The older woman turned out to be the mother of the young female soldier, A Juan.
Still indignant, she said, "They said the Fifth Interstellar Fleet had been wiped out and rebuilt, that they wouldn't send you to the front lines to charge into battle again. That was why we pulled strings through your uncle and spent money to get you assigned here..."
"If we'd known, you shouldn't have enlisted in the first place. Then we wouldn't have wasted all that money!"
"And that damned Xia Chujian! If she hadn't killed the Crown Princess, angered His Majesty, and gotten banished to your fleet, you wouldn't have been dragged into this mess either!"
A Juan sighed. "Mom, please stop talking."
"This has nothing to do with Miss Xia."
"She's a woman of spirit too. Someone wanted to kill her and her whole family—how could she not fight back?"
"Besides, after all these years, we've done enough."
"And once you enlist, how can you avoid fighting?"
"Don't worry. We're only being rotated to the Shaofu Front, not being sent to fight at Southern Cross Star..."
"So just relax."
"In another year, my term of service will be up. Once I leave the military and come home, the Military Department can arrange a good job for me. Then I'll never leave you again."
Xia Chujian stood not far away, calmly listening.
The woman called A Juan softly comforted her parents, husband, and child. She seemed like someone with a firm mind of her own.
The young man standing opposite her appeared to be her husband. He came over, took the child from her arms, his eyes reddening as he said, "A Juan, be careful."
"We don't expect you to get promoted. In a place like that, we'll be satisfied as long as you