Milili

"Hey!" Kolev snapped. "You're staring! You little brat! Her old man's still right here!"

"Your daughter's name is Milili? How did I not notice that just now?"

Yang Ming murmured, his eyes shining.

The old man lunged forward and grabbed Yang Ming by the neck. "Don't you dare harbor any dirty thoughts about her!"

Yang Ming let Kolev grab him by the neck. The other man wasn't using much force—or maybe he was, but Yang Ming couldn't feel it at all.

A sensible gentleman naturally shouldn't stare too aggressively at a lady.

Yang Ming calmly drew his gaze away. Only then did Kolev let it go. He shot Yang Ming a smug, triumphant look, then hopped down amid a burst of laughter.

Yang Ming went right back to unabashedly admiring the beauty.

Milili's long burgundy hair looked as if it had just been soaked in red wine. Her skin was so delicate it seemed like the finest gift the Creator had bestowed upon humanity. Especially that petite face atop her swanlike neck—the clever arrangement of her features was sure to have delighted her birth mother.

Her smooth forehead was flawless. Her slightly sunken eye sockets and gently rising nose bridge created a subtle three-dimensional look, while her pale, jewel-like eyes seemed to whisper to people at all times.

And her tall, shapely figure was displayed to the fullest by her outfit: overalls, a shirt, and knee-high leather boots.

Kolev spread his arms wide.

Milili, five or six centimeters taller than him, laughed as she ran up to her father and threw her arms around him, screaming excitedly again and again.

Screaming suited pirates better than crying.

Yang Ming kept his hands in the pockets of his maintenance suit and leaned against the front of the Maintenance Boat. He basked in the warmth of their reunion while taking the opportunity to get a few more looks at Milili's eye-catching figure.

What a beauty.

Even more remarkable was that her youthful energy radiated from within; it wasn't something she'd deliberately preserved on her face through various means.

But Yang Ming was clearly more interested in another aspect of her than her beauty and vitality.

More precisely, he was interested in another identity Milili would have thirty galactic years from now, in the Abyss.

She was one of the most notorious villains among players in the level 60–70 range.

Her beauty and fiery figure had earned her a spot in the top twenty of players' most dateable NPCs for two years running.

The Black Wind Pirate Group she led commanded dozens of warships, large and small. They brazenly used a small nation as their base, making them one of the few legendary pirate groups in history capable of openly provoking a great power's regular army and escaping unscathed.

As for Milili herself, she had ranked among the top ten on players' bounty lists year after year. The major powers targeted her during the level 60–70 stages; anyone whose mech or gunboat landed a direct hit on her would become a multimillionaire overnight.

But Milili survived.

Not only did she repeatedly escape danger under relentless attacks from player armies and inflict heavy losses on them, pushing several large groups to the brink of bankruptcy, she also ran for president in a mid-sized galactic nation and secured political asylum.

She was as haughty as a queen, and as ruthless as any pirate;

She was like a beautiful viper, a rose with poisonous thorns, yet she had never once become meek and dependent on any man.

That was right. Yang Ming was now completely certain that the young, beautiful woman before him was none other than the future Pirate Queen!

The Star Widow, Milili!

"Uh, wait a second."

Yang Ming raised a hand and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

He really did love the girl's face and figure;

But that nickname... wasn't the standard for her other half a little too demanding?

And the Pirate Queen whose sexy photos he'd collected back in the day was actually a woman in her fifties?

Yang Ming's expression turned indescribably complicated.

Kolev gave Milili a perfunctory hug, then turned his gaze toward the elderly people nearby.

"Oh, you're all here! My old friends!"

Two of the elderly men and women, their hair gray but their bodies still in fairly good shape, stepped forward and embraced Kolev one by one. Two of the old women even had tears in their eyes, deeply moved.

Kolev looked farther back, saw the middle-aged men and women there, and smiled as he greeted them. Then his brow furrowed tightly.

"Where's everyone else?"

Kolev asked, "Gimo, Guka, Felina, Emilier... Oh, are they on the other ships?"

"There aren't any other ships, Dad."

Milili bit her lip, looking a little helpless. She didn't dare meet Kolev's eyes.

"We were driven out... by Gimo... I'm sorry, Dad. I lost your Black Dragon Pirate Group..."

Kolev's expression darkened like still water.

The outer cabin fell silent.

A few of the elderly people tried to explain things on Milili's behalf, but Kolev's reputation left them too intimidated to speak.

No one knew what the old pirate Kolev thought during those thirty seconds of silence. He turned, walked up to Milili, and slapped his lovely daughter hard across the face.

Smack!

Yang Ming raised an eyebrow from the side.

Milili's eyes brimmed with tears. She pressed her lips tightly together, clasped her hands behind her back, and said nothing.

"As your captain," Kolev growled, "you had only four years! You lost the seven ships I left you and over a thousand crew members! How useless do you have to be for everyone to abandon you?"

"Gimo pretended to court me, but I turned him down," Milili said, her voice trembling. "He kept spreading rumors about me and tampered with the books, so I..."

"Enough! That's a failure of ability!"

Kolev bellowed. Then he closed his eyes and let out a soft breath. He opened his arms and embraced Milili, gently patting her back with his fist.

"As your father, I'm saying this: you've been wronged, Milili. Your dad will stand up for you. I'll kill everyone who bullied you! All right, my little sweetheart! Let me introduce you to the partner I just met, my unlikely friend, a powerful and mature man named Hanton."

Yang Ming made himself look like a respectable elder, wearing an elegant smile.

He held out his right hand to Milili. She glanced at Kolev, then stepped forward at once and shook Yang Ming's hand politely.

"Pleased to meet you, Uncle Hanton."

Yang Ming's smile stiffened slightly. "I think we're about the same age."

Milili fluttered her long eyelashes. Her face was a little flushed from the slap, and curiosity flickered in her eyes.

She knew that it was hard to get her father to say anything complimentary.

"All right! That's enough!"

Kolev smacked Yang Ming's hand away, pulled Milili behind him protectively, and glared at Yang Ming.

"Milili, you'd better know this in advance: this guy's very strong, and he's a playboy. On our way here, a woman about as pretty as you gazed into his eyes and poured her heart out to him. Guess what he did?"

Milili's eyes grew even more curious. "What did he do?"

"He knocked her out!"

Kolev scolded, "Right after they'd been entwining their tongues, he slammed his head into her and knocked her out!"

"Oh!" Milili looked thoroughly confused.

Yang Ming shrugged. "Nothing matters more than freedom. She wanted to use her charms to tie me down, but ordinary beauty doesn't make me lose my head."

Two old men and a middle-aged man moved to Kolev's side, completely cutting Yang Ming off from Milili.

They took turns speaking.

"Kid, what have you accomplished? If you want to join our New Black Dragon Pirate Group, you'll have to pass a strict test! Take me, for example. I once took out two junior officers, and I was an officer in the New Federation!"

"I once scared off three merchant convoy escort ships with a single empty ship. Three!"

"Oh, I haven't done anything that grand yet, but I'm a seasoned thug! Ha ha! I can use a Laser Gun, and I once hit the center of the target three times with one!"

Yang Ming wondered: A Laser Gun didn't have recoil, did it? Didn't most Laser Guns have an assisted targeting system?

He naturally understood where their hostility came from.

Milili really was an innocent young woman right now, nowhere near becoming the Pirate Queen of the stars. She still had a thirty-year road ahead of her, one certain to be filled with tragedy and challenges.

"My recent accomplishments are nothing worth mentioning," Yang Ming said sincerely. "I just pulled the pants off eight big guys and left them sprawled on the ground, unable to move."

He was referring to the physical examination when he'd first entered prison.

The two old men and the older man's expressions changed at once. They eyed the faint outline of muscles visible beneath Yang Ming's maintenance suit and wisely took half a step back.

"Y-you've passed our test, young man with astonishing strength."

"Your old friends are quite something, Kolev," Yang Ming said with a squinting smile. "I'm not here to join you. I just teamed up with Kolev to break out of prison. I'm his comrade-in-arms. So, Kolev, are you going to keep following me and become my first mate, or stay here and clean up this mess?"

Kolev pondered for a moment. "I was thinking of putting together another pirate group and making you my first mate."

"Come on," Yang Ming reminded him. "You already called me captain."

"I called you acting captain!" Kolev corrected him. "Lina is your mess, not mine, so you're responsible for her. And a captain's first duty is to take responsibility."

"Fine, have it your way."

Yang Ming smiled at Milili and gave her a small wink.

Milili actually didn't dare meet his gaze.

Was this really the same bold, take-charge Milili?

Yang Ming noticed Kolev was on the verge of losing it, so he quickly looked away. "Take some time to think about it. I'm going to take a shower. I can use any empty cabin, right? We'll talk later, Kolev."

Yang Ming glanced beneath the Maintenance Boat's seats, then turned and walked past the group of middle-aged and elderly pirates toward the hatch.

What a shame. His Lightsaber and Light Shield had been left on the Escape Pod and confiscated by the Humanity Association.

A failed attempt at a free haul.

As Yang Ming entered the rusty corridor, he could still hear the conversation behind him.

"That young man has no manners."

"Hey," Kolev reminded them, "remember, none of you are to provoke him. I mean anyone! He's extremely dangerous. If he wanted to kill everyone here, he'd only need to blink."

"Boss, you're exaggerating."

"His latest feat wasn't taking down those eight gay guys. He dismantled more than ten Mechanical Guards with his bare hands. Without being detected, he subdued over a hundred guards, seized the prison's surveillance room and armory, and killed their Chief Guard and several troublesome inmates.

"How do you think I got out? His individual combat skills could take on a hundred Gimos! The only thing he's missing is a ship of his own."

Yang Ming shook his head with a smile.

I'll take a capsule later. Intense combat isn't good for my stability. I still need to get my hands on some pure Gene Stabilizer as soon as possible.

This younger version of the Star Queen, Milili...

Yang Ming clicked his tongue.

Out of respect for his comrade-in-arms, Kolev, he wouldn't make a move on Milili later; but if Milili made the first move, he'd probably find it hard to refuse a young mistress who was exactly his type.

Who could resist that?

Half an hour later, someone gently knocked on the door of the cabin Yang Ming had chosen.

Standing beneath the shower, Yang Ming warily gripped the dagger he'd just found.

"Who is it?"

"Uncle Hanton," Milili's sweet voice called out. "My father asked me to remind you that we'll be making a Continuous Jump for the next half hour."

"Thanks," Yang Ming replied simply.

"May I come in?" Milili asked. "I brought you a change of clothes."

Yang Ming: ...

She's my niece now.

He reminded himself silently.