Social occasions could be called both superficial and real.
Often, the act of communicating itself was more important than what was said.
The little incident over, Fu Qian ate while sensing the subtle atmosphere around him.
Take Grantham, for example. What they had just discussed was utterly pointless, and even his food recommendations were rather outlandish. But the key was that he had broken with convention.
Gulad's development in Shangjing had been a winding road.
First, Embo's excessively aggressive actions had been noticed, resulting in the direct loss of a demigod.
Then the recent Greedy Worm incident had made things even worse. Not only had a bunch of people watched from the sidelines, but plenty had even kicked them while they were down.
That was how poor Taylor had ended up being hauled off to face the law for trying to "pick a corpse clean."
After stubbornly holding on, they had entered a somewhat harmonious phase with the new city official, shifting from opposition to support.
But perhaps their tacit understanding with the Night Watchers was clear to them, while onlookers might not have had an accurate sense of its limits.
If the Night Watchers didn't mind, making that tacit understanding visible would clearly benefit Gulad at this moment.
The only thing they might have to worry about was that Yuan Shan, whose conversation had been interrupted, might be displeased.
But on one hand, her willingness to grace the event with her presence already showed fairly clear approval of Gan Zuoxun, and what Grantham had done also served to demonstrate that.
On the other hand, Grantham had chosen to greet him first, clearly having carefully gauged Chief Yuan's thoughts and acted accordingly.
Why had Yuan Shan invited him along? Was it really just, as she'd said, to mooch food