Dongfang Xiao had a pretty good impression of Tang Shuang.

This is actually quite interesting—don't be fooled by her complicated attitude towards Cheng Gujian, which seems like she'd rather never speak to him again, but in reality, she feels about the same way towards Xu Shi.

Why? Of course, it's because she herself is feeling conflicted right now.

In a consequentialist sense, she now understands that even if she does nothing, everything in this empire will eventually fall into her hands.

That means that all the compromises made for Xu Shi before were just superfluous.

However, because Cheng Gujian said nothing, Xu Shi had an opportunity to take advantage of the situation, leading to the current predicament.

Whose fault is this? It seems everyone has a problem—Cheng Gujian had his reasons for concealing the truth, which was ultimately to temper the little empress. Otherwise, if she knew she had always been under his protection, she would most likely be even more useless than she is now.

Yes, from Xu Shi's perspective, she's actually quite useless now, at most just above the passing grade. With the help of others, she's not so bad that she can't manage without herself.

But the consequences of his actions were obvious; in the end, Mr. Xu won.

So, does Dongfang Xiao have any problems? Of course she does. It's just that her character is still too flawed. Even though Xu Shi kept digging pits for her, she still willingly fell into them in the end.

It's too late to regret it now. The effects of "increased entropy of evil thoughts" are irreversible, at least at her level, it's unlikely to happen. It all depends on when and where the mark appears.

Therefore, she was somewhat resentful of Xu Shi, and seeing him reminded her of her previous wrong decision.

Naturally, she felt the same way about the people around Xu Shi. It was a case of hating the house because of its crows, and she couldn't help but scrutinize them with a critical eye.

Tang Shuang was the kind of person who surprised her. At first glance, she seemed unremarkable, but who knew she was actually the governor of Night Sin City? In terms of rank, she was on par with her.

But Governor Tang was very approachable, possessing the authority of a superior but not much, and his speech was as calm as a still lake.

If I had to put it into words, she's probably somewhere between a good person like Sister Xie and a bad person like Jiang Chengcheng... right?

The little empress thought so.

However, this was just a side note; the main focus of today's negotiations was the exchange of benefits between the two lands.

The final result was satisfactory to both parties.

As for Night City, in accordance with the original agreement, factories will be built in various counties of the Hualan Empire to help produce weapons. Infrastructure projects such as electricity and water conservancy will also be carried out, which can be considered a large-scale reform across the country.

As for further informatization construction, it will be carried out after the above construction is completed—the pilot construction of Yinsong Island has already illustrated this point. Even if the things are readily available, people who have never been exposed to them before still need to digest them little by little.

If small-scale reforms and upgrades can cause such a stir, imagine the impact they would have on such a large area of ​​land. It's easy to imagine the enormous impact they would have on the people here.

Fortunately, everyone had enough time, and all the professionals were available.

Oh, by the way, speaking of Silver Pine Island, this island has now been designated as an "autonomous region," which can be separated from the Hualan Empire and governed by Pan Cheng himself.

To put it bluntly, the City of Night Sin "borrowed" it to be used as an overseas base. Everyone understands the logic, but we need to use a more elegant way of saying it, otherwise there will be a bunch of old-fashioned people crying and wailing that their ancestral land should not be handed over to others.

Besides that, the benefits that Night City can obtain are naturally the liquid "rust mist" mineral veins unique to the Hualan Empire. Anyway, Boss Xu has already marked several for himself.

This can be considered the biggest gain from this overseas trip – as mentioned before, compared with the high-concentration "Rust Mist" ore in the "Forsaken" territory, liquid "Rust Mist" ore also has its unique advantages, so it can be said that each has its own merits.

Even before everything had settled down, Jiang Chengcheng and Xie Qingyan had already conducted some research on it and concluded that the liquid "rust mist" ore had considerable value in both military and medical fields.

On this basis, the two lands will also exchange personnel in order to maximize the value of these resources and thus develop better weapons and medicines.

After all, everyone now knows that there is a "Heavenly Principle" above them, and after hearing all this, Dongfang Xiao did not hesitate to place it as an "enemy".

Putting aside her own ambitions, at the very least she doesn't want to be controlled like a puppet. Why should everything we do serve some so-called protagonist or plot? Screw that!

However, to be fair, given her current situation, it's actually quite difficult for her to refuse...

"Xu...Teacher, you're not serious, are you?"

She added, "According to the plot, I'll end up becoming a fan of that Luo Yu guy? And there's a high chance I'll end up with another woman..."

"Although it's just speculation, the situation shouldn't deviate too much."

Xu Shi was quite confident about this, since he himself had escaped from such a plot.

People from "Tianli" seem to have a penchant for harem settings; at least, this is the case in Night City and the Hualan Empire.

"I'm actually curious, did you have any dealings with him before?"

"I asked with great interest," Mr. Xu asked.

"...If I hadn't been told, I wouldn't have even remembered this person."

Dongfang Xiao shook his head, "I only saw him once a few years ago at the investiture ceremony of the Knights Templar."

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!