Paimon diligently took out the pastries she had prepared in advance.
"For me? Thank you so much. I invited you two up here, yet you still went to the trouble." Ningguang personally accepted the gift.
"Miss Ningguang, I have brought the Traveler and Paimon here. If there is nothing else, I shall take my leave first." Ganyu said as she walked down from the Jade Chamber.
"It was no trouble at all. Actually, this was a suggestion from Jun Bai." Paimon smiled.
Ningguang's gaze became somewhat meaningful: "It seems your relationship with the Marshal is quite good."
Lumine roughly understood that she was probably speculating about her relationship with the Adepti again, so she explained: "The one we know is the ordinary Liyue citizen Jun Bai, not the Sky Phoenix Marshal, one of Liyue's Three Gods."
Ningguang looked at Lumine and said: "Did Keqing tell you about her views?"
"Mm."
"Disrespecting the Adepti and gods is Keqing's personal attitude, not the attitude of the Qixing. So you don't need to be so sensitive."
Ningguang dismissed her attendants and the guarding Millelith, then led Lumine and Paimon to the very front of the platform.
"What do you two think of my Jade Chamber?"
Paimon: "It's very grand!"
Lumine: "It's a bit hard to imagine that a palace like this is actually floating in the air."
Ningguang smiled: "Hehe, it seems you two have a rather favorable opinion of my old friend."
"The floating position of the Jade Chamber is higher than all the mountain ranges. From here, you can clearly see the entire panorama of Liyue Harbor."
"Since I was young and just starting to learn business, I have been accumulating construction funds for it."
"After becoming Tianquan, I even invited top craftsmen to continuously expand it…"
"At first, it was only the size of a few rooms. Now it can already eclipse the real silver moon above Liyue."
"I believe that one day, its shadow will cover all seven nations." Ningguang did not hide her ambition at all.
[This is heading toward surpassing the seven nations.]
[Keqing only disrespects the Adepti and gods, but big sister, you're directly disrespecting the Seven Gods!]
[Liyue not only has high-end combat power, but also non-high-end combat power with their own ulterior motives. Ningguang of Liyue Harbor has "lofty ideals," while Xuanjian of the Guili Assembly is "loyal and devoted."]
"A very ambitious ideal." Lumine praised.
"…Of course, before the Jade Chamber can cover the seven nations, the scale of the palace on it must at least surpass Fengdeng Lou first." Suddenly, Ningguang clenched her fist, her tone full of resentment.
Paimon: ?
Lumine: ?
Wait, do all of you from the Liyue Qixing like to suddenly twist your tone like this?
Keqing started expressing dissatisfaction with the Adepti's attitude all by herself, and now after you finished talking about your grand ambitions, you also started expressing opinions about Fengdeng Lou.
Can you at least give some foreshadowing before the twist next time?
"…Sorry, I lost my composure." Ningguang's old face reddened as she pretended nothing had happened.
[There's a story here.]
[Don't tell me this is also related to that man?]
[That man? Who?]
[Who else could it be? That Sky Phoenix Marshal whom everyone in Liyue knows.]
Ningguang led the two deeper into the Jade Chamber and informed them along the way that she had been closely monitoring their movements.
"After coming out of Liuli Pavilion with Zhongli, besides the Fatui, your people were also secretly monitoring us, right?" Lumine asked.
"As expected of someone the Marshal has taken a liking to. Your observation skills are truly extraordinary." Ningguang praised.
Speaking of Jun Bai, Lumine's expression became serious: "Speaking of which, Jun Bai has something he wants me to relay to you, Miss Ningguang."
"Hm? The Marshal's instructions? Please speak." Ningguang's expression also became serious.
Next, Lumine told Ningguang all the information she had obtained in the Guili Assembly and the current situation at Guyun Stone Forest.
"The Fatui's target wasn't just the Exuvia of the Ancestral God, but also Osial?" Ningguang's expression turned grave.
The small-scale battle in the Guili Assembly came quickly and ended even faster. Therefore, most citizens of the Guili Assembly thought it was just a sudden heavy rain and did not know the specific details.
Because of a pair of siblings who were not good at telling the truth, Ningguang's eyes and ears in the Guili Assembly were extremely few.
The news had not spread widely in the first place, and Ningguang's intelligence channels in the Guili Assembly were very limited. Messages from the Guili Assembly basically took a long time to reach the Jade Chamber.
Therefore, Ningguang only learned of the intelligence Lumine revealed just now.
"…Jun Bai hopes that at this time, the Guili Assembly and Liyue Harbor can join hands against the enemy." Lumine added.
Ningguang was stunned for a moment, then smiled helplessly: "As expected of the Marshal. He even noticed something like this?"
"So before this, the Guili Assembly and Liyue Harbor were operating independently?" Paimon asked.
[? The one asking this kind of question is actually Paimon?]
[Did the emergency food get possessed again?]
[It feels like a question they agreed on before coming.]
"Correct." Ningguang nodded slightly, "The coexistence of Liyue Harbor and the Guili Assembly only existed at the very beginning when Liyue Harbor was established."
"But such coexistence began to fall apart after the Marshal established the position of Ziwei Star and the Guili Assembly started implementing human governance."
"At that time Rex Lapis had not yet passed away. Every year the Rite of Descension would point the way for Liyue Harbor, yet the Guili Assembly had already stopped inviting the gods."
"It sounds like there's no problem." Paimon said.
Ningguang shook her head: "It only sounds that way, but things are not that simple."
"Neither the continuation of the Guili Assembly nor the establishment of Liyue Harbor could be separated from the Adepti and gods. In the hearts of Liyue people at that time, the status of the Adepti and gods was unshakable."
"However, at the time when Liyue people's faith was the strongest, the Guili Assembly chose to stop inviting the gods. Even the Ziwei Star, as the position that manages the people on behalf of the gods, began implementing human governance."
"Traveler, if you were a citizen of Liyue Harbor at that time, how would you view the Guili Assembly's actions?"
Lumine frowned slightly and began thinking seriously. Then her pupils suddenly shrank as she tentatively asked: "They would think that the Ziwei Star, or even the entire Guili Assembly…"
"has betrayed the gods together?"
"Correct." Ningguang confirmed Lumine's thought.
"Eh?" Paimon turned pale with shock, "So the reason the Guili Assembly and Liyue Harbor operate independently is because…"
"Correct. At that time, the citizens of Liyue Harbor believed that the Guili Assembly had betrayed the Rex Lapis. Not only did they no longer trust the Guili Assembly and refuse to interact with it, they even warned their descendants never to forgive the Guili Assembly."
"A single crack is already enough for people with ulterior motives to exploit. Not to mention that the Guili Assembly lost the hearts of the entire Liyue Harbor populace."
"Liyue Harbor practices divine governance, while the Guili Assembly practices human governance. The two different systems inherently have differences. Without exchange, the two sides could only drift further apart."
"The crime of betraying the gods was forcibly placed between the Guili Assembly and Liyue Harbor, causing the two sides to be unable to connect even though they are in the same nation."
"The Liyue Qixing and the Guili Ziwei — one nation, yet two governing bodies. This already shows that Liyue internally is not of one mind."