Li Qinwu ignored the other man's astonished stare, lit himself a cigarette, took a deep drag, and asked,
"How old are you this year?"
Andrew felt that the man across from him was putting far too much pressure on him. He did not dare make any rash moves and chose to comply.
"Forty-five."
Li Qinwu looked him over again.
"You look much younger than you claim."
Andrew tried to regain a little initiative in the conversation and lightly jabbed back at Li Qinwu.
"That's because I started living under the Greater Good's administration at a young age. If I were in the Imperium of Man, I wouldn't have lived to this age."
Li Qinwu chuckled, took a plate to use as an ashtray, and tapped his ash into it.
"Very good. Forty-five. As far as I know, the T'au arrived fifty years ago.
When the T'au first arrived on this planet, they probably did not make a grand show of colonization during the first decade or so.
In other words, you should have first received Imperial education as a child, then encountered the T'au expansion and received their advanced education before obtaining this job marked with the number nine.
Very good. That means you stood at the crossroads between two regimes. Your understanding of the world should be relatively comprehensive, which will make our upcoming conversation easier."
Li Qinwu leaned forward slightly and stared into Andrew's eyes.
"You know what my arrival on this planet represents, don't you?"
Andrew swallowed nervously. He understood all too well what Li Qinwu's arrival on this planet represented!
Just as Li Qinwu had said, when Andrew was a child, around ten years old, the T'au were still operating in secret and had not stepped into the open as they had today. He had still