Yu Lian added, "Also, Vice President Yero brought your promotion order with him on this visit. Once he personally delivers it, you'll be able to call yourself Major General Bazan."
Brigadier General Bazan couldn't help feeling that Yu Lian had been rather discourteous toward the vice president. It was almost as if he considered the nation's second-in-command nothing more than a deliveryman for promotion papers. But he didn't dare dwell on it.
He was, after all, a professional soldier with a strong sense of duty and honor. After thanking Yu Lian, he paused to consider his words, then spoke hesitantly, in the manner of a suggestion. "I understand why you chose to give up all the star systems beyond Saide Fortress. We simply don't have the forces to hold on to those gains right now..."
Yu Lian shook his head with a smile. "Those hardly count as gains. If we can't immediately turn an enemy star system into gold coins, then it isn't a gain—and it only stretches our defensive forces thinner. If the Alliance had been willing to pay, I would've sold them all the star systems we captured two months ago. Why hasn't the Foreign Ministry done anything yet?"
"...You mean we could actually sell them?" The old general gaped. If anyone else had said it, he might have thought they were making a cruel joke. But when it came from Yu Lian, the undefeated Dragon of Dawn, he couldn't help believing it—at least a little.
"If this were the age of interstellar exploration, we certainly could, right?" Yu Lian replied with a solemn nod.
All right, so he really had been joking.
Brigadier General Bazan had apparently gotten a feel for Yu Lian's ways. He immediately felt much more at ease, and the burden he'd felt over