"Hmph!"
After staring at each other for a while, Charles finally sneered and looked away. He ignored the thread Jingnan had just offered and merely turned around, gazing into the distant sky over the railing as he said coldly:
"If Dragonbone Village really is that good..."
"Maybe..."
"We could get even more from them?"
As he spoke, a flash of greed suddenly glinted in his one good eye. Only he knew what he was thinking, and what he had in mind.
"!!"
Jingnan was startled.
Then, realizing what Charles was implying, she widened her eyes, her face filled with disbelief and astonishment.
"Y-you're crazy!"
"They just cured you, and now you're already thinking of targeting them?"
"Are you planning to take over their village?"
As she spoke, her voice rose several notches. No longer caring whether the Dust Folk or the city guards nearby heard her, she was filled with anger and contempt at the shameless idea Charles ought never to have had.
"..."
Charles, however, shook his head calmly and turned to Jingnan with an innocent expression.
"I never said that!"
"I just think there may be more room and potential for cooperation between us."
"You said it yourself. They have so many good things: cultivation techniques that can awaken one's source-quality potential, Mana Suppressors, an antidote to the red-tide virus, vast grasslands, forests, lakes, streams, and farmland, not to mention those enormous rice paddies..."
"Those are all things we lack and desperately need."
"Think about it. If all those people on the Lighthouse could live on the surface, while the Lighthouse remained an evacuation route and final stronghold in an emergency, and we no longer had to worry about food, supplies, shelter, water, or the red-tide virus, then perhaps everyone on the Lighthouse could enjoy the wonderful things