Saint Cana's face did not change in the least.
"And in the course of it, I mean to find a way of getting clear what cooperation Qin Xiaotian has actually settled upon with a portion of your Holy Radiance Empire's nobles. And if I truly do get it clear, I am willing to furnish that intelligence to you, and for nothing. And you may take that intelligence and lay charges against those nobles of your Holy Radiance Empire, and clean away the filth beneath the Sacred Light." Zhao Chen finished the portion of crayfish in front of him and gave a satisfied belch.
Truly comfortable, that.
"You wish to make internal strife within our Holy Radiance Empire!" Saint Cana stared at him, and named what was in his mind.
Zhao Chen shrugged. "You may take it so."
Saint Cana's face darkened. She did not refuse Zhao Chen's proposal outright; this was a stratagem worked in the open — but… she seemed indeed to have no ground on which to refuse.
Because she, Saint Cana, was that kind of person. She would not allow anyone within the Holy Radiance Empire to do anything that went against the Sacred Light!
And if she truly came to know of such things, there was no possibility of her turning a blind eye.
"Finish these crayfish, and once you've made your decision, come and find me on the bridge." Zhao Chen pushed the other portion of crayfish across in front of Saint Cana.
Xue Xiaoxiao, beside them, pushed out her lip. The Commander-in-Chief played favorites — he hadn't given her any to eat!
With that, Zhao Chen rose from his seat and walked out of the starship canteen.
Saint Cana looked at the good crayfish before her, and her feelings were somewhat complicated.
And now those Sacred Spirit subordinates at the next table turned hopeful eyes upon it.
"Share them out among you," Saint Cana said.
"Thank you, Commander!" the Sacred Spirit people said in delight; and then, in short order, several of them had the portion of crayfish shared out and eaten clean.
…………
The bridge.
Zhao Chen sat in the captain's chair and gave another satisfied belch.
"She agreed?" Chu Xuan stood beside him, and caught the smell of crayfish in the air.
"She will agree soon enough." Zhao Chen wore the look of a man with the thing well in hand.
Chu Xuan called up a file and reported to Zhao Chen, saying, "On the Qian family, I've found some particular threads and traces. They may have a bearing on the business we're looking into."
Zhao Chen looked over this material, his brows drawn tight, and was silent a moment. "There's a little time yet before the next batch of dealings between the Holy Radiance Empire and Qin Xiaotian. We may as well go and have a look at the place named here."
"Yes. I'll arrange the voyage at once," said Chu Xuan.
Zhao Chen leaned back in the captain's chair and closed his eyes.
In proposing this cooperation to Saint Cana, what he gained was, relatively speaking, not a great deal — but taking the long view, it seemed rather that he gained a very great deal indeed.
He was planting a seed within the Holy Radiance Empire. A seed that might, in time to come, bring that mighty empire down.
Though whether it could be brought about depended on the chances.
And the greatest reason for it was, of course, Zhao Chen's finishing the System task.
Saint Cana's trust value: −5
The letting-her-be strategy over this stretch of time had answered rather well.
It had not come up into the positive, granted, but it had risen no little.
And once Saint Cana worked with him, this trust value should turn from negative to positive.
Zhao Chen took the chance to look in on the state of his other task besides.
T5 System mall, activation completion: 20%.
New task ~updating~……
Zhao Chen's carrying off of Gu Xiaoxiao, the Qian family's betrothed, counted as completing that System mall task, and Zhao Chen had come by his 20% — but the next stage's task had not refreshed into view.
It seemed some waiting would be wanted.