268: Chapter 269 The Knight Family

Escorted by several elite soldiers with guns, Luluchiu moved quickly through the metal corridors inside the spaceship.

Soon, she was taken into a spacious, retro conference room.

Facing the heavy mahogany round table, both sides were stunned as soon as they met.

Luluchiu widened her eyes.

She never expected that in this Warhammer Universe game, which featured a dark, gothic Western style, she would see NPCs with authentic Eastern faces in the deep, distant space!

Before this, apart from the faction leader Lin Li, she hadn't seen anyone with this appearance among the natives.

The three family heads sitting across the round table were also full of astonishment.

For the first time in countless generations, they saw an outsider with an authentic Eastern face.

Luluchiu forcibly restrained herself from blurting out a curse.

She cleared her throat, summoned her professional diplomat skills, and greeted them loudly in standard, fluent high gothic:

"Greetings! I am a peace envoy from the Spark Alliance in the Yuanwang Star System... Luluchiu!"

However.

The three people across the round table looked at each other.

They frowned slightly, their eyes blank; clearly, they couldn't understand this official language of the Imperium at all.

Seeing this, Luluchiu assumed the other party were uncultured rural natives.

So she switched to the easy-to-understand low gothic and repeated it, slowing down her speech.

The other party still had no reaction.

Not only that, the middle-aged man sitting behind the sun emblem turned his head and discussed with the other two in a strange language that Luluchiu couldn't understand at all.

Having tried two universal languages to no avail.

Luluchiu was at a loss. She rolled her eyes dramatically and complained loudly in standard Chinese directly on the live broadcast channel:

"Damn it! Why does this crappy game have so many dialects? It doesn't even come with a built-in real-time translator! The developer Immortal Lin must be out of his mind!"

However!

The moment Luluchiu blurted out that Chinese profanity!

The three people across the round table seemed to be hit by a freezing spell; they instantly stopped their gibberish discussion!

The middle-aged woman wearing feather ornaments even stood up abruptly from her chair!

Her eyes lit up, and she pointed at Luluchiu with excitement, speaking rapidly in that strange language.

Subsequently, amidst some commotion.

The guards nearby immediately and respectfully brought over a mahogany chair with a soft cushion, inviting Luluchiu to sit down.

At the same time, a messenger hurriedly ran out of the conference room, seemingly to summon someone important.

Sitting in the chair, Luluchiu was like a rare monkey in a zoo, being scrutinized repeatedly by the three family heads in the conference room with amazed gazes.

But Luluchiu didn't back down at all.

She stared back unceremoniously, carefully examining the clothing of the three and the strange family emblems arranged in this conference room.

After waiting idly for about an hour.

The doors of the conference room were pushed open again.

A man with a slender, graceful figure, wearing plain robes, walked in slowly.

The first thing he did upon entering was to lock his gaze on Luluchiu, who was sitting in the chair.

Luluchiu guessed that the main person had finally arrived.

She looked the man up and down.

Suddenly, she keenly felt that the pure, unadulterated aura emanating from this man had a strong sense of familiarity!

Luluchiu searched frantically in her mind and finally remembered!

"Stone Man Hong!" Luluchiu felt a shock in her heart,

"The feeling this man gives off is exactly the same as Stone Man Hong beside the boss! That cold perfection that doesn't seem like a living person!"

Luluchiu stood up immediately and asked tentatively in Chinese:

"Hello?"

The man suspected to be a Stone Man, whose face had been calm as an ancient well, showed no obvious muscular emotional fluctuations.

But upon hearing Luluchiu's clear and articulate Chinese greeting, a rare glimmer of excitement flashed in his eyes.

The man bowed slightly and actually replied in authentic Chinese:

"Is this... the language of Ancient Terra? Are you also survivors from Ancient Terra?"

Luluchiu felt a jolt in her heart:

"I guessed it right! A language trigger mechanism! It seems this NPC who can speak Chinese is the key plot character for this galaxy. And he is definitely a Stone Man!"

Luluchiu didn't follow his lead to make up lies about being survivors of ancient humanity.

She cut straight to the point, stating her purpose for coming on behalf of the Baby Bus guild, expressing the hope that both sides could coexist peacefully and engage in material trade and cultural cooperation.

However, to her surprise.

The man shook his head regretfully after listening.

"Apologies, Envoy."

The man said in a calm tone,

"I am only an advisor to the council and do not have the authority to influence the final decision of these three family heads."

He glanced obscurely at the three family heads and revealed the truth to Luluchiu in Chinese:

"Moreover, among the three families, two are very guarded and unfriendly toward your arrival. They practice absolute isolationism and are very xenophobic."

Luluchiu understood.

Her eyes rolled, wanting to take the opportunity to extract more plot information, so she followed up by asking about the specific historical background of these three families, the population on the planets, and so on.

But the man suspected to be a Stone Man kept his mouth shut, coldly refusing to answer all these questions on the grounds that they involved top family secrets.

This made Luluchiu feel a bit annoyed.

But on second thought, this diplomatic probe was not a wasted trip at least.

She had figured out the positions of the three families: one had the potential for being won over and traded with, while the other two were definitely hard nuts to crack.

With the conversation yielding no results, the other party issued an order to expel the guest.

Luluchiu had no choice but to turn and return to the shuttle.

...

Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Baby Bus.

The players who had been watching the entire live stream were now engaged in a heated tactical discussion.

"Forget about isolationism!" Wu A Level Combo waved his bear paws, "This game is about survival of the fittest! Since they are xenophobic, let's just open fire! Just do it!"

Devil Muscle Thor immediately retorted:

"Use your brain, will you? It's not as simple as you think! Didn't you watch the live stream just now? Even their ordinary gatekeeper guards have high-end plasma rifles. Who knows what black technology they might have hidden in their armory that could instantly destroy our crappy ship!"

At this moment, Penny Is My Wife, who was sitting in the corner, stood up.

Penny had a fairly deep understanding of the grand background of Warhammer.

He thought for a while and began to analyze the situation calmly:

"Everyone, stop arguing. Actually, from some of the performances and equipment details of those NPCs in the live stream just now, we can reverse-engineer their true background."

"Oh?"

Dumpling became interested,

"Penny, what do you think?"

Penny counted on his fingers and said clearly:

"First, have you noticed that they all have Eastern faces, and when they heard Luluchiu speak Chinese, they showed strong shock and excitement? This shows they have an ancient Earth bloodline heritage."

"Second, the character who appeared later and is suspected to be a Stone Man. Although he gets along very well with those family heads and is respected, their power structure seems somewhat independent. This fits the setting of Stone Men acting as technical advisors to assist humans perfectly."

"Third, and the most important point! Let's combine this with the old almanac: the Warp route we are taking now is the Golden Age safe route provided by the leader. Moreover, in that conference room just now, the most conspicuous things were those three retro family emblems!"

Penny took a deep breath and threw out his ultimate conclusion:

"I conclude! The natives on these three planets are very likely the descendants of human refugees who fled to this deep space to avoid the chaos of war during the Unification Wars of Terra! And they have perfectly preserved the military organization of that era — the Knight House tradition!"

"Knight Houses that might have preserved Golden Age technology?!" Dumpling gasped.

In the Warhammer Universe setting, Knight Houses are a very special and powerful existence.

These families have long traditions, some even longer than the history of the current Imperium of Man.

For generations, they have followed ancient and rigid family dogmas.

And their core military foundation is the large number of knight mechas of various models parked in their family vaults!

In the current Imperium of Man, most surviving Knight Houses usually choose to be attached to the Cult Mechanicus, becoming the auxiliary arm of the Mars oil-guys;

Or, relying on the powerful combat capability of the Titans, they join the Imperium as feudal forces with a high degree of autonomy.

Of course, there are also many families that refuse the rule of the Imperium and even fall directly into the embrace of Chaos.

And these three mysterious Eastern Knight Houses in front of us are clearly of a more ancient and complex composition!

Their inheritance might have continued directly from before the Great Crusade!

They haven't experienced the technological monopoly and regression of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

No one can predict how many knight mechas are parked under the surface of these three ecologically intact planets!

Or what heaven-defying destructive black technology they might suddenly pull out of their warehouses!

If we really have to have an interstellar landing battle head-on.

With the Baby Bus guild, which is a group of life-skill players who major in farming and minor in blacksmithing.

The weapons they brought might not really be able to get any good fruit in front of those knight mechas.

After analyzing the pros and cons, Dumpling couldn't help but feel a burst of irritation.

It was hard to cross the sea of stars to find such a picturesque treasure land that had not been polluted by the flames of war.

If they really fought, it was highly probable they wouldn't win;

But if they just turned around and left, it would be too regrettable!

Just when the whole place fell into silence and everyone was weighing the pros and cons.

An indigenous operator in charge of the communication array suddenly ran over in a hurry, holding a printout that had just been parsed:

"Report, sir! We just received a short-range directional communication from the enemy flagship. The content has been decrypted and printed!"

Dumpling took the note, and the surrounding players also crowded around, stretching their necks to watch.

After reading the content on the note, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

"This is an invitation letter, meaning that the family with the swan in the lake as their emblem has a friendly attitude toward us. That female family head wants to invite us to send representatives privately to the surface of their planet for a detailed talk!"

"Good news!"

Dog Bro slapped his thigh excitedly,

"This is exactly what we needed! We can just take this opportunity to go deep behind enemy lines and touch the bottom of this Knight House!"

"Even if we evaluate that we really don't want to fight them head-on in the end.

As long as we can establish a stable connection with this Swan House and trade their Golden Age local specialties for cross-galaxy bilateral trade.

This expedition of ours can be considered a worthwhile trip and a huge profit!"