025 Welcome Back Chancellor (Part 1)

Blurry memories trickled back through time, and Xu Lanzhou found herself returning to a fragment of her childhood. The large leaves of the spotted Blood Flower trees shaded the gentle sunlight, while a delicately carved little girl sat on the stone steps. This was a retreat of the Xu family on Chunlai Star, and Xu Lanzhou, as the youngest and most cherished daughter of the family, spent most of her childhood days here. Clutching a fluffy rabbit toy, Xu Lanzhou didn't delight in running and playing wildly with other children. Instead, she carefully cradled a picture book, a collector-grade paper book that was already a rarity in this era, experiencing every story within it with naïve curiosity.

This picture book was unique to the Xu family and told the tale of the Xu ancestors—a Shield Knight following the Imperial Chancellor into battle. The Xu ancestor who was a Shield Knight was the only woman among the Twelve Knights of Destiny and managing to lift the Chancellor's heavy shield to protect him from the enemy's attacks was a legendary feat, despite her being a delicate woman.

In the records of the Xu ancestors, the adoration and infatuation with the Chancellor were unhidden; although it was a love destined to remain unrequited, it was still a subject of much delight and discussion. The young Xu Lanzhou had fantasized more than once about taking the place of her Shield Knight ancestor, standing in front of the Chancellor, protecting him and his Empire with her grand shield, and feeling the warmth of the Chancellor's gaze on her back.

Many Iridium Star girls felt the same naive stirrings about their first love as the girls from Earth did, whether it was the handsome boy next door, the cool schoolmate, or the dazzling entertainers in the media. What set them slightly apart was that people from Iridium Star were also likely to idolize certain figures in the Iridium Star military, such as aviation soldiers with outstanding battle achievements or dedicated technical officers of warships. However, the first object of Xu Lanzhou's fantasies was the Imperial Chancellor, whose face she didn't even know. She immersed herself in all records about the Chancellor within her family archives and public databases, from gossip to the official histories, using these sources to flesh out the image of the Chancellor in her mind.

In the imagination of the naïve girl, the Chancellor was a figure who looked somewhat weathered by the years, tall and strong, donned in a crisp and proper Empire Army uniform. He was usually reticent and serious, but in private, he was filled with compassion toward others. His embrace was both broad and warm, and he carried a reassuring masculine scent.

...

Xu Lanzhou couldn't help but feel her cheeks grow warm, snapping out of her youthful fantasies, and she still could hardly believe that she was actually about to meet the Chancellor. Fortunately, looking at the others in the landing craft, their expressions were almost the same, all brimming with excitement and thrill, making Xu Lanzhou's reaction not out of the ordinary among them.

To welcome the Chancellor, Xu Lanzhou had specially requisitioned a Bi-Bo class landing craft for the VIP transport mission. The entire fleet had only two of these types of craft. Compared to an ordinary military landing craft, the Bi-Bo type was larger, and the additional space naturally could accommodate the comfort requirements of important personnel. This was akin to a luxury private jet heavily invested in on Earth, generally used for political dignitaries. The Bi-Bo craft was primarily used for slow VIP transport within gravity wells and for planetary surface transportation. It employed a hybrid power system with an anti-gravity engine and a radio frequency resonant cavity engine; the former utilized geomagnetic effects and a magnetic shield to move and propel massive objects into space, while the latter was a simple yet refined slow-speed engine. Similar technology had been proposed on Earth but had not yet reached practical levels.

To avoid unnecessary interference from Earth's nations with the Chancellor's welcoming operation and to prevent spoiling the Chancellor's mood, Xu Lanzhou also ordered the landing craft and the escort fighters to use optical and electromagnetic stealth methods. This would have been unthinkable in the past, as the Iridium Star people, although not arrogant, were certainly domineering enough.

In his San Francisco apartment, Bai Zhongqi hadn't slept all night. After learning that the fleet preparing to invade Earth was the same one that had emerged from his game, Bai Zhongqi couldn't settle down and was still tirelessly looking for ways to avert the impending disaster. Yet, after one night, Bai Zhongqi still hadn't found anything.

"Could it really be that the interstellar warships I created will be the end of us?" Bai Zhongqi felt thoroughly disheartened and laughed at himself mockingly. Although he hadn't found a way to stop everything from happening, he had obtained more information from the game. The Sacred Falcon Class Battlecruiser was Iridium Star's latest main battle ship with formidable combat power, equipped with the terrifying Planetary Bomb. If Iridium Star truly went to war, they wouldn't care about inflicting grievous casualties on the enemy. The Planetary Bomb had various different warheads with diverse effects. One type, the H-type warhead, was specifically designed to clear organic life on a planet, emitting radiation that could eliminate a wide range of organisms in an extremely short time, and this radiation became harmless after just 24 hours, without damaging other infrastructures. The more brutal A-type warhead could flatten everything on a planet's surface. After re-colonization, Iridium Star could swiftly reconstruct the planet's ecosystem and build various colonies.

Now, it was Earth that had first initiated the hostile approach, and if Iridium Star judged this as provocation, they would definitely enter serious war mode, where weapons like the Planetary Bomb would come into play. At this point, Bai Zhongqi felt that if Iridium Star conquered Earth without causing too much damage, that would be considered very fortunate. He couldn't determine Earth's current state in game terms; theoretically, planets not in the Intergalactic Era were classified as wild, which in the game meant direct colonization by Iridium Star without resorting to planet bombing. If Earth was indeed categorized as wild, Bai Zhongqi could breathe a bit easier.

This was also a situation that seemed to verge on insanity and was immensely ironic.

With few options available, Bai Zhongqi decided that no matter what, he needed to survive first. He looked outside his apartment, and the morning seemed exceptionally calm. Bai Zhongqi picked up a flower pot with a tomato plant inside and decided to put it on the balcony outside the door to bask in the sunlight—perhaps, the fruits that grew later would be the fresh vegetables and fruits he would find hard to come by.