Just as His was racking his brain over how to counter the card the Church of Light had played, a plate was set down in front of him, holding a small slice of cake.
“This is…”
His looked up, expecting Rafina to have brought him a thoughtful little dessert, but was surprised to see that the one carrying the plate was Ni Wei.
“You’ve got that frown all over your face again. Stop worrying and have some dessert first.”
With that, Ni Wei picked up the fork, took a bite-sized piece of cake, and brought it to His’s lips.
“Come on, say ah~”
“Ah…”
His didn’t refuse.
He obediently opened his mouth and let his little maid feed him a bite of cake.
“Ni Wei, about what happened earlier…”
“It’s fine. Take care of what’s on your plate first, and we’ll talk later.”
Ni Wei stabbed another piece of cake with the fork.
“By the way, I think I caught a glimpse of who’s leading the Church of Light this time. Isn’t she that girl I brought along last time?”
“Yeah, it’s her.”
“I’m sorry about that…”
“Oh, come on. The reason she’s here this time has nothing to do with you. Don’t take it to heart.”
His proactively stretched his neck forward this time and opened his mouth to eat the cake from the girl’s fork.
“Mm.”
“Young Master His, Lady Florin…”
Before His could even let go of the fork in Ni Wei’s hand, Rafina came scurrying into the conference room.
Seeing the scene before her, Rafina froze in place.
Being caught in the middle of a feeding session with her and her sister by Rafina, His suddenly felt a wave of awkwardness.
Ni Wei, however, acted as if nothing had happened.
She casually pulled the fork out of His’s mouth and set it back on the plate.
“Ahem, Rafina, what were you about to say?”
“Huh? Oh! Young Master His, Lady Florin has returned with two people. Should we receive them in the study, or…?”
“Just have them come here.”
Rafina nodded, then practically fled from the conference room.
“Come on~”
Seeing her sister leave, Ni Wei once again picked up a piece of cake and brought it to His’s lips.
“Again? We’re about to get down to business. How about we finish this after our discussion?”
“Hmph, dream on. You snooze, you lose.”
Ni Wei’s mouth remained sharp, but her body was honest enough as she packed up the utensils.
“Since you’re going to talk business, I’ll be on my way then.”
“Mm… hey, wait a moment.”
“What is it?”
“You should stay here too.”
“Huh?”
Ni Wei pointed at her own face in curiosity.
“Me?”
“That’s right. Didn’t I promise you before that I’d teach you a thing or two about business? We even pinky swore on it.”
“That was…”
At the thought of their pinky fingers interlocked, Ni Wei’s face flushed red in an instant.
“What? Didn’t you say you wanted to help share some of my workload?”
“I… fine, but let me put the utensils back in the kitchen first.”
“Mm, hurry back.”
***
A short while later, the group sat gathered around the conference room, beginning their discussion on how to deal with the Church of Light.
“Young Master His, I believe the safest approach right now is to contact the Duke and see if he can put in a word with the King.”
Florin pushed up her glasses and offered her opinion.
“No, that absolutely won’t work.”
His waved his hand.
“The contract between the Kingdom and the Church of Light was likely signed not long ago. If we go asking to have it revoked now, what’s the difference between that and slapping the King in the face? Do you think he’d ever agree? Not only would the contract stay intact, but we might even drag Father into trouble.”
“If worse comes to worst, I’ll take a few of my men and seal off our factory. The Church won’t be able to step foot inside, and that’ll be that.”
Old Huo Ke’s solution was straightforward and crude.
“That won’t work either. The Church of Light now holds this contract, which is essentially the King’s seal of authority. And they even managed to secure themselves some kind of judicial immunity. If we refuse to let the Church into the factory for inspection, they can slap us with the charge of openly defying a royal decree.”
“Young Master His, then what do you suggest?”
Seeing his proposals shot down one by one, Molis, unable to come up with a better idea himself, cautiously asked.
“In my view, there’s no way we can go head-to-head with the Church right now.”
“Are we really just going to hand over the gray crystal like that?”
Florin’s face was filled with frustration, clearly unwilling to accept such an outcome.
“I didn’t say that either.”
His smiled.
“Since direct confrontation won’t work, I think we can play with the details of the contract. After all, I did manage to buy us three days. We can take our time to think this through.”
“What do you mean? Didn’t the Church of Light already lay out all their demands?”
Ni Wei asked, puzzled.
“True, but if you think about it carefully, their demands right now are actually quite vague.”
His spread the letter bearing the King’s signature across the table.
“When they were leaving earlier, I made sure to confirm it. Their bottom line is actually just two things: first, share the gray crystal resources; second, oversee the weapon forging. Do you understand now?”
The others exchanged glances, then all shook their heads, waiting for His to continue.
“Honestly, the gray crystal itself isn’t what matters. While gray crystal weapons may seem highly valuable, the price is ultimately set by us. So even if we give away a portion for free, it won’t cause us any serious harm.
What can truly damage the core of the gray crystal industry is the smelting process itself—in other words, the formula for the decomposition agent!”
“So that’s it! Now I understand!”
Molis clapped his hands together, his face lighting up with sudden realization.
And when Florin heard His’s words, she couldn’t help but smile as well.
This left old Huo Ke and Ni Wei completely baffled.
“Florin, Molis, draft a contract based on my line of thinking. Once it’s written, bring it to me for review.”
“Yes, Young Master His.”
With that, the two quickly left the conference room.
“Wait, I still don’t really get it.”
Ni Wei spoke up on her own, while old Huo Ke nodded along beside her.
“It’s simple, old Huo Ke. Who provides the decomposition agent currently used to smelt the gray crystal at the factory?”
“Well… why, that’s you, Young Master His.”
“Exactly. So no matter how many people the Church of Light sends to the factory, they’ll never learn how to turn scrap into raw weapon materials from gray crystal.”
“Oh! So that’s how it is!”
Old Huo Ke finally caught on.
His turned to Ni Wei and patiently explained,
“Actually, forging purified gray crystal into weapons isn’t anything complicated. Our true core technology lies in the decomposition agent used during the purification process. And that agent is personally mixed by me and brought to the factory.”
“Ohhh.”
Ni Wei nodded, half understanding and half not.