Chapter 784.1: Scam Me Once, Shame On Me! Scam Me Twice, Shame On Me! SCAM ME THRICE?

“Mr. Li Minghui, my esteemed friend. We are friends, aren’t we?”

Li Minghui, who was sitting in his office at the Presidential Palace drinking tea and watching a show, suddenly received a strange harassment phone call.

The reason he considered it a nuisance call had nothing to do with the caller’s identity. Rather, the guy had called him on an internal line just to ask such a strange question.

It was no different from his significant other suddenly messaging him in the middle of work to ask whether he still loved her.

“Of course... Did something go wrong with the exercise?”

He instinctively glanced at his schedule. As far as he could remember, aside from the New Alliance’s Burning Corps conducting an amphibious landing exercise on the northern beach today, there was nothing else worth mentioning.

However, Ample Time’s next words caught him completely by surprise.

“Not at all. The exercise is going smoothly. I just noticed that you’re planning to sell the Xilande Empire a battleship similar to the Ocean Edge. This call might be unnecessary, but I still wanted to confirm something regarding the main gun. The shelters are relief institutions, and we don’t want the technology we’ve excavated to be used for...”

“Oh, that!” Li Minghui suddenly understood what he was truly asking for and chuckled. “You don’t have to worry about that. We have no interest in creating trouble for ourselves.”

Wasn’t this guy a member of North Island Heavy Industry’s board of directors? How could he possibly not know about such a major arms deal? What was the point of asking a question he already knew the answer to?

Wait.

Li Minghui suddenly realized something.

Could it actually be the New Alliance’s Administrator who was asking?

The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. After all, with Ample Time’s intelligence, there was no way he couldn’t see something this obvious.

It wasn’t as though the Southern Seas New Alliance could unilaterally decide whether the deal went through. The authorities were merely helping broker this enormous contract and taking a cut... Or rather, taxes, from the advance payment. As for when the ship would be delivered, whether it would be delivered at all, or whether its compartments would leak once it hit the water... wasn’t all of that ultimately up to the shipyard?

And taking ten thousand steps back, even if the survivors of the Poro Province really did achieve unification, so what if they delivered the ship then? By that point, the ones who should really be getting headaches would be the enemies of the survivors, such as the Wislanders, who were still dreaming of conquering the world, not the survivors of the already-united River Valley Province or the South Sea.

Thinking about the possibilities, he immediately switched to a more official tone, cleared his throat, and said solemnly, “As far as we’re concerned, the Xilande Empire’s reputation lies somewhere between the Torch Church and Chalas. We have no reason whatsoever to deliver the present Xilande Empire a piece of equipment that could potentially threaten us. But from my position, it’s difficult to turn away money that’s being delivered straight to our doorstep. We need money. It’s as simple as that... Also, give my regards to your administrator. The survivors of the Southern Seas New Alliance will always welcome him as a guest in our homes.”

Ample Time could roughly guess what misunderstanding he was under, but made no attempt to correct it. He merely smiled faintly. “Understood. I wish you all the best. Also, I’ll pass your regards on to the administrator. He’s always wanted to come take a look around here, but I’m afraid that’ll have to wait until after the war is over.”

The call ended.

Smiling, Ample Time picked up the newspaper with its sensational headline and tossed it back to the dumbstruck Mosquito. He then tapped his VM with his index finger, ending the voice synchronization.

“The NPCs in this game are more lifelike than you think, and a lot smarter too... Of course, Duke Nihark is an exception. He’s realistic in an entirely different sense.” Remembering that not every NPC was intelligent, Ample Time added an amendment to his statement. Clearing his throat, he continued, “Maybe it’s an education problem. Maybe the slaves of Poro Province spoiled him rotten. Either way, for the time being, he’s incapable of understanding that civilization is a product of strategic interaction. Instead, he sees civilization as something that simply exists as a matter of course. He thinks no one can see through his petty tricks and treats everyone else like idiots. In reality, everyone sees through him. They just can’t be bothered to expose him and quietly pay him back in kind. It’s as simple as that.”

He had recorded a copy of the call. Although he figured the administrator probably knew everything already, he decided it would still be better to proactively report it and avoid any unnecessary misunderstandings.

After all, he really didn’t want Xiaoyu calling him back for questioning again.

Mosquito stared blankly for quite a while before finally giving him a heartfelt thumbs-up. “Fucking awesome! That was dirty as hell...”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Ample Time smiled faintly, accepted the mojito handed over by the waiter, thanked him, then continued casually, “To answer your earlier question, I’ve never thought about becoming their sugar daddy. But the reality is exactly what you’ve seen. At least until their wings are strong enough to fly on their own, they really do have to call me daddy.”

Just as the administrator had declared that day, the New Alliance’s currency could purchase any commodity, but no currency would ever be allowed to buy honor or dignity.

Think you’re hot stuff again? Feel free to come and try.

...

To Nihark, 30,000,000,000 Xilande currency and 50,000,000 Silver were both trivial matters. After all, even if he lost Port Gallon, he would still be the esteemed Duke Nihark. At worst, he would simply lose the governor’s hat.

But for the survivors of Tiger State and Panther State, especially the workshop owners who had bought New Alliance-brand sewing machines, as well as the short-term and long-term laborers who worked those sewing machines until they practically smoked, those two successive blows had stabbed them straight through both kidneys, leaving them hemorrhaging from either side.

At White Tiger City’s cloth market, the stalls that were normally bustling were now even more lively than usual. A crowd of middle-aged men and young fellows in long and short tunics had packed themselves in front of an otherwise empty stall.

Some were owners of nearby tailor shops. Some were tailors working on nearby estates for their masters. Others were workers from the surrounding garment factories.

Some were tall, some short, some fat, and some thin. The differences in their clothing, complexions, and bearing were almost as great as those between cattle and humans. Yet the expressions on their faces were astonishingly uniform. Every pair of furious eyes practically had the words: “righteous indignation” written across them.

An elderly man who seemed to command considerable respect stood at the front. Pointing at the white lettering written on the blackboard, he was so furious that both his index finger and beard trembled. “50 Xilande coins for a kilogram of cotton cloth?! Have you people gone crazy?!”

Seeing someone take the lead, those behind him immediately joined in.

“Exactly!”

“This is outrageous!”

“We’re all trying to make an honest living here! How can you people be so unreasonable?!”

The clerk sitting behind the stall looked utterly indifferent. He glanced sideways at the old tailor, then at the crowd making a racket behind him, and impatiently replied, “Reasonable? Heh. You think 50 coins is expensive today? Wait until it rises to 60 tomorrow and let’s see what you say then. That’s the price. Take it or leave it!”

An uproar immediately erupted among the crowd surrounding the stall. The clerk, however, wasn’t afraid in the slightest. He even casually picked at his ear. Two burly men stood beside the stall like a pair of vicious tigers, glaring so fiercely that the survivors didn’t dare say much more.

White Tiger City was the largest settlement in Tiger State, and the cloth market established there was the largest textile trading market in the entire province. Did they seriously think someone could set up shop and do business here without having some connection to the big shots of the Fierce Tiger Army?

Dream on!

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