Chapter 248: Apep's Bountiful Gift

Liyue has recently been aptly described as having surging undercurrents.

Any politically perceptive noble can see that the Geo Archon's signals of relinquishing power are growing ever clearer.

Although no one knows exactly what the Archon means by doing this.

But inevitably, some ambitious people have begun to entertain ideas about Liyue's power elite that they previously dared not consider.

The more cautious worry that the Archon is testing everyone.

Although the Archon's divine authority is supreme and theoretically he need not test mortals, they still dare not take the risk, for if they anger the Archon, the outcome would be eternal ruin.

The gods do indeed love humanity.

But they do not indulge the people of Liyue without limits.

As for those who break the law and disrupt order, the Archon's due punishment has never been lenient.

Some are timid.

Naturally, there are also the bold.

Liyue is a commercial capital.

There has never been a shortage of daring gamblers.

While others stand still, these people have already begun to move about, trying to seize more power in this wave of divine relinquishment.

Even more so.

In order to seize power and profit, they have even begun to ally with organizations from other nations, attempting to use their strength to seek their own gain.

Zhiyi is precisely such a bold person.

As a disciple of the Heavenly Pivot among Liyue's the Liyue the Liyue Qixing.

Over the years, he has leveraged his teacher's resources to build deep connections in Liyue Harbor, and with his talent for disguise and skill in scheming, he has consistently held an absolute lead in the position of contender for the Heavenly Pivot.

Yet the Heavenly Pivot has never explicitly spoken of this matter.

Nor has he promised that Zhiyi will surely succeed to the Heavenly Pivot's position.

This leaves the ambitious Zhiyi unable to set his mind at ease.

Unlike his other competitors.

Zhiyi's background is quite ordinary.

His family was poor, his parents died early, and in Liyue, where status is emphasized, this is an innate disadvantage.

That is, Zhiyi studied diligently from youth, relying solely on his talent to earn some renown; after happening to befriend the Heavenly Pivot, he became his closed-door disciple, and thus climbed to his present position.

But this cannot satisfy Zhiyi, who harbors an immense craving for power.

He wants to become the Heavenly Pivot.

And his background is precisely the greatest obstacle on that path.

It is precisely because of this background.

Even if his advantages were greater, he would still lack sufficient confidence.

Now that the Archon has emitted signals of relinquishing power, his yearning for the Heavenly Pivot's position has grown even stronger than before.

Zhiyi understands this well.

If the Archon's relinquishment of power is genuine, then in the future the status of Liyue's the Liyue the Liyue Qixing within Liyue will far surpass the past, and Liyue's power structure will become far more complex than it is now.

Moreover, some have already begun to rush about.

Zhiyi, who dislikes taking advantage of others' misfortune, feels all the more anxious.

Thus he recalled the Fools who had once covertly courted him.

This time he did not hesitate much.

He immediately chose to cooperate with the Fools.

Of course.

This cooperation is not genuine cooperation.

It is merely mutual exploitation.

Zhiyi wants his teacher to retire early for certain special reasons, so that he can seize the Heavenly Pivot's position before the Archon relinquishes power.

But this is not something that can be done just by talking about it.

The Heavenly Pivot is ultimately one of Liyue's the Liyue the Liyue Qixing.

Let alone death.

Even if he suffers from illness, it will cause incessant turmoil.

Zhiyi has long been immersed in Liyue's officialdom; how could he not know how vital a the Liyue the Liyue Qixing's health is?

Therefore, to act against his teacher.

He must act swiftly and leave no trace.

With these two prerequisites, having his own people act would be unsuitable, and acting himself would be dangerous.

Thus he needs a scapegoat who can perfectly substitute for the traces of his own misdeeds without arousing suspicion.

The Fools are an excellent choice.

Zhiyi knows well that the Fools and Liyue appear peaceful on the surface but constantly feud in secret, frequently planting spies and informants against each other; especially the Northern Bank, which has seized the moneylending trade, is a thorn in Liyue's flesh.

With so much negative news beforehand.

Using them as scapegoats is naturally the best option.

After more than a month of maneuvering.

Zhiyi's plot has basically come together; the chronic poison from Snezhnaya has already been delivered to his teacher's lips, and with his health deteriorating, it will be only a few days before he begins selecting a successor; by then, given Zhiyi's current advantage, the Heavenly Pivot's position is practically a sure thing.

As for the traces of his own handiwork, he has nearly erased them completely.

All that remains is to eliminate the Fools' envoy with whom he collaborated, lay out all evidence detrimental to him, and then he can clear himself of all suspicion.

I just feel a bit sorry for my teacher.

Zhi Yi also feels guilty.

He knows very well that if he endures a bit longer and waits for his teacher to retire, he still has a good chance of securing the Heavenly Pivot Star position.

But he can't wait any longer.

Indeed.

Liyue is not like Inazuma's hereditary feudal system.

Although family status and influence greatly help in elections for the Liyue the Liyue the Liyue Qixing and other power departments, relatively speaking, Liyue's open selection system still fairly gives civilians a chance to compete.

Otherwise, there would be no miracle of Ningguang, a commoner in bare feet and rough clothes, becoming Liyue's Heavenly Authority Star.

But Zhi Yi simply lacks that confidence.

【My teacher's poison—I'll cure him after I become the Heavenly Pivot Star.】

With that thought, Zhi Yi showed no mercy in his actions.

However, just as he finished preparing to compete for the Heavenly Pivot Star, the General Affairs Office came to his door.

Confounded, Zhi Yi was thus taken away in doubt and incomprehension to Liyue's prison, losing not only his eligibility to compete for the Heavenly Pivot Star but also having to spend the rest of his life behind bars on the charge of poisoning the Heavenly Pivot Star.

"How could the General Affairs Office act so fast? How could they be so sure I poisoned him?"

Zhi Yi simply couldn't understand.

Where exactly did I leak?!

How did the General Affairs Office's agents catch a whiff? And how did that idiot Yousubofu get them the evidence?

Zhi Yi could never have imagined.

His failure.

It wasn't that the General Affairs Office personnel found the evidence, or that his plan had a loophole.

But because, before the Snezhnaya Executive Officer returned home to report duty, he colluded with his own ambassador and handed over the evidence of their conspiracy to poison the Heavenly Pivot Star to the Liyue authorities.

At the same time Zhi Yi was arrested.

Similar events kept unfolding all over Liyue Harbor.

Among them were people like Zhi Yi, a young high-ranking official, as well as elite scions of noble clans, including elites from the Merchant Guild; in this wave that Liyue people called the Great Purge, all were arrested and thrown into Liyue prison.

As the mastermind behind this incident,

After Yelan brought news of the successful dragnet, Ningguang could finally set aside her intelligence report and let out a long sigh of relief.

Just yesterday.

The Fatui's female Executive Officer left Liyue.

Before leaving,

She took with her the ambassador Yousubofu and deputy ambassador Ti Aofan stationed there, along with many Snezhnaya personnel involved in the case, and handed over the evidence linking Yousubofu to numerous Liyue nobles as a bargaining chip, thereby securing the life of her own subordinate.

And among these evidences,

The most serious of them was that Zhi Yi poisoned his own master, the Heavenly Pivot Star.

Ningguang didn't have time to study why the woman did this, so she handed the evidence to Yelan, who immediately verified its truth and acted, arresting everyone who was actually or plotting to disrupt Liyue's order.

Liyue's Heavenly Authority Star is one of the people closest to the Geo Archon.

What exactly does the Archon intend to do?

Ningguang understands this better than anyone.

It is the relinquishing of power that everyone has speculated about.

It is not merely a tentative probe as conservatives imagine; it is truly the delegation of the Archon's authority to Liyue's mortal authority tier.

To others,

For the Archon to delegate authority is a good thing.

For Ningguang,

this is a test.

When the Archon suddenly begins to delegate authority, it means Liyue will face an unprecedented political storm, and any shift in Liyue's authority tier will inevitably attract the covetousness and interference of other nations.

No matter how good the relations among the divine hierarchy,

relations between states are always scheming against each other.

For their own interests, everyone is capable of anything.

For example, Ningguang earlier took advantage of the time when Mondstadt's dragon disaster prevented goods from being shipped normally, snatching up a lot of cheap goods from the Dawn Winery; after the Dawn Winery resumed production, she dumped those goods at slightly below market price, made a big profit, and even forced the Dawn Winery to cut its prices, leaving it in a continuing state of loss.

Everyone understands the practice of when one place is in trouble, others pile on.

As the Heavenly Authority Star, the core of Liyue's authority,

Ningguang must find a way to let Liyue weather this storm safely.

To that end,

She hasn't had a good night's sleep in a long time.

"I still don't understand why that Executive Officer would suddenly abandon the Fatui's deployment here in Snezhnaya."

Compared to the perpetually stern-faced Ningguang, Yelan looks much more relaxed and even has the leisure to brew herself tea.

Speaking of this matter she mentioned.

Ningguan also showed a doubtful expression: "I also don't know."

She lightly tapped the table with her right hand, and continued speaking: "The Fatui have planted people in our Liyue; they are not merely subordinates of an executive officer, these people basically have no subordinate relationship with her—could it be mutual attacks between political rivals?"

The relationship among the Fatui's executive officers is not as harmonious as it appears on the surface.

This is not a secret.

Any country with a somewhat strong intelligence network had already learned of this news.

Under normal circumstances.

Most of Snezhnaya's overseas personnel are under the subordinates of the fourth executive's servant, the fifth executive Gongji, and the ninth executive Furen.

Among them, the servant's subordinates mostly engage in espionage-like work, making them hard to trace; Gongji's subordinates mostly conduct official operations, such as envoys from various countries; Furen is special—this person wages economic warfare, and besides overt economic offensives, secretly supports numerous smuggling routes, endlessly plundering wealth from all countries for Snezhnaya, and this person harbors great ambition, suspected of trying to strip Liyue of its minting rights.

The bad news is that the Foolish People's infiltration is all-encompassing; when you discover there's a termite, it means the dark places have already been almost completely infiltrated by them.

The good news is that the Foolish People's executives are not united.

They had also been fighting each other for their own interests before.

This incident.

In Ningguang's view, it is highly likely to be a product of the Foolish People's internal strife.

The only doubt about this statement.

That is why it is Nüshi who brings the intelligence, rather than several of the executives fiercely competing in Liyue.

Regarding this.

Yelan had a different opinion.

"Not necessarily."

"It could also be that the Emperor took action."

Yelan's idea is very simple.

The Foolish People's executives all have the stubbornness of a donkey; unless the lure of profit is immense, they would not easily betray their colleagues' layouts so thoroughly.

"Based on the intelligence we currently have."

"Snezhnayan people couldn't even dream of infiltrating to this extent for at least thirty or fifty years."

"If this Nüshi hasn't received sufficient benefits, she absolutely could not risk taking the blame from three colleagues and the Empress for doing this."

Yelan's words are not without reason.

Ningguang, following this line of thought, pondered for a moment, then raised her brows and said: "Could it be related to that Sumeru envoy?"

"Sumeru envoy?"

"You mean Luo De?"

Yelan stopped her hand movements, seriously saying: "Really hard to say."

She then sat upright and began to summarize the recent entanglements between Luo De and Nüshi: "Nüshi's first day in Liyue, she joined the Sumeru scientific expedition team as Luo De, senior sister; they had known each other long before, not meeting in Liyue."

"Upon reaching the underground mining area, Luo De split from the executive called Gongji and proceeded on his own; during that time, the two had no further contact."

"After returning to the surface."

"Luo De once toured the city together with Nüshi and the Great Sage Who Subdues Demons, but only for one day; the next day, after the two met again, Nüshi sent this intelligence to us."

"If there is some transaction between them, it's really uncertain."

Saying this, Yelan frowned slightly and said: "This Luo De cannot be monitored at all; we currently have little information about him, so it's hard to say whether he helped us with this matter; likewise for Nüshi, we also have little information about her, making it impossible to judge whether this matter is related to Luo De."

"If"

"If that's really the case."

"Then why would he help us?"

Ningguang's tone seemed to confirm that this matter might be related to Luo De, and she also reminded Yelan: "Don't forget, the Emperor has personally met him twice, which is extremely rare under normal circumstances; you say, could it be that the Emperor used him to do this?"

Upon saying that.

Yelan suddenly had an epiphany, then speculated: "Could it be that all these things are arrangements by the Emperor? Why would that Luo De be so trusted by the Emperor."

Instead of entrusting family matters to family, they actually asked an outsider for help.

This led Yelan and Ningguang to start speculating whether there was still some special relationship between Luo De and the Geo Emperor.

If so.

Then they would inevitably have to change some of their evaluations and attitudes toward Luo De.

Even if not.

Just based on this matter, Liyue owes Luo De a favor; no matter what, the due preferential treatment should still be given.

And just as the two of them were pondering this matter.

Luo De, Xiao, Apep, and Zhongli were sitting in a magnificent fairyland, jointly examining a golden dragon horn.

The innate dragon king crown of the Shakra Dragon King.

With this, one can draw water, fire, ice, and lightning elemental energy from the veins for one's own use.

This.

This is the benefit Apep promised to give Luo De.

(End of chapter)