Villain? No, I'll catch up with the protagonist after passing the civil service exam.

The cold, deep blue light in Lu Jingyan's eyes flickered twice, like a faulty tungsten filament lamp.

The tense barriers of rules silently dissipated.

The pungent smell of engine oil and burnt metal in the air, mixed with the warm, damp scent of vanilla shower gel on the girl's body, filled his nostrils without any obstruction.

This was the first time since he took office as director of the Galaxy Institute that he had consciously severed his absolute rationality at a crime scene.

He stood up, his thigh muscles taut and defined. The dark hem of his combat uniform swayed gently with his movement.

When Su Xiaoxiao saw him stand up without saying anything, she assumed he was really thinking about the dark matter minerals in those three star systems.

She was getting anxious, and beads of sweat were drenching her nose.

The heavy white space boots slammed onto the alloy floor with a dull thud. She took a large step forward, ignoring the impact. Two thick tactical gloves, stained with black oil, were thrust forward.

He grabbed Lu Jingyan's meticulously tied black tie.

Pull it down hard.

Lu Jingyan was completely unprepared. Or rather, he wasn't on guard at all.

Pulled by this brute force, his tall frame lurched forward, his back bent. Their faces instantly drew close. So close that he could clearly see her red-rimmed eyes and the water droplets clinging to her eyelashes.

Their warm breaths mingled haphazardly in the narrow space.

"I...I want to tell you..." Su Xiaoxiao gritted her teeth, her voice trembling.

Her palms were sweaty, and she gripped the tie tightly, refusing to let go.

"Don't even think about running! And don't worry about three-headed or four-headed monsters!" she roared at the top of her lungs, with a desperate resolve, "You were born a policeman on Earth... and even in death, you'll only ever be Earth's son-in-law!"

After shouting those words, she deflated like a punctured balloon, her chest heaving violently inside her heavy spacesuit as she gasped for breath.

Behind the load-bearing column in the corner.

Zhao Tiezhu gasped, his rough hands quickly pushing the antimatter machine gun behind him, fearing it might accidentally fire.

"My goodness, this girl must have eaten gunpowder today."

He lowered his voice and patted Bruce's shoulder with his fan-like hand, causing the invisibility suit to emit a faint crackling sound.

"Old Bu, let's get out of here. This isn't a show for us to watch!" Zhao Tiezhu shrank his neck and took two steps back. "If we keep watching, I'm afraid the station chief will lash out and confiscate our eyes as contraband."

Bruce pushed up his black-rimmed glasses. The red light on the tactical goggles flashed a few times and then shut off.

"Agreed. From a sociological and biological reproduction perspective, forcibly intervening now would face uncontrollable physical damage."

The Dark Knight turned around, his movements so swift and agile that he didn't seem like a seasoned superhero at all.

Zhao Tiezhu tiptoed along the wall and slipped out. As he left, he grabbed the doorknob and slammed the heavy alloy door of the spaceport shut. The alien neon lights that were seeping through the crack in the door were completely blocked.

Only the crackling and popping sounds of the spaceship wreckage cooling down remained in the hall.

Her tie was gripped so tightly it was deformed, pressing hard against her Adam's apple. Lu Jingyan neither pushed her away nor got angry.

He lowered his head slightly, his gaze fixed on Su Xiaoxiao's cat-like face. Without the cold, imposing rule, his dark eyes held less of the godlike ruthlessness and more of a human helplessness.

He raised his right hand, his long, slender fingers reaching over the filthy tactical gloves.

Pinch your index finger and thumb together.

Warm fingertips brushed across her messy bangs and landed on her smooth, full forehead.

"Boom."

A light tap, not too hard but certainly not light either, landed on her forehead. The crisp sound was particularly noticeable in the empty hall.

"Ouch!" Su Xiaoxiao cried out in pain.

She instinctively loosened her tattered tie and quickly covered her forehead. The spacesuit was already heavy, and with her center of gravity shifting, she staggered back half a step, stepping on a flattened jianbing guozi (Chinese crepe), almost falling again.

Lu Jingyan straightened up.

He slowly straightened his tie and patted the dust stains she had left on his combat uniform.

"Earth's son-in-law?"

He looked down at her, his voice no longer the rigid, businesslike tone, but rather a deep, hoarse quality.

"The Earth is so big, with billions of people. Which family do you want me to be?"

Su Xiaoxiao covered her forehead, her face instantly turning bright red. The heat surged up her neck, even making the tips of her ears feel frighteningly hot.

She stammered for a long time, her fingers, which usually typed code at lightning speed, now stiffened and didn't know where to put them.

"Well, well... it can't be an alien..." she muttered stubbornly, her head down, her toes unconsciously rubbing against the floor.

Lu Jingyan sighed.

The sound of breathing was particularly clear in the silence.

He took a step forward. His leather shoes slammed onto the charred floor with a steady thud. The distance between them closed again, almost touching the thick fabric of her spacesuit.

"Manager Su." He looked down at her.

"You drove all this way in a manual transmission spaceship, you seem to know your interstellar pilot's license pretty well." He paused, his tone unusually gentle with a hint of teasing, "Have you completely forgotten the laws of our Earth?"

Su Xiaoxiao was stunned, looked up at him, and didn't react.

Lu Jingyan's voice was slow and clear, carrying a deep echo in the empty hall.

Article 1046 of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China.

He didn't deliver the harsh verdict he would have given to the most heinous interstellar criminals. His tone now was as if he were stating an unquestionable, established fact that belonged only to the two of them.

"Marriage must be based on the complete free will of both the man and the woman. It is forbidden for either party to coerce the other, and it is forbidden for any organization or individual to interfere."

He lowered his head, his gaze fixed on the girl's flushed ears.

"That woman from the Rose Nebula, she has several heads and wants to force a sale, that's because she doesn't understand the law."

Lu Jingyan's voice grew softer and softer, carrying a warm breath that only she could hear.

"The mineral rights in those three star systems cannot be bought with the words 'completely voluntary'."

Su Xiaoxiao slowly lowered her hand from her forehead.

She listened to these dry, rigid legal verses. In a regular legal education meeting at the bureau, this would be the most soporific nonsense. But now, in this spaceport filled with the smell of gunpowder and littered with scrap metal, these hard words felt like scorching sparks, striking her heart.

She looked up at the man, always dressed in black, always impassive and unyielding. In Lu Jingyan's deep eyes, the cold judgment of a high-dimensional attack was gone. Instead, there lay a privilege unwritten in any interstellar code, unbound by any cosmic rule.

Su Xiaoxiao covered her forehead, listening to the dry legal provisions, but in Lu Jingyan's deep eyes, she saw a special law enforcement power called "favoritism".