Resurrection Empire

Chapter 1393: Chapter 525: Facing Trial in Court, A Fatal Blow (Part 3)

However, just at the moment when the verdict was about to be announced, another lawsuit suddenly erupted.

To everyone’s surprise, the defendant in this case was once again Red Blade Star, which left people flabbergasted.

When the specific details of the lawsuit were revealed, it left onlookers speechless, feeling that something was quite odd.

The plaintiff was not of any significant standing, merely a baron of middling status in the Nanxiang Star Cluster.

Initially, when Red Blade Star advertised the invisible coating, many were eager to try it, but hesitated to place orders due to fear of offending Nanxiang Marquis Liu An.

However, a hereditary baron located on the frontier, far from Nanxiang Marquis’s territory, took a chance with a try-it-and-see approach.

As it happened, although this baron’s family held a hereditary title, over the years, without finding a patron, they were constantly restricted and oppressed within the Nanxiang Star Cluster, resulting in a decline over years, facing bankruptcy in this generation.

The newly appointed baron’s old father, frustrated and disheartened, refused to go into cryo-sleep, let himself go, and soon passed away.

At the time, the eldest heir of the baron, then just a 12-year-old child, was not even of age.

The young child, though immature, was exceptionally precocious, ambitious, and unwilling to watch his family decline into mere "comfort barons." With a desperate mindset, the young boy gathered the courage, crafted a small ship, secretly departed from his home planet, and traveled a great distance to reach Red Blade Star, where he was received by the then Chief Governor, Ju Qingmeng.

Ju Qingmeng, moved by this young boy’s resolve, personally decided to sell the first batch of products from the factory at half-price to the young baron. To protect the young baron from Nanxiang Marquis’s attention, Ju Qingmeng specifically instructed him to use it carefully and not let others know he had bought products from Red Blade Star, as they did not need any advertising from him.

Subsequently, rather than using the invisible coating to disguise warships and enhance combat strength, the young baron invested heavily in purchasing numerous small transport ships, coated all these ships with the invisible coating, and spent a fortune using long-distance Star Gates to send them off. These ships were tasked specifically with dangerous logistics missions, operating in areas within the Empire where natural conditions were complex, security was extremely poor, and even on the front lines of battles between the Empire and rival factions.

Now, fifty years have passed. The once young boy has grown into an adult; Ju Qingmeng, who once lent him a helping hand, has been in slumber for many years. The baron family, once on the brink of ruin, relying on the few remaining family members and loyal servants struggling for survival over fifty years, not only recovered but also thrived significantly. They managed to reclaim the entire planet of their family’s estate, and even dared to covet unoccupied colonial planets to further expand their population and production capabilities.

With such a history, Red Blade Star should logically be the young boy’s savior, akin to remaking his life, and there should be no reason to sue them.

But no one expected that when the young baron concentrated his transport fleet, exhausted his family’s resources, and set out to the war front for a major transport mission, aiming for a pivotal leap to change his status, an unexpected turn arose.

The invisible coating, which had functioned seamlessly, suddenly failed in space. At the battlefield’s gap, the stealthily maneuvering transport fleet was immediately detected by a Pilgrim Wise Man’s long-range radar, which dispatched pursuit forces, leaving the transport fleet nothing but dead ends.

In total, only fewer than a hundred of the thousands of small transport ships managed to return. The heavy loss of the baron’s family and people was one thing, but they also delayed the transport of crucial military supplies, causing a minor setback at the front lines.

A grain of sand from the era landing on an individual’s shoulder becomes a mountain weighing down.

The young baron was held accountable by the front-line military and, in a bid to save his life, lost everything, even having his hereditary title stripped away, becoming a mere life peer.

The extent of gratitude the young baron once held for Red Blade Star now turned into equal hatred; even at the cost of his life, he was determined to sue Earl Red Blade for false advertising, which led to his family’s ruin.

In the plaintiff’s evidence presented by the young baron, there was a contract clearly signed and sealed by Ju Qingmeng.

The contract explicitly stated that the stable operational period for the invisible coating was 5,000 years.

"5,000 years? I spit on that! It hasn’t even reached 60 years, and it’s all ruined! If it was just a single transport ship that malfunctioned, I would have accepted it, blaming my crew’s maintenance issues and inappropriate usage. But with only three days’ variation, thousands of ships all went down. I checked the battle reports carefully: the ships with the coating applied first fell first, and the ones outfitted later fell later. The total time I spent applying the coating coincidentally was exactly three days!"

"Thus, Red Blade Clan’s false advertising is crystal clear. Claiming a lifespan of just fifty years as 5,000! And failing to inform me in advance! I was deceived terribly! I shall not rest in peace before addressing this!"

This lawsuit, once initiated, shocked not only external parties but also made Ren Zhong, who was orchestrating everything behind the scenes, feel rather heavy-hearted.