Cui Zhihao used his identity card to pay, and watched the expressionless Bionic Human courier take away his luggage. He turned to his wife, Walnut, with a trace of lancholy, "This kind of service used to be free."
Walnut gave a bitter smile and replied, "You always say that, and it's been eighteen years."
Cui Zhihao patted his thigh sentintally and sighed, "Eighteen years? Ti really flies. Now, no one even ntions that na anymore. It's like our child, who was born thinking there was only one Chancellor in the Star Alliance."
Walnut tugged at his sleeve and said, "Don't speak too much."
Cui Zhihao observed Walnut's anxious expression, nodded, and decided not to talk further. He knew that breathing fresh air was already a luxury. That unntionable na had beco a taboo in the Star Alliance. No matter how many years passed, as long as Xiao Yu sat as the Chancellor, no one would rember the man who had never been legally recognized in the Star Alliance's charter.
From that perspective, the Star Alliance truly had only one Chancellor, Xiao Yu.
Cui Zhihao cherished his current life. After the Slavers' War, the Star Alliance plunged into the War of Legitimacy, but Cui Zhihao had not participated. He often felt fortunate about that, grateful that he hadn't stained his hands with his compatriots' blood.
Because he had been seniors with the man who must not be nad, Cui Zhihao had almost been completely destroyed. But in the end, the military had lost patience with Xiao Yu's extensive purges, beginning to passively resist, and even the integrity of the Star Alliance had started to dwindle, which caused Xiao Yu to halt the inhumane persecution. Yet since that ti, very few of the original mbers of the Universe Army had remained in the military.
Xiao Yu promoted so opportunists and recruited new individuals. Especially since the Star Alliance had subdued various civilizations and absorbed the forces of the three major slavers, many non-Earth citizens joined the New Citizenship of the Star Alliance. Of course, Xiao Yu trusted his ever-growing army of Bionic Humans the most, now known as the Jinwu Army.
Cui Zhihao and Walnut had retired then, and due to the shifts in the Star Alliance, they hadn't even been assigned a job, rely receiving a reduced monthly basic inco.
The Star Alliance was rapidly undergoing Iridium Star aristocratization. The society, once established on Earth's GC principles, began to show splits in classes. Those who sided with Xiao Yu rose in wealth, becoming privileged classes of the civilization. Like the national welfare's free courier service, it was appropriated by the governnt under the guise of increasing efficiency and given to certain families as private property.
Earthlings seed to have returned to a familiar era, with many previous beneficiaries once again benefiting, and it seed that the Star Alliance also beca more stable.
It's not to say that citizens of the Star Alliance lived worse lives; in fact, there was so improvent. Moreover, today's citizens of the Star Alliance have adapted to such a life of Interstellar Civilization. On Earth and other ancient era planets, people have now mastered the latest technological knowledge and are pursuing higher realms.
But still, this couldn't change the fact that many like Cui Zhihao held an inescapable sense of disillusionnt.
Because they knew, the Star Alliance for which they had fought and defended eighteen years ago had drifted away from them.
Cui Zhihao felt fortunate that he had t Walnut. The two had once encountered each other at the Martyrs' Cetery a long ti ago, and coincidentally t and fell in love after retirent. Building a family, bearing and rearing children was Cui Zhihao's greatest motivation to keep living, yet he still inevitably felt that life on Earth was becoming increasingly oppressive.
Cui Zhihao and Walnut planned to take their family, move over seventeen hundred light years away to Wanbo Star, an inhabitable planet that was the Star Alliance's new territory. The entire planet had no intelligent life, having just built a colonial city with a population of no more than twenty thousand people from various Star Alliance planets, not just from the Primate Clan.
In the Star Alliance, the more newly developed and sparsely populated a planet, the more open its customs tend to be. Places like Earth, however, always seem to have a thick, oppressive cloud looming over everyone.
A family sat in the waiting room, awaiting the passenger spaceship heading to Wanbo Star. Like courier services, passenger spaceships now also required paynt. Furthermore, tickets for ships that traveled thousands of light-years weren't sothing ordinary people could afford easily. The only reason tickets were sowhat discounted was the consideration of colonization, plus Cui Zhihao had so savings.
At that mont, Cui Zhihao suddenly saw a sowhat familiar face.
"Colonel Taschwe?" Cui Zhihao called out.
The unkempt, sowhat decadent middle-aged man turned around, sowhat surprised, and asked, "Who are you?"
Cui Zhihao wanted to give a military salute but halfway through, his hand dropped on its own. He shook his head and said, "Cui Zhihao, I used to serve on the Aquarius. I retired over a decade ago."
Taschwe had a mont of realization and then his expression ward a bit. He considered those who had retired a decade or more ago his true comrades.
"What a coincidence, I never thought I'd et an old comrade here. Are you traveling?"
Cui Zhihao smiled ruefully, "Migrating to Wanbo Star."
Taschwe sighed slightly, patted his shoulder, and said, "It's good to leave."
The two sat down, and Taschwe said, "I moved away six years ago, not even under the jurisdiction of the Star Alliance anymore—a neutral comrcial planet in the Flying Wheel Starfield."
As he spoke, he smiled again, looking at a young woman who bore so resemblance to him, his eyes full of affection, and said, "I'm here to take my daughter away too. Living here, there's always sothing not quite right."
Cui Zhihao looked at him a few tis and whispered, "I heard that so old comrades from the Universe Army, after retiring, went to neutral territories. It seems they might be planning sothing against Chancellor Xiao Yu."
Taschwe's expression stiffened montarily, then he waved his hand dismissively, not picking up the thread of the conversation. Watching his daughter walking a dog towards them, he smiled and said, "Alright, I need to get my daughter on the ship. It's great to see you, old comrade. Now, well, there are benefits. Over a decade ago, if we were to board a ship, there were so many security checks to go through, and our old buddy here might not have been able to handle it—this dog is already twenty years old. Haha, now as we move, we have to take him with us too. I hope he can adjust to life on another planet."
Cui Zhihao could sense Taschwe's caution and smiled as well, bidding him farewell.
Taschwe walked with his daughter, who smiled and arm-in-arm with her father, their old dog leisurely following behind. As they boarded the ship, the old dog humanely turned its head, looking back at the land of Earth.
A spark of excitent flickered in its eyes.
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