I Married A Proud, Beautiful Omega First, Then Fell In Love - Chapter 4

At 2:30 PM, the spectator stands of the Hall of Honor were already seventy percent full.

In the center of the very first row sat the Great King of Tansan, Contanyi. To his right sat the leaders of the three major noble families, while two seats to his left remained vacant.

Bohill threaded through the crowd. When his gaze landed on a figure in a white formal suit, his eyes lit up.

“Mr. Elan!” Bohill approached with a beaming smile. “Eighty percent of the people here are blonde; you really weren’t easy to find.”

Elan looked at the frivolous, red-haired Alpha before him, his words sparse as gold. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Bohill made a gesture of invitation. “As General Dog’s family member, the seats in the front are waiting for you.”

Elan followed Bohill to the front row. Upon seeing the seat Bohill was pointing to, he hesitated. He instinctively glanced to the right, meeting Alexia’s gaze.

Alexia’s expression remained unchanged, though the corners of her mouth curled upward in an inscrutable manner.

“Mr. Elan? I have long heard that Dog’s partner is exceptionally outstanding, and seeing you today confirms it,” Contanyi spoke up at the appropriate moment. “Please, take a seat.”

Elan gave a friendly nod of acknowledgment and sat at the outermost edge, separated from Contanyi by one empty seat.

Bohill turned and walked a few steps back to sit in the second row on the left, standing by for orders.

Beside him were Petrovna and Poria. Petrovna nudged him with her shoulder and tilted her chin toward the front. “Is that Douglas’s partner?”

“Yes,” Bohill replied while smoothing out the wrinkles on his shoulder where Petrovna had bumped him.

“Is he the one who shut us out two years ago?” the mechanical bird perched on Poria’s shoulder whispered.

“Two years ago? What did you guys do?” This was the first Bohill had heard of it.

“Nothing much. Just one day two years ago, we suddenly felt it had been a long time since we’d seen Douglas and missed him,” Petrovna explained softly. “Since we couldn’t see Douglas, we figured we’d pay his partner a visit.”

“In the end, he didn’t open the door for us and had the security robots escort us away,” the mechanical bird recounted flatly.

“Ah, what a pity,” Bohill remarked.

“I think he’s a bit impolite,” the mechanical bird added.

Petrovna shook her head. “But our visit was quite abrupt and presumptuous, wasn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?”

A voice suddenly came from above. The three heads huddled together looked up simultaneously.

Qin pushed up his glasses. “Make some room; give me a seat.”

At the sight of him, Bohill’s mind filled with the “Get lost, don’t bother me” message Douglas had shown him last night, and the expression on his face faltered.

It wasn’t until Petrovna nudged him that he reacted and moved over one seat.

Qin glanced at him. “What’s wrong with you? You’re acting strange. Do you need me to give you a check-up?”

“Nothing.” Bohill shook his head frantically. “I’m perfectly fine.”

Even stranger.

But Qin decided to let him fend for himself.

“Why are you here? Didn’t Douglas fail to see you yesterday?” Bohill changed the subject.

“I saw the news,” Qin said. “To prevent any accidents with the patient, I have to work overtime.”

“Douglas should pay you more for the consultation,” the mechanical bird said.

“You have a point,” Qin said thoughtfully. “But by that logic, shouldn’t you pay me more too? After all, not everyone needs a gastric cleansing after eating blueberry cheesecake.”

The mechanical bird fell silent for a moment. “Pretend I didn’t say anything.”

At 2:50 PM, LED screens across the galaxy began broadcasting the meeting footage. The 3D news projections were calibrated; as soon as the subjects appeared, they would instantly capture dynamic information and transmit it to all planets via satellite.

Douglas stood at the side of the hall behind a heavy curtain. The formal suit he wore had been rushed through production just last night—a plain, unadorned black model, but it felt a bit too form-fitting. He felt somewhat hot.

Douglas clenched his fists, feeling the damp sweat in his palms. He took a deep breath and resolutely lifted a foot.

This was the first time in his life facing such a formal occasion.

He might be an excellent soldier, but he was no politician capable of chatting idly with the citizens. Therefore, saying he wasn’t nervous would be a lie.

The heavy curtain was pulled back by the second-level secretary. Douglas walked with slightly stiff strides to the podium and turned to stand still.

Tens of thousands of gazes from the audience fell upon him. Those intangible lines of sight, filled with complex and varied emotions, felt like needle points pricking his skin.

In the moment he was surrounded by those sharp edges, Douglas became eerily calm. Those blue pupils surging like a tide reminded him of the bright, elliptical eyes of the Zerg in the void of space.

In the nearest first row, Contanyi’s gentle dark-green eyes looked at him with encouragement.

The leaders of the three great families wore appropriate smiles, but if one were to hide the curve of their mouths, the scrutiny and wariness hidden in the depths of their eyes would be revealed.

Under this atmosphere of surging undercurrents and ulterior motives, Douglas felt a slight urge to laugh—mockingly.

However, after shifting his gaze slightly to the right, he suppressed the impending rise of his lips.

Elan sat there, his gaze as calm as water, his posture elegant and poised, looking as exquisite as a marionette.

But Douglas keenly sensed that he seemed somewhat unhappy.

Douglas wasn’t very happy to see him either. These people had placed Elan in a seat next to his without his consent, making it seem as though he were deeply fond of this blonde, acerbic swan.

Douglas pressed a button on the podium that looked like a stud.

A transparent light screen flickered to life before his eyes, and Douglas began his speech: “Greetings, everyone. I am Douglas Lu of the Special Operations Bureau, and the Chief General of this three-year interstellar campaign.”

Petrovna breathed a sigh of relief and said appreciatively, “I told you he could do it.”

“You have me to thank for that.” Bohill smiled triumphantly. “There’s a hidden light screen in front of him. I specially installed that cheating device in the podium yesterday; it has his ‘cheat sheet’ on it.”

Petrovna remarked, “That is too thoughtful.”

Qin said in a flat tone, “I think he did it to ensure the ceremony wouldn’t go wrong, not for Douglas’s sake.”

Bohill’s smile was kind. “Don’t say it out loud.”

The mechanical bird muttered, “They should give you a ‘Most Diligent’ award.”

“Those are just empty titles.” Bohill was humble for a split second before adding, “I’d prefer a bonus.”

Douglas’s speech wasn’t long. He summarized the campaign and looked toward the future, lasting only about ten minutes. Next was the commissioning ceremony.

Contanyi walked over from one side of the podium with a smile, followed by an attending secretary holding a black tray. On the tray was a golden medal engraved with the Tansan totem.

Douglas glanced at the small object and looked away.

A medal represented not just honor, but power.

Once the medal was pinned on, he would be the Empire’s First Admiral in both name and reality.

Contanyi picked up the medal and, under the gaze of the public, pinned it to Douglas’s chest.

The moment Contanyi leaned down, Douglas caught a glimpse of the wrinkles at the corners of the King’s eyes. He suddenly thought: It has been many years, hasn’t it?

He had forgotten how many years ago it was when a much younger Contanyi had squatted down in front of him, asking with a smile if he wanted to join his organization.

“What are you standing there for? Applaud!” Petrovna clapped her hands vigorously, then spared a hand to give Bohill a heavy shove.

Bohill coughed a few times and, with a look of grievance, began to clap forcefully.

The clapping of those few people rang out abruptly in the silent space. The quiet hall then hesitated before breaking into sparse, scattered applause.

As the medal ceremony concluded, King Contanyi of Tansan suddenly turned toward the audience with a solemn expression, speaking also to the residents of other planets light-years away:

“I wish to announce a piece of joyful news to the citizens of the Tansan Interstellar Empire.”

Puzzled whispers rose from the audience.

Contanyi smiled. “The Empire is about to establish the Imperial Special Academy on the capital planet. It will be open to all civilized planets in all star systems. Regardless of status or gender, anyone who passes the basic assessment can enroll.”

“The Principal will be—Admiral Douglas Lu.”

Contanyi made an introductory gesture toward Douglas. Although Douglas had known about the plan to establish a school, he hadn’t known the recruitment scope was so broad. He was personally taken aback.

This time, Contanyi was going to completely dismantle the existing regulatory system.

Facing the furrowed brows of the family leaders and the image transmission terminals, Douglas had no choice but to maintain a polite, fake smile, clapping while looking at Contanyi.

What is going on? Who told you to give this difficult mess to me?

I’m being stared at until I’m full of holes!

Contanyi pretended not to see his agonizing gaze and turned his eyes elsewhere.

Douglas nearly ground his teeth to dust.

The conferral ceremony for the Empire’s First Admiral drew to a close, and the crowd began to exit the hall. There was a banquet in the evening, which all the socialites of the capital planet would attend.

Under the escort of officers, Elan boarded the Riemann family’s starship. Alexia glanced at him and frowned. “Why are you here instead of staying with your partner?”

Elan thought of the person who had come down from the podium without sparing him a single glance. He felt a sense of resistance, but he merely said, “I’m going back to change my formal wear. I haven’t attended banquets much in recent years, and I don’t have suitable clothes.”

“You had better not embarrass the family. Even if it’s an act, you must look like you are on excellent terms with him,” Alexia warned. Remembering Contanyi’s speech, she questioned, “Did you not know about his appointment as the Principal of the Imperial Special Academy? Or did you know and fail to inform me?”

Such a sudden decision had caught the three major families off guard.

If the decision were still under discussion, they could have used various connections to block it, but now that it had been announced, it would certainly be implemented.

“He didn’t tell me,” Elan said, shaking his head.

Alexia’s brow furrowed deeper. “It’s normal that you wouldn’t know; that group of reformists from who-knows-what desolate planets has always been guarding against us. But didn’t I marry you to him so you could help us obtain useful information despite their tight security? You can’t even do this small thing!”

She seemed somewhat emotional, her tone accusatory. Hearing that Elan remained quiet behind her, she stopped. With a sour expression, she picked up a teacup and drank some water to calm down.

After a long silence, her tone softened significantly, though it still couldn’t be called gentle. “If it weren’t for that incident, there would have been no need for you to condescend to that commoner and do these things for the family.”

“Elan, this is your fate. Do not blame me.”

Elan gave a soft “mm” in response.